‘Can you not act like a sex-crazed jerk for once?’, Alison sat back, pulling down her blouse. ‘I swear, sometimes it’s like that’s all you care about.’
‘Oh, come on’, Jake rolled his eyes. ‘We’ve been going out for what, six months now?’
‘Going out? Other boyfriends take their girls to restaurants, bowling, movies – you know, something actually fun. But you, you’re always busy, except when you want to take me here’, Alison’s monologue earned a silent grunt from him.
‘Babe, I told you, basketball season is very stressful-’
‘Please. You have time for a beer with all your buddies every weekend.’
‘Oh, for fu-’, Jake clutched on the steering wheel to the point where his knuckles turned white. ‘Okay, look, I’m sorry. How about I take you out to dinner next week, huh? I know how much you like that Italian place’, he flashed his famous pearly-white smile, the one that always did the trick to teachers, parents, and her as well. This time was no exception.
‘You know I can’t stay mad at you for long’, she smiled back and leaned in for a kiss, much to Jake’s pleasure. Before their lips could touch, she snapped back and looked around, startled.
‘What?’
‘Didn’t you hear that?’, Alison kept looking around, her body tense.
‘Hear what?’, annoyance reappeared in Jake’s tone.
‘Outside,’ she stared ahead for a moment before staring back at him. ‘Guess it was the wind or something.’
‘This is the woods, babe. Now, where were we?’, Jake pulled Alison back in and the pair locked lips for a moment before she backed up again, this time even more uneasy.
‘There it is again! I swear, I’m not making this up, something’s out there.’
‘You’re ruining the mood’, Jake whined like a child not getting his play toy.
‘Are you serious? Someone’s outside watching us!’, Alison buried her fingers in her hair in a quick motion. ‘God, this is just like that urban legend about a guy with a hook – you know, an escaped psycho kills a couple... Can we please just go?’
‘Hookman legend isn’t real, silly. It’s just a squirrel or something.’
‘You can’t know for sure!’
‘Are you seriously panicking about this?’, when Alison didn’t answer, he just grunted. ‘Fine, I’ll go check it out, need to take a leak anyway’, he got out of the car, slamming the door.
Alison sunk in the seat and shut her eyes tight. Alone, every sound seemed like a threat. She then looked at the clock, which read 9:33 pm. A ruffling in the bushes caught her ears. Must be Jake doing his business, regardless of what her intuition was saying. A dreadful sinking feeling seeping into her, whispering that something here was seriously wrong.
Restless, Alison looked at the clock again. 9:37 pm. What was taking him so long? She shivered, and couldn’t help thinking that he at least could’ve left the heating on. Was this payback for making him go check out the weird noise? Couldn’t he tell she was already scared, and now also freezing?
Something bumped up against the passenger window, making her jump. Alison turned, ready to yell at Jake for messing around, but when her eyes registered what was in front of her, a lung-exploding scream escaped her mouth instead.
Pressed up against the window there was Jake’s severed head, his last grimace of terror imprinted on it. Eyes popped out of their sockets, tongue twisted in his wide-opened mouth, severed muscles and nerve endings from the neck jiggling like miniature snakes. As she was about to puke, the hand holding the head slowly lowered and another face popped up against a window, a maniac smile plastered across it. Alison kicked the door open, knocking over the assailant, and rushed out of the car.
‘Jesus Christ, what was that for?’
‘For almost scaring me to death, you little shit!’
‘Hey, I’m older than you, sis. I just couldn’t help myself’, he laughed, earning an eye-roll from Alison.
‘Well, put it with the rest of the body, we can’t get any blood on the car’, she took a tissue out of her pocket and wiped all her fingerprints from all the surfaces inside the car, as well as the outside door handle.
‘Was this really necessary?’
‘The bastard has been cheating on me for months and lying about it. You know he said urban legends aren’t real? Well, congratulations Jake, you just became one.’