The Incubus, Succubus and Son of Perdition Box Set: The Len du Randt Bundle (19 page)

‘I leave
tomorrow morning.’

‘Are you taking
the car?’

‘No,’ Justin
said. ‘I’m going with a guy called Clyde. He’ll pick me up first thing in the
morning.’

‘For how long?’

‘Until Friday
afternoon.’

‘So you’ll be
here for the Friday evening dinner?’

‘Yes,’ Justin
said. He realized that this stupid dinner might just be his saving grace.

Rebecca smiled.
‘Okay then.’

What? That
was it? All this stress for nothing?
‘Um...you’re
not angry?’

‘Nope,’ she said
in an almost playful voice and turned around.

‘Are you sure?’
Justin asked and tried to lean over her to see if she was crying. ‘After this
week, they promised that they wouldn’t send me for the next five months.’

Rebecca looked
up at Justin and smiled. ‘It’s okay, baby, really.’

‘Uhm...Okay.
Thanks...’ Justin said and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Is it okay if I invite
Simon over for the dinner thing?’

Rebecca nodded.
She didn’t mind Justin leaving for a week. Her main problem with him leaving
was that she would have to be alone most of the times in what she believed to
be a haunted apartment. With Dominic there she would have someone to turn to if
the going got tough.

‘Good night,
love,’ Justin said and kissed her on the cheek.

Still thinking
about Dominic, Rebecca switched off the bed lamp. ‘Good night, Justin.’

*    -    -   
-    *

‘So Justin’s
gone again, huh?’ Tanya asked rhetorically as she chopped the onions. She
invited Rebecca over for dinner at her place so that they could—amongst other
things—chat about the next door neighbour’s nephew, Dominic.

Rebecca nodded.
‘It’s not so bad this time,’ she said. ‘The weird happenings around the house
aren’t happening as frequently as they used to.’

‘But they’re
still happening?’

‘Yes,’ Rebecca
admitted. ‘But this time, when they do occur, it’s more intense.’

‘Like what?’

‘Oh, nothing
really,’ Rebecca said. ‘It’s all quite silly.’

‘Tell me,’ Tanya
said.

‘Well, in the
past, the things I saw didn’t affect me physically.’

Tanya looked up.
‘They do now?’

Rebecca nodded.

‘How?’

‘I’m not sure if
I want to talk about this,’ Rebecca said, but deep inside she realized that she
actually wanted someone to talk to about it.

‘What happens?’
Tanya insisted. ‘You can tell me.’

Rebecca
hesitated. ‘A few days ago something invisible pushed me into the wall unit.’

‘
What?
’
Tanya exploded. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine,’
Rebecca said. ‘But I was a bit rattled when it happened.’

‘And the baby?’

‘The latest scan
showed that everything’s still fine.’

Tanya sighed
relieved. ‘Could you feel whatever pushed you?’

‘Yes,’ Rebecca
said. ‘It felt like a normal person shoving me real hard, but I couldn’t see
anyone.’

‘That’s freaky,’
Tanya said.

‘It happened
again yesterday.’

‘Again?’

‘Well...I wasn’t
pushed like the previous time, but that same invisible thing pushed my head
under water while I was taking a bath.’

‘Are you
serious?’

‘I thought I was
going to drown.’

‘Did you tell
Justin?’

Rebecca almost
laughed out loud. ‘What do
you
think?’

Tanya frowned.
‘Good point.’

‘But I’m okay,’
Rebecca said. ‘When someone’s around, nothing ever really happens.’

‘But now with
Justin being away...’

‘Dominic is
there to keep the ghosts at bay,’ Rebecca finished Tanya’s sentence.

Tanya giggled.
‘Speaking of which,’ she said. ‘Tell me more about this mystery man.’

Rebecca’s face
lit up. ‘He’s handsome,’ she said. ‘Really handsome. And he has the most
charming smile.’

‘Is this
something you would say in front of Justin?’

Rebecca shook
her head. ‘Of course not, but it’s not like he’d care anyway.’

‘Why? What do
you mean?’

‘Can you
remember when you said that he was having an affair?’

‘I implied that
he might be having one, given the evidence. I never actually said that he was
having one.’

‘Well, I’m
starting to believe that he is.’

Tanya scooped
the chopped vegetables into a bowl and looked up. She wiped her forehead with
the back of her wrist and then wiped her hands with a damp cloth. ‘Really? What
makes you think so?’

‘For one,’
Rebecca said. ‘His inability to say “no” when sent to a
site
. How sure
can I be sure that he really does go to a site? Where does he live when he’s
there? Who does he have to keep him company?’

‘My sentiments
exactly,’ Tanya said.

‘Last week he
came home from one of these so-called sites without his wedding ring. He claims
that it disappeared into fresh air while he was sleeping or something.’

‘And you haven’t
considered that he might actually be telling you the truth?’

Rebecca laughed.
‘Are you running a fever?’ she asked. ‘
You
of all people, defending
Justin?’

‘I’m not
defending him,’ Tanya said. ‘But this is a serious accusation. It’s good to
have all the facts before taking something like this to court. Don’t get me
wrong, Becks, I’m behind you one hundred percent on this. What does he have to
say to his defence?’

‘I haven’t
spoken to him about it yet,’ Rebecca said. ‘I’m waiting for the right moment.
We don’t talk as much as we used to since the...’

‘The
miscarriage?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I think
that you should confront the man.’

‘It’s not that
simple.’

‘Of course it
is. How hard could it be to grab the cheating scum by the collar and insist on
decent conversation?’

Rebecca giggled
at the thought. ‘Well, maybe you can help me,’ she said.

Tanya raised an
eyebrow. ‘Oh? How?’

‘Next Friday
evening, when we’re having dinner, you could bring up topics that Justin and I
could discuss afterward in private.’

‘Like the ring
thing?’

‘Exactly.’

‘I don’t
know...’

‘Come on,’
Rebecca pleaded. ‘You’re the only one I have that can help.’

Tanya mixed the
vegetables with the stew and turned down the heat to let it simmer. ‘Okay,’ she
finally agreed. ‘I’ll do it.’

*    -    -   
-    *

Dinner was good.
It was better than Rebecca thought it would be. She needed the chat more than
she realized, and was grateful that she decided to finally give in and visit
Tanya. Between Dominic and her colleague, she figured she would have the
perfect balance of quality time she needed so desperately while Justin was away.
All she wanted was a little bit of attention and someone to pamper her every
now and again. Sometimes she wondered if Justin still remembered that she was
pregnant. The thought of Justin immediately made her wish that he was there
with her.

The dark and twisty
back roads from the plot where Tanya leased her shoddy three-room apartment was
the last place on earth a woman should be alone on in the late hours of the
night.

The car
sputtered and jerked forward.

No!
Rebecca pumped the gas pedal furiously.
Not here! Not now!

‘Oh no,’ she
said and pumped the gas pedal again. ‘This isn’t happening!’

The car didn’t
care about her concerns and promptly cut the engine.

‘No, no, no!’
Rebecca cried out as she pulled the car over to the side of the road. Her legs
felt unresponsive and her heart beat around wildly in her chest. The car
finally came to a complete stop. The back roads in this area had no street
lights, which left Rebecca alone and engulfed in total darkness. The only
source of light came from the car itself. She tried to start the car again. It
merely huffed once or twice and then died. She turned the key again, but this
time she didn’t even get a half-hearted huff.

Justin, I
need you!

Rebecca took her
cell phone from the glove compartment and searched for Tanya’s number. She hit
the dial button but immediately received an error tone. She looked at the
screen and the words
No Reception
made her stomach twist into knots.

‘Stupid cell
phone!’ She shouted and threw the phone down on the seat next to her. She tried
to look at the surroundings outside, but the interior roof light inside the car
blinded her.

Rebecca switched
off the roof light and the headlights, and for a moment, was totally blind. As
her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, she could barely make out the silhouettes
of trees and electricity poles against the cool blue night sky.

Rebecca shifted
in the seat. Something was wrong. The feeling started as a faint tingle
crawling down her spine, but soon grew into spasms of fear. She tried the key
again, but again, nothing happened. Rebecca could sense that something of pure
evil was lurking out in the darkness. Eventually it felt as if whatever it was,
was coming closer; moving in for the kill. She could feel it and the feeling
intensified as whatever it was closed in on her. She felt nauseous. She tried
the key again, but fumbled and it took a moment before she could turn it in the
ignition.

Nothing.

‘Please help,’
she said and almost lost it. ‘Anyone.
Please!
’

She tried the
keys again.

Still nothing.

A silhouette
somewhere in front of the car made her freeze. Was someone there? There! She
was sure of it. It moved! Someone or something was approaching the car.

‘Start, you
stupid thing!’

The car still
didn’t respond.

Rebecca felt
useless and powerless as the fear inside her clutched her heart and numbed her
legs. She flicked on the headlights and screamed when she saw someone standing
in front of the car. The person moved to the side and around to her window.
Rebecca screamed like she hadn’t done in her life up to that point.

‘Calm down,’ a
muffled voice spoke from outside the car. ‘I’m here to help you.’

It took a while
for Rebecca to regain control of her emotions. When she finally did manage to
calm herself, she took deep panic breaths until her heartbeat returned to more
or less a normal pace. She turned her head slowly and cried out with relief
when she saw Dominic standing there. She turned down her window.

‘Looks like this
whole saving you business is becoming a habit,’ he said with a smile.

‘You...’ she said
and took a deep breath. ‘You scared me.’

‘I scared
you?
’
he asked. ‘Your screaming scared the hell out of me!’

Rebecca
chuckled. She was relieved that someone she knew turned up to help her in the
middle of nowhere. ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘What are you doing here? How did you know
where I was?’

‘I didn’t,’ he
said. ‘It’s quite an embarrassing story. Really.’

‘Oh? How so?’

‘Well, I drove
around the neighbourhood to try and get to know the area. Before long, I was
lost. I tried to back-track, but only managed to mess things up even more and
eventually ended up here.’

‘Where’s your
car?’

‘Oh, just down
the road,’ Dominic said. ‘I mistook the lights of your car for that of a house
and began walking to save what little fuel I had left. When the lights went
out, I tried to follow the road blindly in the dark until I almost walked right
into your car. Imagine the fright I had when your lights went on right in front
of me, followed by the screams of a banshee.’

Rebecca laughed,
but her hands still shook. ‘What are the odds? You really are a miracle sent
from above.’

Dominic smiled.
‘You got car problems?’

‘You might say
that,’ she said.

‘Pop the hood.
I’ll check it out for you.’

‘Are you sure
you know what you’re doing?’

‘Pretty much,’
Dominic said. ‘I’m no mechanic, but I know my way around.’ He raised the hood
of the car so that she couldn’t see him anymore. She could only see his hands
through the tiny gap, working here and there; pulling something and then
turning something else. ‘Okay,’ he shouted. ‘Give it a try.’

Rebecca turned
the key and the car sputtered and whined before the engine growled to life.
‘It’s working!’