Crucible: The Accomplice

One of the big downsides to constantly moving was that I just never got a good place to sleep. Motel beds were always so rough and smelled terrible. How I had lived like this for so long, I still asked myself.

Today was like no other. I packed up my things and was heading to catch a bus into the next state. I was used to doing this after a good kill.

She was a college student, didn't look any older than twenty, honestly. It was a spur of the moment kill. She just happened to be walking home at the wrong time of night, in the wrong place.

Fortunately for me, she had credit cards on her. And she was only of those idiots that wrote her pin number down and had it inside her purse. Then again, those idiots were the reason why I could eat.

I went to a local ATM and withdrew all the money I could without it looking suspicious, then I wiped down the card and threw it out.

The money just went inside my bag. It would hold me for a few weeks so that I could at least get a state or two over before killing again.

This was my normal routine. Kill, steal, move, repeat. I was good about covering my tracks, as well. The cops could follow me, but they had no idea where I was going.

I got off the bus in the next state at about noon. I needed time to figure out where I was going from here.

I figured I'd just stay in the city for the night and look over my maps. I needed to think through every possibility the cops could go through and find something they hadn't thought of. It usually wasn't an easy thing to do.

As I was walking down the street, I suddenly heard screams.

This wasn't an unfamiliar sound to my ears, but hearing so many girls at once was just painful.

I kept walking, deciding to investigate. When I found the source of the screams, there was a line of people starting at the door, backing all the way out of a parking lot and almost into the street.

What the hell is going on? I asked myself, then walked up on someone standing near the line.

He caught my curious gaze and walked over to me.

"Hey there little lady, looking for a ticket?" He said before flashing a few tickets in front of my face. I just stared at him blankly.

"What's going on?" I asked softly. He gave me a confused look.

"You don't know? There's a show tonight! I can't remember all the names, but I know there's some big band, so I bought up some tickets. I'll sell you one, if you want" He said enthusiastically.

I never liked crowds. Or concerts for that matter, either. But it had been a while since I'd had any kind of human interaction, or even heard music live.

Plus, I could possibly find a new victim here before I left the next day.

With the pros outweighing the cons, I nodded.

A grin stretched itself across his face, "Great! That'll be twenty-five dollars."

I gave him a suspicious look. I knew that tickets didn't cost that much. He probably just bought them so he could resell them for more. But it didn't matter to me.

I absently pulled two bills from my wallet and handed them to him, and he handed me a ticket.

He tried to continue talking about something, but I just walked away and got in line.

There were girls all around me wearing different band T-shirts. They were talking animatedly about whoever it was that was playing. I just tuned them all out and waited.

Suddenly, there were screams again and the line started moving. After a minute or two, I was inside.

It was dark in here, a large standing area leading up to a stage.

I just stood near the back, waiting. After thirty minutes or so, someone went on and started playing some music. They sounded decent, I had to give them that.

They didn't have much of a response from the crowd though.

As each band went on, a few more people got into it. I guess it was leading up to the main act.

Then, after three or four bands, the lights dimmed. The same girls started screaming and lights flashed around.

Then five guys came out on the stage.

The drummer went heavy on the drums, and they went into their first song. I couldn't deny, they were pretty good.

I hadn't even noticed, but I found myself moving slowly into the crowd, getting farther ahead. I was never one that liked crowds or "moshing" but somehow I found myself pushing people around like I did this all the time.

Then the front man stopped and stood up on top of one of the amps.

"Let's see a fuckin' wall" He growled into the mic. I had no idea what this was, but I followed along with everyone separating onto both sides. Each person looked ready to just charge at the other, and then I understood what was going on.

He screamed something and the music got heavy, and then everyone ran full force at each other. I was one of those people.

For the first time in years, I was having the time of my life without killing someone. It was amazing.