Dottie and Bree: Episode 3- The Trunk

Dottie and Bree: Episode 3

The thumping in the trunk grew steadily more consistent. Bree was shaking her head with little shivering shudders every few seconds; Dottie was getting nervous.

“Darling? Do you need me to drive?”

“That speed was dirty.” Forehead scrunched and pained, Bree’s eyes glowed intensely green; her twitching was rhythmic. “Don’t you hear that? Can’t you feel that?” Little explosions of dramatically suicidal synapses and brain cells seemed to be leaping from Bree’s ears; she was losing it. She gripped the wheel shaking with the intensity of a screeching swarm of feral attack badgers. Chewing her tongue with grinding jaws, she lowered the window and spit a mouthful of blood onto the side of the car. The wind spread fingers of crimson along the white door.

“Crank’s a hell of a drug. How much did you take?”

“It doesn’t matter now. None of it matters now. WHAT!” Bree immediately twisted her entire body toward the back seat dangerously yanking the wheel forcing squealing tires and smoke and vile burning rubber on the deserted desert highway. They were surrounded by sage brush and tumbleweeds and angry hungry animals beaten by the mid-morning sun. Bree slammed on the brakes and the car skidded to an abrupt stop in the middle of the roadway, “WHAT IS IN THE FUCKING TRUNK?”

Dottie slowly reached over and held Bree’s face gently in her hands, stroking her cheek and looking into her eyes lovingly; she slapped her, hard. “Fucking snap out of it, Kid. You’ve got to pull your ass together. We don’t have time for this shit.”

Tears immediately popped to Bree’s eyes and puddled in the corners of her lids. Her eyes glassed greener when she cried, but she was still beautiful despite her reddened puffy face and bruised eye and missing tooth.

“It’s time to go” whispered Dottie. “We’re going to make it to Mexico by sunset. We’re going to walk into the desert together and everything is going to be ok. We’re going live, for the first time, we’re really going to live.” She put her face close to Bree’s and nodded; Bree smiled brightly pretending to believe Dottie’s truth. She mirrored nodding silently, breathing hard gulps of calm air, allowing her tears spill onto Dottie’s outstretched tongue.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here.” Bree attempted to start the car. The turned key made an electric buzzing sound but the engine refused to start. It sputtered and clicked and both Dottie and Bree began to scream and punch the wheel and the seats and the dash. Dottie kicked her foot violently into the windshield lodging her stiletto heel into the shattered spiderwebs of glass.

Bree leapt from the car, flailing and spinning her body in the roadway, shaking her fists to the sky, “FUCK YOU UNIVERSE! FUCK YOU!” Guttural animal noises escaped her throat as she collapsed in the roadway letting the desert sun beat on her exposed skin.

She would not cry.

The universe would provide.

They had one hundred sixty-six dollars, a gram and ½ of cocaine, a 2 liter of diet coke, a bag of Cheetos and the unknown viciously banging in the trunk.

She lifted her head from the hot black pavement and saw what looked like an enormous bull in the distance ridden by a red figure. Two tails entwined as it struggled one handed atop the beast creating puffs of hot dust swirling in and on and over the huge bucking horns and hoofs. His pitchfork flew into the air and skewered two small rabbits in the cracked ground.

“We’re going to die, Dottie.”

“Fuck you” she mouthed head shaking softly, “We’re making it to Mexico.”