Agitate the Gravel (Chapter 5) Getting Rid of It

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FIVE

Mugman kept ranting about how I came up with a terrible lie, I finally dropped the body on the floor to stop any more fluids coming onto my hand.

“What’s wrong with you? Why’d you drop the body?” He asked with annoyance in his voice.

I shook my hand, trying to get the liquid off it as best as I could. “The bag was leaking.”

He let out an exasperated sigh. “Guess means it’s going to be soaking in my trunk. That’s just great.” He said sarcastically. He walked over to the back of his car and motioned for me.

“Come here so we can put it in.”

Mugman opened the trunk and I dropped her in. The idea seemed fine until we saw: she didn’t fit.

“Your wife is rather fat.”

I glared. “I don’t think luggage trunks were invented to hold dead bodies.”

“Hm, what’re we going to do here…” Mugman put his hand up to his mouth, contemplating. “How’s about we take off the bag? That’s got to be taking up some space right?”I took a sharp inhale. “Alright, I guess that’s good.” I didn’t want to have to see her rotting corpse another time.

He grabbed the bag and started pulling it off revealing Barbara’s face again. I turned away trying and put my hand over my mouth, trying not to vomit again.

Mugman rolled his eyes at me. “Keep it down, don’t be so dramatic.” He finally took the bag off and asked, “Okay, what do we do with this now? We can’t just leave it here, it’s physical evidence.”

I slammed the trunk closed to avoid seeing her any longer.

“Put it in the backseat of your car? The most obvious thing to do.”

“This smells disgusting,” He said pointing at the bag, “I am not going to do that.”

“What do you propose we do then?”

He gave a defeated look and murmured “Fine.”

We went into the car, me being on the enger’s side and Mugman in the driver’s side. He placed the bag on the floor of the backseat. He made a sound of disgust and turned on the car. We sat there for a bit, and turned behind to look at the bag in the backseat.

We were both disgusted at the soaked bag.

I looked at Mugman. “Just hurry up with wherever we’re going so we don’t have to be in this car any longer than needed.”

It was silent for a little while in the car. The only noise that we heard was of the car’s tires rolling on the road with a light humming from the engine.

“Throw it out the window.” Mugman ordered, breaking the silence, still paying attention to the road.

“What?”

“The ring. You keep twiddling with it; it’s a mental distraction for you.”

“I’m not-”

I looked at my hands and saw I was messing with it. I must’ve been doing it subconsciously, because I hadn’t realized until he pointed it out. I was unsure on what that was going to do though. “Throwing the ring out the window? I doubt that’s going to do anything.”

“Trust me, you're going to feel better right after you toss it.” He responded confidently.

I was hesitant but I rolled down my window. Wind was blowing into my face, making me squint. “Are you sure about this? What if I throw it and I feel the same? You’re going 75!”

“Yes I’m confident you’re going to feel better. That’s why I’m going 75; because I know that we won’t have to look back.”

I pulled off my ring and looked at it for a little bit. Then I leaned out the window and threw it as hard as I could. I immediately regretted throwing it.

“How do you feel?” Mugman asked eagerly.

What happened? Why did I not feel relieved like how Mugman said I should’ve? I looked behind the road and right there and then I wanted to jump out of the car to get it. It didn’t help. It made me feel worse. Why did it make me feel worse?! But I just responded with “Fine, I guess, I don't know.” I went back inside the car and rolled up the window.

He patted me on the back with his right hand and the other on the steering wheel. “See, what did I tell you! I was right!”

He was wrong. He was so wrong.

“My finger feels uh, naked.” I said with a small uncomfortable laugh, trying to hide how I actually felt about throwing out the ring.

"Now we need to burn the body," Mugman said, changing the conversation.

-

OKAY SO LIKE THE FLUCTUATION IN THESE DRAWINGS-

my art style is all over the place, which i'm not 100% sure why tbh?? so i'm sorry about that  :grimacing:

it might have to do with the fact that this took around a month to make because of my stupid motivation going on and off with literally everything i draw now

and i don't know why i had such a hard time with the hands, guys i'm losing any of the artistic 'skills' i had noo like i can't even draw a bag :((

the formatting of this chapter is different. i was planning, in the beginning, to make a frame/drawing for each piece of dialogue and it sounds good on paper but it would take me like 5 million years if i did it that way so i have to end up going for a more book-like thing going on.

anyway, stay tuned for chapter 6!