Daily Flash Fiction Entries

Detour

Written for the:

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Prompt: Write a story involving a Road Trip without using the words road, highway, car or automobile. You have 500 words to complete your story.

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Goddamn bitch. She hasn’t stopped talking since we left the hotel. What the hell was I thinking when I did that?

“Oh, Mark. I forgot my wallet at that place! You gotta go back.”

My fingers tighten around the steering wheel, knuckles turning white as I grit my teeth and force myself not to snap. Beads of sweat roll off my forehead and threaten to blind me. The Arizona ‘countryside’ can be brutal in summer.

“I can’t.” I count slowly to ten, the weight of the band around my finger growing heavier by the second. “I’ll get you a new wallet when we—"

“But that’s my favorite wallet!”

Dear God. That whine. That high-pitched annoying sound which is a cross between a baby wailing and a steam engine on its last legs. I can taste the sweat on my upper lip, the landscape growing hazy as the world turns a dull shade of red. I’m usually a patient man, but after driving for almost six hours in the blistering heat, one can only take so much.

“You’re such a meanie!”

Meanie?! She was the one to suggest this trip, and out of the goodness of my big heart, I had agreed against my better judgment.

Let’s take a ride, baby. Let’s have some fun. Pete doesn’t have to know.

Oh yeah. Did I forget to mention she’s my best friend’s girl? I knew sneaking away with her was going to be a hell of a problem, but when she had called him from the hotel room to brag about our impromptu-still-dazed-from-a-night-of-amazing-sex wedding, I should have known something was up when he started laughing and wished us good luck.

“You’re no fun either.”

I glance at her, watching that pout I had once considered cute, now look like lips soaked in blood. Her skirt is too short and too tight. Her make-up looks garish, her perfume threatening to choke me. I feel my mouth go dry as the wheels begin to churn faster and faster in my mind.

“You want some fun, babe?” I croak through parched lips. She eyes me and must have seen something on my face to reduce her to a cooing baby. She slides closer to me, a husky laugh escaping her lips. Talented hands move to my pants and with only a whisper, I give my consent.

I look at the shock of bleached blond hair below me, while admiring the expanse of pale flesh to my gaze. I caress the smooth skin gently, my attention now trained on the miles of lonely asphalt before me. When she begins to choke, my foot hits the pedal, the speedometer’s numbers increasing as the pressure builds. Her hands beat a wild staccato on the leather seat, the shade of her skin turning a sickly color. Eventually, she falls silent - unceremoniously and rather anti-climatically.

A quick detour to the valley ahead should suffice as a dumping ground. It's one less baggage I’ll have to deal with.


Word Count: 498