The Midnight Tour

Easy does it! Easy does it!

She let up on the clutch and the tiny car surged forward, shoving her against the seatback. The leather was cool against her bare skin.

“Wait!” Bill shouted.

She looked back and saw him running toward her.

Gaining on her.

A big, heavy man with hair that was pale and curly in the moonlight. He wore a gray sweatshirt. The sleeves were cut off at the shoulders.

“Leave me alone!” Sandy yelled, swerving onto the pavement.

“Wait up! Where ya going? I ain’t gonna hurt you!”

The engine seemed to shout in protest against going so fast in first gear.

Sandy glanced over her shoulder again.

And gasped.

Bill was almost on her.

She shoved in the clutch, jerked the stick backward hoping for second gear, and let the clutch up. The gears made a nasty grinding noise, so she shoved the pedal down again.

Though she hadn’t killed the engine, she wasn’t in gear.

She was coasting.

“No sweat,” she muttered, trying to calm herself. “Just try it again, and...”

Bill grabbed her hair.

She couldn’t turn her head, but she heard his hard breathing and his shoes smacking the pavement. “Stop the car!” he yelled. He jerked her hair. It tugged at her scalp, turning her face to the right and pulling her head backward.

“Let go of me!” she cried out.

“Stop the fucking car!”

Suddenly not caring how much it might hurt or what damage it might do to her—wanting only to get away from this man—she stomped the gas pedal to the floor. The engine roared. The car, still out of gear, only coasted.

Shit!

“Stop the car or I’ll rip your head off!”

She jerked the steering wheel.

The car cut sideways.

To the left.

Bill shouted, “Watch out!’ Then he cried, “Ah!”

Sandy heard and felt only a slight bump, but the hand abruptly let go of her hair. She twisted her head and looked back.

Bill was down, tumbling on the pavement in the beams of his own car’s headlights.

Giving up on second gear, Sandy tried third.

She let the clutch pedal up and the MG rushed forward as if given a quick, strong shove.

“All right!” she yelled.

In the rearview mirror, she saw Bill push himself to his knees. He seemed to be staring at her.

He was better lit than before.

Behind him, his car was on the move.

The woman must’ve recovered enough to drive. She was coming to pick him up.

Then they’ll come after me!

As the car bore down on Bill, he raised an arm.

Then he tried to get up off his knees.

He shouted, 'Donnnnn’t!”

At the last instant, he tried to dive out of the way. But the car chopped his legs out from under him. He flew head first over the hood and crashed through the windshield.

Blasted through the glass all the way to his waist.

On the driver’s side.

The car, still picking up speed, started to gain on Sandy.

She stepped on the gas.

How can that woman see where she’s driving?

Sandy raced around a curve and lost sight of the car.

A few seconds later, it showed in the rearview mirror.

It didn’t make the curve.

Didn’t even seem to try.

Just sped straight on and leaped off the road as if somebody’d decided on a scenic detour through the forest.

Sandy felt a chill prickle its way up her back.

She muttered, “Holy crap.”

The headbeams pushed their brightness into the trees.

Sandy steered around another bend. After that, she could see nothing behind her except the dark road and the woods.

She listened for the sound of the car smashing into a tree.

Any second, now.

Would there be an explosion? She hoped not. If the car exploded, the forest might catch on fire.

She imagined a fire spreading over the wooded hills. And surrounding her trailer. She pictured Eric asleep in his crib as fire closed in.

No sound of a crash came to her.

I’m just too far away to hear it, that’s all. There bad to be a crash by now. How the hell far can you go speeding through the woods?

She imagined the car with its front crushed against a tree trunk, flames lapping up around the edges of its hood.

She picked up speed.

She should be at Agnes’s house in a couple more minutes. But getting the woman to answer her door might take a while.

Then Sandy would need to explain things, get the keys to the pickup truck, head back with it...

Maybe to find herself in the middle of a forest fire.

She stopped the MG, killing its engine. But she started the engine easily. In first gear, she made a U- turn.

She had no trouble finding the place where Bill’s car had gone off the road and plunged into the woods. She pulled over to the side, stopped, picked up the butcher knife and climbed out.

Standing by the road, she stared into the trees.

Not much moonlight made it down through their heavy canopy of branches and leaves.

She couldn’t see Bill’s car.

She couldn’t see flames, either.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t on fire.

Sandy put her back to the road and ran into the woods.

She knew it probably wasn’t a good idea to run. Though she’d never put on the MG’s headlights and her eyes were pretty well adjusted to the darkness, she could see almost nothing in front of her—just a few speckles and patches of moonlight, almost like bits of snow scattered here and there.

Running through the dark, she might trip and fall.

She had a knife in her hand. If she fell on that...

In her mind, she heard her mother warn, “Be careful, you’ll fall and put your eye out.”

Mom.