After Midnight

25
ON THE WAY OUT

Dumb, I know.
Just call me Miss Sentimental. I knew better than to walk off and leave her alive, but that’s exactly what I did. My heart got in the way of my brain.
I’d gotten to like her. That was the problem. It isn’t easy to kill someone you like. Let that be a warning to you.
Of course, as I wrote early on, it’s better not to kill anyone at all. Hell, look what happened to me all because I got carried away and whacked Tony with my saber. An accident, and look at all the shit that’s already flown because of it. And we’ve still got plenty of book to go, so you don’t even know the half of it yet.
You give some poor jerk a chop in the head and you’re in for a world of troubles. So try not to do it.
Anyway, I left Judy behind, hanging by the rope and pretty beaten up—but alive—and hurried out of the clearing.
After so much time with the firelight, the woods seemed blacker than a pit. I walked slowly, feeling my way with both hands, trying not to crash into anything or fall down again. Before long, I’d lost all sense of direction and didn’t know where I was.
Somewhere in Miller’s Woods, that’s all I knew for sure.
But I still had high hopes of finding my way home before dawn.
As I trudged through the woods, my night vision returned. No longer completely blind, I could make out the shapes in the darkness.
I kept thinking about how stupid I’d been about Judy. If only I’d finished her off, I would now be completely in the clear. The cops would never in a million years connect me with anything.
Now, I was in Judy’s hands.
She probably would finger me. Why not?
Because I’d saved her from the clutches of Milo?
I’d also spared her from myself.
I mean, I’d hurt her, but I hadn’t killed her. So, really, I’d saved her life twice.
She owed me, and she knew it, but she would probably spill everything to the cops anyway. As you may have noticed, she’s a goody-two-shoes. A regular Girl Scout. A gal like her might be grateful to me and she might lie sometimes—for instance, if she’s trying to pull a trick on someone planning to kill her—but she’ll have this compulsion to be truthful to the cops.
She’ll rat me out.
Which wasn’t exactly a sudden revelation. I’d known it all along. Sort of. Even while she’d been telling me about her big plan to leave me out of the picture, I’d never quite believed she would carry out her end of it.
Maybe she’d thought she would.
Or maybe the whole business had been a lie to save her ass.
Well, something had saved her ass. I’m not sure what. Maybe a combination of things.
Such as a ton of luck. Plus the facts that she was beautiful and friendly and all that. And I knew it was only by a mistake of mine that she got dragged into this whole mess in the first place. Then I had to feel sorry for her because she’d gotten herself raped by Milo. Then I had to feel grateful because she kicked him in the head. Then she confused me with promises about never telling on me.
Those are probably some of the things that saved her, but maybe not all of them.
Who knows why stuff happens?
Not me, that’s for sure.
I’m interested, and I like to look for answers, but the answers don’t seem to be very simple and I’ve got a feeling that there’re secret forces at work. Genes, for instance. Or Fate. Or God. Or gremlins. Or certain stuff you don’t want to admit, not even to yourself. I mean, who the hell knows? Maybe we aren’t even supposed to know the real answers.
Maybe “the truth is out there,” like they say on the TV show, but that doesn’t mean we can ever find it out.
All I knew for sure was that I didn’t kill Judy, so now my life was in her hands.
It made me feel like a patsy. A softie. A dope.
But it made me feel good, too, somehow. I liked knowing that she was still alive back there at the camp. And that she was only alive because of me.
In a few hours, she would probably be back in her apartment.
Even if she couldn’t get out of the rope, somebody would be sure to find her soon.
Maybe not.
Though I knew Miller’s Woods pretty well (at least in daylight), I wasn’t exactly sure where the campsite was located. It might’ve been in a remote part of the woods, not close to any trails. I mean, if you’re going to do what Milo’d been doing to people, you’d make sure to set up camp where a bunch of nature lovers won’t stumble into it.
He must’ve had plenty of confidence in its remoteness, or he wouldn’t have built a fire. He’d not only built the fire, but he’d left it burning—and Judy dangling—while he went to bed in his tent.
That’s confidence.
Or stupidity.
He must’ve been awfully sure, too, that he’d tied Judy so well she didn’t stand a chance of getting loose.
What if she can’t get loose and she doesn’t get found?
She could die at the end of that rope.
That’d be fine, I told myself. If she dies that way, it won’t be my fault. Milo put her there, not me. But she’ll be just as dead, so she won’t be able to tell on me.
I wondered how long it would take her to die that way.
A few days?
Hell, somebody would probably find her before that. Or she’d work her way out of the rope.
I could go back and save her.
Yeah, right. In my condition, I’d be lucky to make it home. I sure couldn’t turn back, now, and go hunting for the camp.
Maybe tomorrow. Get some rest, and go looking in daylight.
1. Why would I want to?
2. I probably couldn’t find the campsite again, even if I tried.
3. If I did find it, the cops might be there waiting for me.
Maybe I’m a sentimental fool, but I’m not crazy.
Eventually, after trekking through the woods for at least an hour, I made my way into familiar territory. I’d really hoped that I might come out in Serena and Charlie’s back yard, but it didn’t work out that way. The familiar territory was only the creek.
But I sure was glad to find it.
I worked my way out to the middle of the creek (without falling!), sat down, leaned back, and let the wonderful, chilly water rush all over me. It felt so good it hurt.
I was in awful shape. I’d never been so worn out in my life, and I still had a long hike home. At least a mile through the woods. It made me almost cry, just thinking about it.
The night was still dark, though. I still had time. So I lay in the water with just my face out, and rested for a while. Soon, the water didn’t feel so cold. It seemed cozy and almost warm.
A nice bath. Gotta have a nice, long bath when I get home.
Then I thought about how to get there. I’d made the hike between home and the picnic area many times during my three years living above Serena and Charlie’s garage. Never in the dark, though. I’d always been afraid of the woods at night.
They even frightened me a little in daylight. Though I loved the solitude and quiet, I’d always been aware that someone might be lurking nearby, watching me, stalking me. Not that I’d ever discovered anyone doing that sort of thing. But I’d felt the potential. I’d even felt the urge, myself, to sneak around and spy on other people I found in the woods.
A few times, I’d surrendered to the urge.
But that’s another story.
The deal is, I knew how to get home from the picnic area by hiking through the woods. But I wasn’t too sure about doing it at night. The trails got tricky in places. I might miss a turn-off and end up lost. There were slopes and ditches to contend with. I might take a bad fall. Or walk into a broken limb and skewer myself.
What about taking Judy’s car?
At first, the idea seemed incredibly idiotic. For one thing, somebody might see me driving it. For another, what would I do with her car afterward? Where would I leave it?
I’d be asking for trouble.
On the other hand, I had Judy’s keys in my pocket. Her car was waiting for me just up the slope from the creek and it could get me home in less than ten minutes.
Fantastic!
I’d park it in the garage, directly under my room, where it would be safely hidden. I could dispose of it later—tomorrow night, for instance.
I was awfully tempted.
It’d be so easy!
But it’d be so incriminating, too. What if I got caught with Judy’s car?
Then came a thought that changed everything.
If I leave it here, somebody might get suspicious and go looking for her.
That settled the matter.
With her car gone, no park personnel or random visitor or cop would start wondering who it belonged to. And if a friend or relative should report Judy missing tomorrow or the next day, her car wouldn’t be found in Miller’s Woods to give searchers a starting place.
I had to take it home.
Feeling fairly rested and revived and eager to get started, I stood up in the creek and waded ashore. Then I crouched in the bushes for a couple of minutes to make sure the coast was clear. I didn’t see or hear anyone. So I walked over to the picnic table, my shoes squelching with every step. At the table, I sat on the bench, took off my loafers, and dumped the water out of them.
I put one of them back on, then changed my mind.
They were Tony’s shoes. Evidence. I really didn’t need them anymore, since I planned to be driving home instead of walking. Also, disposing of them here and now would save me from having to deal with them later.
I still had one bandana, and used it to wipe the shoes clean. Then I threw them into the bushes behind the picnic table.
For a while, I thought about getting rid of the rest of Tony’s stuff. But that would mean driving home naked. I might get away with it, but the risk was too big. If I happened to drive past a cop…
Besides, everything except the belt would be easy enough to burn.
And none of it could be traced back to Tony, I was pretty sure of that.
Barefoot, dressed in nothing but the cut-offs and shirt, I walked away from the picnic table and headed for the slope below the parking area. I couldn’t see Judy’s car. It had to be up there, though.
It better be!
I trudged slowly up the slope. The dew made the grass slippery.
I remembered the big, fake tumble I’d taken on this very hillside in hopes of tricking Judy. And how the pistol had fallen out of my pocket.
Suddenly alarmed, I slapped my pockets.
No pistol!
For a moment, I thought I’d lost it again. Panic hit me. But then I remembered that I wasn’t supposed to have it. I’d gotten rid of Tony’s pistol on purpose, back at the camp.
What a relief!
But then, still in a fret, I checked the soggy pockets of my cut-offs to make sure I hadn’t lost the keys.
I felt only two sets.
Which scared me all over again until I recalled that I’d thrown Tony’s keys into the fire and I only wanted to have two sets: mine and Judy’s.
What if I tossed in the wrong keys?
With a groan, I stopped climbing the slope and pulled both key cases out of my sodden pocket and studied them. I recognized my tan leather case right away. But I wasn’t too sure about Judy’s.
Find out soon enough.
I hurried the rest of the way up the slope, trying to ignore the nasty cold feeling in my stomach. At the top, I spotted Judy’s car.
It was still the only car there.
Breathless from the climb, I walked slowly over to it.
After checking inside and underneath the car to make sure I was alone, I opened the door. The overhead light came on inside. I climbed in and shut the door.
And hoped I hadn’t thrown the wrong keys into the fire.
It wouldn’t have surprised me much, the way things had been going so far.
The first key I tried didn’t fit.
But the second did. I twisted it, and the engine started.
“All right!” I blurted.
Keeping the headlights off, I backed up and turned around. I drove out of the parking area. Enough dim light came down through the trees to let me see the pavement of the road out. I didn’t put the headlights on until I came to the main road north of the woods.