“Blue! Watch out!”
Blue turned as a blur of greasy hair and rotten teeth lurched toward her. She yanked the door closed just as his grimy hands slammed down on the glass in front of her face.
He went for the door handle.
Hannah dove for the locks.
“Go!” Blue cried.
Hannah fumbled to get the key in the ignition. “I’m trying!”
“Fuck, Hannah, go!” Maya said.
He pounded on the window so hard the car shook.
Renee leaped forward, blasting the horn to alert the store clerk. Blue saw it draw the attention of the man’s friends instead. They turned and pointed, abandoning their stuff as they ran for the door.
“Oh my god,” she said.
Hannah was fishing around on the floor.
“What are you doing?” Blue said.
“I dropped the keys!”
The man made a lewd gesture with his tongue, rattled the door handle as Hannah scrambled for them in the darkness. “Shit.”
He pressed his face against the window, baring that nasty shattered-glass smile.
“Hurry!” Blue shouted.
“Shut up!” Hannah cried.
His friends reached the car just as Hannah found the keys, got them in the ignition. One creep pounded the hood. She slammed the car in reverse. Screeched out of the parking lot.
“Jesus,” Hannah said. “Is everyone okay?”
“We’re fine,” Maya said. “Everyone’s fine. Those slimeballs don’t get to ruin our good time.”
But Blue wasn’t fine, couldn’t shake the look in the man’s eyes. She’d never been that close to pure hatred before, the way it bored into her, black and parasitic, hunting for a new host.
They’d been on the road only a minute when Blue noticed Hannah glancing in the rearview mirror.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing.”
Blue turned. Saw two pinpoints of light stabbing the darkness, growing bigger, coming faster. She knew it was them even before the beat-up car came into view. She could feel the darkness, darker than the night around them, spilling toward them. “Oh my God.”
Hannah sped up. Much too fast for the road. Almost missing curves in the darkness.
Soon the men were beside them. Swerving threateningly into their lane. Nearly pushing them off the parkway.
The light ahead turned red.
“Run it!” Blue shouted.
“I am!” Hannah yelled as the car shook with too much speed. “Which way?!”
“Make the next left!” Maya said. “I think.”
“You think?!” Blue said. “What street?”
“Whipple or...I don’t know...Whitehall? Begins with a W...maybe... I don’t... She was talking so fast!”
“You didn’t write it down?” Renee said.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Blue said.
“Everybody, shut up!” Hannah said.
Blue frantically checked her phone for cell service.
Renee screamed as the car pushed back up behind them, riding their bumper.
“You guys...” Hannah said.
Before she’d even gotten the words out, Blue understood by the tremor in her voice that they would be bad.
“We’re running out of gas.”
* * *
Now as Blue scanned the parking lot, she felt the way she always did when she remembered that night—that dark, disorienting descent, a scuba diver in murky waters, losing her sense of which way was up. How quickly that blackness could engulf her, steal even the direction of light. She thought of her unfinished second drink inside the restaurant, missed it like a limb.
Hannah and Renee approached, grim faced.
“We looked everywhere,” Hannah said.
Blue pulled out her emergency cigarettes, shook one out of the pack and lit it. That night was so close to her now, the thin veil between past and present dissolving. Bright, useless moon, the guttural bark of a dog, Renee, help! She needed something...she needed... She inhaled slow and deep, studied the ribbon of her exhale as it curled and drifted and finally disappeared. Smoking was meditation and forgetting. A few drags were all that was necessary to suffocate the feelings.
Hannah was hugging herself, rubbing her arms like a child self-soothing. Renee looked pale, her hairline damp and curling with sweat.
“Should we call the police?” Renee said.
No one moved. Their eyes met, wide and spooked. The awful unspoken thought pulsing between them once more: Jesus, not again.
The roar of a bike broke the pall of dread, a single headlight zooming toward them.
“Please tell me that’s not her,” Blue said.
“I hope it is,” Hannah said. “It’ll mean she’s still alive.”
“Right,” Blue said steadily, “but then I’ll have to kill her.” It was all stirred up in her—everything, all of it. That night, this night, the burden of loving people.
The bike skidded to a stop in front of them with a little fishtail flourish. Maya, on the back, wearing a man’s jacket, took off her helmet and flashed a big smile. Beside her some random dude with slicked-back hair, a wet T-shirt clinging to his chest.
“Did she pick up a stripper?” Renee whispered under her breath.
“Hi!” Maya said, scrunching her own wet hair. “What are you guys doing in the parking lot?”
Blue wanted to punch her. Her fists were balling as if she might. She was relieved too. Of course she was relieved! But her whole back was soaked with fear sweat and her heart wouldn’t calm and all she had wanted, all she’d freaking wanted, was a quick getaway with her friends, with Maya and Hannah only. And just maybe to have a little tiny romance, just for a few days, to be kissed for freaking once, just one more time in her stupid life. And instead here she was, the walking credit card, dealing with other people’s BS as usual, terrified that Maya had been murdered. She might as well be back at work fixing the mistakes of all the Wall Street bros who outearned her while underperforming her.
“Andy,” Maya said. “This is my fr—”
“You’re dead to me right now,” Blue said with the controlled menace of a cocked gun.
Maya flinched with surprise, recovered. “Oh! I am? Okay, well, can I not be dead until Monday? Because I haven’t even had a day at the beach yet. Or a last meal, for that matter. Plus, we’ve already had one loss.” She pulled out the box of ashes from Andy’s jacket pocket. “This is...well, was...Indy.”