Julie's Road Trip *epilogue*


She couldn't believe he had left her. After all that talk of saving her life in his fantasies, after telling her that he loved her, he had pumped her full of cum and left her in the road like a used condom. And she couldn't believe she had been shot eighteen times. It seemed there was nothing left to do but die, but no matter how many times she tried to wrap her head around it, she couldn't do it. An eternity of nothing. She would never have another chance to laugh, to tell a joke, to feel, to remember, to think. How was she supposed to come to terms with that?

I can't give up. I have to keep trying.

Julie pulled up her pants and began to shift her weight left then right, and she somehow managed to prop herself up on her right elbow. I can do this. I can make it. She imagined the looks on everyone's faces when she showed up at the van, against all odds, and asked them to drive her to the hospital. Rolling onto her stomach, Julie began to shimmy forward down the road, dragging her wounded body along. After covering several yards in this fashion, she realized she was going the wrong way. She was crawling back to the ranch house. Or was she? She couldn't be sure anymore.

Deciding she needed to pick herself up and get a better look at her surroundings, Julie began to push against the ground. Everything hurt. Her normally fit and lithe muscles rebelled, telling her they lacked the strength to lift a tennis ball, much less her hundred and thirty pound frame. Still she pushed, and slowly she began to rise. It took a monumental effort, but she managed to struggle to her knees, at which point she was promptly shot for the nineteenth time.

The bullet punched into her left hamstring, causing her to reach back for the wound. Her balance was lost and she ended up with her buttocks on her heels, but she remained upright. Turning her head she saw a man standing in the road, perhaps sixty yards from her location, aiming a rifle at her. "It's him! I see him! Jeremy!" She looked around for Jeremy, excited to tell him the news, but he wasn't there. Where the hell is Jeremy? He's the one trying to save me. He's been looking for this asshole, and now I see him, so where the fucking hell is Jeremy? Then she remembered something. Didn't Benny tell her she was falling behind? Maybe he was up ahead. Either way, she needed to get away from the asshole with the rifle, so she had to keep moving.

Julie leaned forward and put down her hands, and she began to crawl. Five feet went by, then ten, but it was slow going. If that wasn't enough, another shot was fired, and the bullet found its way into her back. It caught her an inch and a half to the left of her spine and slightly below her center, and she nearly collapsed on her face. Somehow she did not go down, and instead rose back up on her knees. I'll never catch up like this. I've gotta walk. I have to. Light-headed and dizzy, she found energy she didn't know was there and placed her left foot down in the dirt. Pushing off with her right, she wobbled and fell. Lying on her side, unsure how she even got there, she went right back to work picking herself up.

After a hellish struggle, Julie was back on her knees, her left foot planted, and she pushed off again with her badly wounded right leg. This time her balance held, and, a testament to her young body's phenomenal resiliency, with twenty bullet holes in her, she stood. Alright, now I just need to walk. I've gotta walk faster than that bitch Beth. Julie took her first step, then her second, and then she was shot again. It was high in her back, just below the right side of her neck, and Julie stiffened and paused for a moment, then carried on as if nothing happened. Left foot forward. Right foot forward. She focused on just putting them down. But then she noticed something. Her blood. Her blood was on the road, leading up ahead as far as she could see. There was a trail of it, which could only mean one thing. She was backtracking. Going the wrong way. I'm still going the wrong way!

A bullet whizzed through her left arm, up near her shoulder, and she muttered, "Fuck." Julie spun around to face the road she had just painstakingly trodden, and saw the bend off in the distance, where her companions had disappeared. The man with the rifle still stood in her way, however, and he was closer now. Thirty-five or forty yards away, perhaps. "Okay. Fuck. Okay." She would just have to walk past him. He'd put some more holes in her, but she already had twenty-two of them. A few more wouldn't kill her, surely.

She removed the coke bullet again from the pocket of her jeans and took a snort. Then she took another one, and a bullet struck her beneath her right tit. Jeremy's bullet slipped from her fingers as her killer's bullet slipped between her ribs. "Oh. Fuck. Okay." She took one step forward, then another. Picking them up and putting them down. The shooter watched her come, and when she was around ten yards closer he shot her again. This one took her in the gut, a little over two inches left of her navel. "Oh fuck me." She looked back at the shooter and scowled, and she continued walking. Left foot forward. Right foot forward. She never knew walking could be so difficult. So exhausting. Left foot... Her foot was too low, her toes drug in the dirt, and her flimsy balance was spoiled. For the final time that day, Julie fell to her knees.

She was within speaking distance now, just under thirty feet separating her from her dastardly killer, and he had his rifle raised again. "Please don't," Julie murmured, just before she was shot for the twenty-fifth time. The bullet punctured her left breast in the upper ring of her areola, which Julie and her killer could plainly see since her vest still hung open. I've gotta get up. I've gotta keep going. Julie tried to plant her foot again so she could push herself to her feet, but her limbs no longer seemed to respond to her brain's commands. She was still trying to will her left leg forward when she was shot in it, a second hole opening up in her once smooth and healthy thigh. That was enough to topple her.

She was flat on her back, engaged in the gainless labor of trying to pick herself up, as her shooter approached. "So, Julie, this is finally it, isn't it? It appears your friends have abandoned you. Raped you and left you for dead. I must say, however, you were one tough bitch."

Was one tough bitch? I still am! Just wait until I get off the ground and kick your fucking dick in. Julie managed to lift her head just enough to look upon her shooter.

He was now very close, a Caucasian man average in appearance, in his mid to late thirties, with dark hair and dark eyes. There was nothing remarkable about him, although his rifle was peculiar. The type of weapon one would expect to see in an old Western movie, but not something seen in use anywhere else. He held it up in front of him, as if she had asked about it. "A Winchester 1873 repeating rifle. How the West was won. I'm using custom made .32 rimfire shot, so it doesn't pack too much of a wallop, but still, it took twenty-six shots to bring you down." He whistled. "Impressive."

"Help me up," Julie squawked. "I can still walk."

"No, Julie, you won't be walking anymore, I'm afraid." Seeing the futility of her efforts, Julie let her head fall back in the dirt and wondered if he was right. Would she never walk again? Was this spot where she would die? The man squatted beside her and casually introduced himself. "It's truly a pleasure to meet you, by the way. My name's Henry. I'm your murderer, and I must say, you did not disappoint. You're even more incredible up close."

"Why?" Julie asked. "I don't even know you."

"A common question, although I don't fully understand why you ask it. Does it really matter to you why you're dying? Would dying be easier if it served some greater purpose, I wonder?"

Julie found herself wondering the same things, but she still wanted to know. "Curiosity, I guess," she answered.

"Fair enough. As good a reason to ask a question as any, I suppose. There are so many answers, I'm not sure where to begin." He thought for a moment before continuing, "I enjoy watching people die, Julie. I especially enjoy watching beautiful girls die. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, I'm afraid. I've been stalking your friend Beth for more than two months. She was my target today."

"She's not my friend."

"How unfortunate for you, then, that you ended up in her company. When I saw you today, I was overwhelmed. You are easily the most breathtaking girl I've ever seen, and I knew immediately that I had to have you. If you hadn't been with Beth today, we never would have met, and it would Beth lying here right now, breathing her last gasps. If it helps, I suppose your death enabled her to live. You've essentially given your life for hers, which might give you some sense of purpose."

Julie rolled her eyes in exasperation. That somehow made it worse. She was reminded of her thought experiment earlier that day, when she asked her friends if they would give their lives for complete strangers. Well, Beth wasn't quite a stranger, and during the short time they knew each other, Julie had come to hate the bitch, and now she was dying in Beth's stead. This was even more unfair than she had previously imagined. "It doesn't help," Julie croaked.

"Pity."

"Am I your first?"

"My first kill?" Henry laughed at that. "Oh no, dear. Not even close. You're my forty-third victim."

"Fucking Jesus." Julie chuckled a little then, blood coming out of her mouth and nose as she remembered Brenda's last words to her.

"That's funny to you?"

"No. It's just... my friend. The last thing she told me was, 'don't get murdered by a serial killer.' I can't believe it actually happened."

"Interesting."

"Yeah, interesting. So don't you feel any remorse? You've killed forty-three people, well, I mean, if... when... I die, fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. I mean I'm young... I'm innocent... I wanna live so fucking bad."

"People like you die by the thousands every day. There are more than five billion people in this world, and every day there's more of us. Your life means nothing. Even your friends have almost forgotten you. They left you here not ten minutes ago, and all they're talking about is when they're going to eat, and how you fucked up their buzz."

"How do you know that?"

"I thought you were the one who figured out I was listening to you. How do you think I knew your name? I planted a bug in Jeremy's boot." Henry pointed to his ear, and Julie saw the ear piece there, and it all made sense. She wasn't sure if he was telling her the truth about Mark and Benny and the rest, but the thought that she could be so easily discarded stung her more than she thought it should.

"Yeah, well, they're not my friends. Brenda's my friend. She's gonna miss me."

"For a while, I suppose she might. But then she'll get over it. Your parents will move on, and eventually they'll die, and your life will have meant nothing to anyone."

"I still wanna live." God, she wanted to live so bad.

"Most people do. I've found even those..."

"Shut the fuck up!" Julie interrupted. "I don't need your wisdom bullshit. I'm fucking dying! Oh God, please. I can't fucking believe you did this shit to me. I need to get up. I need to get to the van. Help me up."

"You're not going back to the van, Julie. You are most definitely going to die, right here, in this spot, and the vultures and the coyotes will begin picking at your flesh before anybody finds you."

Julie lay back and sobbed. She knew he was right, but she couldn't stand it. She couldn't accept it. Her mind began to reel and turn on her, and as her cocaine high turned into a down, her despair grew. Lying on her back, her lungs began to fill up with blood and breathing became impossible. Her heart began to stutter and her brain cells began to die from blood loss and oxygen deprivation. Her beautiful blue eyes stared sightlessly up at nothing, and she made a few final rasping, choking sounds, somehow found enough strength to say, "No!" in a hoarse, barely audible whisper, and then she was gone.