The More Things Change

The freeway unwound in the night ahead of him like an endless black ribbon under the full moon. Deadboy's car had power and more to spare, so he jammed his foot down a little harder on the gas pedal and heard the corresponding roar of the engine ratchet up another notch. He glanced down at the odometer, and he was doing right at 110 mph.

He mumbled a quick prayer to anyone, who might watch over luckless fools, that a cop wouldn't stop him. He really wasn't sure what he'd do if that happened, wasn't sure he could control himself. That thought alone scared the shit out of him. The fear sent skittering ice through his bloodstream in a torrent, froze him from the inside out. Hard tremors shook his weakened, battered body and he lost control for a second, the car juddering as it rolled over the roughness of the ground off the pavement before he jerked the wheel hard to the left and got it back on the road. He overcompensated and went too far to the left and crossed the center line. He desperately fought with the car to bring it back into his lane and control his weaving, though his eyesight greyed at the edges. His vision tunneled until the highway looked like a fat black worm with white stripes.

Tears leaked down his face in a constant stream that blurred his vision even more as he zigzagged in his freeway lane on his way back to good ol' Sunnyhell. Tears of anger and mourning dripped from his chin and nose in a steady salty stream that soaked the front of his torn and stained shirt. He didn't dare take his hands from the wheel to wipe them away.

Home. If he could just get home. They could fix it. They could make it better. They could find a way. And if they couldn't fix it maybe they'd still love him anyway.

He shivered again and lost his train of thought. He was hungry. So hungry. Starving. He couldn't think straight with hunger gnawing away at his insides like acid, undermining what little control he had. He should have raided Deadboy's refrigerator before he started the return trip. That's the least the bastard owed him. But his thoughts were so tangled and his emotions were so out of control, a roller coaster ride from despair and sorrow to incandescent rage and back again. Up and down, side to side and careening around corners with no warning.

His only thought had been to leave, get out, get back to family and friends, people who know him best. Who care about him. Now his thoughts were becoming dominated by hunger. It was a burning twisting thing in his belly that roared at him to appease it. NOW.

He hammered the steering wheel with a clenched fist wishing it was Deadboy's face he was pounding. He screamed at the absentee cause of his rage and sorrow. The shout ripped at the raw tissues of his throat and reverberated through the car. "Fuck you. You asshole. You fuck! You bloodsucking cunt! Never again though. Never. Fixed you, didn't I, you motherfucker?"