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Mother? Dead?
Teresa snatched the phone from Derrick’s hand and hit redial.
Three obnoxious tones rang out, then a robotic voice.
“We’re sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number and dial again.”
She punched the numbers in. Then again. Then again. She was about to dial one more time when Derrick took the phone from her unyielding hand.
“She passed away when you were a teenager. Remember?” Derrick said in his giving-bad-news-to-a-patient voice.
Teresa turned away from him. Suppressed memories swirled out of the depths of her mind.
Her mother dead in the bathtub with an empty bottle of generic Ativan and an empty glass of whiskey on the bathroom floor.
A tear slithered down her cheek. She wiped it away. Derrick took her by the hand and pulled her carefully toward him, then shifted his hand to her elbow.
“It’s okay,” he said, stroking her back. “Let’s go out to the car, okay?”
She nodded but didn’t know why they needed the car. They only used the car when they went grocery shopping. Was he taking her grocery shopping? Now?
“Okay.” Shock tightened her throat. It came out a strangled whisper. Though she wasn’t sobbing, tears dribbled from her eyes.
Derrick helped Teresa into the car and fastened her seatbelt for her. She stared out the window as he drove out of town.
“It’s not true, is it?” Teresa asked. “I just talked to her on the phone.”
Derrick’s lips tightened. He didn’t answer. Concern lined his forehead.
The car passed the sign wishing farewell to those who had visited Harmony. She turned in her seat. The other side of the sign welcomed people with a goofy looking bear wearing a hard hat and headlamp and holding a pickaxe.
The sign disappeared into the distance. They weren’t going grocery shopping. Teresa forced her heart rate to stay steady.
“Where are we going?” Teresa stared at the side of Derrick’s face.
His eyes shifted to her, then straight ahead. He gripped the steering wheel tighter.
“Derrick, tell me. I demand to know where you’re taking me.”
She couldn’t stop her pulse from rising, her mouth from going dry. She already knew the answer, but one part of her hoped it wasn’t true.
“Tell me.” She pulled on his arm. The car swerved.
“Teresa, goddammit.” He straightened the car.
Teresa slouched into her seat and crossed her arms.
After a few miles, he turned down an all-too-familiar winding road. The road to Mountain View. Teresa sat straight up.
“No.” She shook her head. “You can’t take me there. You can’t!”
“Among other things, you’ve been talking to your dead mother on the phone. Something isn’t right.” He turned on the radio and tuned in to the local rock station, boosting the volume a little higher than necessary for casual listening.
“Don’t turn the radio on to drown me out.” Teresa jabbed the off button. “You can’t do this to me,” she said, hating the threat of hysteria in her voice. “Please don’t do this.”
He didn’t care about what this would do to them, to her. He didn’t love her anymore. He wanted to get rid of her so he could be with Ann. Ann, Derrick, and Maggie. The perfect family for this perfect little stupid town.
She reached for the emergency brake, desperate to stop the car somehow. Derrick slapped her hand away and glared at her.
She couldn’t get a full breath. Though she hadn’t had a hysterical breakdown in years, she remembered the first signs of one.
“I can’t breathe,” she said.
Something touched the back of her left arm. Teresa looked over her shoulder. Tiffany, buckled into the seat behind Derrick, waved to her.
“Hi, Mommy,” she whispered. She held out her hands and presented Teresa with a hypodermic needle.
Blessed child. Blessed Yaldabaoth.
Teresa took the syringe.
“Would you turn around and sit still?” Derrick’s voice was full of agitation. “What are you looking for back there?”
Teresa faced forward.
Out of the corner of her eye, Derrick’s zoe line pulsed from his chest, oozed across the center console, and ended in her lap. A heavy living weight across her thighs. The cold glass of the hypo’s barrel calmed her heart and lungs.
“I won’t go back,” she said in a steady voice.
“You have no choice,” he said.
“I won’t, Derrick. I can’t. And I won’t—I refuse!” She yelled the last word and, at the same time, twisted in her seat and plunged the needle into Derrick’s chest.
The car swerved, tossing Teresa against the passenger side door. Derrick’s eyes were wide, his mouth opened and closed as if he couldn’t get any air. His hands on the wheel managed to get the car back on the road.
“What . . .” blood dribbled from his lips.
Teresa grabbed the plunger and pulled.
The car swerved again, went off the road, careened down a hill still spotted with clumps of snow.
Just as the barrel finished filling with Derrick’s zoe, the car smashed into a tree. Even with her seatbelt on, Teresa smacked her head against the window, and the world around her blurred.
The familiar whump of a fire igniting sent a surge of adrenaline through her.
She fumbled for the door handle, her vision still foggy, got the door open, and fell into the grass.
She managed to crawl a few feet away before her world faded to black.
* * *
When Teresa came to, she didn’t know where she was. The scent of smoke and barbecued meat assaulted her nostrils.
Camping? They’d never gone camping. Why now?
She sat up and rubbed her head. Her hand came away with blood on it. The barrel on the syringe warmed her other palm. The zoe inside swirled and pulsed.
She peered at the car and blinked a few times trying to remember what happened.
A mass sat in the driver’s seat.
Teresa stood up so fast the blood rushed from her head, and she nearly fell to her knees. Derrick’s burned form. Not moving. Of course he wasn’t moving. He was dead. She approached the car and looked in the back seat to see if her baby was okay. But Tiffany was gone. A sigh of relief. Then a wave of grief washed over her. Teresa dropped to her knees and put her hands over her face.
I’ve killed my husband. He’s gone. All this work to make him happy—and now he’s gone.
A sob escaped her. Movement from the car. She snapped her attention to Derrick. He shifted. Alive?
She dropped her hands. He turned his head, the movement jerky, and faced her. His eyes, which should have melted in the fire, were clouded white. Blind. Teresa’s strangled cry caught in her throat. She flailed backward, tripped, and landed on her rear. Derrick sniffed the air in her direction. Then, with the same halting movement, he lifted his arms and reached for her. The center console kept him trapped. She reached up and closed the passenger door and crab-crawled backwards until the distance between her and the car felt safe.
When she got to her feet, her head throbbed with a probable concussion.
The sun had sunk low in the sky, casting ominous shadows. Teresa slipped and stumbled up the hill they’d careened down. At the top, she went back to town.
After she passed the sign welcoming her to Harmony, she stopped. Something was missing. Her hands felt empty.
The syringe. “Oh, God.” It was gone. She looked back toward the crash site.
Petulant tears sprang to her eyes, and she bawled for a moment before regaining her composure.
She swiped a stray hair from her forehead only to find it stuck in the blood on her head, so she ripped it out with an angry shout. She stomped her feet, knowing she acted like a child, but all she could think about was slipping into a steamy bath and rinsing away the day’s woes.
You just killed your husband—is that really just one of the day’s woes?
Maybe she didn’t want to turn Derrick over to Yaldabaoth. Maybe she could find the syringe and inject his zoe back into him.
A charred mess. He’d never look the same. What would the town think? Oh! The town would love her. She would stay with him even though he was horribly disfigured. A monster.
They would welcome her back. Her place in life would be restored. They would wash their hands of the baby’s death in light of her devotion to her husband.
A smile made its way onto her lips but quickly vanished. A tear slid down her cheek, and her face contorted into what she knew was a horrendous visage.
Who would take care of Maggie now?
You have to take care of her.
She started walking toward town.
Maybe Maggie is next.
The thought startled her. She couldn’t take a child.
You took Marcie’s baby.
Teresa gripped her stomach and doubled over. She vomited foamy bile into a bush on the side of the road.
When was the last time she ate?
“I need my mommy,” she whispered. Mother was gone, too. Teresa had no one. Nobody to help her, to take care of her, to love her.
Except Tiffany. Except Yaldabaoth. She had to go to him. She shook her head. To them. Tiffany needed her.
With renewed motivation, she set off toward the abandoned funeral home. If for no other reason than to regain a tremulous sense of purpose.