Heartless – Part 1.

2003

By all means, Arkady Heartless is definitely what you would call a failure. Dropped out of high school, 23 and still living out of his car, living on a steady diet of adderall and lithium, yet another casualty of the foster system. There isn’t much going for him. He’s well past the point of “functional member of society”.

And, of course, you know. There’s the whole “hitman” thing.

But he’s good at that. 

He’s had a gun in his hand since his third and final foster dad decided he should take him out hunting every other weekend. Some sort of bullshit about a family tradition or whatever. Said he was a natural, even, and Arkady knows he wasn’t just saying it to be nice, since the man was hardly someone for niceties.

It’s a hell of a lot easier to find people than it is to find deer, though. Makes good money too, and nobody’s looking at his goddamn resume to make sure he has a diploma or even just a GED. Nobody’s vetting his references, or checking his work history. Nobody who hires him ever even sees his face.

It’s better that way. He rolls into a town in the same goddamn hatchback he’s had since his “sweet sixteen” and sets up camp at the local library. It’s the best way to make sure he’s being anonymous, setting up coded posts on craigslist that’ll only stand out to people who know what he does. Picks up a couple gigs like that and moves on before anyone ever notices him. One or two murders is nothing, even in a smaller town.

And sure, sometimes it’s a bust. Nobody needs anyone whacked off or disappeared or whatever cutesy coy phrase they choose so they don’t have to say killed. But that’s nice too, sometimes.

It means he can get a motel and hang around a while without things going too wrong. It means he can pick up some more clothes and supplies for the next few months on the road. And, most of all, it means he can finally touch up his hair.

His hair doesn’t grow too fast, but it grows in dark and he’s got a few more inches on top since the last hotel stay. It’s a downright miracle he doesn’t get chemical burns, considering he’s beyond a bottle blonde, more of a platinum blonde at this rate. 

But he likes it. His one little vanity.

It’s already dark outside, so he sits out on the dingy little balcony while the bleach processes. It’s suffocatingly muggy and the whole motel strip’s lit up in a sickly, jaundiced yellow from the faded old street lights. If it wasn’t for all the chemical bullshit in his hair, he’d be smoking, but instead he settles for biting at his nails.

A nervous tic, one of his many therapists over the years called it. 

But he’s far from nervous. He feels pretty damn good right about now, aside from the burning itch of his scalp in the night air. He’ll move on soon enough, but for now, he can just catch his breath for a few minutes.

Maybe he’ll go to a bar, get a couple of drinks. Maybe not. He never wants to stand out. This isn’t the kind of career path where you can afford to let people remember you. Especially with his track record.

God knows his last set of foster parents are still looking for him. They’re nothing if not dedicated after six goddamn years. Should’ve taken the hint by now, but no, they’re still holding out hope that he’ll turn up in somebody’s basement, or buried out in the woods somewhere, or shipped off to another country.

(Someone probably would’ve recognized him by now, if he still looked anything like the awkward forced-smile school picture of a dark haired girl plastered all over the missing posters.)

But, he tries not to let all those ghosts get to him. There’s no point in looking back, not when there’s so much open road ahead of him. It’s not like he was happy before all of this.

Six years ago, Arkady was failing out of every single one of his classes, slicing himself open in the bathroom between said classes, and chain-smoking under the bleachers after school. All to go back home to his foster parents and their other wayward orphans just to push his dinner around on his plate enough to pretend he was eating, stare blankly at the wall instead of doing any of his homework, and then cry himself to sleep for a few hours. Rinse and repeat. 

It made sense to leave. He didn’t even make it all the way through that final day, just went out to his car during lunch and started driving. Guess his shrinks were really onto something when they said he had impulse control issues.

But thinking about all that’s starting to kill his good mood. 

Just another reason why he doesn’t look back.

Arkady gets up and heads back into the motel room. It’s about time to wash the bleach out of his hair and it’ll give himself something else to think about for a few minutes.

The walls are yellowy, nicotine stained over the years, and the lights keep flickering in and out, like there’s a faulty wire somewhere. There’s mildew crawling across the ceiling and suspicious stains at the bottom of the bath. But, the water pressure’s good and it was nice and cheap, so he doesn’t mind too much. He’s only gonna be here for the rest of the night, anyway. 

He kneels down next to the bathtub and starts the water running. Then, he sticks his head under the faucet. It isn’t quite warm yet, but with how muggy and hot it was outside, the cool water almost feels good. He squeezes his eyes shut, doesn’t want to get any bleach in them, and focuses on the sound of water surrounding him.

It’s like the weight of the world is crashing down on him, same as the water, and he suddenly feels worn thin, stretched past his breaking point. Not that he’s done much since he pulled into town, but it’s always different when he’s got a bed to himself and a roof over his head. 

And he as much as he needs a break, time to breathe between jobs, it’s never easy being alone with his thoughts.

Before he hits the road again, he’ll take one more nice, long shower. But that can wait until whenever he wakes up tomorrow. He’s got a couple sleeping pills that are calling his name, tucked away in the bottom of his bag.

It’ll be nice. He’ll strip down, crawl into bed, and hope the A/C keeps him semi-cool during the night. Might even turn the TV on to keep him company before he loses consciousness, but that’s always a gamble. There’s a lot of things that’ll set him off, even if he’s asleep.

Arkady turns the water off once it runs clear and just lets it drip down from his hair into the bathtub. It’s too quiet like this. Nothing more than his breathing and the steady trickle of water from his hair, but he can’t bring himself to move. 

“Okay,” he says and it rattles off the sides of the tub, he can feel it in his chest, “Okay. It’s fine. Everything is fine. Just get up.“

And then, he pushes himself up off the floor. He slinks back out to the rest of his room and digs through his bag, looking for his pills. 

Once he finds them, he pops one and slides out of his already unbuttoned shirt, damp and semi-stained around the collar. Then, he peels off his pants and flops into bed. Face first, bathroom light still on and gun under his pillow, just in case.

—

It’s so heavy, and hot, like he’s about to choke. Sweat beads up on his forehead, mixing with the tears running down his cheeks. 

He can’t see much, it’s all hazy around the edges, tinged in flashes of orange. He’s in a house. Always the same house, some gut feeling tells him.

There’s something holding him down. Someone. Shielding him, and he watches from between her arms. 

The house cracks around them, wooden bones snapping under the weight of itself.

Someone’s coming to save him. 

Someone’s coming to save him any minute now.

But it never gets that far in these dreams. 

He wakes up gasping for air, tangled in the bedding.

—

Arkady’s back on the road by nightfall the next day.  He doesn’t really have a destination in mind, but he’ll know it when he finds it. Always does.

Before he gets too far, he stops off the highway at some lonely little gas station. The lights flicker overhead, with that same sterile glow you’d find in a doctor’s office. He’s the only one in there, other than the clerk behind the front counter, chin propped up by his hand and half-asleep by the looks of it.

He’ll need some food for the next few days. He picks his way through the aisle slowly, gathering up a few things that’ll last him. Jerky, nuts, granola bars, all the kind of shit that passes as “real” food. He’s never been too big of a fan of restaurants. They make him feel stir-crazy, like he’s a penned in animal, waiting to be slaughtered.

Grabs some extra batteries too, for his camp light. And a couple gallons of water, just in case. He doesn’t want to end up with a spur of the moment job and no way to get all the blood off of himself.

And once he’s gathered all his supplies up, he sets them down on the counter. Almost makes the clerk jump out of his skin in the process. 

While the guy starts ringing him up, Arkady looks through the stupid kitschy little touristy keychains. He kinda likes them, for some reason or another. He’s gotten one every place he’s stopped, especially if he’s done a hit there. After debating a while, he settles on one that says ‘WISH YOU WERE HERE’, shaped like a guitar, and adds it to the pile.

“I’m also gonna need twenty bucks on pump two,” he says, digging out his wallet.

It’s safer to only use cash, not that he even has a bank account. The less of a paper trail he has, the better. He starts counting out bills as he watches the total go up.

And that’s when he notices it. The sun-faded flyer tacked to the corkboard behind the exhausted clerk’s head. It’s that god-awful picture of him a lifetime ago, with the words ‘5’4, brown eyes, black hair, may have visible burn scars, last seen October of 1997′ underneath it.

For a second, his goddamn heart stops, just like it does every time, but every time, it’s always fine. Nobody’s gonna recognize him. 

Arkady doesn’t even really have the visible burn scars anymore, not after all the tattoos he’s collected over the years. They’ve faded some, too. And he had a few surgeries to help with that when he was a lot younger, paid for by the settlement money.

“Yeah, alright,” the clerk sounds bored out of his mind, checking Arkady’s bills to make sure they’re legit, “Pump two, yeah?”

“Uh-huh.”

The clerk opens the cash register, tucks away the money, “Receipt’s in the bag.” 

Arkady nods wordlessly and gathers up his stuff. Then, he slips back out into the night air. 

It’s been years now, but he still feels like he’s getting away with something whenever someone doesn’t recognize him. But, he needs to get moving. He’s too close to home if there’s still flyers up.

So, he puts his bags in the back seat, along with the rest of his stuff, and starts filling up his gas tank. 

It isn’t long before he’s back on the road, windows rolled down to let the night air in. He’ll stop whenever he gets tired, find somewhere to sleep, but right now he just wants to put some distance between himself and the missing person’s flyer.

Deep down, he’s terrified that someone will recognize him and he’ll get taken back to his foster parents even though he’s twenty-three goddamn years old and can make his own decisions. It scares him even more than the idea of getting caught doing what he does.

But it’s more than luck that’s gotten him this far. 

He’s careful, always makes sure to cover his tracks.

And there’s no reason to psych himself out right now. He’s been the only car on the road for miles and soon he’ll be out of state lines. There’s another town out there waiting for him with another job, something that’ll tide him over for a couple weeks. 

Just needs to relax. Needs to take his mind off of all this.

Arkady turns the radio on, fiddling with it to try and find a station. He isn’t picky, just needs something to keep him company, but he likes loud stuff more than anything else, likes to feel it in his chest, drowning out his thoughts.

They’ve always been awfully loud. Suffocating, almost. 

Maybe he’s been trying to outrun them as much as anything else.

Anyway, he’s got a full tank of gas and an itch to move. The night is nice, lit up bright by the moon, almost full, and he’s far enough from the cities that he can see the stars spilled out ahead of him.

And one of the radio stations finally crackles to life, playing some tinny rock song from a couple years back. He knows the lyrics, at least well enough to fake them, so he belts along with it, listening to the wind carrying his voice away as his car rushes along the highway.

—

It’s just a little before sunrise when he pulls off the main road onto an exit that takes him to some small graveyard of a town. It’s only about six in the morning, but he figures he won’t look too out of place here.

And he won’t be here for very long, he just needs somewhere secluded to park for the day so he can sleep. Started getting tired a couple miles back and the last thing he needs is to crash his car. 

Arkady’s got a good collection of blankets and pillows in the back of his hatchback, a nice little makeshift bed. Blacked out the windows with some dark fabric, too, so it’s harder to see him when he’s sleeping. It’s comfortable, secure, and he doesn’t need much when it really comes down to it.

It’s only after he circles around the little town, barely a blip on the map, that he finds a good place to stop for the day. It’s near a hiking path, parking allowed from dawn ’til dusk, and there’s already a couple cars in the gravel lot. 

He tosses his bag in the back and climbs over the seats, leaves his shoes up front so he doesn’t get his bed dirty.

First thing he does is add the ‘WISH YOU WERE HERE’ guitar to his collection. He slips it onto the big carabiner hanging from one of the handles on the ceiling, letting it clatter against the rest of his keychains. One of these days, he’ll run out of space for them, but for now, he’s happy just to let the collection grow.

Next, Arkady figures he should bite the bullet and do his shot. He’s been rationing the doses, doing it every two weeks instead of every week. Hasn’t been able to link up with his pharmaceutical connection to get any of his meds in a while.

So, he digs his kit out of his bag, an old metal box where he used to keep his cigs and his lighters and his razors and anything else he didn’t want his foster parents to find, before he left home. Now it’s just got his syringes; some disinfectant wipes; his vials, only one has any liquid left in it; and a smaller jar of used needles.

He unbuttons his jeans and wriggles out of them about halfway, so he can get to his thigh. Then, he tears open one of the alcohol wipes and cleans off the soft skin. Holds his breath when he fills a new syringe from the vial, hoping this won’t be the last round for the time being.

Thankfully, he should get one more dose out of it. That makes him relax enough to keep going. He makes sure to go for the muscle before he pushes the plunger down, already done this a thousand times, but it’s worse when he’s trying to ration it. 

Afterwards, he puts the used syringe in the jar with the rest of his sharps. Then, he packs the kit back up and pulls his pants back on. He sets his bag off to the side after that and flops down on his back, staring up at the grey interior fabric above his head.

Arkady digs the heel of his palms into his eyelids and groans. He needs more of a plan than just driving until he finds a place that feels right. Especially now that he’s down to one last shot.

But, he can worry about that after he’s slept. He needs somewhere he can look over his maps, maybe even eat a real meal before he skips town, and then he’ll be back on the road before sundown.

It’s too warm to cover up when he’s fully dressed, but he doesn’t want to strip down to his underwear either, in case someone comes poking around his car. 

The easiest way to lie is to tell the truth and he’s skated by for this long just by telling anyone who asks what he’s doing that he’s been driving overnight and pulled off to sleep so he wouldn’t crash his car.

Foster mom number two was a cop, so he’s got a pretty good idea of how to stay off of anyone’s radar and not get caught. And he’s always been good at staying calm under pressure, that’s why he’s a gun for hire. A compulsive liar, too, if his shrink could be trusted. But, if you ask him, he’s just good at being persuasive.

But even with all the thoughts he’s got rattling around in his head, he’s tired. Always is after such a long stretch. It’s probably been around seven hours since the last time he stopped.

Despite the humid, heavy heat and the fact it’s starting to get light out, he can’t keep his damn eyes open now that he’s laying down. Just curls up around one of his pillows and gives into it.

—

It’s the same thing over and over. The phantom smell of burning skin and singed hair. The way his lungs feel tight, barely choking down shallow breaths. Shielded from the flames licking up around the room by someone who’s face he can’t remember.

The house cracks around them a thousand times over. He cries and cries and waits for someone to save him. And when it’s all done, it starts back at the beginning.

He lies in bed, between both of his parents, watching the room get hazy by the light of the moon. He only starts crying when the smoke hurts his eyes, makes his throat sting.

And the ceiling creaks, and the flames slip under the door, soot crawling up the walls, and that faceless ghost of a person shields him again. Caught in a loop. Some kinda screwed up ouroboros.

—

Arkady wakes up sweating through his clothes in the heat of the afternoon. It’s one of his better “nights”. Most of the time, he’s lucky to get an hour or two of sleep without taking something or another.

Technically, he isn’t supposed to mix any of his meds with alcohol, but sometimes he just needs that extra push to knock him out for an eight hour stretch. 

And other than feeling grimy, tongue heavy and thick in his mouth, he’s not doing too bad. Nobody came and woke him up, he didn’t start screaming like he was being murdered in his sleep. 

He yawns and stretches out, feeling his joints pop. Then, he runs a hand through his hair, scratching his nails over his scalp in little circles. There’s still a pretty decent amount of cash left from his last job, so he doesn’t feel too bad about going to get a real honest to God meal before he hits the road again.

Arkady climbs back up into the front seat again and rolls down his windows. Then, he grabs a water bottle, hoping it isn’t too tepid, and takes a swig from it. He swishes it around in his mouth to rinse out the awful taste of sleep lingering there and leans out the window to spit it onto the tarmac.

Afterwards, he starts the car up. There’s gotta be a greasy diner somewhere around here, somewhere for him to get his shit together, where he won’t stick out too much. And it’s early enough that there shouldn’t be a lot of people gathered there. He shouldn’t feel so cornered, then. 

He’s got a map tucked away in the glovebox with potential destinations picked out. Never does anything so stupid like marking the actual places where he’s killed anyone, but he highlights routes he likes. He avoids toll booths, on principle and because he doesn’t wanna be recognized. The fewer times he has to leave an impression, the better.

—

It doesn’t take long to find a little diner, barely has to go further than a couple blocks down Main Street. Once he’s parked, he grabs his map, slips a pen behind his ear, and heads on in. Sure, maybe he’s holding his breath, but it’s fine.

From the looks of it, one woman’s running the whole floor, but it’s a good couple of hours before the dinner rush, and she doesn’t mind when he asks for a booth. She leaves him with a menu and scurries off to help the next occupied table, halfway across the room.

Arkady looks over the menu carefully. It’s pretty standard fare for a diner, has all the staples of an all American family run spot, but he’s got a strange little game he’s gotta play. 

He always ends up mulling over the options, planning out his order like it’s gonna be his last meal on death row. And he’s not too sure when he picked it up, just knows that he can’t shake it now, like he needs to make it count just in case. God knows if they can pin just one or two of the bodies on him, he’ll get the lethal injection for sure.

The waitress circles back around, like some kind of vulture, and taps her check-pad with the worn eraser of a beat up pencil, “So what can I do ya for, hon?”

“I’ll have,” he furrows his brows and looks back over the menu, “Uh, the buttermilk waffles, eggs and bacon, over-easy, and a milkshake, chocolate.”

He figures that would be a worthwhile last meal.

She just scribbles it all down on the pad.

“Comin’ right up,” she smiles and takes the menu when he holds it out for her.

Then, he gets down to business. 

Arkady unfolds his map across the slightly sticky linoleum table. If he can avoid it, he doesn’t hit the same state twice, unless it’s been a year or two since he was there last. And he never hits the same town twice.

The more lines he crosses–town, county, state–the better, because it’s harder for the cops to put it together. Surprise, surprise, none of them like to share their toys and play nice. And none of them ever seem to be all that good at their jobs.

He wants to go north, get as far from his home as he can, which is as good a place to start as any. It’s been a while since he was in New York, but he’s kinda burnt out on the type of clientele he runs into there. New Jersey’s good for quick and dirty, though, but they like to haggle over pay there.

But he’s never been to Maine. It might be nice to try something new, add another keychain to his collection. And it’s right on the cusp of summer, so he won’t have to worry about the cold. He’s never liked the cold much, which is why he spends his winters down south or out west.

So Maine it is.

Now he just has to plot out his course, where he’ll stop along the way. He should have enough money to get him there, since he’s already past Maryland. And he knows the roads pretty well up until New York, which makes it easier to plan around.

It’ll be easier to head out to his pharmaceutical contact afterwards, too. They’re further to the west, cycling between a few different states that are a little more lax about controlled substances.

By the time he makes it there, he’ll definitely have enough money to stock up for the next few months. 

---