The Vacation

Russel Davis is on a beautiful family vacation and by all rights, should be enjoying himself.

Instead, he's counting the days until he can get back to his true love: murder.

The warm afternoon sun filtered through the leaves of the palm trees and warmed Russel Davis. The breeze tickled his leg hair as it came off the water, and that same wind kept seabirds aloft, hugging the shoreline. Despite this apparent sensory bliss, he thought it was time to get back to work, and that three days in paradise were more than enough. Unfortunately, he was here in Hawaii with his family for another six days. And there was no way to escape.

Though they had planned the trip for months, he thought he’d be able to find a way out of it—a work emergency or a dead family member—but no such luck. As the weeks and days passed, the opportunity to cancel never arose. He had no choice but to go along with the plan.

Russell didn’t hate his wife or kids; he loved them in his own way. Paula had her charms, but after seventeen years of marriage, she had nothing new to offer to keep him happy or interested. The kids were worse. His reliable income and upper-middle-class lifestyle gave them a quality of life he never dreamed of at their age. They wanted for nothing—but still they always wanted more: more video games, more clothes, more—everything. The eldest has been dropping hints about a car for when she turns sixteen.

In Kailua, on the windward side of Oahu, he hoped to keep them occupied with watersports like kiteboarding or skimboarding. Maybe they’d stay busy with sightseeing trips to the World War II bunkers or nice meals at the many restaurants, so he wouldn’t have to interact with them more than the bare minimum.

The plan mostly worked. Paula managed the kids while he just sat on the beach or by the pool at their modest resort. He’d have to pretend to be romantic with his wife and make love to her to keep her happy. He had developed such routines and habits over the years that faking affection had become easy.

What he really missed was killing homeless people after work.

Russel worked as a mid-shift manager at a canning plant in the industrial area of San Leandro, a stone’s throw from the Oakland border. Trucks and train cars arrived with produce from California’s Central Valley. His job was to ensure the produce was unloaded and delivered to the proper processing areas. He was also responsible for assigning shifts, resolving maintenance issues, and keeping the site clean. Once the beans reached the pot, another mid-level manager took over and continued the process.

He’d been doing the same job for twelve years, and for the past eight, it had been a struggle to wake in the mornings and find the energy to make it to work. He found his saving grace by accident.

After an unusually long shift caused by a late delivery, Russel came out to find another car had backed into his, damaging his driver’s door, and the driver of the other car had not left a note. He spent a frustrating hour on the phone with his insurance company before driving home along a dark street near the Oakland airport. Road construction forced him to take a different route to Interstate 880. He was waiting at a stoplight when a homeless man crossed in front of him, pushing one cart and pulling another. He honked his horn and yelled at the man to hurry, but received only a blank stare in return.

Instead of waiting patiently for the man to clear the roadway, Russel accelerated his car directly into the man and his carts. He had built up little speed in just a few feet, but the power of the impact was enough to throw the older man to the pavement, where he hit his head with a thud that Russel heard inside through the glass.

Russel got out of his car and examined the unresponsive man. He lay motionless, not breathing. After a few moments, he fully expected another vehicle to pass, but none did. He knew exactly what he needed to do.

Russel moved the shopping carts back onto the sidewalk and returned to the man’s body. The emaciated older man’s corpse didn’t weigh much. It was easy for Russel to drag the man to the side of the road and toss him over the overpass above one of the many canals that flowed into and out of the local estuary.

Within two minutes, he was gone from the scene. His heart was pounding, he had a modest erection from the excitement, and all the stress and tension from the day were gone.

He had found the perfect outlet for all the unhappiness in his life.

The following month, he lured a panhandler around to the backside of an abandoned building and strangled him with a belt.

The month after that, he strangled a sleeping homeless person near his home, but this time with his bare hands.

Another time, near where he made his first kill, he found another homeless person and used a rock to beat him to death.

He refined his technique by buying and bringing an extra set of clothes and shoes in case there was any blood splatter. He became pretty good at this sport.

In the 33 months since he started, he had eliminated eleven people. But, as he often asked himself, were they really even people? No one would miss them, and the police didn’t work very hard to determine why a few more drifters were being found dead.

But for a few more days, he was forced to be in Hawaii with his wife and kids, away from his true love. Here, he’d have to pretend to be romantic with Paula. He’d have to play with his kids from time to time. One day, his son even convinced him to play catch with a football on the beach. Paula nudged him into playing volleyball with all three kids against another family. He laughed and smiled his way through it, but all the while, what he wanted to do was go back home and begin the hunt again. Russel placated himself by watching the people around him and planning how to kill them, but doing so seemed impractical, at best. His fun would have to wait.

“Hon, would you like another drink?” Paula yelled out from the kitchen of their rental.

“Of course, Love. That’d be great,” he hollered back. Soon.