Dalton was a man who got bored easily.
Every Friday night, as he closed out his shift as a dispatcher for the Metro police department, he would leave straight from work and make the drive from Nashville to Tunica, Mississippi for a weekend of gambling, drinking, and other forms of innane debauchery on the strip of twelve casinos by the largest river in the United States. "Little Redneck Vegas," the locals called it.
The long, winding strip of flat farm land from Nashville to Memphis could sometimes drive his brain in to a restless stupor. There was not much entertainment to be found on interstate forty. Music usually gave him a headache. It was inevitable, about thirty minutes in to the trip, that he'd start to grow numb with the slow drive, the passing time that only seemed to inch by, minute by minute.
That's why he played road games.
He started with Blue Angels. He sped up to eighty on the two-lane highway, cruising side by side with a silver Mustang. It took a good ten minutes, staying parallel, before he saw the driver getting in to the spirit of it. As he approached Germantown and they stretched out to four lanes, he got two more cars to join. They blocked traffic for miles, slowing to fifty, before all four of them would accelerate, bobbing and weaving through each other with dangerous proximity. Dalton chuckled. Blue Angels was hard to get going, but once you got the other people on the road to participate, you couldn't help but feel a little accomplished.
The traffic they'd backed up sped past him on the far left when their formation broke. They weren't shy with their rabid horn honking and number one salutes as they went by. Getting a rise out of people only encouraged him further.
Next, he played chicken. Sometimes he had the balls to do it, and sometimes not. Tonight, he was feeling lucky. He soared in to the opposing lane when there was no retaining wall or median, heading straight towards a large semi at well over ninety miles per hour. He imagined that it was a terrible sight; a midnight blue 1989 Buick Grand National, fully decked out with flowmasters that made his engine sound like the guttural roar of a beast, heading straight for a head-on collision with YOU. That moment of panic on their faces was hideously delicious. The only bad part about chicken was that it only lasted for a few seconds. Everything started to feel tedious, already. Sometimes, Dalton could be a stickler to please.
He pulled off at an exit outside Memphis for a pack of cigarettes and a Mountain Dew. The tables were where Dalton truly felt within his element, rolling the dice, going all in, pushing his luck and his wallet to new extremes. They were alive with excitable chatter, attractive women, and old men who would buy the entire table a round of long island teas at a moment's notice, if they were winning. He was looking forward to getting there in the next couple of hours, until he saw her. A redhead, her tresses and curls burning with radiance under the poorly maintained night-lamps at the Amoco. She was young, in her early twenties, he'd guess. University of Memphis license plate. A college girl. Because she was perfect, he forgot about the tables instantly. He hadn't considered the fact that he'd be able to play his favorite game of all this evening.
Follow.
Follow required absolute determination and the utmost patience. He could only play it when he found the right girl, though. He couldn't just drive around off his beaten path, following some lady that looked like Rosie O'Donnell. No, he had to WANT to follow her. This girl was the best target he'd scoped out yet. It was too bad she wasn't driving a convertible. He loved redheads.
He sat in his decked out Buick, smoking a cigarette, until she finished her fill-up and pulled out, headed west down forty to Memphis. He cruised a good fifty yards behind her, syncing his speedometer with her own acceleration. It wasn't long before he was locked in, staring obsessively at the tail lights of her black Lexus. Daddy's little girl, perhaps. She was either getting big breaks from Uncle Sam, or being taken care of by someone else. Maybe she had a rich boyfriend. Dalton cackled.
It was difficult for them to realize that they were being followed on the freeway in any finite amount of time. There were lots of cars, plenty of lanes, and a general feeling of comfort and security, even though they were booking it along at well over seventy. A fatal speed, in the right (or wrong) circumstances. He usually freaked out the drivers who were aggressive, speeding through traffic, weaving in and out of lanes to get ahead of the slower cars. But, she was content to just drift along, right at the speed limit, in the right lane. He tailgated her slightly, pulling up on her so that she might see his silhouette in the driver's seat. She was conservative, such a good girl.
It was time for her exit. A rural town, just south of the city. The passive drivers didn't even think twice when the car that had been right behind them for over an hour would nonchalantly take their exit, pulling up idly behind them at the red light, awaiting the next section of the journey. What a coincidence! Right?
She probably still didn't know. He wasn't seeing it in her driving patterns, after all. No random deviations without a signal or a second's notice. No u-turns. Not yet. Although he was investing a lot in this one, at least he wasn't bored.
He followed her up a winding road that was reasonably well-kept. There were barbed wire fences and cows on either side of them. He knew he should stop, soon. He would. As soon as he saw her freak for the first time, he'd pull a U-ey himself and head to the Horseshoe.
She was pumping her brakes, now. He could almost hear the grinding of the gears in her brain as the flight or fight response kicked in. "Oh, no! This guy has been behind me for an hour and a half.... those headlights..."
Dalton snickered and floored the accelerator. He took the opposing lane, speeding up beside her. He flashed her a sardonic, devilish smile as he rolled down the tinted window. The grimace of terror that overtook her features was priceless. "Better keep your eyes on the road, sweetheart." He muttered. Oh, this was fucking GREAT.
She swerved, over-corrected, and sped up, frantic now. He knew it was time to stop. He didn't want her to do something drastic, after all. He pulled off at the next road, curbing his vehicle gently before pulling another cigarette from his pack. His mouth was dry, his senses were racing, and his entire body pulsed with a burning adrenaline. He suddenly realized that this was the longest game of follow he'd ever played. He also realized, much to his own consternation, that he had a raging erection... ever since he'd sent the engine over the edge, the Buick roaring as he soared towards her, almost jamming in to her tailpipe.
"YEAH. Take that shit, bitch. You like me behind you? GO FASTER!"
He gasped, his knuckles ghostly white from the pressure that he applied to the steering wheel.He shook his head rapidly, blinking a few times. What was wrong with him? He put his car back in to drive, ready to head back to the freeway.
She went by again.
"Oh, you sneaky cunt. A fake exit? BULLSHIT."
He stomped the gas, pulling up right in line behind her. He needed to end this now, but she was going back the way they came. If she reached the interstate, she was safe. This felt too good, too strong, to pull away from now. He was balls deep, and it was time to block her escape, permanently.
He pulled up right on her ass again, and the fruition of her panic was not readily visible in the way that she maneuvered the Lexus. She took a hard right, heading up a long, steep hill that was overgrown and probably meant for a car with a V8 engine, or at least four wheel drive. She left the beaten path to safety and freedom. He was taking this too far, but why not take it a little further? It took a long time to lay the foundation for a good game of follow. This one was going in to double overtime.
His driving skills and general awareness were far superior to hers. She was making wild turns, bad mistakes. Her car was a rear wheel drive model, and he had a good two hundred horsepower on her. He'd been a police officer before being shot in a turf war, and although he was a dispatching "desk bitch," as his fellow officers dubbed him, he could still out-maneuver anyone on the open road. She fish-tailed, making another wild turn, and still they rose upward in to the foothills. Speeding down a country road at over sixty was not a relative problem for him. He'd chased dopeheads for a good portion of his career. The key was to catch them before they threw their drugs out the window.... and sometimes, that took a bit of finesse at the wheel. It'd be nice to handcuff this chick, he thought. To bend her over, the same way he was bending over her Lexus....
The summer air was thick with the sounds of bullfrogs and crickets, even with his windows rolled up. He turned on his CD player. Ozzy Osbourne did a wonderful job of complimenting his game of follow. He sang along.
"I always knew what I wanted to be. I knew for sure..... I knew for sure...."
Her fish-tail ended in another overzealous correction of the wheel, and as they neared the next S-curve, he saw her miss it completely. He whizzed by as her front-end careened over the white line, and the last thing he saw as her vehicle violently spiraled down the hill was her flaming red curls, and a look of absolute horror on her chiseled, delicate face. Even as he heard the sickening crunch of metal against the broad oak trees below, he knew that he was experiencing the most powerful orgasm of his lifetime. He quivered, breathing heavily as he coasted to a complete stop.
He forced himself to accept that he had a serious problem. Arriving back at the freeway, he still had another twenty minutes to Tunica, but he couldn't help thinking that he would be caught, soon. Follow was just too easy. Surely, the police were accustomed to dealing with psychopaths that got off on this shit, right? He might make in twenty yards on to the casino floor before they pegged him. Maybe not.... it was crazy, not knowing.
Thirty minutes later, as the glowing lights of hotels on the riverbend illuminated his dashboard, he listened to the news at ten, and smiled again at the report. A complete whiff by the authorities, yet again.
"A young college student driving a black Lexus was found dead a few hours ago, apparently due to a loss of control on secluded private property just outside Memphis. No names have been released at this time."
He switched off the receiver and coasted in to the parking garage in silence. Newscasters sounded so boring sometimes.
Every Friday night, as he closed out his shift as a dispatcher for the Metro police department, he would leave straight from work and make the drive from Nashville to Tunica, Mississippi for a weekend of gambling, drinking, and other forms of innane debauchery on the strip of twelve casinos by the largest river in the United States. "Little Redneck Vegas," the locals called it.
The long, winding strip of flat farm land from Nashville to Memphis could sometimes drive his brain in to a restless stupor. There was not much entertainment to be found on interstate forty. Music usually gave him a headache. It was inevitable, about thirty minutes in to the trip, that he'd start to grow numb with the slow drive, the passing time that only seemed to inch by, minute by minute.
That's why he played road games.
He started with Blue Angels. He sped up to eighty on the two-lane highway, cruising side by side with a silver Mustang. It took a good ten minutes, staying parallel, before he saw the driver getting in to the spirit of it. As he approached Germantown and they stretched out to four lanes, he got two more cars to join. They blocked traffic for miles, slowing to fifty, before all four of them would accelerate, bobbing and weaving through each other with dangerous proximity. Dalton chuckled. Blue Angels was hard to get going, but once you got the other people on the road to participate, you couldn't help but feel a little accomplished.
The traffic they'd backed up sped past him on the far left when their formation broke. They weren't shy with their rabid horn honking and number one salutes as they went by. Getting a rise out of people only encouraged him further.
Next, he played chicken. Sometimes he had the balls to do it, and sometimes not. Tonight, he was feeling lucky. He soared in to the opposing lane when there was no retaining wall or median, heading straight towards a large semi at well over ninety miles per hour. He imagined that it was a terrible sight; a midnight blue 1989 Buick Grand National, fully decked out with flowmasters that made his engine sound like the guttural roar of a beast, heading straight for a head-on collision with YOU. That moment of panic on their faces was hideously delicious. The only bad part about chicken was that it only lasted for a few seconds. Everything started to feel tedious, already. Sometimes, Dalton could be a stickler to please.
He pulled off at an exit outside Memphis for a pack of cigarettes and a Mountain Dew. The tables were where Dalton truly felt within his element, rolling the dice, going all in, pushing his luck and his wallet to new extremes. They were alive with excitable chatter, attractive women, and old men who would buy the entire table a round of long island teas at a moment's notice, if they were winning. He was looking forward to getting there in the next couple of hours, until he saw her. A redhead, her tresses and curls burning with radiance under the poorly maintained night-lamps at the Amoco. She was young, in her early twenties, he'd guess. University of Memphis license plate. A college girl. Because she was perfect, he forgot about the tables instantly. He hadn't considered the fact that he'd be able to play his favorite game of all this evening.
Follow.
Follow required absolute determination and the utmost patience. He could only play it when he found the right girl, though. He couldn't just drive around off his beaten path, following some lady that looked like Rosie O'Donnell. No, he had to WANT to follow her. This girl was the best target he'd scoped out yet. It was too bad she wasn't driving a convertible. He loved redheads.
He sat in his decked out Buick, smoking a cigarette, until she finished her fill-up and pulled out, headed west down forty to Memphis. He cruised a good fifty yards behind her, syncing his speedometer with her own acceleration. It wasn't long before he was locked in, staring obsessively at the tail lights of her black Lexus. Daddy's little girl, perhaps. She was either getting big breaks from Uncle Sam, or being taken care of by someone else. Maybe she had a rich boyfriend. Dalton cackled.
It was difficult for them to realize that they were being followed on the freeway in any finite amount of time. There were lots of cars, plenty of lanes, and a general feeling of comfort and security, even though they were booking it along at well over seventy. A fatal speed, in the right (or wrong) circumstances. He usually freaked out the drivers who were aggressive, speeding through traffic, weaving in and out of lanes to get ahead of the slower cars. But, she was content to just drift along, right at the speed limit, in the right lane. He tailgated her slightly, pulling up on her so that she might see his silhouette in the driver's seat. She was conservative, such a good girl.
It was time for her exit. A rural town, just south of the city. The passive drivers didn't even think twice when the car that had been right behind them for over an hour would nonchalantly take their exit, pulling up idly behind them at the red light, awaiting the next section of the journey. What a coincidence! Right?
She probably still didn't know. He wasn't seeing it in her driving patterns, after all. No random deviations without a signal or a second's notice. No u-turns. Not yet. Although he was investing a lot in this one, at least he wasn't bored.
He followed her up a winding road that was reasonably well-kept. There were barbed wire fences and cows on either side of them. He knew he should stop, soon. He would. As soon as he saw her freak for the first time, he'd pull a U-ey himself and head to the Horseshoe.
She was pumping her brakes, now. He could almost hear the grinding of the gears in her brain as the flight or fight response kicked in. "Oh, no! This guy has been behind me for an hour and a half.... those headlights..."
Dalton snickered and floored the accelerator. He took the opposing lane, speeding up beside her. He flashed her a sardonic, devilish smile as he rolled down the tinted window. The grimace of terror that overtook her features was priceless. "Better keep your eyes on the road, sweetheart." He muttered. Oh, this was fucking GREAT.
She swerved, over-corrected, and sped up, frantic now. He knew it was time to stop. He didn't want her to do something drastic, after all. He pulled off at the next road, curbing his vehicle gently before pulling another cigarette from his pack. His mouth was dry, his senses were racing, and his entire body pulsed with a burning adrenaline. He suddenly realized that this was the longest game of follow he'd ever played. He also realized, much to his own consternation, that he had a raging erection... ever since he'd sent the engine over the edge, the Buick roaring as he soared towards her, almost jamming in to her tailpipe.
"YEAH. Take that shit, bitch. You like me behind you? GO FASTER!"
He gasped, his knuckles ghostly white from the pressure that he applied to the steering wheel.He shook his head rapidly, blinking a few times. What was wrong with him? He put his car back in to drive, ready to head back to the freeway.
She went by again.
"Oh, you sneaky cunt. A fake exit? BULLSHIT."
He stomped the gas, pulling up right in line behind her. He needed to end this now, but she was going back the way they came. If she reached the interstate, she was safe. This felt too good, too strong, to pull away from now. He was balls deep, and it was time to block her escape, permanently.
He pulled up right on her ass again, and the fruition of her panic was not readily visible in the way that she maneuvered the Lexus. She took a hard right, heading up a long, steep hill that was overgrown and probably meant for a car with a V8 engine, or at least four wheel drive. She left the beaten path to safety and freedom. He was taking this too far, but why not take it a little further? It took a long time to lay the foundation for a good game of follow. This one was going in to double overtime.
His driving skills and general awareness were far superior to hers. She was making wild turns, bad mistakes. Her car was a rear wheel drive model, and he had a good two hundred horsepower on her. He'd been a police officer before being shot in a turf war, and although he was a dispatching "desk bitch," as his fellow officers dubbed him, he could still out-maneuver anyone on the open road. She fish-tailed, making another wild turn, and still they rose upward in to the foothills. Speeding down a country road at over sixty was not a relative problem for him. He'd chased dopeheads for a good portion of his career. The key was to catch them before they threw their drugs out the window.... and sometimes, that took a bit of finesse at the wheel. It'd be nice to handcuff this chick, he thought. To bend her over, the same way he was bending over her Lexus....
The summer air was thick with the sounds of bullfrogs and crickets, even with his windows rolled up. He turned on his CD player. Ozzy Osbourne did a wonderful job of complimenting his game of follow. He sang along.
"I always knew what I wanted to be. I knew for sure..... I knew for sure...."
Her fish-tail ended in another overzealous correction of the wheel, and as they neared the next S-curve, he saw her miss it completely. He whizzed by as her front-end careened over the white line, and the last thing he saw as her vehicle violently spiraled down the hill was her flaming red curls, and a look of absolute horror on her chiseled, delicate face. Even as he heard the sickening crunch of metal against the broad oak trees below, he knew that he was experiencing the most powerful orgasm of his lifetime. He quivered, breathing heavily as he coasted to a complete stop.
He forced himself to accept that he had a serious problem. Arriving back at the freeway, he still had another twenty minutes to Tunica, but he couldn't help thinking that he would be caught, soon. Follow was just too easy. Surely, the police were accustomed to dealing with psychopaths that got off on this shit, right? He might make in twenty yards on to the casino floor before they pegged him. Maybe not.... it was crazy, not knowing.
Thirty minutes later, as the glowing lights of hotels on the riverbend illuminated his dashboard, he listened to the news at ten, and smiled again at the report. A complete whiff by the authorities, yet again.
"A young college student driving a black Lexus was found dead a few hours ago, apparently due to a loss of control on secluded private property just outside Memphis. No names have been released at this time."
He switched off the receiver and coasted in to the parking garage in silence. Newscasters sounded so boring sometimes.
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