“ Stop it. You have to move. It’ll come back. It’s after me.” Donna had thought.
In his grief, he tried to ignore her.
“ Don’t shut me out. Talk to me.”
“ She’s dead,” Jim had thought. His grief weighed him down, like he was covered in lead.
“ And I’m sorry, but you’re alive, and I’m kind of alive, and if we don’t move out of here we won’t be.”
“ I’m not sure I want to live.”
“ Well I do, so move it!” She forced her will on him. Made him get up. Made him walk back to the car.
“ I don’t know what to do now,” he’d thought.
“ You go on with your life till we figure how to get me back.”
“ Back where?”
“ Back where I belong and out of your head.”
He started for his room.
“ No! Don’t go back up there,” she’d thought.
“ Why not?”
“ Let’s not get any other friends killed.”
“ I don’t understand?” He’d thought.
“ That thing is after me. I know it. It will do anything to keep me from getting back, kill anyone that will assist me. It killed Roma. It will kill the Lamberts if we let it. And it will kill you. It wants you most of all, because you have me.”
“ Then why didn’t it kill me back there?”
“ It has to feed on its kill before it can go after another.”
“ Oh God, Roma.”
“ Don’t go up there, get out of here.”
“ I need rest. So tired.”
“ Then get in the car. Rest a few minutes, then we go, we have to,” she’d thought.
Listening to himself tell it made him realize just how insane it sounded.
“ That’s when I saw you,” he said, finishing the story. “You know the rest.”
Glenna had been silent for the twenty miles it took him to tell the story and now he sat back, eyes ahead, still on the semi’s taillights, waiting for her to denounce him as crazy.
“ You slept with your wife’s twin sister? How could you?”
“ It wasn’t like that.”
“ Don’t you have any control?”
“ I loved her.”
“ Look out.”
He tightened his grip, brought the car back under control.
“ You almost drove us off the road,” she said.
“ I’ll be okay.”
“ I’m sorry. I’m not one to judge. I’ve never had a lover.”
“ You mean-”
“ No, I’m not a virgin. I was raped when I was sixteen. My one sexual experience.” She told him about the rape and what her father had done. “I’ve learned to live with it. I’m not afraid of sex or anything like that, I’m just waiting for Mr. Right to come along.”
“ Why tell me?”
“ You told me something that must have been hard to tell. A deep secret. I thought I’d tell you one. Fair is fair. Besides, I needed to tell someone.”
“ Why hasn’t she asked about me?”
“ Why haven’t you asked about Donna, the voice in my head?”
“ Do you want to know, or is that her asking?”
“ It’s her asking, but I’d like to know too.”
“ Because I believe you. You don’t seem crazy. There’s plenty of things out there I don’t understand-that lizard thing back there, God, Satan, war, famine, why we can’t all get along, what makes an airplane stay up. Donna in your head is just one more.”
“ Then I should send you back to your father, before that thing comes back.” He glanced over at her. She was too young to be caught up in something like this. She belonged on a quiet college campus somewhere, enjoying life as only college kids know how, not here, with him, running from who-knows-what in the middle of the night. She didn’t need this and he shouldn’t involve her.
“ I won’t go. I’m staying with you. My dad would never respect me if I walked away.”
“ But?”
“ Ask her if we can kill it.”
“ Burn it,” Donna thought.
“ She says to burn it.”
“ Then that’s what we’ll do.” Glenna crossed her arms. “You’re almost out of gas.”
“ Five miles to the next town.” He checked the gauge. “We’ll get gas there. You’ll have to do it. I can’t be seen like this.” He was having trouble keeping his eyes open. He thought about his wife and Kohler. Whoever said life was fair? His thoughts pierced his heart.
“ There it is, slow down,” she said.
He tapped the brakes, slowed the car as he took the off ramp on the right. He was sorry to lose the steadying comfort of the big truck that had been leading him through the night. He turned right at the top of the ramp and drove by an all night gas station. It was one of those places where you went inside, paid, then pumped your gas. Nobody trusted anybody anymore.
There was one car at the pumps, a brand new looking yellow Porsche Boxter, and a young teenager pumping gas into it. He saw a girl in the car. Must be bringing her back from a date. She probably had to be in by midnight. Christ, where did a boy take a girl out here? Necking somewhere, probably.
He pulled over and parked in the dark, a little past the station.
“ I’ll pull in when they leave. You’ll have to go in and pay, then pump the gas. I’ll stay in the car.” He handed her two twenties.
Jim watched while the boy finished filling the tank. That car looks like it can fly, he thought. Boy probably has rich parents. It was the kind of car every teenage kid wanted. The boy replaced the pump when he finished, got back in the Boxter, started it and Jim heard the unmistakable rumble of a car that was more at home at a hundred on the highway than thirty in the city.
He envied the kid. Then he saw the red lights in the rear view mirror. He shut the engine off.
“ Now what?” she asked.
He reached into the side pocket of Turnbull’s filthy jacket and withdrew the eye patch. Which eye, he thought, the left or the right? Have to take a chance. He slipped it on and covered the left eye.
“ Right eye,” Donna thought, and he moved the patch over.
“ Step out of the car please.” An amplified voice said from the police car.
Glenna opened her door, stepped out and was caught in the spotlight. Her long curly hair caught the light rays giving her an angelic appearance. He blinked and his heart fluttered. She was stunning. He opened his door, without taking his eyes off of her, and hesitated. He had to think of something to say. Would Eddie’s license work? Would it fool a pair of small town cops? How to explain his appearance? He was in the shit now, both figuratively and factually. He spent another five seconds drinking in her face, smiled, then slid out of the car.
He felt the spot moving from her to where he stood. In another instant the light that made her glow would rake over him and his filthy appearance and it would be all over. He had no story to explain away how he looked. He might as well just call it quits. He was too old to be running around like a TV private investigator bent on revenge. Better to give up, get a warm bed in a quiet jail, and sleep. Let the authorities handle it.
He started to raise his hands, but the Boxter squealed out of the gas station before the light played over him, rear wheels smoking like a dragster’s, the roaring engine cutting up the night. The car slid out of the driveway onto the access road, laying a hundred foot strip of black rubber on the pavement as it shot toward the Interstate and the spotlight stopped its arc.
The police car screamed into life and bolted after the hot rod. In a flash of an instant both pursuer and pursued were out of sight, swallowed up by the Interstate.
“ Let’s get out of here!” Glenna jumped back in the car.
“ We won’t get very far without gas.” He eased himself back in the car, felt the sweat on his palms as he slid his hands over the wheel. It had been a close call. If the youth in the Boxter would have waited a second longer before stomping on the gas, he would have been caught in the spot and he might have intrigued the police more than a spoiled teenager on a hot Friday night.
He started the car, pulled up to a pump. Glenna ran into the office, laid down the forty dollars, came out and pumped the gas. The Explorer ate thirty-seven dollars and seventy-six cents worth of fuel. They left without going back for the change.