Mile marker zero, p.1
Mile Marker Zero, page 1
Mile Marker Zero
by
Benny Sims
© 2022 by Benny Sims
This book is a work of creative fiction that uses actual publicly known events, situations, and locations as background for the storyline with fictional embellishments as creative license allows. Although the publisher has made every effort to ensure the grammatical integrity of this book was correct at press time, the publisher does not assume and hereby disclaims any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause. At Pandamoon, we take great pride in producing quality works that accurately reflect the voice of the author. All the words are the author’s alone.
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Pandamoon Publishing. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
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Jacket design and illustrations © Pandamoon Publishing
Art Direction by Don Kramer: Pandamoon Publishing
Illustrations by Don Kramer: Pandamoon Publishing
Editing by Zara Kramer, Kathleen Bosman, and Rachel Schoenbauer: Pandamoon Publishing
Pandamoon Publishing and the portrayal of a panda and a moon are registered trademarks of Pandamoon Publishing.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Edition: 1, version. 1.00
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
TOC
Reviews
Dedication
Chapter
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Pandamoon Publishing
REVIEWS
A dark, fast-paced thriller, Mile Marker Zero gives new meaning to the term “to-do list.” Terrifying and unforgettable. — Bruce Robert Coffin, award-winning author of the Detective Byron Mysteries
Benny Sims’ latest thriller, Marker Mile Zero, does everything a thriller is meant to do – shock – and build anxiety and a growing fear in the reader’s mind. The best thrillers are constructed so those feelings continue post-read and lend a new perspective about how dangerous the world really is (or could be). Sims’ tale had me worried and anxious from page one… and after I turned the last page and put the book down, I did find myself reacting to every happenstance encounter with new suspicions. This is a scary and fascinating window into the mind of a man who has no reason to live… — Jule Selbo, Silver Falchion award-winning author of 10 DAYS, A Dee Rommel Mystery and its sequel 9 DAYS
Benny Sims has a smooth writing style and from page one he pulls the reader into Mile Marker Zero, making it effortless for the reader to immerse themselves in the world of John Doe, serial killer. The reader sees all facets of John thanks to Benny’s portrayal of this desperate and complex man, who is at a pivotal point in his life. When John is faced with a chance of redemption and possible happiness, I found myself saying out loud, “Oh no,” at one of many unexpected plot twists. Benny writes about the human condition, and through John’s revelations, handling our problems with violence. Benny’s depiction of characters had me anxious for John, as well as anxious for his victims. Great imagery, excellent dialogue, this book is hard to put down. — Joanna Vander Vlugt, podcaster and author of the Jade & Sage thrillers The Unravelling and Dealer’s Child.
A burned-out factory worker who has nothing left to live for sets out on a mission to make one kill a week for a year. Will he succeed? A page turner until the heart-stopping climax! — Stacy Lucas
Mile Marker Zero is the literary opposite of “A wonderful life”. A deadly travel blog, the writing is sharp and every bit a thriller. The suspense doesn’t ever stop as the reader waits for the inevitable ending. At its core, Mile Marker Zero is a what-if exploration of the failures of society as you watch the mind of a man that’s been dealt nothing but lemons finally struggling to leave a legacy of blood. — Tony Ollivier, author of the David Knight thrillers The Amsterdam Deception and The Tokyo Diversion
A funny and depraved satire, putting the lie to the contemporary true-crime glorification of violence. Sims’ tale reminds me of that other great naked open-road novel of Americana, Going Native by Stephen Wright. — Seth Augenstein, author of Project 137 and Llama With A Gun
I received an advanced review copy (ARC) of Mile Marker Zero thinking it would be a run of the mill mystery. This is a book that no matter what time of the day you start reading it, you know you’re going to finish it that day. In the beginning a guy is getting ready to have his traditional Sunday breakfast, one he has after accomplishing an as yet unknown deed until the next page details his worry over getting rid of the body in the car trunk; a murder duly marked off on his calendar. You soon learn that this “murder” will fit into his life accomplishment enshrining him forever In History. The goal of someone who has gotten close to the goal line but never crossed it. You might think it’s a gruesome goal but it should be easily accomplished in this day and age - after all people are murdered, disappearing without an eyebrow lifted or the case solved. And so, in a casual, thoughtful manner, this aging guy travels the country in rental cars, selecting his victims at random while Karma quietly starts adding sand to the gears of his plan. You’ll enjoy this book, asking questions while you read, getting to an ending you won’t forget. — Richard Kwasniewski
In an intriguing departure from the usual murder novel narrative, Benny Sims takes the reader on an unexpected journey in his newest novel, Mile Marker Zero. This is a gripping tale not of finding the murderer(s), but an exploration of human emotions, cause and effects, and the fragility of life. It will be difficult to put down once started, and challenging to not ponder the events as they unfold (and their possible ramifications) once finished. In a surprising departure from the style of Code Gray, Benny Sims definitely proves his talents as a first-rate author! — Lydia Bosse
Dedication
This book is dedicated to Jesse and Aliyah, Conner and Hannah, and, as always, to Tammy
Mile Marker Zero
THE SIGHT OF BLOOD
CHAPTER ONE
I started my Sunday the same way I’ve started every Sunday so far this year, with a stack of pancakes, a cup of coffee, a calendar, and another dead body added to my list.
Last Sunday at 7 a.m., I was in a Cracker Barrel somewhere outside of Columbia, South Carolina. But today I’m in a little roadside greasy spoon diner in southern Illinois. I walked through the door at exactly seven o’clock, according to the brownish-whitish grease-stained clock mounted on the wall above the grill.
Most mornings during the week I wouldn’t even eat breakfast. Unless a pastry and a Styrofoam cup of coffee from a convenience store counted as breakfast. I never considered that as a real breakfast, though. To me, a real breakfast involves sitting down and using utensils to eat your food. There’s something more civilized about that, in my opinion.
But come Sunday, it was a real breakfast. I figured it was the perfect way of rewarding myself for hitting another milestone. The first thing I did every Sunday after ordering my pancakes was pull the rolled-up calendar from my back pocket and open it up.
I used salt and pepper shakers to hold down the curled corners, then I flipped through the pages until I found the next blank square beneath Sunday, and I drew a red X, top corners to bottom corners.
I looked at today’s date. April 24. Then I swallowed my first mouthful of coffee. Man, that stuff tasted awesome. Nectar of the gods, my old man used to call it. I don’t know whether that’s true or not, but I do know I’m usually as nice as a bear with a toothache until I get the first cup in me. Maybe it ought to be called the “Nectar of the Grumpy Bastards.” I finished my first cup in about four swallows.
I caught the eye of the waitress and held up my cup, signaling I needed a fresh refill. As she walked over with a steaming pitcher, I counted the number of red marks on my calendar, starting from January 3. Today made seventeen. I was still on schedule, and I was beginning to get really good at this. Finally, something in this shitty life that I was good at.
The calendar was just a little fold-up, dollar store kind of thing that I bought this past Christmas, with a picture of an old rickety barn above the days of each month. Twelve pages, twelve pictures in all, not including the picture on the cover since it was the same picture used for January. The big white squares made it easy to count, and for somebody as old as me, that’s a huge plus. I need reading glasses for the newspaper and magazines and the dine
“Whatcha got there, sweetie?” asked the waitress after she finished pouring. She was probably a redhead once upon a time, but the gray had pretty much taken over her teased and sprayed hair. But you gotta love Midwestern women. They’re friendly and down-to-earth, more so than just about anywhere else in the country, and it seemed she had never met a stranger. She was a perfect fit for the job of a diner waitress.
“That’s my countdown clock,” I told her as I lifted my full cup. The coffee was hot again, and it was awesome.
“Countdown to what?”
“Retirement,” I said. “Just keeping count of the weeks I have left.”
“How many ya got left?”
I tried doing the math in my head, but I was never good at math, so I just made something up. “Twenty,” I said. “Twenty more weeks and I’m done.” It was a lie, but the number didn’t matter, anyhow. She was never going to see me again.
She shook her head, partly due to jealousy and partly due to surprise.
“I sure wish I was that close. I never would have thought you were old enough to retire,” she said as she walked away to fill another cup on the other side of the diner.
Three minutes later she brought my pancakes, and I dug in. I had to get finished with my Sunday ritual before moving on, and the final stage of that ritual involved getting rid of the body stuffed in the trunk of my rental car.
It was a teenage girl this time, probably about seventeen or so. Dark hair, about five-four and thin. Her piece-of-crap car had given up the ghost on an unlit two-lane last night, and I happened to drive past while she stood under her raised hood. She wore a uniform like they wear at fast-food restaurants. I couldn’t tell what color it was because it was very dark, and the only light came from my taillights. Her cell phone had no service out in the boondocks, she had told me, and asked if I could give her a lift home.
It’s easy to trust a gray-haired older man who looks like someone’s uncle, especially when you’re desperate, and she was desperate. The road was totally deserted, and there were no lights showing across the flat Midwestern landscape. I had asked her if she wanted to try my cell phone, and while she was figuring out how to dial it, I stepped behind her, grabbed her chin with my left hand and the back of her head with my right, and gave her skull a violent twist.
She crumpled to the ground as if her bones had instantly turned to sawdust. No scream of fear or pain, no flailing of her arms, just instant death. Also, no blood, which is the way I prefer it. It’s too messy, and it’s a guaranteed way of getting caught. Cops today are so sophisticated they can track down a killer by using a single drop of blood.
The girl was light, maybe a shade over a hundred pounds. Picking her up required only a little more effort than snapping her neck. I laid her on the plastic tarp I had earlier spread out in the trunk, then rolled her up like a homemade cigarette. She fit into the far recess of the trunk quite easily, and a carpeted cardboard barrier propped up in front of her kept her completely hidden.
My car was now parked in the diner’s gravel lot only a few feet outside the door, and I knew that it wouldn’t be long before the smell would be strong enough to escape the trunk, especially now that the weather was starting to warm up.
I left enough money on the table to pay for my breakfast, plus a nice little tip for the waitress, then walked out and got in the car. Before I started the engine, I inhaled a large breath through my nose. No smell yet. She would be covered with dirt or thirty feet underwater within an hour, so I didn’t have anything to worry about.
I pulled away from the diner and drove the back roads for a few miles, looking for a good place to get rid of her. Some people might think I’m crazy for doing this in broad daylight, but I actually think it’s pretty smart. Doing things at night require lights, and lights can be seen from a long way off. Somebody walking through the woods at two o’clock in the morning attracts a lot of attention when they’ve got a flashlight, and vehicles driving down old dirt roads or through pastures in the middle of the night are easy to spot. Not so much during the day, though. People mill about during daylight hours and nobody really pays any attention to them. Think about it. Would you be concerned if you saw a car driving down an old country road during the day?
After about thirty minutes, I came to a bridge that crossed a lazy, muddy river. Because it was moving so slow, I figured it was deep enough to dump her. It wouldn’t matter if she floated to the surface a couple of days later, because I would be two states away by then.
I pulled to the side of the road right next to the guardrail and opened the trunk. I moved my duffel bag containing my clothes over to one side, then pulled out a small tackle box and a telescoping fishing pole and leaned it against the car’s bumper. That was going to be my alibi in case someone drove by. I was just some old man getting ready to do a little fishing.
The side of the road was rocky, with chunks of chert and limestone nearly as big as my hand. I picked up four of them and laid them off to the side in the trunk, then lowered the carpeted cardboard and moved the girl towards me. The tarp unrolled all the way, and she ended face up against the rear edge of the trunk, looking at the sky and the raised trunk lid. For the first time, I noticed her name tag pinned to her uniform. Amy. Her eyes were both half open, and so was her mouth. Strands of her hair were stuck to her lips. She probably had been quite pretty once, maybe the girlfriend of the high school quarterback, but now she was only number seventeen.
A seventeen-year-old for number seventeen. A happy little accident. I love it when that happens. At this point in my life, I’ll take any kind of little victory I can get.
I shoved the rocks into her uniform pockets, just enough to weigh her down for a few minutes. All I needed was enough time to get out of the county. I gave a look down the road in both directions and saw nothing. I didn’t hear anyone coming, either. I scanned the riverbanks for hikers or someone fishing. I was the only person around. This early on a Sunday, most people around here were getting ready to head to church, not out enjoying nature. That would happen later this afternoon.
I scooped her up in my arms and lifted her out of the trunk. She was a little heavier than last night because of the rocks in her pockets, but not by much. I turned a half-turn and dropped her over the guardrail and into the brown water.
She hit with a large splash, which surprised me considering her small size. The expanding circles where she hit the water moved downstream with the current, growing larger as they got further away. I waited for about half a minute, but her body didn’t float to the surface. The rocks had done their job.
I rolled up the tarp and shoved it into a pocket of my duffel bag, then put my tackle box and fishing pole over to one side where I always kept them. Then I drove away like an old man out for a Sunday drive.
Two hours later I turned in my rental car at the St. Louis airport Avis lot, my seventeenth one-way rental of the year. Then I walked over to the Hertz counter and paid for another one-way rental. I shoved my luggage into the trunk, and less than an hour after arriving in St. Louis, I drove out of town on my way to El Paso, Texas.
CHAPTER TWO
I probably should have been a trucker, since I enjoy long drives on the open road. There’s something about an endless stretch of highway that calms me and allows my mind to think without all the clutter that comes from being cooped up all the time. You spend your life in a box made of concrete and steel, working to pay the rent and keep the family fed, and after a few decades those concrete and steel walls begin to feel more like a prison. You breathe the same stale air that smells like machine oil, sweat, and dust every day for that many years, and that box starts to mess with your mind. It can convince you that you’re not the hero to your kids you’d hoped to be, that the pinnacle of your career is right where you are now, and that you should scale back your definition of self-worth so that it’s determined only by how well your favorite college football team does.
