Roadblock

"As usual, you're making a big deal out of nothing. Just drink your motor oil and keep your trap shut for a while, you're giving me a headache."

He stewed in the passenger seat, his head swimming with black thoughts that slipped and eddied their way through his host's rib cage and down into the well of his gurgling stomach. He'd gone through half a can and he wasn't about to let up, not with the way she was prattling on about her impending Hollywood life and the rich tapestry of glamour that awaited her at the Hollywood Hotel. He had no clue what these accomplishments represented, their promise a hollow, incomplete notion of pride that refused to touch reality. He twisted uncomfortably in his seat, resting his head at an odd angle against the passenger window.

"Stop fidgeting." She scowled over her cigarette case, her hands off the steering wheel as she rummaged through her tiny handbag, searching for her lost box of matches. "It must have fallen under the seat," she muttered. She tore a cigarette out of the case and shoved it roughly into her mouth. The Chevrolet Coach steered itself into the opposing lane, and a Ford hit its horn, the wheels screeching as it braced for impact. She grabbed the steering wheel with an audible curse and swung the coach back into its appropriate lane. Vicious swearing hailed over them as the Ford sped off in the opposite direction.

"Jackass," she said. Her cigarette dangled against her bottom lip, still unlit. "Look, we don't need to have a head first collision with a passing truck next time, so just reach under the seat and find my matches. Red case, big fat crow in the centre."

"There's something wrong," he said. He braced himself against the passenger door, his borrowed stomach making horrible squelching noises. A sense of panic overtook him as the feeling bubbled up into a painful stab that cut into his host's liver. "I'm not well. I'm not well! Pull the car over!"

"Just roll down the window."

"No, damn you, I need to get out, I need to stretch, I need…." He gulped a resurgence back, the oil slick as it seeped out of the sides of his mouth.

"Damn you," she said through gritted teeth. She turned the steering wheel hard, nearly toppling the car over as she pulled onto the side of the road. She turned off the ignition and gave him a solid glare. "Maybe you should just get out of this car and forget about California! It's not like you care about my dreams!"

He opened the door and with relieved release he spewed the overabundance of motor oil that had pooled in his host's system. The black goop was an oily mirror beneath him, and he stared into it for a long time, his body hanging half in, half out of the coach, his stomach seriously reconsidering whether or not it wanted to stay in this toxic cesspit in human form. He looked like a corpse, which in fact he was. The face was a worn grey hue, the ugly scrapes under his chin now black welts that refused to heal. Oil trickled out the side of his mouth and slid down into the puddle, a mixture of saliva and stomach acids tainting it. He swallowed it back, and wiped the oil from his mouth with the back of his hand before sinking back into the passenger seat.

He rested his head against the side of the coach cover, the thin metal a welcoming cool. He closed his eyes.

"I'm sorry."

Clara seethed in the seat beside him, her hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel. "You are disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. Puking by the road like that, like some dirty bar-hopping freak. I didn't buy you that can of oil, you took it from the farmhouse, didn't you? You took it out of the barn when I got this car, you sneaked it away under that ugly suit jacket of yours… What else did you take?"

"It was in the back seat," he said, and brandished the now empty can of motor oil with childish glee. "No thieving involved."

"You did thieve it," she admonished him. "You stole it, right out from under me."

He sighed and slumped further in his seat, trying his best to enjoy the continued effects of the motor oil on his wounded, forced-to-be-linear soul. "You stole a whole farm to hide your murdered bodies in. So what if I have a sip too many of your black ooze, it's not like I'm working hard to illegally grow it, like you are." She raised her hand to slap him, but he stopped her with a quick grab of her wrist. She glared at him with her dark, malicious eyes and pulled her arm away, the pale skin pinched red by his grip.

"I told you the reason for that. I couldn't leave loose ends." Her unlit cigarette dangled dangerously close to the edge of her mouth, and she rescued it with a quick pucker that left red stains over its end. She grabbed the packet of matches she must have found underneath his seat, and with shaking hands she took one of them out, slashing it across the flint surface on the side. The flame sputtered into life and she contemplated it for a moment before lighting the end of her cigarette, the flame expertly sucked in. She shook its remains loose, and tossed the spent matchstick onto the long, dusty stretch of road beside them.

"It's different for me," he tried to explain to her, but she turned away, her head leaning out the car window, smoke billowing onto the road she longed to be travelling at present. "You have to understand, I don't have the same freedom you do. I have a reason for my efforts and when someone is to be killed it's due to the strict guidelines I have to follow."

"Ordained killer, huh?" She took another drag of her cigarette, her eyes still flashing with the fire she left behind them. "I got guidelines too. My own. I make them up as I go along, but there's rules I make myself follow. Like killing bastards who wrong me, that's one. I'm not into slicing up innocent people, I got good reasons for taking out the people I do. You think you're so much better than me." She flicked her ashes out the window, her lips tight as she spoke. "You know nothing."

"I know that hobo did nothing to wrong you." He pulled a kerchief out of his pocket and dabbed at the dots of oil that had spilled onto his starched white shirt. They smeared across his chest, ruining the shirt. "The facts speak louder than your muttered excuses, Clara. You kill whoever is in your way, not because they are 'bad' or representative of some societal wrong. They are merely barriers you encountered in your own life, and you selfishly remove them, thinking they won't be needed."

She let out a hissing stream of smoke at this, her cigarette have spent. "They never are."

"I wonder." He tested the strange gashes beneath his chin with his fingertips, a vague understanding that he would need to fix this, and soon. "All along this road there have been signs, pointing us in the right direction towards my target and your delirious Hollywood fantasy. There are 'road closed' signs and signs signalling gas stations up ahead. What should happen, I wonder, if I decided to remove all of them because they were in my way as I was driving down this road. Why shouldn't I go past that 'Do Not Enter' barricade and splinter it apart?" He cast a weary look back at her over his shoulder. "Because that barrier stopped me from driving over a cliff. Or are you so fond of such steep precipices?"

She finished her cigarette and tossed the small remainder of it out the window. It rolled and smouldered in the dirt, a tiny ember quickly dying out. "I'm not sloppy, if that's what you think. I plan these things, even though they look like I'm being rash."

"It's not about being sloppy."

"Says you." She tapped her well manicured nails on the steering wheel, fingers itching to dig out her switchblade and teach him exactly what she meant. He leaned back in his seat, wondering if he even wanted to bother fighting her. "I got plenty of men out there, and they like paying attention to me. I don't need to keep you around, you know. I should dump you off on the side of the highway, in some dark place, and be done with you once and for all. Ungrateful bastard, that's what you are. You should be thankful I at least understand you."

"You understand nothing."

"Ungrateful bastard!"

She was shouting now, her fury at the fore. Her face turned a vicious purple colour as she screamed at him, every vein in her neck pulsing with angry life. He shrank away from her, wondering if he had time enough to open the door and escape before the glint of her switchblade knife came out of whatever hiding place she kept it. He touched his fingers to his throat, hoping when she did finally slash him that the full death of his host would be quick enough for his essence to flee it.

"You think I don't know what I'm doing?" she screeched, her voice a high pitched crescendo that rocked the inside of the coach. "I take care of my business, and I get plenty, sure, but I take care of it! All on my own! Do you think it's easy, hanging with that crowd? Do you think they wouldn't think twice of getting rid of some mushy moll if she got too cocky? You got to be tough in this world, it's all kill or be killed, I've told you that before. This is how this world works, you moron!" She turned the key in the ignition, the engine rattling into strong, purposeful life. Fists of steel pounded each other, forcing pressure. She closed her eyes as she listened to the sound of the coach's heart, her feverish breath evening out into a regular pattern.

"You can't be judging me the way you do," she said, and her voice was sad now, instead of angry. "I'm like you more than you know. Sure, I had parents, I had a family, but they were rotten at the core. They turned me into what I am. I don't need to hang around with you, and you don't have to hang around me. We can go our separate ways, if it's come to that." She looked over at him, and there were tears in her eyes, a glassy sheen that cut into his gut more than her switchblade ever could. "But we're friends, see. And friends don't abandon each other like that. They lift each other up when no one else will. They cheer on your dreams." Her eyes narrowed slightly, and through her fragile appearance he could discern the faintest glimmer of her usual, malicious self. "You gonna do that for me, friend? You gonna keep cheering me on?"

He wasn't sure how she wanted him to answer. "I'll cheer you on when it's necessary, Clara."

She smiled at this, so he must have given her what she wanted. It was becoming increasingly difficult to navigate her odd moods, which when coupled with her murderous rampages took on a frenzied, scattered emotional highway that twisted into his own stomach into knots. "This is all nothing, don't you mind me. We're just in need of a good time. You and me, we have to blow off some steam, have us a party." She frowned as he scratched at the welts under his chin, the black lines deep rivets. "Trouble is, you don't look so good these days. I keep telling you that motor oil is real bad for you."

Clara picked up her pearls and tapped one of the white spheres against her front tooth. It was already stained with lipstick, its hue long since dyed pink. "I'm thinking it might be a good idea for you to get a new model to drive. We've gone through two motor cars already, I'd say you're due for a good trade up."

He wasn't comfortable with how that was going to happen, but he'd noticed the increasing wear on his host's body and there was little he could do to stop it from breaking apart further. Besides, it was a pain to keep himself from bumping into those broken ribs, and the damaged spleen kept leaking. "I'll trust your judgement as to who." He shifted in his seat, his scaling skin rough against the suit's fabric. "We could have used that hobo. We shouldn't have burned him."

"No way, he was too old and full of God knows what kind of diseases. Guys like that are rife with the syphilis or worse. You deserve better." She gave him a warm, genuine smile. "We'll get you something really nice. Something that fits that suit proper."

* * * * *

They drove for two hours, but there were slim pickings among the humans that had gathered here. They were hard looking, starving folk, living day to day under the looming shadow of the ever growing highway, the string of gas stations lined up in hyper competition. One promised free donuts, another free sample cans of Brylcream. Clara picked a random station, and a tow headed young boy with red hair and freckles bounced up to the car, his gap toothed smile infectious.

"Fine mornin' it is, Ma'am," he said. He nervously wiped his hands on the front of his overalls. "Fill 'er up?"

"By all means," Clara pleasantly said, her smile full of movie star radiance.

The young boy blushed and took a rag out of his side pocket. "We'll wash your windshield and all, too. This car sure is a beauty, you ought to keep 'er shining."

He diligently got to work, bringing the dark green finish into sparkling relief. Clara rolled her eyes and turned her attention on her companion, who twitched as she brought her fingers dancing along the underside of his mutilated chin. His dozing so rudely disturbed, he shifted to the right, his chin tucked tight against his neck. When he spoke, his voice had all the grit of fresh sandpaper. "It's getting worse. I think the throat is damaged now."

"How about that one?" She pointed out the windshield to the young boy wiping down the sides of the motor car, suds staining his overalls.

"He's just a child, I couldn't possibly fit."

"He's not just a child, he's about sixteen. He's a dim little bastard, that's all. I'm not fond of him myself, but he's got healthy skin and he doesn't look like he's about to keel over from being half starved and worked to death like the rest of the people around here. Besides, you don't have to keep his appearance, you always tend to morph into what you're usually made of after a while." She grabbed her handbag, giving the area around them a good scope. "If I get him behind that gas pump over there, I can make quick work of him. You just come in and take over when the timing is right, like the last time."

"Why can't we find a gathering? Surely people drink in this part of your world, there has to be a basement still somewhere." He watched the boy as he cleaned the windshield, an insanely stupid grin on his face over the joy of hard work for little pay in the sweltering Kansas summer heat. "It was easier in Chicago, there was always someone appropriate. Perhaps there is a minister here, or another priest. I like them, they have roomy bodies and fairly healthy muscles."

"Unlike in Chicago, a priest or a minister would be missed. This kid will be, too. Folks around here aren't as expendable as they are in the big cities." Clara snatched up her jewelled handbag and opened the driver's side door. "Keep the engine running, just in case. Quick getaways are always appreciated."

"We can always wait," he shouted to her, but his voice was a strained whisper that died in his decayed, blackened throat.

She cast him a pleasant smile over her shoulder as she bounded away from the car and towards the boy, who now had his back to her. With a swift, fluid motion that was well practised, she grabbed the hammer he rested on the top of the gas pump, and with two good whacks to the back of his neck, she snapped his spine and ruptured an artery at the base of his brain, killing him instantly.

He leaped out of the passenger side, half hunched, his voice coming out in guttural, animal squeals that were his original language. The body he wore finally split down the middle and he fell out of it, the rotted skin blackened by the overuse of motor oil sliding off of his true form in patches. Clara stared at him as he slithered towards the newly deceased boy, a thick, glossy sheen to her gaze as though she were drugged. It was embarrassing, being caught in his true form like this, but there was little he could do about that now. He couldn't tell her to turn away, for he had no mouth to articulate his wishes.

He entered through the ear, and slid his way in, the fit snug but not as oppressive as his original host's had been. As he stretched inside of it, the boy's skin and bones elongated, his face morphing into an entirely different shape, one that Clara was by now far more familiar with. Buttons popped on the overalls. Seams split along the backside, revealing red polka dot underwear.

He stood before her, his usual self, now healed of his past discomfort.

She tapped a pearl on her front tooth. "You look weird with that red hair. It doesn't fit your complexion."

He unravelled the torn fibres of the jean overalls. He tested the back of his head with his palm, and was satisfied there wasn't too deep an indentation. Just a small, circular depression that fit the pad of his thumb perfectly.

His old form lay in a disintegrating puddle off the side of the gas pump. His tattered, starched white shirt sizzled beneath it.

"I need a new suit."