Jailbird

A dead sky hang above motel six at 4 a.m., that existed along a desert highway, leading from nowhere to nowhere. Dead as the corpse that lay on cold bathroom tiles besides a few white pills, a syringe and two empty vials. This was the room to the right of room 114 on the second floor. 

Colton Brown sat in this room on what was supposed to be a mattress on a bed-like, welded set of rusting metal. The tight fitting jeans and average checkered shirt added to the, lean and fairly tall, man’s perturbation. The second hand of his wall clock stole the show from his thoughts for a moment before being rudely interrupted by a bust of a distant duo of husky laughter. He drew the curtain to study his scene. Two well exposed women had a man cornered to the side of an exhausted and unrestored 1949 Mercury M47, in an otherwise empty parking lot. Neon green from the only lighting letter on the motel sign reflected of their spandex skirts and melanin. Colton spared the scene no further audience. 

A few minutes later, a sharp screeching sound of applied car breaks broke his contemplation about his promising future. Three car doors slammed shut and heavy footsteps accompanied by soft chatter followed their way to the reception below. A moment later the chatter grew louder as three silhouettes, two masculine and one feminine, holding duffle bags passed Colton’s window. 

“...The job is done Brian. That’s all that matters...” and then the chatter left Colton’s earshot as it went into the neighbouring room. What was now murmuring was harmonised with a croak and growl that emitted from the seemingly void chamber that was his stomach. It called for a meal besides the revolting and bland lunch served in the prison commissary. 

At that moment he remembered the irrepressible feeling, mid-yesterday, of when he finally felt the baked desert soil beneath his shoe soles outside the penitentiary. That first deep breath of air. The fresh free feeling of warm dust air on the free-man’s side of the fence. Oh, how he had longed for this feeling. Two months , two days untill he was proven innocent, after they caught real dope dealer, high on his own product. 

“You’ll be back. You kind never lasts out there,” said an officer seated on the hood of his car, near the highway junction not far from the prison exit. 

Holding the his only property, a paper-bag containing a Nokia cellphone, gate money and a bus ticket, Mr Brown walked past the office and didn’t look back. What to behold was a highway leading from nowhere to nowhere...

He decided he should adhere to his food-lust. At the reception, or what was supposed to be one, was a snack machine that he saw on his way in. He left for his door, wondering how long his “bed” would last through what remained of the night. He opened the door for a peek. It was odd, to his surprise, how his neighbours’ incessant gibbering filled the balcony hallway and yet remained in audible. 

Leaving his door locked, Colton headed for the stairs. When he reached the reception, the lady at the table there smiled at him. 

“My offer still stands,” she chanted, “there’s no need to spend the night alone.”

“I’ll just take a couple of protein bars,” Colton ignored her forlornness and placed ten dollars on the counter. 

“This machine is more of an artefact, or an antique,” she said, still smiling. “It’s been here since we opened. I wouldn’t advise...” 

With a sigh of despair, Colton grabbed his money and left for his room, ignoring the rest of the receptionist‘s sentence. 

As he walked along the balcony to his room, the gibbering had shifted an truculent but rather muffled argument. Most of it was fairly audible. 

“...now there’s a dead bank security guard on this floor...” some inaudibility, “...the faked drug suicide was your idea...” and more inaudibility. 

No sooner had Colton twisted his door knob at 114, than the abrupt burst of two muffled gunshots that impaired the argument to resonance of a struggle as heavy footsteps waltzed around the room. 

Colton’s muscles were unexplainably coagulated during the bustle. For some reason, he’s door seemed jammed or rusted, forgetting it was locked. His statued body broke into hand jerking motion with a shot of adrenaline when his neighbour’s door bust open, and a man and woman tangoed out to the balcony floor. The man tripped and pinned his partner to the floor between his legs, holding the gun to her head. 

Colton was frozen once again once he caught eye contact with red watery and helpless butterfly-eyes, right before the beholder’s face was blown off. The shock woke him out of duress, to realise his door handle had snapped off and now lay futile in his hand. 

He made a break for the room just left of his, shifting it open with his shoulder, and almost immediately kicked it shut. He stood behind the door to hold it shut. In the silence, all he could hear were distant sirens that seemed to be coming from the same direction as the waking sun. 

As the sun tentatively exposed the floating dust particles that seemed stagnant in the state of tense silence, a gunshot set the whole room into motion. Rats clambered out of the bathroom, heading for the ceiling and out the window. Another gunshot fired, and this time a bullet marked it’s way pass Colton’s right cheek, exposing a slit of flesh and blood. 

The door was suddenly kicked open, sending the jailbird across the room. His persecutor flew straight at him with a hand aiming for his neck. Colton found himself in a familiar position with a gun directed to his head. He wasn’t about to lose his freedom again, let alone to death. With one more surge of adrenaline, he reached for the gun, setting off two gunshots. 

A cop car pulled up to a once empty parking lot filled with police cars and forensics running up and about, trolleying four bodies on different stretchers. An officer stepped out of his vehicle and approached two other officers holding a handcuffed man by his collar and arms. He laughed and exclaimed, “Mr Brown! What’d I tell you? Your kind never lasts out here. Stupid jailbirds!”