Mojave Heat

A Short Story

Panic ended and fear began. It was an empty road, no other town for miles. No other drivers. Only the howl of the High Desert wind and unknown aircraft broke the silence. Sean waved his phone with no improvement in cell reception. He was over a hundred miles from home with a half tank of gas, no working phone, and he had just killed a man.

He didn’t see the bike approach when he turned. He was sure he wasn’t speeding. Then again, what’s speeding on an empty road?

Sean leaned over and his guts emptied gas station food onto the cracked asphalt at the sight of so much blood from one man’s head.

There were no witnesses, no cameras hidden among the creosote and cacti. He could leave now and the body would be found and reported as a tragedy. A man without his helmet thrown off his bike was all it was. A tragic accident.

Sean looked at the body. The glassy blue eyes gazed at him. He deserved better than to be left behind like roadkill. Sean waited ten minutes, then fifteen, but no one else passed them. The only two drivers on that road had already collided.

Sunset painted the horizon purple. Sean dragged the man’s heavy body to the back seat and wrapped a towel around his broken skull. He decided he would transport the body to the nearest town and explain what happened.

The road snaked along the mountain toward the empty valley. He drove without a sense of direction. His cell reception never returned. The car started stinking and the heat made it worse. He practiced his statement: “No sir, I wasn’t drinking. Yes sir, I was going seventy-five miles.”

Or was it seventy? He never checked the speed limit signs. How could he when there were no signs on the road?

They would never believe him. He could already see the local news headlines, a poor black kid from LA splattering some poor white bastard along the road. Every minor infraction, every poor test score, every unflattering social media post would be dug up against him. The DA could win a re-election by frying him.

He wasn’t sure when he first saw the headlights following him from a distance of twenty feet. The car seemed to have appeared from nowhere. It was too dark to tell, but the headlights resembled those of a Ford Explorer. The police. He gripped the steering wheel knowing that the tiniest screw-up along the road would expose him and when the cops flashed a light in the car, they’d see the body behind him.

There were no turnouts and the cop made no attempt to pass him. He pulled off to the side of the road to let the car overtake him. The car dove fifteen feet forward before pulling off into the dirt ahead of him. The car door opened and a large cop swaggered out with a flashlight in his hand.

The cop wandered to the creosote and unzipped his drab slacks. Sean didn’t wait for him to finish his piss before driving ahead on the road.

He drove until he finally reached a real highway and found his car down to a quarter tank. A green sign advertised Royal Springs twenty miles ahead. After half an hour he spotted a neon oasis. A gas station, a diner, a Mexican restaurant, a few shuttered shops and a motel made up the whole town

Sean threw his jacket over the stiff and pulled into the gas station. He filled up and checked into the motel, careful to keep his car at a dark and isolated edge of the parking lot. Even the air in his motel room was covered in dust. But it beat the jail cell he faced if anyone found the body.

He pulled up the maps on his phone and scouted ideal burial spots in the desert interior and looked for the nearest hardware store to secure a shovel. He knew he wouldn’t receive a fair shake for the accident. He already dug himself into a hole, so he may as well finish digging.

He periodically peeked out the blinds at his car. He didn’t eat or shower that night and he wouldn’t leave the window for the comfort of the poorly washed sheets. He snagged a few hours of sleep. When he woke up, he looked out the window and saw an unmarked squad car parked beside his Camaro.

He shoved his shoes on and ran out the door. A deputy sheriff spoke to the sleepy desk agent. Sean shuffled his feet on his way through the lobby, ears peeled to eavesdrop. The deputy said nothing about a motorcycle accident and Sean left without a second look.

He passed an arguing couple outside of the motel. The male half of the duo rambled drunk to a woman tweaked out of her mind. Sean slammed the door behind him and gagged from the stench of death. He twisted his key in the ignition.

The dash lights flashed and the car clicked. A dead battery in a dead town with a dead man in the back.

Sean left his car in a panic. The approaching deputy didn't slow his speeding heartbeat.

“That your car?”

Sean offered a weak yes. The deputy’s gap tooth grin shone even in 4 AM light.

“That’s beautiful. What year is that? 84? 85?”

“82, I think. It was my dad’s.”

“Your dad had some style.”

The cop shined his flashlight along the car, inspected the detail work. He showed no obvious sign of suspicion, but Sean knew not to trust him. The worst of them always acted like a friend.

“You like Camaros?”

“Like them? Hell boy, I grew up on these. Used to race them all the time.”

Sean distracted the deputy by talking cars. Every word pained him. A quick flash of light in the wrong direction would reveal the body.

The light hit the front bumper. “That’s unfortunate.”

Sean looked at the scratches from where the car slammed the bike.

“That’s an old one. Still haven’t taken care of it.”

“Why not?”

Sean shrugged. The deputy yukked.

“Guess it gives it character,” the deputy said. “Bet she still has a hell of a roar though, huh?”

Sean’s head bobbed.

“Mind if I hear it? I haven’t been able to hear that sound in years.”

Sean stuttered. “Well the battery died-”

The deputy snorted. “It’s that Mojave heat. Fries a battery fast if you’re not careful with it. That’s why I always keep my cables around.”

The deputy walked to his unmarked and opened the back.

“You don’t have to,” Sean said. “I was just gonna call someone.”

The deputy shook his head. “Hell at this hour, out here you’ll be lucky if AAA comes before noon.”

The deputy popped the hood of the squad car, cables in hand.

“I don’t wanna waste your time,” Sean said.

“My time is worthless. Besides, I could use the overtime. Not much action around here anyway.”

All excuses exhausted, Sean popped the hood of his trunk. He was careful not to let the stench waft out of the door to his car. The deputy connected the two cars while Sean wondered how fast he could speed away once the engine started. He twisted the keys and the engine roared. The deputy approached the open window.

“That’ll be just enough to get you to the shop over by the gas station. I don’t recommend driving her too far out-”

The deputy stopped. His nostrils flared, his face distorted in revulsion. He smelled it.

The deputy’s attention shifted towards the motel. He shouted and grabbed his taser. The couple’s argument outside the motel devolved into a physical fight and the deputy pulled the man off the woman and chased him down.

Sean took his chance. He knew the deputy smelled the body and would come back for him. Sean crept out of the car, made sure the deputy remained occupied by the drunk. He removed the cables and slammed the hood down.

The deputy caught the drunk and cuffed him. The engine still roared as Sean peeled out. Sean caught the deputy watching him and speaking into his radio as Sean sped away.

Sean hit the highway without stopping for the hardware store. He figured the elements would consume the corpse eventually. If anyone found it, they’d assume it was just some biker slaying. He tried not to think about fingerprints.

The sun shone over the mountains and exposed an abandoned shack way out beyond the creosote bushes. His car struggled over the unpaved road and he maintained a slow pace of ten miles. He opened his window to let out the stench.

He parked his car beside the shack and began the funeral rites. The man gained thirty pounds overnight. Sean rolled him out. It was only six in the morning and the sun was already murderous.

Sean investigated the Mojave mausoleum. Pentagrams, swastikas, and personal tags covered the shack’s interior. He noticed tally marks scraped on the wall and when he saw what lay beneath the tally marks, he heaved. He had nothing left in his stomach to be released at the sight of the carelessly stacked stiffs rotted by sun and defiled by desert air. Whether gang members or some lone killer, he wasn’t the first to use the shack as dumping grounds.

“At least you won’t be alone,” Sean said.

It took him five minutes to drag the body away from his car and across the threshold. He gagged as he rolled the man onto the other corpses. He looked at the graffiti sprayed over the door of the shack that read “home sweet home.”

Sean returned to his car, eyes peeled for others around. Whoever used the shack before him, he wasn’t ready to join the cadaver collection. He inspected his car for evidence and found the backseat clean of blood. The death stench lingered, but it was nothing that air freshener and an open window couldn’t cure.

Sean saw dirt rise ahead. Two cars took their time across the dirt. He couldn’t tell the make of the cars, couldn’t see the tell-tale antennas that told him it was the police, but he wasn’t prepared to wait around to find out. He was closer to the road than they were. He would take his time over the dirt and reach the highway before they did and flee like the hellhounds were at his tail. If the deputy had his plate, he could report the car stolen or missing and dump it. He couldn’t believe he was already thinking like a murderer.

He jumped in and watched the two vehicles’ slow approach. It would take them twenty minutes to reach him. Plenty of time for a head start. He laughed at his luck.

He stuck his keys in the ignition, excited to return home, away from the Mojave heat, away from the peckerwood deputies, away from the neon hotels, away from the guilt. He turned his keys in the ignition and awaited the roar of his car to signal his escape.

The dash lights flashed and his car clicked.