Full Dark, No Stars

It looked haunted in the moonlight. Tess slowed as she approached it, and then she was flooded with a white glare that dazzled her eyes and lit the lawn and the driveway. It was a motion-activated pole light, and if Strehlke came back while it was on, he would be able to see its glow at the foot of his driveway. Maybe even while he was stil approaching on Township Road.

She jammed on the brakes, feeling as she had when, as a teenager, she’d dreamed of finding herself in school with no clothes on. She heard a woman groaning. She supposed it was her, but it didn’t

sound or feel like her.

“This isn’t good, Tess.”

“Shut up, Tom.”

“He could come back any minute, and you don’t know how long the timer on that thing is. You had trouble with the mother. He’s much bigger than her.”

“I said shut up!”

She tried to think, but that blaring light made it hard. Shadows from the parked cab-over and the long-box to her left seemed to reach for her with sharp black fingers—boogeyman fingers. Goddam

pole light! Of course a man like him would have a pole light! She ought to go right now, just turn around on his lawn and drive back down to the road as fast as she could, but she would meet him if she did.

She knew it. And with the element of surprise gone, she would die.

Think, Tessa Jean, think!

And oh God, just to make things a little worse, a dog started barking. There was a dog in the house. She imagined a pit bul with a headful of jutting teeth.

“If you’re going to stay, you need to get out of sight,” Tom said… and no, that didn’t sound like her voice. Or not exactly like her voice. Perhaps it was the one that belonged to her deepest self, the survivor. And the kil er—her, too. How many unsuspected selves could a person have, hiding deep inside? She was beginning to think the number might be infinite.

She glanced into her rearview mirror, chewing at her stil -swol en lower lip. No approaching headlights yet. But would she even be able to tel , given the combined bril iance of the moon and that

Christing pole light?

“It’s on a timer,” Tom said, “but I’d do something before it goes out, Tess. If you move the car after it does, you’l only trip it again.”

She threw the Expedition into four-wheel, started to swing around the cab-over, then stopped. There was high grass on that side. In the pitiless glare of the pole light, he couldn’t help but see the tracks she would leave. Even if the Christing light went out, it would come back on again when he drove up and then he would see them.

Inside, the dog continued to weigh in: Yark! Yark! YarkYarkYark!

“Drive across the lawn and put it behind the long-box,” Tom said.

“The tracks, though! The tracks!”

“You have to hide it somewhere,” Tom returned. He spoke apologetical y but firmly. “At least the grass is mown on that side. Most people are pretty unobservant, you know. Doreen Marquis says that

al the time.”

“Strehlke’s not a Knitting Society lady, he’s a fucking lunatic.”

But because there was real y no choice—not now that she was up here—Tess drove onto the lawn and toward the parked silver long-box through a glare that seemed as bright as a summer noonday.

She did it with her bottom slightly raised off the seat, as if by doing that she could somehow magical y render the tracks of the Expedition’s passage less visible.

“Even if the motion light is stil on when he comes back, he may not be suspicious,” Tom said. “I’l bet deer trip it al the time. He might even have a light like that to scare them out of his vegetable garden.”

This made sense (and it sounded like her special Tom-voice again), but it did not comfort her much.

Yark! Yark! YarkYark! Whatever it was, it sounded like it was shitting nickels in there.

The ground behind the silver box was bumpy and bald—other freight-boxes had no doubt been parked on it from time to time—but solid enough. She drove the Expedition as deep into the long-box’s

shadow as she could, then kil ed the engine. She was sweating heavily, producing a rank aroma no deodorant would be able to defeat.

She got out, and the motion light went out when she slammed the door. For one superstitious moment Tess thought she had done it herself, then realized the scary fucking thing had just timed out. She

leaned over the warm hood of the Expedition, pul ing in deep breaths and letting them out like a runner in the last quarter-mile of a marathon. It might come in handy to know how long it had been on, but that was a question she couldn’t answer. She’d been too scared. It had seemed like hours.

When she had herself under control again, she took inventory, forcing herself to move slowly and methodical y. Pistol and oven glove. Both present and accounted for. She didn’t think the oven glove