Flickering across the sand was the faint outline of a purple forest.
My heart leaped in my chest. I was cold all over, and I could not seem to catch my breath. Terrified, I ran back toward the house. I reached it, bolted up the steps.
Jane shrieked my name.
I had never heard her scream that way before, had never heard the sound of pure abject terror in her voice, but I heard it now and it caused my insides to squeeze painfully in a viselike cramp of fear. I doubled over, barely able to move for the pain, but I forced myself to keep running.
I dashed down the hall into the bedroom.
And there was the murderer.
He was on our bed. He had ripped off all of Jane’s clothes and was straddling her, holding a knife to her neck. He had survived somehow. He was alive and had come back and had tracked us down.
He saw me out of the corner of his eye, and he turned to face me.
His zipper was down, his penis out.
He had an erection.
“Oh, here you are.” He grinned. “I was wondering when you’d show up. I wanted you to watch your wife blow me.” He reached next to him, picked up her torn panties, held them delicately to his nose, sniffing loudly. “Mmmmmm,” he said. “Nice and fresh.”
I took an angry step forward, and he pressed the knife against her skin, drawing blood. She screamed in pain.
“Don’t try anything,” he said. “Or I’ll slit her fucking throat.”
I stood in the doorway, paralyzed, not knowing what to do. In some hopeful, overly imaginative part of my brain, I thought that maybe Philipe had faded into that other world by now and that he would pop out of nowhere and save us and drag this guy back where he had come from.
But that didn’t happen.
The murderer leaned forward. His erect penis pressed against Jane’s closed lips. “Open your fucking mouth,” he ordered. “Or I’m going to cut that baby out of your stomach.”
She opened her mouth.
And he pushed his penis in.
Instinct took over. If I had thought about it, I would not have done what I did. I would have been afraid for the life of both Jane and our unborn child, and I would have done nothing. But I did not think. I saw his erection slide into Jane’s mouth, and I reacted instantly, crazily. I lunged forward, leaped, and landed against his back, my hands on his head. He probably would have shoved the knife into Jane’s throat, but at that second she bit down, hard, and he screamed in agony, temporarily losing control. I yanked back on his head, pulling him off Jane, and grabbed for the knife. It sliced through my palm, and I can’t say that I didn’t feel the pain, but I did not stop, and I twisted his neck as far as I could to the right until I heard it crack. His screams were silenced and he went limp, but he was still holding on to the knife, and Jane pulled it out of his hand and shoved it through his crotch. A wash of blood poured over her distended stomach, cascading onto the sheets.
She pulled it out and shoved it through his chest.
I rolled over, still twisting his neck, and both of us fell off the bed onto the floor.
I jumped to my feet, waiting for him to get up again, but this time he was dead.
Really dead.
I looked around, saw no orange grass, no purple trees, nothing from that other place.
Jane was still holding the knife, and she was shaking like a leaf, sobbing uncontrollably, looking down in horror at the blood that covered her body. She kept spitting, and a line of saliva dribbled from her lower lip.
I could feel the knife cut on my palm now, and my own blood was pouring around the side of my hand and dripping onto the floor, but I ignored the pain and walked over to her, gently removing the knife from her hand and lifting her to her feet, taking her into another bedroom.
“Are they sending people after us?” Jane cried. “Are they after us because I wouldn’t let them take you?”
“No,” I said, stroking her hair and helping her down onto the bed. “That’s it. It’s over. It was just that one guy. And he was after me. Not you.”
“Maybe they’ll send more of them.”
“No,” I said. “That’s it.”
I didn’t know how I knew that that was true, but I did. One of Philipe’s “hunches,” maybe.
“It’s all over,” I said.
And for once I was right.
It was.
Eighteen
I buried the body that afternoon.
I chopped it into pieces first.
The next day, we packed up what we owned and moved up to Mendocino.
Nineteen
Four months later, Jane gave birth to a nine-pound boy.
We named him Philipe.
Twenty
I think, sometimes, that I have been lucky. That I am fortunate to be Ignored. I may be average in my makeup, but I have not been average in my experiences. I have seen things normal men have never seen. I have done things normal men have never done. I have lived a good life.
It is a wonderful world in which we live. I have come to realize that. A world that is truly filled with miracles. And though my nature may preclude me from fully appreciating those miracles, at least I know that they exist.
And I try to teach that to my son.
I cannot be forgiven for the evil I have done in my life. For I have been evil. I believe that now. I know that now. Murder is an inherently evil act, no matter what the circumstances, no matter how convincing the rationalizations. Murder is evil no matter who does it or for what reason.
If there is a God, only He or She will be able to forgive me for what I have done.
The one thing I can say for myself is that I have learned from my mistakes. All that I have experienced and gone through has not been for nothing. The person I am now is not the person I once was.
So maybe there was a point to all of my journeys and side trips, to the meandering series of disconnected events that has been my life.
I still wonder what we are. Descendants of aliens? Genetic mutations? Government experiments? I wonder, but I am not obsessed by the question the way I once was. It is not the focus of my existence.
My son is.
Philipe is.
I don’t know if I believe in God or the devil or heaven or hell, but I can’t help thinking that there is a reason why we are the way we are. I do believe that we were put on this earth for a purpose. I don’t think that purpose is merely to exist. I don’t think that purpose is to be noticed like everyone else. I don’t think that purpose is test-
