Last Meal At A Highway Sonic In Bellevue Nebraska This November In Cold Rain
by Graham Swanson
written November 2020
Cold fog flowed over the highway from the mud fields but the van driver knew police trucks followed him. He kept an untriggered bomb in a baby carriage in the back. They’d catch him soon enough, maybe before he even gets to his destination. The cops already arrested the movement’s leader, and now they searched for those on the forum with him. They all talked about blowing up the capitol building.
Covert trucks and suvs talked on radios and the van driver’s scanner picked up the whispers into their shoulders. They followed him out of Omaha and pressure built up in his rolls of fat with each passing car on the speed lane. He saw no cops on the highway, but the scanner sounded like a party. He left his apartment unlocked, his computer on, and everyone he talked to expected to see fireworks for the movement. He gasped in defeat, but then a shimmering light in the fog saved him.
All the driving made him hungry. His wrists so fattened that they swallowed his hands, and his fingers like short stubs in a potato. Every doctor told him to eat better and quit smoking. Butts spilled from his ashtray, and got lost in the stomped carpet of fast food bags. The van down at the press of a pedal, and the SONIC sign beacon lured him from the dangerous high speeds of the highway to the safety and warmth of those red and white colors of the logo and the smell of salt and oil, but the feeling of hot grease burning his fingertips remained in his starved memory. He counted a few dollars, and looked behind him to make sure the FBI saw him. To his surprise they didn’t close in on him while he hesitated in his van, therefore not even a shred of doubt entered his mind.
The van driver pulled a shotgun from under his seat. He left the heater run in his van with the drivers side door wide open. The weapon leaned against his shoulder and the scanner swayed in his pocket. Voices echoed in the sand and fog of static about a trash can with a bomb in. He had time while they scurried away.
Echoes fluttered. The sounds of the highway traffic, the burning furnace of the Sonic, the patter of shoes on wet pavement, the windy rain beating the van driver’s neck, he pulled the gun from his shoulder and crossed his heart with it. He kicked the door open and stopped in the middle of a line of masked people coughing and sneezing into the fabric over their mouths. So many good days spent driving past this place, without ever stopping here. Maybe in some world he used to work here, or perhaps he spent someone else's money on 100$ worth of hamburgers and corndogs. Of all the people inside, he saw old grumpy clerks from Omaha in their suits and ties, weary travelers resting, people talking on phones. It was the Sonic workers who he decided deserved to die.
The van driver took one glimpse behind his back. He assumed the wires malfunctioned and instead of exploding and taking them all to hell to be with the movements leader once again the bomb just lit his van on fire. People sipping coffee and using the wifi to send job apps on Indeed sat by the wall sized windows noticed first. Then others chimed in "Hey, call the fire department". Right in front of the van driver sat four fast food employees on break. Each one young enough to perhaps enter a bar to buy a beer at the most, otherwise will in high school. They sat together eating, drinking MONSTER energy drinks, and laughing over each others phone screens. They looked pale, polite, vapid and thin if a little out of shape, but washed up, colored stylish hair, smart kids talking bout their classes in school, or articles concerning the state of pandemic lockdowns, and the election sealing the fate of movement’s political ambitions. Yes, yes, the van driver though this, "these are the enemies of the righteous. I am the last of a noble line of conquerors, a family of tribute denied to him by the fake news the sheep consume and vomit back up. Yes, yes." The more he thought of it, the clearer it became who around here deserved to die.
Some say a man who carries out such a mission must be insane. Completely false. The van driver never felt more at peace, more in tuned with nature and the universe. He accepted his destiny, but some cowardice prevented him from facing his adversaries. He just needed to know that his leader watched him, and that he loved the leader no matter what. In that moment before he blew the arm off one of the young girls in their sonic uniforms, he knew exactly just how competently and cleanly he delivered the burst of shrapnel fire, and no crazy person can do that.
The van driver coked his shot gun. A shell simmered on the floor by his crocs. Everyone stayed stifled in silence, like a herd of cattle, powerless behind a fence, the danger of their phone screens suddenly up close, so close that they smelled him on their tongues. The second shot blew a young man's head over the table and into the eyes and ears of his friends. The third shot hit the middle of the table, but pieces of table pierced their necks and cheeks as pieces of metal b.bs bounced around on the laps of the people waiting in line. The fourth shot came as the van driver stood directly over top of a young girl. He killed her off with a wild grin spreading his neck apart. The fifth shot came as the last one crawled through a gushing pool of shimmering blood. The van driver shot her in the spine and her final breaths bubbled in the crimson on the tile. By this time the police lights shined in the parking lot, and the FBI pulled armor and assault rifles out of the back of jeeps. They waited for him to come out.
The van driver felt sleepy. He looked around with the gun at his hip. It looked to him
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