After Midnight

59
AND THE WINNER IS…

Underneath me, underneath Steve, Judy wept.
“It’s okay,” I told her. “It’s over.”
“Is…is he dead?”
“If he isn’t, he wishes he was.”
“Could you…get him off me? He’s…” She started crying too hard to go on.
I shoved myself off Steve’s back. On my feet behind him, I bent over and grabbed him, clutching his right ankle with my right hand. As I dragged him off Judy, his face rubbed between her breasts and down her belly. About the time his mouth got to her navel, I gave his ankle a strong jerk and stumbled backward. His face sped the rest of the way. The slight rise of her pubic mound must’ve acted like a ramp. Going over, his head jumped up as if he needed to take a last peek at her. Then he dropped off and his face struck the ground.
I kept staggering backward as fast as I could, dragging him by the foot, until our momentum ran out. Then I let go and stood above him and tried to catch my breath.
Judy rolled onto her side. She lay there sobbing quietly.
Crouching, I pulled the knife out of Steve’s butt.
Then I stood up straight. I raised my hands and studied them in the firelight. They were crossed at the wrists and tightly wrapped with the electrical extension cord.
Right away, it was obvious that I wouldn’t be able to reach the cord with the knife’s blade.
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.