Forks #4
I take the next left where Eddie instructed, slowing down as we find ourselves on a dark desert lane.
Our route was already off the beaten path, but this particular area is even more disconnected from the bright lights of Palm Springs.
The twinkling city has grown dimmer and dimmer behind us, fading away as we’re enveloped by endless plains of sand.
At some point, this swath of land will likely be developed into another massive residential oasis with sky-high HOA fees and a soul-crushing water bill, but for now it’s nothing but a lone road slicing through dirt and sparse patches of yellow brush.
My heart slams in my chest, galloping with such intensity that I start to wonder if Eddie can somehow hear it. His abilities are so strange and uncanny that I wouldn’t be surprised.
“Park right up here,” Eddie continues, motioning ahead.
I follow his instructions, gradually slowing down and coming to a stop at the curb. The glow of our vehicle is a tiny yellow spot in a vast ocean of night, miles and miles from any safe harbor.
Despite the utter terror pumping through me, I maintain the facade. I smile like my life depends on it.
“What’s up?” I question.
Eddie lets out a long sigh. “I’m afraid our evening is coming to an end, sport,” he says. “I think it’s time, whether I’m ready or not.”
“But I’m having so much fun,” I counter, somehow maintaining character.
Eddie hesitates. “Yeah, me too,” he says. “I don’t usually get attached like this.”
“What does that mean?”
“Get out of the car,” he commands, ignoring my question.
I shut off the vehicle, plunging the world into complete darkness as the headlights disappear and the night immediately swallows us up.
I can barely see anything now, what little desert flora there is suddenly transforming into barely tangible black shapes against an even deeper, darker black.
In the distance, the city lights still twinkle in a long straight line, a razor of shimmering gold, and up above us the moon hangs in a glorious silver crescent.
Their presence doesn’t help me feel better, though.
If anything, these distant glimmers only serve to make me feel more alone.
I climb out of the car. Moments later, I hear Eddie’s passenger-side door open up and I watch as a vague figure emerges.
“Ten steps back,” he commands, every drop of razzledazzle now alarmingly absent from his tone.
I follow Eddie’s instructions.
“Turn around,” he says, his voice deep and emotionless.
I turn.
My hand carefully slips down into my pocket, finding the knife handle and gripping it tight. Now that I’m moments away from actually using it, I realize just how ridiculous this little blade is in the face of someone, or something, so powerful.
Maybe, just maybe, I’ll go out as a bit of an annoyance, but that’s hardly the legacy I want to leave behind.
As I gaze into the grand, endless nothing, it begins to sink in that this might be the last thing I ever see.
I always thought that final image would be Marlo, some distant future version of my daughter sitting beside my deathbed, her grown hand in my frail old claw.
She’d be the CEO of some Fortune 500 company, beautiful and strong and dangerously smart and ruthless as hell.
She’d be surrounded by children who’d grow up to be just as powerful as their mother and their grandmother.
I’m going to fight to make that happen, scratching and biting like a wild animal if I have to, but deep down I know the truth. Even with this silly little knife, I’m no match for Eddie Michaels.
The silence is broken by a loud, horrible retch that spills through the night behind me.
It comes sudden and sharp, followed immediately by a breathless, animalistic pant that gradually builds into another terrible heave.
It sounds as though Eddie is throwing up, or at least trying to, his body producing noises that one rarely hears outside of an all-night bender or a legendary battle with food poisoning.
His groans fill the desert, a mixture of agonizing pain and guttural, bodily rejection. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was projectile vomiting, but there’s no splatter to follow the moans, only the terrible spasms of a broken throat.
“Huhhgh,” Eddie grunts, then spits. He hesitates, as though building up for one last attempt at something truly disgusting, then lets out a terrible scream.
My body clenches and my hand grips the blade a little tighter.
Eddie pants a bit more, then mumbles something under his breath. In any other context, I wouldn’t be able to hear him, but in the silence of the desert I can just barely make out a simple two-word phrase. “Well … fuck.”
I hear footsteps walking back around to the passenger side of the car. The door swings open, then slams shut.
“I need one more. That’s bare minimum,” Eddie says. “Drive.”
I muster up the biggest smile I can before turning back around and strolling to the vehicle. I climb into the driver’s seat and start the car, the brilliant glow of our headlights slicing through the darkness once again.
“That was fun!” I announce.
“Knock it off with the cheery stuff,” Eddie gruffly retorts.
I settle, putting the car in drive and pulling out onto the road.
The radio stays off this time.