by Joshua Laack
Chapter 27
For the next several months, they spent every day together in school. The classes were fun and the classmates in them began to realize that he might have something to do with them being that way. Because of that, Andrew and Johari became even more popular throughout the school. Just about everyone in the halls knew them and said hi. Jason and Mikayla got the popular treatment as well. Those months at school were a happy time for all of them.
Andrew and Johari spent the rest of their free time outside of school together as well. They spent a great deal of time talking and Andrew learned more about the past from her than he did in school. They also talked about the future. Where he wanted to go to college after high school, what kind of jobs he might like and whether she would fit into those plans. Her only real job being to watch him, the answer to the last one was obvious and they were both excited about exploring new things together.
They also continued to go to church with Andrew's parents and Andrew felt himself drawn more and more to the feeling he felt when he was at church. He still didn't go so far as to consider himself a believer, but there was more to Christianity than he believed before. Even the power that still lived in him liked church. Whenever he was there and worshiping, it danced within him to the music, filling him with feelings of euphoria.
Because of the time Johari and Andrew spent together, Jason and Andrew didn't hang out alone much. Andrew felt a little bit bad about that, but Jason never complained. In fact, the only thing he ever talked about when they were alone was Mikayla. Andrew couldn't blame him, since the only thing he talked about was Johari, or more accurately Josephina. He still had to be careful to think of her that way when they were around other people so that he didn't slip and use the wrong name.
Jason wasn't the only one happy with the changes to their lives. Andrew's parents were ecstatic as they watched him opening up and making all of these new friends. They gave all the credit for those changes to Josefina, and they were not wrong in doing so. Without her presence in his life, Andrew would still have been the same recluse that he always had been, locked in with a demon as his only true companion.
She spent a great deal of time with the whole family, church of course, but also sitting with them for meals from time to time, playing games and just sitting around talking. At first, Andrew's parents felt terrible that they had nothing to offer her that she could eat, but it is possible to get used to almost anything with time, and after a while they didn't even notice her strange lack of eating habits.
While his parents adjusted to her habits, Andrew was doing a little of the same, though on a far different scale. As time passed, he became accustomed to the fact that she was an immortal, and all of the strangeness that accompanied that fact. He didn't even notice it anymore.
The passage of time was another thing that Andrew no longer wasted daylight noticing. Before her, he watched the second hand, waiting for each day to be over. Now the days were gone almost before they began. All too soon, graduation was only a few weeks away.
With that end in sight, a feeling of restlessness began to fill Andrew. It was a feeling that he needed to do everything he could all at once. It grew on him a little more each day, to the point that Johari, his family and most of his friends noticed the change.
Andrew passed it off as normal worry and excitement about the end of high school, but on the inside, he was ready to explode. His parents and friends worried about the darker Andrew returning, but that wasn't what was bothering Andrew. It was if he expected what was coming, as if he could feel the future rushing toward him. He didn't mention this to anyone. He didn't want them to worry. Then, ten days before graduation, it happened.
Andrew didn't understood why things happened when they did, or even why they happened at all for that matter, but not understanding something doesn't prevent it from being true.
It was the third week of May. All morning, the feeling of being watched bothered him. Andrew hadn't felt that feeling even once since Johari and her friend had taken care of that first demon and then the one within him. On this particular day it was back again. It showed up during first hour. He tried to shrug it off, believing that he was just anxious to be done with school.
At fifteen minutes after four in the afternoon on Thursday the twenty first, the rain was pouring out of the dark gray clouds in sheets and waves. Andrew was peering out of his windshield, trying to see through the rain in order to get to work. It was almost a losing battle since even with better vision that had accompanied the loss of the demon, he could barely see the white line on the edge of the road.
He hadn't been scheduled to work that day, but someone had called in sick and his boss had called and asked if Andrew could take the shift. Johari had excused herself after school for a phone meeting with her superiors. Those often lasted for some time, so Andrew agreed to take the hours.
The wipers were whipping back and forth, but they were no match for the water falling from the sky. Andrew could see enough as the wipers went by to keep the car in between the lines on the road, but that was about it. He was on the highway, the short stretch of it that he traveled to get to the store. It was the same stretch where he had encountered the dark demon that clued him in to his own uninvited guest.
As he drove, slower than normal due to the conditions, Andrew noticed a pair of bright headlights some distance ahead of him. They were wrong somehow. It appeared as though they were in front of his car instead of off to the left as they should have been.
The first instinctual reaction that Andrew had was that he was in the wrong lane. Then he realized that the other vehicle was the one that was in the wrong one. It got closer and Andrew saw that it was a large semi tractor with trailer attached. He laid on the horn, but the huge truck didn't move or slow down. He kept waiting, certain that the truck would notice and swerve in time. It didn't.
The realization that he was going to get hit if he didn't do something struck Andrew full force. He swerved his car into the opposing lane, hoping that there wasn't another car beside the truck that he couldn't see from where he was. There was no one, and Andrew felt a rush of relief flood his system. He was going to pass this idiot on the wrong side, but he was going to survive.
Something crashed into the side of his car, forcing it back to the lane with the truck in it. The horrified glance to the side revealed a muted blur of a dark figure. Andrew slammed on the brakes and swerved again to the other lane, smashing into the dark figure, knocking it away from the car. Andrew's pulse was racing and the glass on that side of the car was shattered, but he thought that he might still miss the truck.
The light mixed with the fear within him, swirling through his body making him hyper aware of everything around him. His hands were gripping the steering wheel as he guided his car down the wrong lane. Water from the broken back window splashed on him and the wind raised goosebumps on his arms, but he was going to live.
The truck swerved back into its own lane. Andrew whipped his wheel around again to bring the car back over to where it was supposed to be, but as he did, his tires struck a puddle of water and the demon struck the back corner of the bumper. With the combination of these two things, instead of switching lanes as Andrew had hoped, his car began to hydroplane sideways toward the oncoming truck. The last thing he remembered was staring out of his driver side window, into the headlights of the truck. Over the top of the headlights, there sat a blur in the driver seat of the truck. The last thought he had was not one of fear for his imminent death. It was a thought he sent into the wind, wishing he had told her before, hoping that she would feel it and know that it was and always would be true,
“I love you Johari!” And then light blared into his eyes followed only by darkness.