SHERMAN WHISTLES WHILE HE WORKSEpilogue
As I sit here now in the room waiting for the phone call and the beer to chill, staring blankly at the television and listening to the air conditioner hum, I can't seem to take my mind off of 'Letisha' or whatever her real name was. I did the job right, I know. She didn't suffer much and I didn't have to look her in the eye when I did it. But for whatever reason, the toe thing bothers me as much as the actual killing does, and I can feel her presence here in the room with me just knowing that her cute little ring-clad toe is chilling in the fridge along with my beer.
I said there wasn't much to see once I'd hit central Ohio, but about a half-hour outside of Cincinnati, speeding south on I-71 I passed a pair of billboards on the east side of the freeway, jutting up from a cornfield on flimsy four by six timbers as if the Devil himself was holding the signs aloft over the monotonously flat landscape, skewered on a huge pitchfork for passing motorists to view.
“IF YOU DIED TODAY, WHERE WOULD YOU SPEND ETERNITY?” read the first one, its crimson capital letters emblazoned on a background black as coal.
The simple message on the second one was: “HELL IS REAL”.
The room phone is ringing now. I'm sure it's the guy with my money, the guy who wants poor Letisha's toe. I don't really want to answer it, but I have to, I guess. After three rings I tip the Jim Beam to my lips, point the bottom of the bottle right at the ceiling and drain it in four searing gulps.
That billboard was right. Hell is real. I know because I'm in it.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
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