House of Sand: A Dark Psychological Thriller

by Michael J Sanford

  It’s infectious. Laughing, I help her slither back out the window so that she can open the door and show off the spoils of her theft.

  “You never said anything about robbing a gas station,” I say once I’ve caught my breath.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, do you have any money? I know I don’t, and you’re not even wearing underwear or shoes.”

  “Good point,” I say.

  “And are you really concerned about a little shoplifting?”

  “I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.”

  “Did you get enough gas?” she asks, ripping into a bag of pretzels.

  I grab a handful and stuff them into my mouth. I never knew pretzels could taste so good. Through a mouthful, I say, “Almost full.”

  Ty nods and walks around the back of the car. In the mirrors, I can see her pull the rest of the hose and gas nozzle from the car. She tosses it aside and slaps the gas door shut.

  Back in the car, she passes me a beer. “No real damage, I don’t think.”

  “Like it matters,” I say.

  “Hey, we’re not done yet. This was just a refueling mission, both for the car and you.”

  “Us,” I correct.

  Ty raises an eyebrow.

  “Whatever,” I say. I down the first beer in one breath and grab another. “You were right, this is just what I needed.”

  “I always look out for you, don’t I?”

  I have to look away. Of course she does. Always has. And I have no idea why. She knew my situation from the very beginning. We met at my wedding, after all.

  Tap. Tap.

  I whip around to look at Ty. She’s studying a bag of potato chips as she pops them into her mouth, one by one. Her knife is stuck into the cushion of her seat, between her legs.

  Tap.

  I pop the cap off my second beer and chug it. It barely takes the edge off. I’ll need something stronger, or Ty’s right, I won’t last much longer. I know this is a one-way trip, both for Ty and I, but I intend to see it to the end. And even though Ty hasn’t told me exactly where we’re headed and to what purpose, I know that it’s right where I need to be. I think destiny and fate are bullshit, but I can’t help but feel like something intangible in pushing me along. Makes me think everything I’ve done was exactly what I was supposed to do. The affair with Ty, the fire, the murder. Maybe that’s just what I am.

  “I know you.”

  I slap a hand over Ty’s mouth, silencing her noisy chewing. She freezes.

  “That wasn’t you, was it?” I ask.

  Ty frowns at me and shakes her head. I turn my attention elsewhere, but don’t hear anything more. It was a voice. I’m sure of it. Sounding as if it were right next to me.

  “Fuck,” I say, releasing Ty.

  She turns and spits out the window. “Man, you need to wash. Ugh.”

  I’m gaining nothing sitting still behind an abandoned warehouse. I put the car in gear and head back for the road.

  “Hang a right,” Ty says, not missing a beat.

  Tap. Tap. Tick.

  “Ty, how much further?” I ask through clenched teeth.

  I finished the last beer miles ago and the noises have been increasing ever since. I squeeze Ty’s hand, trying desperately to take some strength from her. It’s not helping as much as it used to, but I’m still thankful she’s by my side.

  “Just a tick more,” she says.

  Tick.

  What a bitch. But I don’t say anything. I don’t have the will to challenge her. It’s hard enough just to keep my eyes focused on the road. I still can’t tell where we are. My vision is too blurred to decipher any street signs.

  “Take a right, here,” Ty says suddenly, jabbing a finger out of her window.

  I veer right and bounce over a curb and into a dirt parking lot. With a rumble and a short skid, I halt the car in front of a worn storefront. Wherever we are, it’s clearly the dark side of whatever town we’re in. Perfect for us.

  “Jackpot,” Ty says. “Come on, let’s go.”

  She hops out of the car and waves me on. With leaden steps, I follow after.

  Ty opens the door to the store we’ve parked in front of and holds out her hand like a game show model. “Your oasis awaits,” she says.

  I stop just inside the door and take a moment to swallow in the magnificence of a fully stocked liquor store. It’s dark, cluttered, and smells like piss, but by God, Ty’s right. It’s an oasis.

  An older man, gray and wrinkled, steps out from the counter. He waves his hands at us.

  “No, no, out, out,” he says, continuing the swipe at the air like he’s swatting flies.

  “Hey, back off, old-timer,” Ty says, stepping in front of me.

  “You’re the one that needs to back off,” the man says, now within arm’s reach. “I will not have homeless in here. Not good for business.”

  “Homeless?” I ask, though I know how I must look.

  “Well, you are sort of homeless,” Ty says, winking over her shoulder at me. “The fire saw to that.”

  “Out, out,” the man says again.

  “Hot shit,” Ty says, though she’s not looking at the man.

  Over the counter, a TV is running a spot of local news. And there I am, top right corner.

  “That picture’s more than a year old,” I say. “From last summer.”

  The man turns, too, and when he turns back to us, he takes a step away. “I’m calling the police,” he says, pointing a finger.

  He starts to turn—and perhaps run—but Ty catches him. In a flash, she snakes an arm around his neck. The man gurgles, but Ty must have him too tightly to utter any actual words.

  “Shit, Ty,” I say.

  She pivots back around, holding the man tight against her. She has her penknife at his throat.

  The man holds up his hands. “I—uhh—”

  Ty shakes him. “No more talking.”

  I hold up my hands, replicating the man’s submissive gesture. “We just want a bottle or two,” I say. “But if that’s a problem, I can’t promise you my friend here won’t cut your head off. She’s a bit of a loose cannon.”

  “I am not,” Ty rebuts.

  “This version of you is,” I say. “The real you was sweet. She’d never hurt anyone.”

  Ty’s eyes harden. I shouldn’t be trying to talk her down.

  “I am who I am, and you know what?” she asks. “Fuck. You.”

  She draws the knife across the man’s throat and drops him. He crumples to the floor and I see at once that the wound Ty opened up is fatal. Overkill, even.

  I dance back to avoid the arterial spray as the man feebly tries to hold his head on. Ty pirouettes away and slides into the nearest aisle.

  “Hot shit, you should see how many kinds of whiskey they have!” she calls out.

  The man stops moving, but I can’t tear my eyes off the quickly growing pool of blood. It reaches for my bare feet, like a lazy wave. I take another step back and bump into the door. I spin around and lock it. The parking lot is still empty. But you can’t leave a body in the middle of a public store for long without having it discovered.

  I race to find Ty. She’s standing near the middle of the store, carefully constructing a pyramid of raspberry vodka bottles. It’s fairly impressive.

  “What the fuck was that!?” I scream.

  Ty holds up a finger, sets the final bottle, and steps back to survey her handiwork. “You killed me, so I killed that man. Deal with it.”

  I brace myself on a shelf. “I didn’t mean to,” I say.

  Ty finally looks at me. She raises an eyebrow and walks away.

  “All right,” I say. “Fuck. I did mean to, but I thought…”

  Ty stops at the end of the aisle and takes a bottle of whiskey from the shelf. She turns back to face me. “You wanted to atone,” she says.

  “I…yeah, I mean…” I pinch my eyes shut and shake my head. “It was wrong.”

  “He’s just some old fart. Can’t imagine h
e had much left, anyway. Probably did him a favor.”

  I open my eyes to find the store slowly spinning. It shifts side to side as well. I tighten my grip on the shelf. I don’t dare move my feet or look away from Ty. She’s my lighthouse in this dark storm. For better or for worse.

  “No,” I say. “Well, yeah, killing him was wrong, too, but what I did…”

  “Oh, grow a pair,” Ty says. She cocks back her arm and hurls the whiskey bottle down the aisle.

  I don’t have time to move, but it’s not heading for me. It sails past and takes out the pyramid of vodka bottles. Most, if not all, the bottles shatter. The sound cuts at me like shards of glass would, quick and deep.

  It shocks my world back to a standstill and I take a step toward Ty. She smiles and walks toward me. She scoops up another bottle of whiskey on the way and twists the cork out. Chest to chest, she tilts her head to the side and takes a deep swallow. Then she offers the bottle to me. Shaking, I take it and drink.

  “You’re not just a man,” Ty says.

  I wipe my mouth off and hand the bottle back. She takes it and tosses it over the aisle to break in another.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.

  Ty reaches up and grabs both sides of my face. She answers my question with a deep kiss that leaves me wanting more. Parting, she touches a finger to my nose and walks away.

  I follow after, knowing I’m chasing her into hell. Ty picks out two bottles of whiskey to bring with us and leads me out the front door. The pool of blood is no longer growing. I wonder who will find the man. I wonder if they’ll care.

  Just as I step out of the store, something stops me. It’s not Ty, she’s already halfway to the car and singing again. I look back into the store. The man is still dead. But I’m sure I heard something. I can’t say what it was, whether movement or a voice, but it was there.

  “Hey, bitch,” Ty shouts from the car. “Not the greatest place to be hanging out right now.”

  I glance at the dead man one last time and quickly walk to the car.

  I climb in and look at Ty. She’s working on opening one of the bottles of whiskey. “Where to now?” I ask.

  “Ultimate atonement,” she says. Then, looking up with a smile, adds, “You have a lot to answer for, you sick fuck.”

  I already know where we’re going. And when it’s all over, I know she plans to kill me. I deserve nothing less, but I hope I have enough time left to explain things to Joy. Despite the madness that surrounds me, ever growing, I haven’t forgotten her. And I haven’t forgotten Aza. Even now, with Ty’s apparition singing in my ear, I hear Aza’s soft whispers as she seeks to comfort me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Ty knocks on the door and turns to me. “You should probably shower at some point.”

  “You want me to wash for my own funeral?”

  “Might be nice,” Ty says, smiling at me.

  The door to room thirteen of the Regency Motel opens a crack, revealing the face of a balding man. “What do you want?” he grumbles.

  “Got anything menacing to say?” Ty asks. “I can never come up with anything original. It’s my greatest flaw.”

  “What’s the point?” I ask.

  Ty frowns at me. “God, are you going to be all mopey from here on out? I’m doing this for you.”

  The man tries to shut the door, but Ty shoots her foot into the gap. “Who are you?” he asks.

  Ty holds up a finger toward him without looking away from me. “You wanted this.”

  “I know…”

  “You burned your house down in an effort to kill your wife, you murdered me, and slit the throat of some helpless old man. And left behind a trail of evidence any dipshit could follow. You think you have a future?”

  “You killed the old man, and the rest…”

  “Whatever.”

  “I’m calling the police,” the man says, and moves away from the door.

  “Gah. You’re impossible,” Ty says. “This is ending whether you like it or not.”

  She takes a step back from the door, crouches, and kicks it in with the force of a giant. The security chain parts from the wood and the door slams into the wall. Five feet away, the man freezes and looks back. Fucking idiot. Ty is on him almost immediately. She stabs him in the throat and face with several quick thrusts. By the time I step into the room, he’s already dead. I shut the door, but it won’t latch after Ty’s kick.

  Ty stands up panting, holding her bloodied penknife. For such a small woman with such a small blade, she really can cause a shit ton of damage.

  “Give me a hand,” Ty says. She grabs the man’s arms and starts dragging him toward the bathroom.

  “Fine,” I say, and move to help her.

  With the body dumped into the tub, we reconvene in the bedroom. A wide swatch of blood paints a trail through the middle of the room.

  “Guess I can’t shower now,” I say.

  Ty shuts the bathroom door. “He won’t mind.”

  I laugh and sit on the bed. A worn spring digs into the back of my leg.

  Ty lies down on her stomach next to me.

  The air smells of mildew and blood. The walls are stained, the window so caked in grime it’s opaque. Nevertheless, I shut the curtains. Leaning against the sill, I survey the rest of the room. What a place to die. It already smells like a tomb.

  “So, this was our spot, huh?” I ask.

  Ty looks around. “Not always, but yeah, one of our favorites. I had my own place, but you said coming here made it feel like a real affair. I thought it was tacky, but it didn’t matter much as long as I was with you.”

  I fixate on the middle of the wall that’s shared with room twelve. The more I stare, the more the memory of thrusting into Ty against it becomes clear.

  “Did you love me?” I ask.

  “Wow.”

  I look at her. “What? I can’t ask that? Shit, I think I deserve some answers, too, you know?”

  “Yeah, I loved you. Shit, of course I did. Right from the beginning.”

  As she says the words, I know the truth of them. I loved her, too. Still do, despite remembering so little of our time together. I feel cheated, but know I can only blame myself.

  “You used to say you were going to leave her for me,” Ty says. She rolls onto her back and stares at the ceiling.

  “Maybe I should have.”

  “We still would have ended up here.”

  I sigh and scratch at my face. I haven’t shaved in at least a week, and my beard is growing in thick. I look at my nails, stained with dirt and blood. If I looked in a mirror, I know I wouldn’t recognize myself.

  “As twisted as you are,” Ty continues, “you always had a sense of right and wrong. Didn’t stop you from going against it near every chance you got, but you knew what you were doing. Think that only made it worse. Always torturing yourself over every poor decision you ever made.”

  “Ignorance is bliss,” I say.

  “And a luxury you never had.”

  I sit back on the bed and lean against the headboard. Ty moves to lay her head in my lap and we sit in silence for a while. I try to think back. Back to the fire, back to when I told Joy about Ty. It comes in bits and pieces, like wisps of a dream. Nothing tangible.

  “Ironic, isn’t it?” Ty asks.

  “Most everything about me is,” I say, not knowing exactly what she’s getting at.

  “Well, sure. But I mean the fire, my murder, all this, was because you wanted to do the right thing.”

  I nod, but I’m not sure I agree with it anymore. I once thought I’d wanted to do the right thing, but that can’t possibly be true. I remember the feeling I had watching my house burn down. I knew Joy was in there. I wanted her to die. And watching the flames aroused me in a supernatural manner. Not sexually, but in a way I can’t describe. Until I realized Aza was home, it felt right. Perfect. It was exactly where I was meant to be. It still excites me, but I’m haunted by it as well.

  “Y
ou’re worried about Aza, huh?” Ty asks out of the blue. I forget we’re working off the same mind.

  I hadn’t been consciously thinking about her, but she’s right. “It’s really my only regret, when it comes down to it. Shit, she’s eight years old. What am I supposed to tell her? How is a kid supposed to make sense of what I’ve done?”

  “I don’t think you give her enough credit,” Ty says.

  “I know she’s mature for her age, in some ways, but at the heart of it, she’s still just a kid.”

  “Not what I meant.”

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  I wince. “Did you bring the whiskey?”

  “Oh, did I touch a nerve?” Ty asks, sitting up and moving off the bed.

  “What? No, it’s just… I need a drink.”

  “A little sensitive about your dear only daughter, are we?” Ty asks, a malicious edge to her voice.

  Tick. Tap. Tap.

  “Fucking clock,” I hiss. “And stop with that fucking knife.”

  “You think she’s so goddamn innocent in all of this?” Ty asks. I can’t figure out where in the room she’s moved to.

  “She’s a kid,” I shout above the noises. “This isn’t about her.”

  “It’s always been about her!” Ty shrieks. “You left me because of her! You saved Joy because of her!”

  The room trembles and I’m thrown roughly onto the floor. The lights flicker and the bulb in the lamp nearest me pops. I struggle to my hands and knees. There’s a flash of movement nearby—Ty moving, perhaps, but I can’t be sure. Only a single lamp remains on, sitting atop the far nightstand, flickering erratically.

  “This isn’t real,” I say to the carpet.

  The room shifts again and I’m thrown flat. The carpet is wet where I land. I roll aside and grab at the bed to pull myself upright.

  Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  I can’t locate Ty, but I know she hasn’t left me.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  The bathroom door. It shifts with every tap. Fuck, is that man still alive?

  “Don’t be such a dumb ass,” Ty’s voice says from everywhere. “You almost took the poor bastard’s head off. And with such a little knife, too.”

  “You did that,” I shout, but the knife is in my hand. I’m staring right at it.