Leaving Las Vegas

Trigger Warning – Murder, domestic violence, alcoholism, explicit language

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NVC003-090000-/O.CON.KVEF.FA.Y.0035.000000T0000Z-280806T0000Z/

/00000.N.ER.000000T0000Z.000000T0000Z.000000T0000Z.OO/

Clark NV-

855 AM PDT Thu Aug 6 2028 /1155 AM EDT Thu Aug 6 2028/

...EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 8 PM PDT /11 PM EDT/ Thu Aug 13...

* WHAT...Extreme high temperatures and unusually strong monsoonal flow will lead to **EXTREMELY DANGEROUS** conditions with dew points near 72 and record heat index values up to 140 expected. These conditions will persist for the next several days.

* WHERE...All of southern Nevada, southeast California, northwest Arizona and southwest Utah.

* IMPACTS...Heat related illnesses are highly likely with any outdoor exposure, particularly for those working or participating in outdoor activities.

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MORE BODIES IN BARRELS DISCOVERED AT LAKE MEAD NRA, OFFICIALS SAY

Las Vegas Review-Journal

Emily Johnson

August 4, 2028

Officials at Lake Mead National Recreation Area announced the discovery of more barrels containing human remains today, raising the total number of bodies discovered this year to fourteen as an unprecedented heat wave continues to ravage the southwest. Lake Mead water levels remain at record lows despite a regional state of emergency and the shutdown of Hoover Dam six months ago…

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I.

Sam Giancana should have been an environmentalist, Mike thought, as he pressed the beige button on the wall that opened the garage door. Outside rolled in like a wave, a turbid mass of heat and humidity boiling around his feet, his hips, his face. God. Sweat beads broke out on his forehead almost immediately as he hurried to open the back of his black Cherokee and load his tools. A blue-handled digging spade. A rip cut handsaw with an ergonomic handle. A thirty-inch ash-handled pickaxe. A 10x12 reinforced gray tarp. A 90-liter waterproof duffel bag. A pair of aviation snips. Pliers. A large chef’s knife. A boning knife. A utility knife. Lots of towels. His heart was racing. I can’t believe I have to do this again. He took a deep, calming breath and shut the tailgate of the Cherokee. Fuck it, let’s go.

Like the late, unlamented Giancana, the Cherokee had seen better days. As he backed out of the townhome’s garage and into the road out of the complex, Mike heard a squealing from the engine as the headlights flickered. Serpentine belt. He’d get that fixed soon, if he could manage to scare up some cash and find a shop that was still open. He’d seen better days too. He and Jen, all those years ago.

II.

They met on the strip, at the blackjack tables at the Excalibur, an 90s-era medieval monstrosity complete with men in suits of armor and blue and red turrets thrusting into the desert sky. She was sitting out the hand while he worked methodically through his bankroll.

“Five, and… another five. Dealer shows nine.”

Peace sign. “Split.”

Pause. “…Yes sir, split. Player has a …ten, and a three.”

“You know, the book says you shouldn’t split on fives.” A pretty brunette to his right smirked at him and sipped her drink through a thin straw. She wore a floral sundress and her hair was in a loose ponytail.

He smiled. “I don’t care what the book says.” He glanced at the dealer. “Hit, and hit”.

“A seven…” Bust. “And a nine.”

He rubbed his lower lip with the back of his index finger. “Stay.”

The dealer flipped her other card. Ten of spades. “Dealer has nineteen. Player busts.” He sat staring hard at the green felt as the dealer raked in his chips.

“See, you should have listened to me.” Mike turned. Jen smiled, and flashed her eyebrows playfully at him. Her eyes twinkled with something like mischief and his anger subsided. “Yeah, maybe I should have,” he said, and smiled back.  Years later, Jen would realize that that smile, and his blue eyes, were what first drew her in.

They played a few more hands, and he managed to win back his kitty with her help. They went to dinner and ate Cornish game hens with their hands, and sat like royalty at a long bench above a sandy pit, quaffing flagons of mead while men jousted and fought below. 

III.

Mike drove the Jeep down the dark, narrow street leading out of the complex, towards the freeway. It was twilight, but all non-essential electric service had been cut, so the streetlights were out. Many of the homes were vacant; the streets were deserted. The serpentine belt had stopped squealing, so all he heard was the whoosh of the AC struggling against the oppressive air, and the ticking of the antique engine.

He made his way to the freeway and headed north. A few cars and trucks made their way along the artery. Every so often he saw an abandoned car sitting forlornly on the shoulder, waving at no one with a dirty rag or white t-shirt in the window. He could see the airport to his right – airliners sat silently on the dim tarmac in their brightly colored livery, like fat parakeets with their wings clipped. They couldn’t generate enough lift to take off in the thin, overheated air. 

He continued past the darkened casinos on the strip. The iconic, garish neon lights had been shut off when the rolling brownouts began, not long after the dam shut down and the transmission lines were derated by NV Energy. He could see the turrets of the Excalibur, the red and blue turrets now grey in the deepening gloom. A few figures moved furtively between the buildings, hurrying from one air-conditioned sanctuary to another. Nothing like a gambling addict, Mike thought. Fucking degenerates.

IV.

They dated for a few months. Then, inevitably, came long talks about love and shared lives, and she moved in with him. It made sense. She was a nurse, newly arrived in the city from the midwest, and he was an engineer with a three-bedroom condo and a new car. How perfect.

Then, inevitably, came the rude awakening as they learned the difference between dating and cohabitating. As they learned what each other was really like. Such as, maybe she liked to gamble a bit too much. But maybe he liked to drink too much. Maybe he liked to drink a lot. And maybe they avoided talking about it, so their deeper problems manifested as other, stupider issues. Like bickering over the noise she made when she chewed her food, or the weird sniffing thing he did with his nose while they were trying to watch TV. And the way she always left the fucking bag of chips open. The bickering turned to arguments, then fights, the alcohol(ism) shading every conversation they had in grayness. Always lurking in the background like a reaper.

One day she decided to make cornbread. Simple recipe – a couple large eggs, a couple boxes of mix, milk, sour cream, a can of creamed corn. Bake for 40 minutes. Except he hated soggy cornbread.

The oven chirped happily. Forty minutes. He rolled himself off the couch, hitched up his boxers, and walked on unsteady legs into the kitchen.

“Babe, don’t take it out yet, I need to check…” She followed him anxiously.

He grabbed the oven mitts and removed the casserole dish. “Mmm, golden brown…”

“Babe just let me...”

He put the dish on the counter, grabbed a spatula from the caddy next to the stove, and dug in.

“You need to let it rest, Mike…”

“It’s soggy.”

“I know, I need to check and see if it needs more time…”

“I’m hungry! Fuck!” He swatted it with an oven mitt and sent it crashing to the tile floor. The dish shattered and spewed bread guts everywhere.

“Stop it! You’re drunk.”

“No I’m not, you just can’t cook for shit.”

“No, you’re drunk! You’re always fucking drunk!”

“No I’m not.”

“Yes, you are! You think I don’t notice the empty bottles in the trash? In the cabinets? In the damn hamper? You think I like this shit? And the lying? You look me right in the eyes and lie to my face like breathing! How are you able to do that?”

“Fuck off.”

“You’ve lost your friends, you lost your job, and now you’re always here, always here with me, and I should like it but instead I still feel so fucking alone!!” She was crying now.

“Fuck Off!”

“You.Are.An.Addict!! Why can’t you get help?!”

“SHUT UP!!!”

The rising red anger turned to rage, and blackness washed over him. 

V.

He exited the freeway at the North Las Vegas interchange and made his way east down a dingy boulevard strung with fast food joints and gas stations. There was no light here except for a few dimly lit gas stations and what remained of the hospital. Scars of last year’s riots were everywhere – lots filled with the wreckage of destroyed buildings, boarded up storefronts, burned out husks of cars that still remained ten months later. He continued east out of town and into the desert. The stars were brilliantly visible in the blackout, like Mother Nature reclaiming what was hers. Mike could see the ridges of Frenchman Mountain, silhouetted against the backdrop of the universe.

As he left Vegas and entered the desert, he saw a pair of white, glowing orbs suspended distant in the darkness – coyote eyes caught in his headlights. It was another hour to the old marina on the northwest shore of the lake, where he and Jen had once kept a 30-foot Bayliner. The Bayliner was long gone, sold at a 50% loss to a pit boss at the Sands. He’d made sure to scrub and bleach the back deck and vacuum the cabin before he sold it. The marina was long gone too, closed 15 years ago. But he wasn’t headed to the marina.

As he continued driving deeper into the wasteland he saw more glowing eyes, some distant, some closer.  How do they survive out here? Mike thought. I’m sweating my ass off. Even with the AC on the heat in the car was oppressive. It was then that he realized he’d forgotten to bring water to drink. Ok, that’s not good, but this shouldn’t take long.

He reached an intersection about two miles west of the lake, a narrow T in the road almost covered over with sand and rock. On the right he could see an old campground abandoned to the elements. On the left the pavement ended, and a rough dirt road cut through the scrub to the north. He turned left and headed past a faded, bullet-riddled National Park Service sign leaning to one side: “RV Park – Dry Boat Storage”.  The RV Park was almost empty; a dilapidated single-wide trailer had been dragged into one of the parking slots and sat on cinder blocks. A hand-written sign hung from a nail on the corner of the trailer: “NO TRESPASING INTRUDERS WILL BE SHOT SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT AGAIN”. Mike ignored it and accelerated forward.

He slammed on the brakes, skidding the Cherokee to a stop in the dirt. A large pair of glowing white eyes shone through the plume of dust. A coyote. It sat on its haunches staring at him. “What the fuck? Go!” Mike leaned on the horn. In the side mirror he could see a light come on in the trailer.  The coyote sat, unmoving. “Jesus Christ,” Mike said. He swerved to the left and continued into the desert scrub. His heart pounded, and a fleeting thought flashed through his head. It’s hot as hell, why wasn’t it panting? He looked in the rear-view mirror but the coyote was gone.

VI.

There had been questions afterward, of course. The Monday after it was done the phone started ringing; it was her supervisor at the hospital. She left a message on the answering machine. That message was followed by more, many more – coworkers, friends, brother, mother, father. The police. He’d spent the weekend carefully cleaning, vacuuming, and sanitizing the Cherokee, and the Bayliner, and the garage, and the tile kitchen floor. He’d also emptied the closet of some of her things – not all, just what would fit in a couple suitcases that he tossed into a dumpster behind a diner in Boulder City.

He'd rehearsed his story – that her gambling had turned into an addiction, which had turned into a drug habit. He’d tried to get her help but eventually they had an argument and she attacked him. See here? He told the officers that visited a week later. She went crazy, he said, pointing to a laceration on his arm –  caused by the metal buckle on the duffle bag sling as it slid into the deep water.

The heat eventually faded. It was the ‘90s – she had no cell phone, no e-mail address besides her work one, never bought stocks, never signed a mortgage or a lease. No GPS trackers to follow his movements, no WiFi cameras in every corner, storefront, and doorbell. It was the early days of DNA but any forensic evidence was easily explained – she lived here, officer. Was it a perfect alibi? No, of course not. If she wanted to leave why is her car here? Why hasn’t she called her mother since she went missing? Why do none of her coworkers or friends say she was acting strange? The police asked. I don’t know, she was very good at hiding her behavior, he said. Many people didn’t believe him, of course, which bothered him greatly. But as time passed, he became accustomed to the blanket of suspicion, and wore it comfortably. Because, no matter what people thought, there was no body. He’d gotten away with it.

Until the lake started to recede. He watched the news carefully, ingesting every morsel of information about the decline of the lake. Once thriving boat clubs and marinas left for the desert to reclaim; rusted, corroded oil drums with bullet-riddled corpses of mobsters; ghost towns once drowned by the reservoir, exposed like skeletons of the past. Every bit of news brought more anxiety. He berated himself for not taking her further out, but in the haste of the night he’d forgotten to bring gas, and he didn’t use the marina station for fear of leaving a record. So, he waited. But the lake kept dying. And finally, the worst heat wave in the region’s history combined with the return of a 1000-year drought turned his anxiety into panic. She must be visible now! he thought, over and over, for months. Some beach comber or partier or water-skier or random looky-loo will find it, and they’ll identify her and then I’m screwed!

He came up with a plan. He’d drive out there, north of the marina. Find her. Get her back in the Cherokee. Then he’d drive far into the desert, dig a hole, and bury her. Forever this time.

Like Sam Giancana would have done.

VII.

The Jeep bounced and rattled down the rough fire road. The heat was stifling, and his thirst had gone from a dull background urge to a full-frontal klaxon. After a few minutes the dirt road faded into a maze of tracks stretched out through the desert in front of him like a vast spiderweb. This isn’t what the map showed, he thought. He grabbed his phone and opened the mapping app, one hand on the wheel as he rolled through the scrubby brush. There was no cell service, but he’d downloaded the map; the blue GPS indicator showed his location and a red teardrop showed his destination, as best he could remember. Just a couple more miles. Just need to keep driving.

The serpentine belt let out a banshee-like screech and snapped. The steering wheel became a millstone, impossible to move. He continued forward over a low bank into a dry wash. The front of the jeep smashed into a sandstone boulder. He smacked his head on the steering wheel and all was silent.

After a few moments, he awoke and managed to exit the Jeep after several minutes of struggling with the jammed door, falling to the floor of the wash. He laid there, panting in the furnace-like heat. His ankle throbbed.

Bad bad idea, Mike thought. But I need to find her. He reached up, grasped the running board, and pulled himself up. His ankle held his weight, and he stumbled down the wash. The relentless, brutal heat dropped hammer blows on him as he staggered forward. It was like walking through hot mud.

After what seemed like hours he fell to his knees. Vomited. Started crawling. Have to find her. He collapsed on the sandy desert floor, and rolled onto his back. The luminous band of the Milky Way stretched across the vast desert sky. He reveled in the light, let it wash over him. Then the faint starlight was joined by another, paler light. Struggling, he rolled onto his side.  

A ring of pale white eyes surrounded him, then drew closer. Low growling emanated from the circle. “What do you want?!” he cried out.

He saw a female figure, silhouetted against the brilliant starlit backdrop of the universe. She stepped closer. The pale light illuminated them. She wore a floral sundress, and her brunette hair was tied in a loose ponytail. He stared deliriously at her. His tongue was a block of sandpaper, but he managed to find his voice. “I found you,” he said.

“Hello babe,” she whispered, and stretched out her arm.