The Gables
Chapter 1
Sixty-one point nine miles may not seem like a long distance to travel, to most people. On average it would take a person just under an hour to drive that distance, as long as the roads were dry and clear, and the traffic was light.
Part of Tim's problem was that he wasn't driving, he was on foot. That was a problem, but it was only part of his problems.
On foot, walking at a pace of four miles per hour, those same sixty-one point nine miles would take a person roughly thirty-six hours to walk. And that was without stopping to take a piss or find water to re-hydrate yourself. Tim wondered if a person could walk straight for thirty-six hours without falling over into a drainage ditch, either from your muscles seizing up or just utter exhaustion. He had only been walking for two hours and he already had made a number of necessary stops along the way. He calculated (more of a wild guess, really) he had not covered more than five or six miles, which meant at this pace it would take him anywhere from forty-eight to sixty hours to reach Trinidad.
That would be too long.
Tim had been keeping his distance from the highway; thirty yards or better. The moon was bright, which he was thankful for, so he could see the barbed-wire fences dividing the property lines, ditches and ravines, and the unlit windows of homes and mobile trailers. He stopped in the middle of a hay field, pushed up the sleeve of his blue, flannel shirt and turned and twisted his arm in the moon-light until it lit the face of his watch .
The short hand of the watch pointed at the one, while the longer hand pointed straight down.
It was the middle of September, the fourteenth to be exact, and Tim had spent enough years in New Mexico to know it was mildly warm at night, hot during the day, and the sun would rise a few minutes before seven in the morning. Just to play it safe, Tim knew he would have to find a vehicle no later than six that morning. He had already passed a number of rusted cars and ranch trucks, in the two hours he had been walking, but he was trying to get as much distance as he could before he heisted a vehicle. He wasn't concerned about finding a vehicle with keys left sitting in the ignition, or tucked up in the sun-visor, he knew enough to hot-wire a car but he imagined most people in these parts thought it was safe enough to leave their keys in their cars at night. It was the same way they felt safe to leave their bedroom windows open or front doors unlocked, which even Tim thought was a bad idea.
Especially with someone like him around.
The sound of a car, somewhere in the distance on the highway, caught Tim's attention. He was walking through an empty, dirt field about the size of a football field, between two ranch houses, when the subtle hum of an engine broke through the night's silence. Tim stood still and raised his head up, towards the starry sky overhead. Closing his eyes he focused on only the sound of the vehicle, trying to determine in which direction it was coming from.
The hum of the engine grew louder and as he dropped his head, opened his eyes, and turned to look behind him, the glow of red and blue flashing lights could be seen just before they broke over the top of a small hill a mile or two away.
Tim crouched down on his left knee, folded his arms and resting them on his leg, but didn't bother to lay down flat on the dirt. He knew they wouldn't be looking for someone walking. The Highway Patrol, or State Police, or Sheriff, or whoever the fuck was driving was on the search for a vehicle, any vehicle, driving on the Interstate. The quickest way to get-away was in a car, and it was also the quickest way to get caught.
That's why Tim was still walking.
He was smarter than the police. At least HE thought so. Well... he had been smarter at one point and time, but he questioned himself several times after being caught. Even as he was walking through the field, getting closer to Trinidad with each step he took, he wondered if he was still smarter.
He was, or so he wanted to believe.
After all, he had got away with six murders. SIX, without the police and FBI having any idea of who he was. There was no pattern to his his killings, which is why he believed he was smarter.
People; murderers, who leave 'calling cards' or have a specific pattern of killing want fame and notoriety, and they WANT to be caught. Secretly, deep down, when you have a pattern to the way you murder you really want to get caught. It may be because of the thrill or a challenge to see how long before the police put two and two together, and how long you can lead them on a wild goose chase before you are caught, but ultimately those murderer's want to get caught. They crave the publicity and desire the fame.
Tim didn't want to get caught. And as a matter of fact he really never thought he would get caught. The murders Tim committed were random, and truth be told Tim didn't know when his next murder would be because he didn't plan them out (he lied to himself). Murder for Tim was like an alcoholic who went to AA but continued to fall off the wagon. Relapsed. Then, got back on the wagon and did fine for another six months, eight months, or even a year, but then fell off again. Murder was this way for Tim. He was a relapsing murderer, who didn't necessarily enjoy killing but it was a fix he needed, and when he fell off the wagon he needed the fix in a bad way.
Thirteen years. That's how long Tim was married. His wife, Nicole, was the person who reported him to the authorities, as a matter of fact. Bitch. Tim still loved her, but he blamed her for getting caught. He blamed her for the five years he had spent in prison, for the life sentence the asshole judge ruled he should serve, and the reason he had broke out of prison and was walking through the middle of a god-damn hay field in New Mexico. Bitch. But he loved her.
Tim hadn't broken out of prison to kill again. He believed he had been cured of that, and that was the God-Honest truth. He would swear on the Bible about that. The prescriptions drugs, which were slowly killing him, had cured him and taken away the need to feed his murdering demon.
Tim broke out of prison to get away from the ghosts.
Ghosts are real. Tim knows that now.
(all rights reserved. published by Aaron Clayton: 11/28/2019)