Full Dark, No Stars

It sounded good, but part of her was convinced that her days of eating tuna salad—or nasty yel ow convenience-store peanut butter crackers, for that matter—were al over. The idea of a limo pul ing

up and driving her out of this nightmare was an insane mirage.

From somewhere to her left, Tess could hear cars rushing by on I-84—the road she would have taken if she hadn’t been so pleased to be offered a shorter way home. Over there on the turnpike,

people who had never been raped or stuffed in pipes were going places. Tess thought the sound of their blithe travel was the loneliest she’d ever heard.

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The limo came. It was a Lincoln Town Car. The man behind the wheel got out and looked around. Tess observed him closely from the corner of the store. He was wearing a dark suit. He was a smal ,

bespectacled fel ow who didn’t look like a rapist… but of course not al giants were rapists and not al rapists were giants. She had to trust him, though. If she were to get home and feed Fritzy, there was no other option. So she dropped her filthy makeshift stole beside the pay phone that actual y worked and walked slowly and steadily toward the car. The light shining through the store windows seemed

blindingly bright after the shadows at the side of the building, and she knew what her face looked like.

He’ll ask what happened to me and then he’ll ask if I want to go to the hospital.

But Manuel (who might have seen worse, it wasn’t impossible) only held the door for her and said, “Welcome to Royal Limousine, ma’am.” He had a soft Hispanic accent to go with his olive skin and

dark eyes.

“Where I’m treated like royalty,” Tess said. She tried to smile. It hurt her swol en lips.

“Yes, ma’am.” Nothing else. God bless Manuel, who might have seen worse—perhaps back where he’d come from, perhaps in the back of this very car. Who knew what secrets limo drivers kept? It

was a question that might have a good book hidden in it. Not the kind she wrote, of course… only who knew what kind of books she might write after this? Or if she would write any more at al ? Tonight’s adventure might have turned that solitary joy out of her for awhile. Maybe even forever. It was impossible to tel .

She got into the back of the car, moving like an old woman with advanced osteoporosis. When she was seated and he had closed the door, she wrapped her fingers around the handle and watched

closely, wanting to make sure it was Manuel who got in behind the wheel and not the giant in the bib overal s. In Stagg Road Horror 2 it would have been the giant: one more turn of the screw before the credits. Have some irony, it’s good for your blood.

But it was Manuel who got in. Of course it was. She relaxed.

“The address I have is 19 Primrose Lane, in Stoke Vil age. Is that correct?”

For a moment she couldn’t remember; she had punched her cal ing-card number into the pay phone without a pause, but she was blanking on her own address.

Relax, she told herself. It’s over. This isn’t a horror movie, it’s your life. You’ve had a terrible experience, but it’s over. So relax.

“Yes, Manuel, that’s right.”

“Wil you want to be making any stops, or are we going right to your home?” It was the closest he came to mentioning what the lights of the Gas & Dash must have shown him when she walked to the

Town Car.

It was only luck that she was stil taking her oral contraceptive pil s—luck and perhaps optimism, she hadn’t had so much as a one-night stand for three years, unless you counted tonight—but luck had

been in short supply today, and she was grateful for this short stroke of it. She was sure Manuel could find an al -night pharmacy somewhere along the way, limo drivers seem to know al that stuff, but she didn’t think she would have been able to walk into a drugstore and ask for the morning-after pil . Her face would have made it al too obvious why she needed one. And of course there was the money

problem.

“No other stops, just take me home, please.”

Soon they were on I-84, which was busy with Friday-night traffic. Stagg Road and the deserted store were behind her. What was ahead of her was her own house, with a security system and a lock for

every door. And that was good.

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