Dark Daze (12 page)

Still, he really should chase her away. Keep
her safe. Why couldn’t he stop being so selfish? Why couldn’t he
let her go?

They were nearly back to his mother’s house
when Buster curled against the car door, staring at him, and when
at last he caught Ian’s eye he whined loudly.

Ian pulled the car into his mother’s
driveway. “All right boy, I’ll take you for a walk.”

As Buster lumbered up the hill alongside the
road, sniffing here and there, Ian followed, baggy in hand.

“Come on boy, get to it, we have a lot to do
and the sun is setting,”

Ian glanced at the sunset, which would have
made him stare in amazement at the numerous colors lighting the sky
on a normal day. Amazement was the farthest thing in the world from
what he felt now. A twinge of fear lingered in the back of his mind
forcing him to peer around at the shadows. Buster found a patch of
grass peeping out from the snow, and sniffed at it, intent on
finding just the right spot.

“Buster!” Goosebumps crawled along Ian’s
body, making him shiver. He rubbed his arms, the chill of the snowy
evening cutting through his jacket.

Buster didn’t even look up at him. He just
kept sniffing his way up the side of the hill. Ian gritted his
teeth. Damn dog sure was taking his time. Then, all but hidden by
the shadow, Buster let out a low growl. Ian turned to yell for
Buster, but his hackles were raised. He hadn’t noticed the dog’s
rigid stance before in his urgency to return to the safety of the
car. Buster barked at a spot somewhere up the hill; a loud, deep
report, which made him sound like a pit bull on a bad day. At the
very same instant, headlights turned on at the top of the steep
hill.

Cold terror drained the energy from his
limbs. Unnatural light filled the cab. The same glow as the BMW in
the parking lot earlier. Darkness flooded the car, dark like the
darkness in a children’s book, where the boogeyman slips out from
the shadow of a closet door. Claws stretched out of the gloom,
opening and closing over the steering wheel.

The engine roared its challenge—run or
die.

Suddenly Ian couldn’t move, couldn’t
think.

Buster tugged at his pant leg. When those
eyes, the red-rimmed twin black holes, caught Ian’s attention, his
paralysis left him in a whoosh of breath. Buster released his jeans
seconds before he would have pulled Ian off his feet.

Ian turned, sprinted. His eyes darted from
Buster to the demon car, which sat at the hilltop, roaring like a
bull about to charge. The tires squealed.

“Oh shit!”

Ian ran. His shoe slid across a patch of ice.
He windmilled his arms, and fell. Icy rocks tore at his jeans,
slicing into his flesh. He scrambled to his feet.

Oh God, he couldn’t outrun it.

He glanced over his shoulder. The bright
lights and illuminated grill made him think of a hyena, smiling at
the chance to taste the flesh of its victim…Smiling—and
laughing.

His heart slammed in his chest. Please, God,
he couldn’t die now. What would happen to Brie?

He pumped his legs. They moved faster than he
could control. At any moment he would tumble, the road coming up to
meet him. The hard metal grill would shred through his calves.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

His gaze skittered across the area. A large
retaining wall. Buildings. Everything was cutting him off, too high
to climb. Where? Where? He frantically sought an escape route and
found none. He struggled, but couldn’t draw breath. His lungs were
on fire, yet filled with ice.

His legs were rubber beneath him, shaking and
ready to collapse. The driveway was close. Oh God. The car was
closer. Safety could have been miles away or right next to him, but
it didn’t matter.

The car hit his legs, throwing him forward
even as it seemed to go through him. A shock of agony slammed him
as a rock cut into his palm. Now the tires would pulverize his
bones. His body would convulse with pain.

But no crushing tires sped over him, no bone
splintering pain while his body mashed to the road like a frog
after the rain.

His heart raced. What had just happened? Why
hadn’t it crushed him like a frog pancake? The thing in the car
should have been laughing merrily while it drove down the road,
leaving the carcass for the coyotes.

“Are you all right?” A woman hurried toward
him. She dropped to one knee when she reached his side.

Buster sprinted up, licked his face.

Glancing back the way she came, she frowned.
“I was just reading…I thought I heard tires…an engine. What
happened?”

Almost running his mother over, now almost
getting run down himself. This didn’t seem real. Goosebumps covered
his arms.

“I just thought a car was losing control on
its way down the hill, and I fell. Overactive imagination, I
guess.” He tried to sound nonchalant, but only sounded lifeless.
His stomach flipped and bile rose in the back of his throat. She’d
heard the engine, so it
had
to be real, but if it was real,
how could it have disappeared?

“I guess my imagination is a little
overactive too.” She grinned.

Wincing, he pushed up into a sitting position
and wiped the blood from his palm. “Thank you for your concern,
Ms…” He waited for her to supply her name.

“Borne. Andrea Borne.” She offered a hand,
and he shook it as she said, “Call me Andrea.”

“Well thank you, Andrea. I appreciate it, but
I have to be heading back home.”

He struggled to his feet and tried to walk
smooth and straight down the hill, but his knees didn’t want to
support him. His chest seemed hollow, as if his heart had literally
jumped from his body, leaving a hole in his insides. The odd
emptiness, and the rubber in his legs, made him sway. He managed to
keep his feet until he reached his car.

Ian dropped into the driver seat and started
the car. Buster jumped in, and Ian backed down the driveway,
looking at the young brunette who’d been kind enough to check on
him. Trying to appear normal, he waved and smiled. She waved back
before opening the door to her house and disappearing inside.

He called Brie on the way to Paul’s shop to
drop off Buster. Her V.R. answered. He told her what had happened
at the house. When he disconnected, he wondered if perhaps he’d
only succeeded in worrying her about something she couldn’t
change.

Ian’s i-com rang. He jumped, jerking the
wheel and swerving out of his lane before he recovered. Luckily,
the traffic was light, and he didn’t hit anyone. He yanked the
i-com from his pocket and instead of sticking it into the port on
his car, he held it to his ear and ordered the connect.
“Hello?”

“Oh my God, Ian, I have to talk to you now.
How far are you? I have to show you something.” Brie’s voice, full
of astonishment and fear, made him cut off a small white Dodge and
head across the overpass to the onramp for the 15 South.

“What happened, are you all right?” he asked
as the driver blared his horn and tried unsuccessfully to guess
Ian’s IQ with his middle finger.

“Don’t hurt yourself. No need to crash the
car so you can get here one second earlier.”

“What’s happening? You sound upset. Did you
find something?” Ian gripped the wheel so hard his fingers turned
white.

“I found an odd and amazing coincidence, if
it’s not involved in all this. Have you ever heard of the author,
Donald Kingsley?”

“Yeah. I never read his stuff, but he was my
neighbor for a year. He moved out about six months ago.”

“Was he angry with you?”

“Well, I don’t think so. Not anymore. We had
a fight over a tree on the border of our properties once. He wanted
to remove it and I wanted to keep it. Some stupid, petty nonsense
came from it, but I don’t think he’d still be angry over something
like a tree.”

“Um, well.” Brie’s voice went quiet. “I’m not
so sure. I don’t know why, after all these years of seeing unusual
things, I still expect life to be normal. A shadow is only a
shadow, and a book is a book. And it really could just be a huge
coincidence, but it just seems like…”

Despite the prospect of what might come, he
couldn’t help but chuckle. “I do that too. Probably some sort of
defense mechanism, but I have the feeling, if we live through this,
nothing will surprise us ever again.”

“Yeah, but—”

“What’s going on? Would you just tell
me?”

“I found a Donald Kingsley novel amongst the
books. When I was reading the back cover, it struck me as familiar.
I started reading it. A man, Dean O’Connel and his dog Bowser are
tormented by a shadowy figure, but then I got to the part that
included me. The girl Dean meets at the restaurant is Brittany, and
she spends the night with him. After a strange attack, they run to
his mother’s house the next day. I tried to skip forward, but I
couldn’t get past chapter seven.”

“What is going on here?” he muttered. She was
right. He shouldn’t be surprised, especially after Dark Day, but he
was.

“Ian, it gets weirder. When I got to the end
of the page where Dean is driving to his friend Peter’s house, my
hand just didn’t want to turn the page. I started thinking of how I
should call you, and I found myself holding my i-com. I didn’t have
control. I dialed your number before I even realized it.” She
paused a moment, and he let this new information soak in. “I called
you the minute I understood what happened. There has to be a
connection. I know it sounds insane, and I don’t know how he’s
doing it, but it can’t be chance.”

Ian glanced behind him, to get over into the
next lane and froze. The claws. The darkened cab of the car behind
him on his right held the claws of his tormenter!

“Wait, I can turn the page now.” Paper
rustled, and there was a pause then a small gasp. In the i-com next
to his ear, he heard her reading,
“Dean looked over his
shoulder, and his heart began to race. Thin beads of sweat broke
out on his forehead and upper lip. The claws, those misshapen grey
razor blades, seemed to reach for him even as they clutched the
wheel of the car. The unnatural darkness of the driver seat was
broken only by the two black orbs that seemed to make the light in
the car flee in terror.”

“Oh my God.”

She was narrating his life while he lived
it.

“Are you ok?” she asked. “Ian, answer
me.”

“He’s there.” Ian’s foot moved of its own
volition, pushing the pedal to the floor. The car shook and groaned
as he hit ninety-five; as if it was also worried something might
happen to him. His car barreled along, but the claws followed,
never losing pace with him. They raced along the freeway, and the
grill of the car chasing him seemed to smile ghoulishly. He
swallowed hard. What he saw in the rearview mirror very nearly made
him stomp on the brakes. In the darkness, the black hole eyes
weren’t the only thing he could see anymore. A skeletal yellow
grin, too wide to be human, became visible in the darkness.

He was doing just what it wanted. Had been
from the beginning. It never moved into the lane behind him; it
kept pace, playing on his irrational fears. He lifted his foot off
the accelerator, letting the car slow. He glanced over his shoulder
again and the demonic car, driven now by a woman with two small
children in the back, exited at the off-ramp. His heart pounded as
his breathing slowed. Had he only been imagining the claws? What
game did the creature play here? Was the point to get him to kill
himself or someone else because of the visions?

In the distance, he heard Brie calling his
name and realized he’d dropped the i-com. As he exited the freeway,
he noticed a big rig passing a truck. If he’d continued like a mad
man at ninety to one hundred miles an hour, there would have been
no way for the anti-crash system to shut off the car. He would have
been jam on its fender.

He drove into the mall parking lot and found
Brie by the doors of the Digi-page bookstore, reading a novel.
Relief rushed through him when he saw her, and as he parked, he
marveled again at her nerve. She’d been on the i-com the whole
time, yet she’d never crumbled under the pressure of terror. He
rushed over to join her, crushing her to him and kissing her
hair.

“I thought you were going to be killed.” She
squeezed him.

He leaned down and kissed her, trying to put
everything into the contact. Trying to make the mingling of tongues
express the mingling of spirits. He lifted his mouth from hers.
“It’s going to be all right.”

“You don’t know that.” Her eyes were wider
than natural. “The ending hasn’t even been written.”

“We’ll figure this out. Together we can do
anything.” He squeezed her again, his chin resting on her hair. The
strawberry shampoo his mother had always bought for him, despite
his request for a more masculine choice, smelled so sweet on her
head. As though it had been meant for her all along. “Now tell me
what you found. We have to figure this out soon.”