Gabe loves his Prius. It is a 2023 model, completely redesigned with increased power and improved aesthetics. The Prius was never a good-looking car; some might say it has always been ugly. This latest iteration is a sleek, low-slung sedan with lines that flow pleasingly from its aggressively styled headlights to its fastback-style rear. Driving it like any other car yields 50 miles per gallon.

Gabe manages 58.

Every Saturday morning, Gabe drives 25 miles north, out of state, to buy groceries. He can get groceries in his hometown, but the Walmart he goes to is near a touchless car wash.

The Prius gets a weekly wash.

***

Officer McCool is anything but cool.

He is 32, still a virgin, 75 pounds overweight and struggles with pimples. Today, he is on speed watch. Why he had to be here so early escapes him. In his experience, the speeders do their speeding in the middle of the day! He directs the flow of air from the squad car’s air conditioner to blow directly in his face.

It is only 7 in the morning, but already hot and muggy. McCool just ate his usual breakfast, two steak-egg-and-cheese bagels from Mickey D’s, and half a dozen glazed doughnuts from the gas station next to the Walmart.

It is the 20-ounce coffee that always makes him overheat. Breakfast is incomplete without coffee, so he always has it. Besides, he is always clammy and hot, so he might as well enjoy what he likes.

The mobile data terminal in the cruiser beeps. McCool mops his sweaty forehead with a leftover napkin and reads the message.

***

There is something wrong with Max. Those who know him call him Mad Max. Ever since he was small, and his uncle showed him another use for his asshole, Max had multiple voices in his head. These voices always argue. About stupid shit!

With time, Max has learned to push that conversation to the background, like when you are in a crowded bar or a bank. Max likes banks. He has robbed a few over the years. The voices in his head are invaluable when planning and executing a crime. Max has never been caught for any of his bank robberies.

He has done time in prison, though. The last time was for assault and battery. The people in his head laughed about that one for a few weeks. Sure, there was assault. He beat the shit out of a couple of cowboys in a bar, but there were never any batteries involved. He tried to tell the judge that, but that only got him a few months more.

Incarceration made Max even madder. He got into trouble a few times for fighting and was eventually put in his own cell. The other inmates avoided him, and all he had was the non-stop jabbering in his head.

Max has been a free man for the last 2 years. He lives on the money he stashed from those successful bank robberies. He still has lots of money. What he misses is the excitement he feels when he is being bad. During these times, the voices also quiet down, and he can feel their attention shift as they focus on the crime he is committing, or is about to commit.

These quiet moments are bliss. Max can think, and his senses are heightened. His heart rate and breathing slow, and a pleasant feeling of contentment, happiness even, floods his being.

Today, Max feels that way.

Twenty minutes ago, he took the car he was driving from an old couple. Max grins when he recalls the satisfying crunch he heard when the old man’s nose broke against his forehead. A good head butt always puts anybody on their ass.

The old man’s wife beat Max with her handbag. He stopped that with a well-timed slap. A bitch-slap! Her head bounced off the car, some spaceship-looking thing, and she collapsed in a pile of jiggling fat and underwear.

Max took the keys from the old man’s hand and gave him a good kick in the nuts for good measure.

The key was not a key, but one of those fancy fob things that turn the car on when it’s near, kind of like Mara, the hooker he uses. Max grinned again, thinking how her ass jiggles when he fucks her in the ass.

He found the start-stop button, shifted into drive and pulled his ski mask off as he drove out of the Walmart parking lot.

***

Recalling this event makes Max laugh. He looks at himself in the rearview mirror. There is a pattern imprinted on his forehead from the ski mask.

He got that old timer good!

***

McCool reads the bulletin and realizes that he is parked next to the road on which the perp is travelling. He uses the two-way radio and calls it in.

A masked man attacked an elderly couple and stole their car. One of them died.

Now this man is currently travelling south and will pass right in front of him in a few minutes. McCool grabs the shotgun and opens the trunk of the cruiser to retrieve the road spikes. He will stop this fucker by blowing out his tires. The sugar from his breakfast doughnuts kicks in, and his heart and mind are racing.

***

Twelve minutes later, McCool sees the car. It appears to be driving the speed limit. The nerve of this perpetrator makes McCool’s blood pressure rise to dangerous levels.

He times it perfectly when he throws the spikes. All four tires are destroyed. The driver loses control of the vehicle, it leaves the roadway, crashing into a stormwater ditch before flipping on its roof.

McCool racks the shotgun, pumping a 12-gauge shell into the chamber. He is now operating on adrenaline only and manages to sprint to the car. The driver of the vehicle must have crawled out of the driver’s side window, or maybe he got ejected, because he was standing next to one of the front wheels of the car. The wheels were still spinning. The man had blood running over his face, and he was digging in his pocket.

***

‘Show me your hands! Show me your hands!’, McCool shouts, the shotgun levelled at the man’s chest. The bloodied driver does not acknowledge the command and seems to try harder to free something from his pants pocket. Before McCool could shout his command again, the man’s hand came free, clutching something big and black. ‘Gun! Gun!’, McCool shouts and squeezes the trigger. The buckshot tears through the man’s chest and neck, and he is thrown backwards into the tall grass.

McCools carefully approaches and uses the gun barrel to push the tall grass away.

It was a goddamn cellphone. One of those new fancy big black ones, stuffed into a case that makes it even bigger and blacker!

McCool looks up and sees a car slow down. The driver sees him, notices the uniform and shotgun, and his mouth forms a surprised O. He snaps his head back to the road and speeds off, as fast as the silver 2023 redesigned Prius can go.

***

McCool’s body turns cold.

The perp was travelling south. When McCool does speed duty, parked in his usual spot behind the big sign that advertises Preparation H, north is on his left, and south is to his right.

This morning, he drove past that spot because he dropped a hash brown and tried to retrieve it. He parked a quarter of a mile further south, on the other side of the road.

This put north on his right and south on his left!

‘O fuck!’, Mccool whispers to himself. He just shot an innocent man who happened to be driving the exact vehicle, but in the opposite direction!

His chest tightens, and he feels his throat constrict as his breakfast wells up.

It wasn’t his breakfast. It was his heart. It had had enough and stopped. McCool stands for a second or two before his knees buckle and he collapses face-first into the grass next to Gabe’s body.

Who knew that the popularity of the new Prius could be so lethal!