Chương 212: B4. 11.3 - Rolling Credits

"While we're waiting for Cecilia to finish her thing," I said, taking off my bloody clothes.

"I'll clean myself up." I didn't really have any problems being in my underwear with a psycho and a mad scientist nearby. Good thing Deen bought a gallon of water at the convenience store. I had teased her over-preparedness—we'd be on the road for not even half a day, but she was buying supplies as if we were going camping for a few days—but I was thankful for it now. Mixing water with rubbing alcohol—she bought this too—should be an effective way of wiping off the blood.

Not sure if it'd fully get rid of the smell, though. I wiped the blood off my hands with the not-bloody part of my ruined clothes before rummaging in my bag for a towel and a change of attire. This wasn't usually shown in movies: the cleaning-up part. It wasn't glamorous. It was boring. Since this horror movie ended with all the humans dead, the credits should be rolling by now instead of showing me, the monster, trying to remove the plastic seal of a bottle of rubbing alcohol. A bit of fan service, I suppose?

Not much service going on here. Ha, ha, self-deprecating joke, I thought, finally succeeding in opening the bottle. Why did Deen even buy this?

"Is he dead?" Deen asked, referring to the Last Freshie. Cecilia seemed done extracting the Last Freshie's spinal fluid. And he was definitely dead, saggy brain and all.

"Dead or dying." Cecilia unscrewed a bottle with light green liquid. She had a little experiment setup going on, with a bunch of vials containing different chemicals.

"It doesn't matter, does it? His ending will not change. Don't tell me your conscience is bothering you?"

"My conscience is clean," said Deen.

"We eliminated them for our safety." Clean conscience, huh? I scoffed in my head. My best friend was just a knot of inconsistencies.

"What are you doing now?" Deen sharply asked, pointing the light at the chemical Cecilia was stirring in a beaker. It gave off a sweet scent akin to freshly baked puff pastry. I was getting hungry.

"Cerebrospinal fluid won't maintain its integrity for long," said Cecilia.

"I don't have a centrifuge and a freezer for this. And so, I've decided to process the fluid into—""We don't really need to know about that," I butted in.

"Let's figure out what to do with the bodies. A bunch of missing Eloyce students will be plastered all over the news. Not to mention some of them are from important families." Felt good to be responsible. I could try a leadership role next time, assuming Deen wouldn't be a bitch and block me.

"The police will trace their path," Deen said.

"Their last stop was Barstow. The police will interview witnesses, review CCTV footage, and… they'll see us."

"Among many other people," I said.

"I'd say we're the least likely to have done anything to the frat boys. We're two vulnerable girls who'd want to be as far as possible from these creeps, fearing for our safety and stuff." Deen nodded.

"True. When we left, they were still at Barstow Station's parking lot—the CCTV should've seen this. We'll tell the police that was our last interaction."

"Evidence would suggest otherwise," said Cecilia.

"What's the issue?" I asked while scrubbing my arms.

"The cellular phones of these unruly individuals—" Cecilia started to say.

"We've destroyed them," said Deen, sounding offended that Cecilia was implying she missed something.

"We might not be as intelligent as you, but we're not bumbling idiots."

"Let me finish, dear." Cecilia's smirk matched her condescending tone.

"This is a dead zone, no signal whatsoever. But recall the earlier circumstances—these rowdy numbskulls tailed us, very closely."

"Wait, a minute," I said, realizing the problem.

"I thought that cell towers could only pinpoint a phone's location during a call? Wasn't that called triangulation or something?" I'd seen this done by the police in a couple of true crime shows. They'd get the victim's phone history, then check the location of the last calls.

"Judging by their conversations, someone from Grayson's group must've called Enrico." Deen flashed the light at the sports car.

"But that should be before entering the dead zone. And how does that connect to us?"

"They could've mentioned they were following us," I said.

"Oh, wait. Phone companies don't keep audio records of calls, like, the actual conversations. When the police serve warrants on phone companies, they can only get the time of the call, the duration, stuff like that."

"What if it was a text message?" Deen wondered. Cecilia laughed.

"Ah, you girls don't know. I should teach you more about how to be more careful—this isn't the last time we'll do this."

"No more humans," Deen hissed with clenched teeth.

"And stop delaying," I said.

"Spit it out. What's the issue?"

"Cellphones constantly communicate with cell towers to maintain their signals," Cecilia said.

"It's not only during calls that they ping the towers. Once the police examine the cell activity in this area, what will they see? You, girls—" Cecilia gestured at us "—are in the same place as these monkeys." She pointed at the corpses of Skull Tattoo Bro, Action Hero, and the Last Freshie.

"It won't show that they were right behind us," Deen said.

"We could be separated by a couple of miles, but still within the same coverage area."

"It'll look really suspicious," I said.

"Three groups enter the dead zone—us, the frat boys, and the backup frat boys. But only our group leaves. We shouldn't have destroyed their phones… Lesson learned." Deen nodded, looking supremely pissed.

"Lesson learned, indeed. Which brings us back to what we'll do with the bodies."

"And the vehicles, too," I said.

"The bodies, we can bury. I don't know what we'll do with the vehicles. Like, we can also try burying them, but that'd take so much time. We need to leave this place ASAP. The longer we stay in the dead zone, the more suspicious it'll be. At some point, saying, 'We haven't seen them, officer,' won't work."

"Suggestions, Cecilia?" Deen asked.

"We know you're responsible for the disappearances last year. Don't deny it." You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Cecilia looked up from her science project, giving us a conniving grin.

"Guilty… But I don't have any suggestions. I used to hire people to take away the vehicles of my unwilling test subjects, dismantle them—the vehicles, not the people—and sell the parts to what you call 'chop shops'. Are you familiar with chop shops? A funny name. They are—""We know what they are," Deen snapped.

"The bodies. What do you do with them?"

"You don't want to know," she replied.

"Burying the bodies won't help much," I said before Deen could find some other reason to rage.

"The interstate doesn't go anywhere else other than straight through the desert, past this old gasoline station. Anyone with half a brain would search this place while looking for the frat boys. They'll find the, uh, mess inside the store."

"Don't tell me you want to leave the crime scene as is?" Deen asked.

"Of course not. I think… we should just burn everything." Where's the nearest fire station? I tilted my head right, admiring the growing blaze reflected in the side mirror. Yep. We went with my plan. Cool. Well, it wasn't cool. Fire was hot. Deen had driven the pickup truck into the store, crashing it through the wall. I really, really wanted to do it, but I already made excuses that I wasn't comfortable driving, so Deen wouldn't swap on the way to Vegas.

I then pushed Action Hero's car through the hole the truck made—there was a bloody corpse in the car's driver's seat, so neither Deen nor I wanted to drive it. We threw our bloodied clothes and towels into the store and lit it on fire. The gasoline cans we found inside the pickup truck surely came in handy. The rotting dry wood made our work easier. Driving away from the large blaze was like walking away from an explosion in movies. In all, I was very satisfied with the ending of this night. Roll credits this time.

Eventually, a passerby would report the random fire in the desert. But by the time the authorities arrived, the store, along with the bodies and vehicles inside, would be nicely crispy. If we didn't burn the store, the police would still find it a couple of days later, depending on how fast the frat boys would be reported missing. Might as well burn it to destroy evidence connected to us.

It was next to impossible to clean all the blood stains, hairs, fingerprints, and whatever traces we had left behind, so this was the next best thing. I couldn't wait for the news to blow up—the return of the Dune Stalker! Arsonist version. I could check Snippet to see social media's reaction.

"We didn't forget anything, did we?" I asked, my voice threaded with fake concern. I pretended to shift back to regular Erind, with plenty of worry frolicking in my mind. I wanted Deen to be protective of me.

"We've covered the tire tracks of my car," Deen said.

"Our footprints…?"

"It's impossible to erase everything. The desert winds will do it for us.

"Uh, yeah. It's pretty windy here." I shook my head as if clearing my fake, troubled thoughts.

"It's just… I'm thinking much clearer now, and this is—""It's fine, Erind." Deen subtly nudged her head at Cecilia in the backseat.

"Don't torture yourself overthinking things." You should tell that to yourself, I snidely thought. This road trip didn't go as planned—our plan was that it'd be peaceful—but it was all resolved in the end. We sped over the interstate to exit the dead zone quickly. The fire was soon out of sight. I think everything was wrapped up nicely. Deen proved herself to be super reliable; she had the right to be my best friend. Although there was this nagging feeling that I should be wary of her.

She killed people, normal humans at that, and she didn't really seem bothered at all. Given what I knew of Deen, I expected her to agonize over this. Perhaps she was dealing with the issue mentally to spare me the drama?

"An hour until we reach Vegas," Deen said. I groaned.

"I really want a hot bath and a nice long sleep."

"Take a nap," Deen said.

"I'll wake you up when we're in Vegas."

"I'll sleep as well," said Cecilia from behind us.

"This body of mine is at fifty-seven—""Just go to sleep," I said.

"Anyway, Deen. What about you? Do you want me to take over driving?" That was a loaded question. Please refuse.

"I'm fine," Deen said.

"You're the one who needs rest, body and mind." I let out a contented sigh, slumping lower in my seat. The desert wind was very comforting. We had opened the windows to let out any stench of blood. Onto new adventures in a new setting.

"Wha-what's going on?" My voice was scratchy from having just woken up. The incessant honking of horns made my head hurt. Blinking away the sleep, I stared outside. Cars, buildings. Lots of cars. Lots of buildings. Buildings rising way up in the sky. Each skyscraper had dozens of screens blasting brightly colored ads. They sold every kind of tech product, ranging from the latest phones to the most advanced augments. There were even services offered, like limb extensions and replacing organs with mechanical ones.

"You're awake?" Deen patted my head. I recoiled from her touch. She laughed.

"Welcome to Las Vegas, land of tech and gambling!"

"That was quick," I mumbled.

"Travel feels like teleportation when I'm sleeping." A drone flew over the car, projecting an ad about a cleaning robot. Most cities wouldn't allow anyone to fly drones over main roads, but here, everyone with a permit could do it. And they gave almost everyone a permit. Also, at this hour, there were so many people on the road that the traffic wasn't moving. Such a crazy place.

"I missed the hustle and bustle of this city," Cecilia said, clapping like an excited child.

"I can't wait to meet all my friends—oh wait, I don't have any here."

"Are we going to find out that everyone is your enemy?" Deen asked.

"You should tell us these things in advance."

"Not enemies, no," said Cecilia.

"Acquaintances who might have reason to dislike me, is an apt description. I don't go out of my way to make enemies. I might need help someday."

"And you have someone who could point us to an Adumbrae," I said.

"That's for tomorrow," Deen said.

"The day had already been too long."

"Right," I said.

"Shower. I have some blood on my hair."

"Where's your condo, Erind?"

"Premier Highlofts," I said.

"If you check the map, there's like three of them with different addresses. Some weird legal battle before. Anyway, let's go left here." It took us about fifteen minutes to reach our destination.

"This looks like a nice place," Deen said as we entered the main lobby of the condominium building.

"Sufficient accommodations," added Cecilia.

"An improvement over sleeping in bunkers." Nothing had changed since I was last here. But it wasn't like I was gone for long. Last December, Mom and I stayed here during Christmas. The lobby was bigger than my condo building at La Esperanza. And it was brighter, with all the off-white tiles, the massive chandeliers that were turned on even late at night, and the lofty floor-to-ceiling windows lining the facade. Palms bigger than me were inside ceramic pots so large they could be cauldrons for witches.

"Home sweet home," I said. Cue in generic pop music blaring to a wide camera shot of the building. It'd slowly zoom out to the whole city, kicking off a movie about three girls partying in Las Vegas, ending in them finding their true selves. Deen was the popular girl, I was the awkward girl, and Cecilia was the crazy girl into lots of drugs. I wasn't a fan of coming-of-age movies. But after a horror movie in the desert, with me starring as the monster, I was hoping for something more relaxed.

I'm jinxing myself, aren't I?