The lingering taste of salt

Episode written by: Lance Burson

The briny, fresh smell of a Florida Gulf Coast beach bringing on memories of being a little girl vacationing with her parents distracted Millicent as she walked into the hotel room.

She gagged then murmured “I can taste the E. coli, I’ll do this quick and get the hell out of here.”

She looked across the foyer, remembered her instructions, then walked into the far bedroom. A man and woman slept far apart in the bed. Millicent removed two syringes, bit the caps off of each and spit them into her handbag, dangling over her left shoulder.

“Time to use my African souvenirs.” She leaned over the woman and stuck the syringe into the carotid artery of her neck then plunged kuwari into her bloodstream.

The woman’s light gasp would be her final sound as the poison would take effect. The man never woke, meeting the same fate a few seconds later. Millicent sat on the edge of the bed and waited four minutes to make sure the arrow poisons did their jobs.

Millicent watched the pair’s bodies slump into the bed and they died. She texted “Seagulls have flown, time for sunshine.” The coded message would give her the money she needed to make her next move.

As she walked out of the room, she looked into the second bedroom. A small girl slept. Millicent gagged again, this time with more force. Her stomach turned and she thought about heading to the bathroom. She looked in the mirror that hung near the foyer, noticed creeping lines around her eyes and whispered, “another girl will have bad memories of the beach”.

She walked out of the hotel disappearing into the dusk.