Page 33 (1/2)

VIV

The night it all ended, Vivian was alone

That was fine with her She preferred it It was soht shift at this place in thealone was hard Especially being alone in the dark The person who could be truly alone, in the cohts—that person was stronger than anyone else More ready More prepared

Still, she pulled into the parking lot of the Sun Down Motel in Fell, New York, and paused, feeling the familiar beat of fear She sat in her beat-up Cavalier, the key in the ignition, the heat and the radio on, her coat huddled around her shoulders She looked at the glowing blue and yellow sign, the two stories of rooht, I don’t want to go in there But I will She was ready, but she was still afraid It was 10:59 pm

She felt like crying She felt like screa She felt sick

I don’t want to go in there

But I will Because I always do

Outside, two drops of half-frozen rain hit the windshield A truck droned by on the road in the rearview mirror The clock ticked over to eleven o’clock, and the news came on the radio Another minute and she’d be late, but she didn’t care No one would fire her No one cared if she came to work The Sun Down had few custoirl was late It was often so quiet that an observer would think that nothing ever happened here

Viv Delaney knew better

The Sun Down only looked empty But it wasn’t

With cold fingers, she pulled down the driver’s-side visor She touched her hair, which she’d had cut short, a sharp style that ended below her earlobes and was sprayed out for volume She checked her eye irls wore, but a soft lavender purple It looked a little like bruises You could streak it with yellow and orange to create a days-old-bruise effect, but she hadn’t bothered with that tonight Just the purple on the delicate skin of her lids,the darker line of her eyeliner and lashes Why had she put makeup on at all? She couldn’t remember

On the radio, they talked about a body A girl found in a ditch off Melborn Road, ten miles from here Not that here was anywhere—just aout of Fell and into the nothingness of upstate New York and eventually Canada But if you took the two-lane for afrom an overhead wire, and followed that road to another and another, you’d be where the girl’s body was found A girl nahboring town Eighteen years old, stripped naked and dumped in a ditch They’d found her body two days after her parents reported her

As she sat in her car, twenty-year-old Viv Delaney’s hands shook as she listened to the story She thought about what it must be like to lie naked as the half-frozen rain pelted your helpless skin How horribly cold that would be Hoas always girls who ended up stripped and dead like roadkill How it didn’t matter how afraid or how careful you were—it could always be you

Especially here It could always be you

Her gaze went to the audy lit-up blue and yellow sign blinking endlessly in the darkness VACANCY CABLE TV! VACANCY CABLE TV!

Even after three months in this place, she could still be scared Awfully, perfectly scared, her thoughts skittering up the back of her neck and around her brain in panic I’ht hours, alone in the dark Alone with her and the others