The Midnight Tour

Nodding and smiling, she said, “Okay. Sure. Tomorrow would be great. See you then.”

Leaning inside, she pulled the door shut. Still smiling, she trotted down the porch stairs and walked toward her pickup truck.

She glimpsed a few neighbors here and there. But nobody was nearby. And nobody seemed to be watching her.

On her way to the pickup truck, she took the keys out of her purse.

Instead of walking around the front of the truck, she went behind it. Along the way, she glanced over the side panel. Her beach blanket was spread out on top of something lumpy the size of a man.

None of Eric stuck out.

From the contours, though, he seemed to be curled on his side in a fetal position.

I’ll take care of you when we get home, Sandy thought.

But she kept her mouth shut, kept walking, opened the driver’s door and climbed in behind the wheel.

On the long drive home, she couldn’t force her mind away from what had happened back at Terry’s place.

She had never felt so sick and horrible before.

Never.

So wracked by guilt and shame and loss.

I didn’t just lose Terry, I lost Eric. He’s not my son anymore. Not after this.

How could he do that to Terry?

How could he do that to ME?

Oh, my God! What if I get pregnant?

It could happen.

She heard herself let out a moan of despair.

I’d rather die...,

Driving south on Pacific Coast Highway, she often had a cliff just a few feet to her right. There was sometimes a low barrier, but frequently nothing...

Just a strip of gravel, then a few feet of dirt or rocks or weeds, then an edge.

And air.

A slight jerk of her arms, and she could put an end to it all.

A long fall.

A hard landing on boulders or beach.

An end for herself and Eric and the baby that might soon begin to grow inside her.

Eric’s brother, Eric’s son.

Another monster.

Another killer.

I’ve done enough damage, she thought. The beasts have done enough damage, too.

Kill Eric, kill myself and whatever chance be has for an offspring, and that’ll be the end of it.

No more beasts.

It can all end here and now.

As she watched the side of the highway, waiting for an opening in the guard rails, she felt a trickle inside her. She wasn’t sure what it might be. Blood or semen, she supposed.

Whatever it was, it dribbled slowly downward.

Terry’s semen?

If I do get pregnant, she thought, maybe it’ll be from him.

It’d be a fifty-fifty chance.

Clenching the steering wheel, she groaned.

Just like Mom, she thought.

Her mother had gone through an entire pregnancy not knowing whether she was carrying the child of her dead lover or the child of a beast.

I probably won’t even get pregnant, Sandy told herself.

But if I do, it’ll be the same.

Way too much the same.

Too damn weird.

It would just be a coincidence, she told herself.

But it felt like much more than a coincidence. It felt almost like an inescapable destiny. As if she were trapped in a sequence of events planned out well in advance by unseen forces.

This is all meant to be, she thought.

I’m meant to do a replay of what happened to Mom.

Maybe it hadn’t gone according to plan with her, and Somebody needs to try again.

“Ridiculous,” she muttered.

What Somebody is doing is playing games with me.

“I’m not playing,” she said.

Even as she spoke the words, however, she knew that she had no choice. If her life was being manipulated by God or the Fates or some other prankster, the game was out of her control. She could do nothing to change anything.

Am I meant to fly off the next cliff? she wondered.

Who the hell knows?

“Who the hell cares?” she asked. “I’ll do what I want.”

Which is what They want.

Is it?

What do I want? she wondered.

For starters, how about staying alive long enough to find out whether I’m pregnant. And then to find out if it’s Terry’s child. For starters.

So I won’t be driving off any cliff today, she thought. So what’ll I do about Eric?

Shoot him.

The pickup bounced and lurched as Sandy drove over the bumpy dirt road. The rough ride punished her body, but she was hardly aware of the many pains. She seemed to be far away from them, watching from a distance.

She stopped at the gate.

And stared at it.

I can’t do this, she thought.

She seemed to be far away from the thought.

The woman in the driver’s seat twisted off the ignition and pulled out the key. Turning sideways, she reached into her purse. She pulled out the revolver.

I bet I’m not meant to do this, she thought.

I can’t.

Watch.

She watched.

She seemed to be two places at once.

One place was outside her body, standing maybe a few feet away, observing the behavior of this grim and battered and heart-broken woman and wondering what she might do next.

The other place was inside herself, where she was full of pain but numb and dazed and determined.