Earl Manson Ray pulled into the dusty grocery store parking lot and switched off the engine. It had been a long drive across the desert, and he was feeling in need of a cold soda. Besides, it'd been almost two hours since he'd killed anyone. He pulled his sawed-off shotgun out from under the front seat.
The store was unnaturally quiet.
"Hello? Anyone here?"
Earl noticed a man's leg sticking out from behind the counter. It was attached to a corpse. There was a dead woman next to the dead man. The woman was clutching a business card in her cold fingers.
A sound made him spin around, shotgun raised. A pretty teenage girl wearing denim cutoffs and a tight t-shirt stood in the aisle.
"Good God, you've killed my parents," she said, twirling a blond strand of hair around her finger. "My name's Fawn. Will you be my new boyfriend?"
"I didn't kill them," said Earl.
"Oh," she said, disappointed.
"But I am planning to mutilate the bodies," Earl continued.
"Cool," Fawn giggled. She bent over so Earl could get a better look at her cleavage.

Special Agent Manfred Bland stood at the edge of the parking lot. A look around the grocery store had cost him his lunch. In all his years as a Federal Agent, he'd never seen savagery such as this. Not since April, anyway.
"Any ideas?" asked Sheriff Granger.
Agent Bland turned around, wiping his chin. "One. Whoever did this had a lousy childhood."
Sheriff Granger shook his head. "Killing them, I can understand. Chopping up the bodies, I can understand. But the bit with the pasta salad..."
Agent Bland vomited again.
The Sheriff gazed at the mountains on the horizon.
Agent Bland straightened up. "The only way I'm going to catch this psycho," he said grimly, "is to get inside his head."
"How do you propose to do that?"
"I absorb the vibrations of the crime scene, try to scope out the killer's emotions as he committed the murders."
Sheriff Granger was silent, thinking. "I'd like to see your badge again," he said finally.

Lee switched off the radio angrily. His knuckles were white on the wheel. According to the news report, that rat bastard Earl Manson Ray had not only claimed credit for shooting the old grocer and his wife, but he'd taken a classic double murder and turned it into something gaudy and cheap. No respect for tradition.
"He ain't gonna get away with this," muttered Lee.
He stopped at a gas station, filled up, and killed the attendant. But he was too distracted to enjoy it.

Earl studied the card he had taken from the dead woman. It read: "Lee Starkweather Chessman, Psychotic Killer". Not good, he thought.
Fawn skipped up to him. "Close your eyes and stick out your tongue," she said. She popped a sugarcube into his mouth. "Just let it sit there until it dissolves. Then you'll have a mystic vision of your destiny."
Earl watched Fawn as she danced around the campfire. Soon he began feeling strange.
"How are you doing?" asked Fawn. She slipped her t-shirt over her head and continued dancing, her full sweaty breasts bouncing and glistening in the firelight.
"I think I'm okay," said Earl. He watched Fawn dance some more. He felt a stirring in his trousers.
Suddenly, his mind filled with visions. He saw a long train entering a tunnel. He saw a mighty rocket blast off into the sky. He saw pistons churning up and down, up and down, up and down. Then he saw a burst of fireworks splashing across the night.
Gradually he was able to focus his eyes. Fawn was leaning over him, concerned. "Are you okay?" she asked. "Your face is screwed up like you're in pain."
"No, no, I'm fine," said Earl. "Could you find me a towel or something?"

"There were two of them," said Agent Bland as he pulled on his pants. The other officers stared at him, appalled. Agent Bland picked his shirt up off the floor. "Two separate killers. Lee Starkweather Chessman and Earl Manson Ray. And a girl." He bent down to sniff the counter noisily. "A pretty blond."
"Oh for the love of God how can you possibly know that?" sputtered Sheriff Granger.
"Vibrations. And also this blond hair," he said, pointing at the counter.
One of the Deputies drew his sidearm. "I've had about all of this I can take. Lemme shoot him now, Sheriff."
Sheriff Granger nodded, and Agent Bland fell in a hail of bullets. "Goddamn smart-alecky freak," he said. He stepped outside and put on his hat. "Let's go, boys. We got us some psychos to kill."

"The cops are right behind us and that maniac Lee Starkweather Chessman is hunting us down like animals," said Earl. "Let's stop at this deserted motel and have sex."
"Sure!" said Fawn.
Earl grabbed his shotgun and they ran into a motel room.
"Are we doomed?" asked Fawn, wriggling out of her cutoffs.
"Yep."
"God, that makes me hot!"
The door burst open. Lee Starkweather Chessman stood framed in the doorway, a gun in each hand. "Howdy, kids!" he said cheerily. "Been expectin' me?"
Fawn screamed and tried to cover herself with a bedsheet.
Lee looked away, embarrassed. "Sorry, ma'am. I didn't realize you were in the altogether."
Earl snatched his shotgun off the bed and pumped it.
The two killers stood facing each other, guns ready.
"Well, isn't this peachy?" said Earl. "Drop 'em."
"You first."
"No, you first."
There was a crash of breaking glass, and Sheriff Granger came out of the bathroom, pistol at the ready. "Well, well. What have we here?" he said. "Two homicidal maniacs armed to the teeth, and a naked blond."
Earl nodded a greeting. "Plus a Sheriff that's fixin' to have his entrails aired out."
"I think we can both agree on that last part," added Lee.
"I don't think so, boys. Y'see, my Deputies have got this place surrounded."
From outside came a staccato burst of heavy weapons fire and the screams of dying Deputies.

An explosion tore a hole the ceiling. Agent Bland dropped catlike into the room. He squeezed off two quick shots. Lee Starkweather Chessman and Earl Manson Ray lay dying in pools of their own blood.
"But how..." began Sheriff Granger.
"Bulletproof vest," said Agent Bland. His third shot caught the Sheriff right between the eyes.
A rope ladder unrolled from a helicopter hovering over the motel. Agent Bland clutched it with one hand and grabbed Fawn around the waist with the other. "C'mon, baby," he said. "I'll show you where the real action is."
She pressed her naked young flesh tight against him, and together they rose into the bright blue sky.