Guilty?

GUILTY?

Marty knew he was an evil person. Hell, he was practically born evil.

But it wasn’t really his fault. His parents were a major contributing factor, and to say he came from a dysfunctional family would be an understatement. His father, Martin Thomas O’Brien, Sr., spent his life robbing banks, kidnapping and raping women, and then murdering them in his basement after he grew tired of them. He was also a known child molester, and after finally being caught by the authorities in his early forties, he ultimately died on a gurney in Huntsville, Texas after being given the death penalty for his crimes.

His mother, Terry Lynn, was a bisexual prostitute who helped her husband enjoy his crimes down in the basement as the two of them ingested heroin and cocaine into their arms. She was given a life sentence, and Marty Jr. ended up spending thirteen years in foster home after foster home until he turned eighteen.

That was when Marty began his own life of crime. He followed closely in his father’s footsteps, but he wanted to surpass his crimes. He started slow, robbing a few convenience stores when he ran low on money from his job as a high school janitor.

But he soon realized that neither of those ‘trades’ were going to make ends meet, and besides, he wanted more excitement in his life.

At the age of twenty-five Marty become a long haul trucker for a major retail outlet, crisscrossing the country and picking up female (and sometimes male) hitchhikers at truck stops whenever he had an ‘urge’. But instead of simply raping and murdering his victims, he would spend days torturing them with razor blades, pliers, and various other tools. Their mutilated bodies, many of them dismembered, were found in green Hefty garbage bags strewn along the interstates, always with a note saying, ‘Oops. I did it again.’

It was a good life; he considered himself a free spirit. His job allowed him to see America, and after two years behind the wheel Marty decided that he would try to leave a 'note' in each of the forty-eight contiguous states. And after nine years he managed to reach that goal near a little town called Amery in northwestern Wisconsin.

Marty had no idea how many people he’d killed during his twelve years of trucking, but he knew there was fifty plus, because he left more than one Hefty bag in a few states. Occasionally he would buy a major newspaper and read that the police had found another one, and that they still had no idea who this serial killer they had dubbed ‘The Interstate Monster’ was.

He always smiled when he read these articles. It really was a good life.

It wasn’t long after reading one of these articles that Marty had just gotten back on the freeway when a little Honda Accord cut him off, causing his truck to swerve and resulting in a five vehicle pile-up.

There had been one fatality.

And now Marty was standing here in front a twelve man jury of his peers, nervously awaiting a verdict.

The judge asked the foreman of the jury if they’d reached a decision.

“We have, your honor,” the foreman replied.

“Then please read it.”

“We the jury, find Martin Thomas O’Brien, Jr., guilty of thirty-nine counts of first degree murder, with special allegations of kidnapping, rape, and torture.”

Marty couldn’t believe his ears. He looked at the judge, who sat behind his oversized bench with an oversized grin on his face.

“Congratulations, Mr. O’Brien!” Judge Lucifer said. “We weren’t sure if it was you that committed these heinous crimes against humanity, but now we know.”

An oversized grin was now spreading on Marty’s own face.

“It is by the order of this court,” Lucifer continued, “that you are hereby free to return to the living and carry on with your loathsome crimes against any innocent souls you may encounter.”

The gavel came down.

“Court dismissed.”