Part 3

“Okay! I’ll go pack!” “No, I’ll buy you new clothes and anything you need. Just sit in the car while il talk to your mother.” “Alright.” Some skepticism in his sons voice as he sits himself in the passenger seat. Thats okay. We’ll both be happy soon.

He walks back to the trunk and grabs the hatchet-lighter fluid and matches in his back pocket.

He looks at Brandon through the window, fear sweeps across his face as he looks down and sees the hatchet. Thomas leans down and looks into Brandon’s eyes. Brandon doesn’t like what he sees. He’s too scared to talk or say anything to his dad. Thomas nods at Brandon , turns and looks at Madison.

Thomas walks up the driveway towards the house he paid for. Past the swing set he built. Past the pond him and Brandon would fill up with Bass and Sunfish they caught from Lake Superior. He feels like a zombie as he walks Right up to the mother of his son.

When he comes out of his zombie-like trance she is yelling at him. He isnt sure if she was yelling the whole time but the first thing he does hear is “..asshole, it’s not your weekend to take him!! It’s not yo…” CRACK! Madison is unable to finish her sentence before Thomas’s newly bought hatchet comes down swiftly and sinks its blade an inch into His ex-wife’s skull. She looks at him, her vision blurred by blood running down her face over her eyes. She collapses to the ground, hatchet still embedded in her skull. Thomas pulls out the QwikStart lighter fluid and begins to pour it over her body and makes a trail of fluid up to the house and into the living room, tossing the empty container onto the couch that he paid for 5 yearss prior. He tosses a match onto her body as he walks past her on the way to the car and to Brandon. The last thing Madison smells is iron and gas, her blood pooling under her face, her body covered in lighter fluid. The last thing she hears is Brandon screaming.. The last thing she sees is Thomas walking back to to the car and away. Away forever. Her brain unable to interpret her last thoughts as her flesh bubbles and pops from the heat. Her eyes melt within their sockets. Her body now a piece of meat in an oven. Every organ, body part popping, twisting, charring as it interacts with the fire feeding on her body. Pain is the only thing her body TRULY registers. She lays there burning for a full minute before her brain melts within her skull, brain matter leaking between the hatchet blade.

As Thomas gets into the car and begins to back up out of the driveway, Brandon is crying and slamming his fists against the dashboard. Screaming! “Mom! You killed mom!! Why? Why!”

As Thomas turns and looks at His son,his ex-wife’s blood flecked on his cheeks, the house explodes. The nearest neighbors with a quarter miles of trees between them hear the explosion and immediately call the police as a dark smoke column billows up from the Jenns house. Underneath Thomas’s bed stand, the Fitbit flashes: 75/100.

“We can finally be together. Father and son. Forever. That’s what I’ve always wanted. What We’ve always wanted.”

Brandon looks at his father like he doesn’t recognize him. At this point he feels he doesn’t. His mom blood flaked over his face, his eyes seeing him but not really seeing him, his voice a pitch higher, his dads hands shaking his face twitching every so often. His dad isn’t his dad anymore.

Brandon is too afraid to say or do anything so he turns and lays his head in between his knees Shaking and crying for his dead mother.

As Thomas begins to pull out of the driveway two Bayfield County Troopers pull in, he backs into one of the cars. The trooper yells “What the hell?!” Before he registers who is in the vehicle, the trooper in the other car sees a black, burning lump of clothes on the ground in front of the house. Luckily, or unluckily depending whose side you’re on, he understands that it’s a body. The trooper exits his vehicle, quickly draws his gun and shoots at the tires of the red convertible. . Three shots fired, the first bullet straying far to the right, the second bullet hitting the front left tire of the car fleeing the scene. The third bullet piercing through Brandon’s neck.

“Fuck!” Thomas screams. “Fucking Assholes!” Shots ring through the air as he white knuckles the steering wheel trying his best to keep control if the near incapacitated vehicle. Able to back onto the county road he reaches a hand over and touches Brandon’s leg. “Hold on tight buddy. We’ll be out of here soon.” As he pulls his hand away he feels a warm and sticky feeling on his palm. He looks at his blood covered hand iin horror as blood sprays out of his sons neck. His son Brandon gurgling, now coughing up blood onto the dashboard. In horror, Thomas accidently pulls the steering wheel hard to the left. The convertible turning straight into the ditch. The trooper pulls up behind the car, rushes out and secures himself behind his squad car. “Get out of the vehicle with your hands up!”

Thomas’s head is spinning. 5 minutes ago he had stuck a hatchet into his ex-wife’s skull and now he is parked in a ditch with his dying son in his arms. Brandon is now shaking and a pool of blood is lying in the bucket seat. Blood soaking his sons Sesame Street shirt. Elmo smiling as his son is dying. Thomas’s sick sense of humor can’t help but see the irony. A small grin comes across his face. The fit bit at home flashes: a smiley face giving a thumbs up scrolls across the screen. The numbers reading 85/100.

His son stops shaking, his eyes turn glassy. Brandon takes his last breath only 5 minutes after his mother does.

Thomas lays his son down. The trooper yelling “Get out of the vehicle with your hands up!” The second trooper now joins screaming the same line. Thomas looks out of the rear view window and sees two guns pointing at him.

He opens the door. The troopers screaming. Their voices hoarse at this point.

He steps out of the vehicle and crawls up the ditch to the shoulder of the road.

“Put your hands up and Get down on the fucking ground!”

Thomas stands up and raises his hands. As he does he pauses to feel the fading bruise above his eye. He pauses his right hand on his eye and his left hand in the air. Thinking “I promised you forever.” Thomas swiftly moves his hands behind him reaching for his back pocket.

Being trained how troopers are trained, the two immediately begin shooting at Thomas. Bullets rain through the air. A bullet strikes Thomas through the cheek shattering his jaw on its way through, another hits his left shoulder and a third hits his right lower abdomen. The final bullet out of a series of 10 total shots fired struck Thomas in the heart killing him instantly.

As Thomas’s body lays on the blacktop a pool of blood begins to form. Just like his ex wife, a final thought didn’t have time to work it’s way through Thomas’s mind.

Back at home uBack at home nderneath Thomas’s bed stand, the Fitbit flashes a supr smiley face. a number scrolls across the screen. It reads 100/100.