by Paul Cave
In the next second, she had the ignition key in place. Anderson twisted the key, and the engine roared to life.
At the far end of the motel, Lieutenant Meadows reappeared – switchblade present and eyes full of bloodlust.
The deputy rammed the gearstick into reverse. Prayed she had granted them sufficient time to escape. She spun the Ford a full 180 degrees, spinning the vehicle in a more practical position. In the next second, she brought the Ford to a screeching halt, directly outside the diner.
Ben appeared in an instant, dragging Rivers across the front of the diner, his toes cutting deep ruts into the mud found there, as he was unconsciously carried towards the fleeing vehicle.
“Wait here,” Ben cried, propelling Rivers into the rear of the Ford. “I need to get Cal.”
The trucker spun on his heels, as he re-entered the diner.
“Hurry,” Anderson called. “We don’t have much time.”
The thing called Meadows was coming fast. Blade prominent and murderous intensions clear.
Chapter Thirty-One
The small office proved empty. Ben found the door ajar. He pushed his way inside. The little mutt was nowhere to be seen.
“What the hell..?” Ben spoke.
Where the fuck had he gone?
The trucker spun full circle. Cal was nowhere to be seen.
“Cal!” Ben called, wincing at the harshness of his raised voice. “Cal!” he hissed, quieter this time, but with just as much conviction.
The little mutt did not answer.
Panic hit Ben – had someone – something – taken him?
God no, he prayed.
Ben retraced his steps to find the main diner empty, too. The deputy’s anxious face was looking back his way from the Ford outside.
Hurry – she mouthed.
Ben stood for a terribly long instant unable to decide what to do.
“Go,” he said, waving her away.
Anderson did not understand.
“Go,” he said again, both hands gesturing for her to do exactly that.
The deputy shook her head.
Ben waved her away. He turned, his only thoughts for his dog and friend – Cal. He pulled his weapon clear, his heart racing and palm sweaty.
Something above him stomped across the roof. Quick footsteps, that hammered a greater fear into the trucker’s heart with every step taken.
He looked up.
The noise came again.
Whatever was up there had real size and weight.
Ben traced the footsteps along the ceiling until they stopped. A hollow bang came next. The noise amplified many times over, as the flue above the stove drew his attention.
Something was coming.
Wild and frantic.
And full of rageful determination.
The deputy rammed the gearstick forwards, crunching gears as she tried to find the correct location. She was panicking. Meadows’ ghoulish face had almost filled the entire rear-view mirror. He was close. The gearstick bit into place, and she hit the gas.
The Ford launched itself forwards, mud and water kicking up from behind, and headlights cutting into the darkness of the night.
Anderson watched as Meadows retracted in the mirror. He stopped, that terrible tilt of his head clear, and bones visible through his sodden clothes. Meadows just stared for a second. Then he turned to face the diner.
The deputy hit the brakes.
Ben.
She could not allow Meadows to focus his murderous intentions on the trucker.
She hit the horn.
Meadows turned back.
“Come on, you fucker,” Anderson cursed.
Meadows took a step forward.
“That’s it,” she said.
Then he stopped. His head tilting the other way. Stood rigid. Movement, as he turned away from the diner, and walked instead towards the motel. The downpour masked his passing once he had stepped beyond the deputy’s view.
A few moments of terrible silence followed.
What the fuck was he doing?
Anderson hit the horn again. The noise was a blaring challenge of sound.
Just a muted silence trailed on.
The deputy spun around in her seat, looking through every window as quickly as she could, expecting the ghoul to come at her from every angle. Was he stalking the Ford using the darkness as assistance?
Lights exploded behind her suddenly, twin beams of dazzling white light.
For a second, she thought Ben had somehow escaped, but in the next instant she understood what was happening.
Meadows was coming fast.
The deputy jammed the shift stick into place and-
Had a sudden, terrible thought.
Where could she go?
What if the rain had turned everyone it touched into something like Meadows and the teenager – Maggie?
What then.
Were all towns being beseeched by killers and monstrous beasts.
Either way, she had to be sure.
An idea burst to mind – a location, remote, away from the general populace – a good place to either hide or defend.
Anderson waited as the lights behind grew brighter.
She grinned, a spiteful gesture, that would not have been out of place had either Meadows or Maggie displayed it.
“Let’s go – motherfucker,” Anderson snarled.
The deputy hit the gas, and the Ford took off into the night.
Meadows followed.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Another thud sounded and in the next second, a pair of ghostly arms appeared. A mop of tangled hair followed, then shoulders, and Maggie half fell, half crawled, her way free from the bottom of the flue.
She landed in a sodden heap on the stove. Twisted onto all fours. Looked across the open diner.
Ben was hunkered down on the opposite side of the counter, weapon in hand, but praying he would not have to use it. Not against a kid, anyway.
He was looking towards the windows and could see the teenager’s faint reflection through the glass.
“Where’s my boy?” she crackled.
The words were twisted and bent, but not like before, these words had clear pronunciation; instead, it was spite and hatred that marred her words.
“Here – boy,” she called.
Something about her using these words as a lure, sent a shiver down Ben’s back. She was baiting the mutt, calling to him, and then waiting to see if he responded.
No, not see, as Ben had initially thought. Her head had a distinctive tilt to it – she was listening.
The trucker held his breath. What the fuck was this new wrinkle? How was she hearing. Only a few hours since being deaf.
The rain, obviously – but how could it be doing such a thing?
Ben did not have time to ponder on such events, as Maggie was climbing down from her vantage point. He heard wet sneakers slap against the laminate flooring.
The outline of her passing traced a ghostly reflection across the windows as she moved towards the rear of the diner.
“Hey – boy,” she called.
Ben tightened his grip on the weapon in hand. He was starting to think that – yes, just maybe – he could shoot the teenager. In the back of the head, preferably, shutting her up once and for all.
Her wet foot slaps diminished, her ragged breathing falling silent.
Ben was up, bent low, scooting around the counter to follow those wet prints that she had left behind.
A roar of anger almost froze him in place. Maggie was there, back bent awkwardly over, arms loose at her side, with fingers hooked into claws.
A ruse. Not to catch Cal. But the trucker. And Ben had fallen for it.
Her face looked ghastly. Lips twisted into a snarl and bare teeth visible. She had a dark smudge encrusted along her hairline, and Ben had the sickening feeling that it was dried blood. Luka’s blood. The rain unable to wash that red tinge away.
“Found you,” she said in tha
t terrible voice of hers.
Her lips bent further out of shape, an abhorrent smile trying to form.
“Fuck you,” Ben said. The trucker brought the weapon up, levelling it at the teenager before him.
Maggie screamed – a piercing shriek that froze Ben momentarily with terror.
The teenager was coming; those hooked fingers seeking out soft flesh.
Ben fired. Missed his target. Fired again, and the next bullet took a chunk out of Maggie’s leg.
She spun full circle, the force of the bullet sending her cartwheeling in a tangle of arms and legs. A cry of pain followed, long and self-pitying.
Ben felt suddenly guilty. What had he done?
But then that pitiful sound became warped and stressed, as cries turned to one of maniacal laughter.
The trucker’s legs felt weak. This was the stuff of nightmares. He half expected her head to spin backwards – like that terrifying moment from The Exorcist, yet that did not happen, and instead, the teenager climbed to her feet – her body bent and crooked.
“Don’t come any closer,” Ben warned her.
Maggie’s head tilted this way and that.
“I’m going to gut you, like I did that fat fucking cook,” she said. Her crooked fingers reached behind her, and a sliver of polished metal shone as she pulled the steak knife clear.
“To hell with you,” Ben said.
Maggie laughed again – the demented sound of a lunatic. In the next second, she was coming at Ben, blade outstretched and looking to find soft purchase.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The deputy came up upon the smouldering husk of the State Cruiser. It was little more than a charred outline of what it had once been. The paint was gone – black and white a burnt and pitted mess, and the interior looked molten and bare, as the fire that had consumed it had rendered it empty and hollow.
The passing of the bear could not be seen, not after such devastation. No carcass trapped within, nor anything that looked remotely similar – just the police vehicle present, a charred wreckage that expelled fumes and smoke in a light haze.
In the next second, she had driven beyond the crown vic, to leave the stricken vehicle in her wake.
The headlights behind were still bright and threatening. Anderson welcomed the fact. She could not allow Meadows to enter a more populated area. Surely death would follow. She had to keep the thing focused on her.
The Ford had all the power and advantage over the tan VW, but the deputy kept her speed under control, the lights behind a constant threat of what could be, and Anderson welcomed such persistence, as it granted her the assurance she needed.
Meadows was not about to tear off into the night seeking the blood of the innocent.
The tree line was a continuous wall; a solid mass that would not allow the Ford to shift from its direction, straight and unbreakable, and a channel that kept both killer and escapee from breaking their course.
Tonight, these two were bound by fate. Neither one able to disconnect from this immediate future that fortune had dictated for them to follow.
Deputy Anderson pushed the Maverick on, the speedometer climbing ever higher, and the vehicle racing onwards, the darkness seemingly parting in eager anticipation.
Meadows could not be shifted. The VW was fixed to the rear of the leading vehicle. Headlights burning brightly and holding the Ford in its glare.
Anderson tilted the rear-view mirror towards the back. Rivers was still a bundle of unmoving flesh. Uncommunicative, and incapable of helping when most needed.
For now, the deputy was on her own.
She repositioned the rear-view mirror so that she could see the VW directly behind her. Meadows was hunched over the steering wheel, that single eye of his wide and focused.
Anderson could not think, other than the wish to see blood, as to why he felt driven into pursuing them. What had Rivers done for this ex-serviceman to warrant such a purpose?
She was calling him then. Trying to draw the unconscious man in the rear into helping her to understand.
Rivers could hear his name being called out. A voice, someone he knew, was repeating his name in an almost chant-like fashion. He focused on the voice – willing himself to escape from the bonds of delirium. He felt his heart quicken, and his breath filled with a great lungful of air; the oxygen that flooded his bloodstream pushing the darkness away, and his eyes opened to find himself in the rear of the Ford.
For a second, he thought he was still trapped within the dream – him occupying the role of Meadows, skull split open and brain tissue visible for all to see.
Yet, in the next second, he realised that it was the deputy driving the vehicle – and not a marionette version of himself.
His mouth clicked open, lips parched, and tongue numb from a dryness that needed to be quenched. The rain outside taunted him then, like the ocean would mock the survivor of a shipwreck. Drink me, it beckoned. All would be fine. But Rivers knew otherwise. And just like the salt that would kill the ocean-dwelling survivor, this rain would surely turn sanity into madness if consumed in even its smallest of quantities.
Rivers shook his head. The darkness retracted ever so slightly.
He could see the tightly packed trees roll by in a continuous blur of motion.
What was this?
How had he been moved from the diner?
He did not know.
Yet, understood that the events surrounding him were somehow real.
“Anderson,” he said, in a weak croak.
The deputy heard her name called out. A feeble sound, that was barely distinguishable over the roar of the Maverick’s engine.
She chanced a look behind her, to find Rivers slumped in an upright position.
“Where the fuck have you been?” she asked, a flood of relief and annoyance filling her being.
“You tell me,” Rivers managed to say. The cuffs were still tightly bond around his wrists. “You taking me in?” he asked.
Anderson laughed bitterly. “I wish,” she snorted.
“Where we headed?” Rivers wanted to know.
The deputy fixed her gaze through the mirror. “Take a look behind you – we have company.”
Rivers twisted awkwardly. Shook his head upon seeing the VW behind them.
“He’s thorough if nothing else,” he said.
Anderson nodded.
“Where we headed?” Rivers asked again.
The deputy fixed her eyes to the road in front. “We need to take this fucker someplace where he cannot hurt anyone else.”
“You got an idea?” he asked.
The deputy grinned maliciously through the mirror; her eyes full of bad intent. “Yeah,” she said. “Somewhere he isn’t likely to be coming back from.”
Rivers nodded, a weak gesture, but one seemingly full of agreeance.
“Let’s end this,” he said. His eyes had regained some of their clarity.
Anderson thanked the gods that they had deemed it fit for him to return to her. Prisoner or not, she welcomed his help. Yet, understood that he was still a wanted fugitive. One that she was determined to bring in – just not right now, on the night that had gone to hell.
“Hold tight,” she warned.
The trees to her side started to thin ever so slightly, an indication that a break was about to come. The deputy hit the lights, dropping the Ford into darkness. The road disappeared, just shadows and outlines filling her vision.
In the next second, she spotted the opening within the tree line – a slightly less black than the trees had to offer, and a single escape route that led much deeper into the forest.
Anderson spun the Ford that way, tyres shrieking with effort, and chrome scratched deeply by the sharp fingers of branches and bushes, that took paint away in an audible screech of friction.
The VW tore past the intersection, bright taillights filling the highway in a bloodred haze, as Meadows missed the turning completely, his broken brain fixed ahead, and that single eye p
inned to the road before him.
Chapter Thirty-Four
He had never considered himself to be a violent man, yet Ben was seriously in danger of becoming just that. Twice he had managed to evade Maggie’s attacks with the steak knife; a boot to her midriff had stopped her short the first time, and a glancing blow across the skull with the butt of his weapon the second.
Yet Maggie still came.
She was breathing heavily, something that Ben welcomed. They were not unstoppable killing machines then. They had their limits, just like everyone else.
However, that horrible grin had not slipped from her face throughout the encounter – and she had continued to taunt him.
“You fat fuck,” she said, the blade jabbing towards the trucker’s stomach. “Gonna rip you open. Gut you like a fish.”
Ben took a step back to feel the counter behind him. His conscience was still wrestling with the notion of putting her down – and putting her down permanently.
One shot had already grazed her leg, but it simply enraged her more, rather than slow her down as intended. Only two more shots and he would be out of ammo.
Ben sidestepped away from the counter, his plan to put the solid barrier between the two of them.
Maggie read the move. She took a quick furtive step herself, blocking off that escape route.
“Last chance,” Ben said, his words difficult to form as his lungs burnt with effort. That initial burst of adrenaline was almost spent, and instead, the trucker could feel the strength in his limbs quickly lessening. His arm felt heavy, the weapon he held difficult to hold straight.
Maggie’s hand shot out, unexpectedly, and something flew towards the trucker’s face. Ben instinctively turned his head to one side. The plate hit him in the side of his head, a dull thud of sound, before spinning to the floor, where it cracked into many pieces.