Undermind: Nine Stories by Edward M Wolfe

any
attractive females showed up while I was eating.
    A horn honked, which is not unusual, so I
ignored it. Then it honked again, right beside me from a car that
was moving at the same rate of speed that I was walking. I looked
over and saw the driving leaning over so he could see me through
the passenger window.
    “Need a lift?”
    It was the guy from the bar! Considering what
he’d apparently done to me, he was the last person I should be
accepting a ride from.
    “Sure,” I said, walking over to his car and
getting in.
    ***
    I know it seems stupid that I got in a car with
the person who was most likely responsible for the hell I found
myself in, but he was also the only person in the world who might
be able to shed light on what was happening to my life, and
why.
    He pulled forward as soon as I had gotten in,
before I’d even shut the door. The car behind us was honking its
horn and the light in front of us was green. I blurted out
everything on my mind without thinking of what I was going to
say.
    “Who are you? What did you do to me? Why did you
kill that girl? Are you fucking insane? What the hell is going
on?”
    “Slow down, Tommy boy! One thing at a time. You
sure woke up full of questions, didn’t you?”
    “I woke up next to a dead girl! And the last
thing I remember was drinking beer with you, so this is all your
doing. What the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you doing
this?”
    “Listen, Tommy. If we’re—“
    “Stop calling me Tommy!”
    “Okay, Tom. Listen up. To have a conversation,
you’re gonna have to slow down. First things first. What’s the
first thing you’d like to know before you go to prison for
murder?”
    We stopped at a red light and I couldn’t decide
if I should get out and run, reach over and strangle him, or try to
engage in a conversation that might result in some answers. I also
wanted to ask him where we were going, but that seemed like the
least important matter at the time.
    “I didn’t kill her!”
    “Sure you didn’t. But you can save it for the
judge. I already know what you’re guilty of. And I know you’re
going to be punished. Justice is being served, as we speak.”
    My head was spinning again. Nothing made sense.
He agreed that I didn’t kill her, but he was certain that I’d go to
prison for her murder.
    “Why are you framing me for this? I don’t even
know you!”
    “You may not know me, Tommy boy–sorry, Tom , but you know of me.”
    He got in the left hand turn lane and tapped the
turn signal control down. The air conditioner was on, but I could
clearly hear every tick as the left arrow blinked on the instrument
panel.
    “How do I know of you?” I managed to ask a sane
question when I felt like I was losing my mind completely. As far
as I knew, that Twix bar was the first thing I’d eaten in
twenty-four hours and my blood-sugar was as fucked up as my life
was now.
    “Lisa told you about me.”
    “Lisa? Who’s Lisa? Is that the girl at the
house?”
    “Yes, Lisa is the girl you killed – for all
intents and purposes.”
    “I don’t know her. I never met her before in my
life. You’ve got the wrong fucking guy.”
    “Oh no. I have the right guy. I made sure of it.
This is the culmination of years of planning, so you can be sure I
didn’t go to all of that effort to setup the wrong guy.”
    “Why? Why are you setting me up? I swear I don’t
know you or Lisa. You have to have the wrong guy.”
    The signal presented a green arrow and he pulled
through the intersection, staying in the left hand lane and once
again getting into the turn lane. We were making a gradual U-turn,
erasing the progress I’d made walking.
    “I’m motivated by the oldest reason there is.
Revenge.”
    “But I didn’t do anything to you!”
    “But you did, Tom. You ruined my life. You took
away everything I cherished. And now, in keeping with the law of
‘an eye for an eye’ I’m ruining your life, and taking everything
you love away from you.”
    “I’ve