The Midnight Tour

“Uh-oh,” Lib said.

Sandy came out of her thoughts and spotted the trouble.

Several blocks ahead of them, a car with bright, twin headlights was making a left-hand turn onto Front Street. Squinting, Sandy tried to see if it had a light rack on top.

She couldn’t tell.

But if it does...

“Hang on,” she said.

She hit the brakes and made a hard right. The force of the turn pushed her sideways against her door. Lib swayed toward her, but didn’t fall. In the rearview mirror, she saw the trailer swing around behind them. It stayed up.

A growl came from Eric’s basket.

“It’s okay, honey,” Sandy said loudly, trying to sound confident and calm.

She raced toward the end of the block. At the corner, she turned left. She eased over to the curb, stopped, shut off the engine and killed the lights.

“If it comes,” she said, “we’ll duck out of sight.”

They waited.

Sandy’s heart thudded and her mouth felt dry.

Lib made a quiet, throaty laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“Da pour ob us. Poor cop’d tink he popped in on a puckin’ horror moobie, huh? Couple ob dames on da road widda butchered asshole in da trailer and a baby monster in da backseat.”

“Eric isn’t a monster.”

“Tell dat to da cop.”

“I don’t think we’ll have to,” Sandy said. “Not yet, anyway.”

Reaching forward, she twisted the ignition key and started the engine.

“Tink it’s sape?” Lib asked.

“Yeah. It would’ve been here by now.”

She put on the headlight, then pulled forward, steered onto the road and picked up speed.

She wished she was back on Front Street. This might be her last time in Malcasa Point. It didn’t seem right to miss all the old, familiar places along the main road if you wouldn’t ever have a chance to see them again.

Better to be safe, though.

Anyway, who says I can’t come back?

It’d be too dangerous, she told herself. Especially after tonight.

But I could come back. If I wanted to badly enough.

Ahead of her, the road dead-ended. She turned left and returned to Front Street. Waiting at a stop sign, she looked back at the town. There were no cars on the move. She saw no one. Some of the shops were lighted, but none seemed to be open.

The lone traffic signal, a flashing red light, blinked on and off and on again.

“Whatcha waitin’ por?” Lib asked.

Sandy shrugged. “Nothing,” she said. Then she turned right and put downtown behind her.

When she drove past the Welcome Inn, she tried not to look at it. But her eyes strayed over.

At the sight of the motel, memories rushed in.

Mom...

And that dirty rotten Jud. He’d seemed like such a good guy, at first...

And Larry. Poor, funny Larry.

She felt an emptiness inside. And a hurt.

They’d all betrayed her.

Well, not Larry. But he would’ve, probably. Just never got the chance.

It had all been so exciting, right at the start. A little scary, but fun, too. Taking off with Mom, so early in the morning. The all-day drive up the coast. Then the fog and the crash and Axel Kutch coming to the rescue. Their first night at the Welcome Inn. And the next day, going on the Beast House tour for the very first time.

Those had been such great times.

Only three years ago.

But it sure felt like longer. It felt like eons. She’d still been a kid. She’d still loved her mom...

She felt a tightness in her throat.

Screw it, she thought.

“Y’okay?” Lib asked.

“It’s just...you know...I’m going to miss some stuff around here.”

“Yeah?”

“A lot of stuff.”

“Ya don’t gotta leabe. Ain’t nobody holdin’ a gun to your head.”

“I wouldn’t have to, except for that Slade. He wrecked everything.”

“Reckon he paid por it.”

Tears in her eyes, Sandy looked across at Lib. “I just wanted to be left alone, you know? That’s all I ever wanted. I had my job and my baby and Agnes and everything till those damn movie people came along. They ruined it all.”

“It’s the shits, honey.”

She took a very deep breath and exhaled slowly, letting the air puff out her cheeks and hiss through her pursed lips. When it was gone, she took a normal breath and said, “Well. I guess we’ll be fine, anyway. And maybe it’s for the best, you know? Might be kind of fun, settling down someplace new. Maybe it’ll turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to us.”

“Don’t count on it.”

Sandy glanced at Lib and laughed.

Then Lib patted her on the thigh. “Just gotta take stupp as it comes. Eben a bed ob roses got torns, and dare ain’t a garden nowhere dat don’t hab its share ob turds. You gotta watch your step, dat’s all.”

“We’ll both have to watch our steps.”

“But dat don’t mean we can’t hab pun.”

“Hab pun—will travel.”

“Puck you.”

Laughing, Sandy blurted, “Puck you!”

“And da horse ya rode in on. How’d ya like it ip I busted out yer teet?”

“My teeth?”

“Yet teet!”

“My what?”

“Yer choppers, ya little shit.”

“Then I’d be talking like you, Lib, and neither one of us’d know what was going on.”

“Dat’s real punny. Dat’s hilarious.”

Sandy grinned at her and said, “You know what?”

“What?”

“I’m already habbing pun.”

Lib gave her leg a gentle squeeze and said, “Me, too.”

With that, they seemed to run out of things to say. Lib settled down in her seat and lowered her head. Sandy turned her attention to driving.

She wasn’t exactly sure of her location.

Definitely on Pacific Coast Highway, somewhere north of town.

But not very far north.

Five or ten miles?

Though she’d traveled this section of road several times before, she couldn’t remember being on it at night.