After Midnight

  I could think of only one way, without help, to free my hands from the cord.

  By loosening it with my teeth.

  Both my hands were bathed with blood and filth from Steve. I brought my hands toward my mouth, anyway, but the stench made me gag.

  Forget it.

  Maybe there was a way to use the knife, after all.

  Bending over, I spread my skirt open and clamped the knife’s handle between my knees so that the blade pointed upward. Then I lowered my arms, easing my wrists down until the blade slipped between them.

  I moved my hands up and down, rubbing the cord against the blade’s edge.

  The coating of the cord—rubber or plastic, I guess—was so hard that the blade didn’t have much effect on it.

  Maybe try it with the saber.

  This’ll work. Just gonna take a while.

  I tried to apply more pressure, but my knee-grip wasn’t secure enough so the knife slipped.

  “What’re you doing?” Judy asked, her voice quiet and shaky.

  “Trying to cut this damn cord off me.”

  “Can’t you…just untie it?”

  “Not with my hands tied.”

  “I’ll do it for you.”

  “Thanks anyway,” I said, and kept rubbing. Pretty soon, my legs began to tremble from keeping such a tight hold on the knife. Also, my back started to ache.

  “Are you afraid of me?” Judy asked.

  “Give me a break.”

  “Then why won’t you let me help?”

  “I’d have to cut you loose.”

  “So…now I’m your prisoner? Again?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Just great,” she murmured. “I thought…after all this…you’ve saved my life, Alice. Twice.”

  “I know.”

  “You just…killed Steve for me.”

  “For both of us.”

  “I’m the one he was raping.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

  “Sure.”

  “And you’re afraid I’ll…jump you?”

  “You might,” I said.

  “I won’t.”

  “Sure.”

  “So what are you going to do, kill me?”

  When she said that, I pushed too hard or flinched or something. I’m not sure exactly what went wrong, but my knees let go of the knife and it fell to the ground. I blurted, “Shit!” and almost felt like crying, myself.

  “Just come here and I’ll take care of you,” Judy said.

  “Okay. Okay.” I squatted, picked up the knife, and walked over to her with the long end of the cord trailing behind me.

  “Do you know what I think?” Judy asked.

  “What?”

  “I think we should go away together.”

  “Huh?”

  “Just disappear. You and I.”

  “Yeah, right.” Crouching behind her, I slipped the knife blade under the taut line connecting her hands and feet. With one hard tug, I severed it.

  Judy said, “Ah.” She straightened her legs. “Oh, God,” she said, and stretched. “That feels so good. Thank you.”

  Her feet were still tied together. I decided to leave them that way, and started to cut through the rope binding her wrists together.

  “No funny stuff,” I said, “or I will kill you.”

  “I mean it about going away together,” she said.

  I stopped cutting. “The hell you do,” I told her.

  “These guys have a van,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “Maybe we can find it. They sure as heck don’t need it anymore. We can use it for our getaway.”

  “You don’t want to run away with me. Hey, I was pulling the same stunt with Steve. So were you, apparently. It’s not a bad ploy if you can pull it off, but…”

  “This is different.”

  “Oh, yeah? How?”

  “I hated him. I don’t hate you.”

  “You should. Everything I did to you.”

  “You were just scared, that’s all. Trying to protect yourself.”

  “By killing you.”

  “But you didn’t kill me,” she said. “And you saved me from Steve and Milo. I owe you.”

  “No, you don’t. You don’t owe me for anything. After all the awful things I did to you…”

  “Forget about that stuff, Alice.”

  “Sure.”

  “I think we’d be great together. We could take their van and hit the road.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “You know why.”

  “You tell me.”

  “Because we’re in this whole thing too deep,” Judy said.

  “You’re not. You’re just a victim.”

  “The cops won’t know that. My ex-boyfriend’s body is in the trunk of his car—in the parking lot of my apartment building. I’ll be a suspect right from the start. And one look at me, they’ll know I’ve been tangling with someone.”

  “Right. Milo and Steve. And me.”

  “That’s the point, Alice. I can’t tell the truth without telling on you. And I won’t do that. So I’ll be in deep trouble if I stick around.”

  “I guess you’re right about that,” I admitted.

  She was right. We’d gone way past the point where all might be explained by a few simple lies.

  The truth would get Judy off the hook—if the cops believed her—but it would destroy me.

  “You’d really…give up everything and go away with me?” I asked.

  “What’s to give up? I’ve got no family, no boyfriend, a crummy job. We can drive off and start all over, just you and me. Change our names, maybe dye our hair…Wouldn’t it be great?”

  “Sounds pretty good to me,” I said.

  If we went away together, I supposed I would miss my room above the garage, and Serena and Charlie and their kids. But my life hadn’t really been all that spectacular so far, anyway. I wouldn’t be giving up much, that’s for sure.

  And the idea of going off with Judy…I felt almost like a kid on the eve of a great adventure.

  Not that it’s going to happen.

  “Do you really mean it?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I mean it.”

  I went ahead and finished cutting her hands loose. “Oh, that feels so great,” she said. She rolled onto her back. Sighing, she rubbed her wrists. “Thanks. Give me a second or two, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  While she stretched and rubbed her wrists and tried to recover, I crouched by her feet and sliced through the rope between them.

  She said, “Ah,” and “Thanks.” Then she sat up and rubbed her ankles. “Feels so good.” Smiling up at me, she said, “Now, let’s take care of that cord.”

  On our knees, we faced each other.

  I still held the knife in my right hand.

  “What’re you gonna do with that?” she asked.

  “It’s just in case.”

  Leaning forward, Judy put her hands gently on both sides of my face. She gazed into my eyes.

  God, she was so beautiful.

  “What kind of friends are we going to be?” she asked. “If you feel you need a knife…?”

  “You don’t really want to go away with me,” I said.

  “Yes, I do.”

  I swallowed hard, and said, “Bull.”

  “Trust me, Alice.”

  “I’d like to trust you,” I said. “But I can’t.”

  “Yes you can. You can trust me. You can depend on me. We’ll be best friends, now and forever.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said. My eyes filled with tears.

  Judy put her hands on my shoulders. “You won’t have to be lonely anymore. Neither will I. We’ve both been so lonely…and hurt. But no more. We have each other, now.” She leaned in closer and gently kissed each of my wet eyes and then the tip of my nose.

  I let the knife fall from my hand.

  Judy sighed as if very relieved. Then she whispered,
“Thanks,” and leaned back and picked up the knife. With a strange smile on her firelit face, she said, “Now I’m the one with the weapon and you’re the one tied up.”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  I suddenly felt cold and sick inside.

  “You believed me?” Judy asked. “You really believed you could trust me?”

  “I guess,” I said, my voice shaking. Her beautiful, golden face was blurry through my tears.

  “You really thought I wanted to be your best friend? And run away with you?”

  “Yeah. No. I guess not. But…but I wanted to believe you. I wanted it so badly.”

  Then I was bawling like a kid with a crushed heart and I couldn’t stop.

  Not even when Judy tossed aside the knife and freed my hands from the electric cord.

  Not even when she pulled me against her and hugged me tightly and stroked my hair.

  Not even when she whispered, “Believe,” in my ear.

  EPILOGUE

  How do you like that?

  Judy had meant it.

  When I was finally able to settle down and stop crying, I found myself to be about the happiest I’d ever been in my whole life. Filthy, worn out and hurting all over, but…spectacular!

  So that’s pretty much where the story ends.

  I’ve got to stop it somewhere, right? This seems like a good place, since all the bad guys are dead, Judy and I are safe, and we’ve agreed to hit the road, together, for parts unknown.

  There are still a few things that ought to be told, but I’ll try to be brief.

  For starters, there at the camp when I finally finished crying, I took off my skirt and we both used it to wipe most the blood and assorted yuck off our bodies.

  Then I searched the pockets of Steve’s shorts and gathered all the keys.

  We buried Steve. Now, that was a chore!

  When he was underground, we took down the tent and made the whole campsite go away.

  We searched out the van, tossed the tent and some other odds and ends inside (including an astonishing and horrible collection of Polaroid photos that we’d found in the tent), started up the van with Steve’s keys, and drove back to Serena and Charlie’s house.

  There, we took a quick shower in the master bathroom. (How wonderful to be really clean again!) Then we helped patch each other with an assortment of bandages, pads and tape. You should’ve seen us. We ended up looking like a couple of mummies.

  We got dressed, borrowing shorts and tops and footwear from Serena.

  By that time, it was about one o’clock in the morning. We still had quite a lot of night left. So we shuttled Elroy’s car (with him in it), back to Miller’s Woods and left it in the parking area near the picnic grounds.

  Then we drove the van over to Judy’s apartment building. Scouting around, we found Tony’s car in the parking structure. The neighborhood seemed quiet. Maybe the body had been discovered and the place was staked out by cops. But we doubted it.

  If I’d had Tony’s keys, I might’ve moved his car to a new location. But I’d long ago (the previous night), thrown them into the campfire. I could’ve dug them out while Judy and I were breaking camp, but it hadn’t occurred to me. Anyway, I suppose it’s just as well. Trying to move Tony’s car might’ve set off a whole new series of problems. You know how it is: everything is connected. Wires, wires, everywhere. So his car stayed put.

  Up in Judy’s apartment, I helped her pack. We made several trips down to the van. Though we had to leave a lot of her stuff behind, we took everything that was truly important to her. Then we drove on back to Serena and Charlie’s house.

  We parked the van in the garage.

  Judy hurried upstairs with me, and helped me pack. We made a few trips down to the van. When I was satisfied that I had everything truly important—including the tapes from the answering machines, the five thousand dollars in cash from poor Murphy, and the autographed copy of his book—I locked up my room for the last time. Downstairs, I removed the license plates from my car and put them on the van. I also spent a couple of minutes in my car, signing it over to Serena.

  Then, with me carrying the saber, we went to the main house. The sun was rising. We desperately needed to sleep, but we couldn’t risk it. Before too much longer, one of the bodies was sure to be discovered.

  They were all over the town and woods, like bombs that might go off at any moment.

  So we didn’t even try to sleep. Instead, we went to work cleaning up the mess that Elroy had left behind, thanks to Steve. In the guest bathroom, we scrubbed the walls and toilet and tub and floor. Then we worked on the carpet stains.

  Which were pretty much hopeless.

  I’d known they would be.

  There was just no easy way around those stains. Lies would probably work with Serena and Charlie, but if the police should get involved…

  Anyway, I would be gone. They could make whatever they wanted of the bloodstains.

  By the time Judy and I finished our attempts to clean things up, it was about eight o’clock in the morning. Together, we made coffee and breakfast for ourselves, for each other. We had a delicious, leisurely meal.

  While Judy cleaned up the breakfast mess, I wrote a note. It went like this:

  Dear Serena and Charlie,

  Great news! An old friend dropped by—someone I hadn’t seen in years. We really hit it off. The upshot is, I’m going away with him. Whatever I’ve left behind, including my car, is yours. I’ve signed the pink slip for you. It’s in the glove compartment.

  I’m not sure when I’ll be back this way again. But thanks for everything. You’ve been great friends and landlords. I’ll miss you and the kids.

  Give my love to Debbie and Jeff.

  When I get settled, I’ll give you a call.

  Love and kisses,

  Alice

  P. S. I’m so sorry about the blood stains on your carpet. I had a minor accident with a beer bottle. Jim and I did our best to clean the stains, but you may need to replace the carpet. Maybe you can pay for it by selling my car.

  Bye,

  Me

  I propped up the note in the middle of the kitchen table.

  Just before leaving, I cleaned the saber, dried it thoroughly, and hung it up on the wall above the fireplace where it belonged.

  On our way out of town in the van, we stopped at our bank. We both had accounts at the same branch, which was not very strange when you consider the size of Chester. We went in separately, ten minutes apart, and withdrew our money. It didn’t come to much. But added to the cash from Murphy, we had enough to get by on for a while.

  Back in the van, we headed for the city limits.

  During our travels, we followed the newspaper, TV and radio accounts of what came to be known as the Miller’s Woods Massacre. It was a big story. A huge story. I mean, you’re not supposed to have that sort of slaughter in quiet, small towns like Chester.

  Here are the basics.

  Elroy’s body, found where we’d left it, triggered a major search of Miller’s Woods. Which led to the discoveries of several shallow graves. They not only dug up Milo, Steve and Marilyn, but two more female corpses that we knew nothing about.

  When they found Tony’s dismembered body in the trunk of his car, they figured he’d been done in by the same culprit who cut off Elroy’s head. This connected Tony to the Miller’s Woods Massacre, even though his body was discovered several miles away, in a parking space at Judy’s apartment building.

  Which dragged Judy into the picture.

  Judy, missing and presumed dead. The authorities seem to think that she’s buried somewhere in Miller’s Woods, but they eventually quit looking for her body.

  Murphy Scott, the manager of Tony’s apartment complex, may or may not have been murdered in connection with the Miller’s Woods Massacre. His death might’ve been an unrelated murder, or an accident. They just don’t know. Nicely ironic, if you ask me. The mystery writer’s death, in the midst of so much mayhem
, remains a mystery.

  In the course of the entire investigation, so far as I know, my name has never come up.

  As for all that has happened to Judy and I since leaving Chester, I could make another whole book out of it. But I won’t. Not for now, anyway. Maybe never.

  There are a couple of items I should mention, though.

  For one thing, I was in the doctor’s office last month and read in Entertainment Weekly that this really major actor has signed on to star in a film version of a movie called The Dark Pit, from the novel of that title by the late Murphy Scott.

  Cool, huh?

  He would’ve liked that.

  It made me awfully sad, though.

  The other thing is, Judy and I are going to be mothers. Both of us. We’re due at about the same time, early in April. Sounds corny, I know. I mean, like a soap opera or something. But you might say it’s sort of a mixed blessing.

  The father of my baby has to be Murphy. Which is wonderful, I think. Wonderful and sad, like the fact that they’re going to make a movie of his book, only better than that, and worse. Him being dead…

  But Judy’s child—well, we don’t know who the father is.

  Possibly Tony. But he’s a long shot, considering the time element. The father is almost certainly Milo or Steve.

  Not exactly the best news.

  Genes count for plenty. Do we really want to bring a kid into the world if half his genes come from a vicious rapist, a sadist, a thrill-killer, a cannibal?

  Judy and I talked about terminating the pregnancy.

  But we decided against it.

  For one thing, we wanted nothing more to do with killing.

  For another, half the baby’s genes will be from Judy, and that’s got to count for plenty.

  RAVE REVIEWS FOR RICHARD LAYMON!

  “I’ve always been a Laymon fan. He manages to raise serious gooseflesh.”

  —Bentley Little

  “Laymon is incapable of writing a disappointing book.”

  —New York Review of Science Fiction

  “Laymon always takes it to the max. No one writes like him and you’re going to have a good time with anything he writes.”

  —Dean Koontz

  “If you’ve missed Laymon, you’ve missed a treat.”