“Of course,” he’d soothed her, “of course I do …”
“Don’t you remember you promised?”
And he’d pressed her against his heart, and plunged the dagger through her throat, and twisted it with cold, calm ease.
And then he’d smiled.
“Of course I remember, Angela … but I lied.”
31
Lucy stared in disbelief.
As she glanced over at Byron, she saw him hold the envelope upside down and give it a shake. If she hadn’t been so stunned, it would have been comical.
“I thought …” she stammered, “I really thought—”
“Me, too. But are you sensing anything?”
Trying to break the tension, Lucy bounced the keyless entry in the palm of her hand. “Yeah. I’ve got a sense these are keys.”
“Your psychic abilities are impressive,” he deadpanned. He balled up the envelope and tossed it into a trash can, then gave her a curt nod. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” Lucy asked, hurrying to match his long stride.
“You heard her. Let’s try the bus depot.”
They were there in ten minutes. Not only was the place small, but the waiting room was practically empty. While Byron checked the schedules for southern destinations, Lucy questioned the clerks at the ticket counter. No one remembered Irene Foster’s daughter buying a bus ticket today, but after thinking a moment, one of the clerks remembered a young couple bundled in coats and hats and sunglasses who’d taken a southbound express about an hour before.
“I think it’s worth a try,” Byron decided. “They don’t have that much of a head start, and they’ll be making stops along the way. It should be easy to catch them.”
Lucy felt sick. Sick to her stomach and sick at heart. As she climbed up beside him into the van, she shot him a look of desperation.
“What if you’re right?”
“How so?”
“What if this whole thing with the necklace has nothing to do with Angela? I mean … what if she’s really and truly found the love of her life, and they’re going off to live happily ever after, and we’re going after them and being stupid?”
Byron put the key in the ignition. He stared thoughtfully at the dashboard.
“Then,” he said carefully, “at least we know. Then we turn around and come back home. And they have their lives … and we have ours.”
Lucy sighed. “I can’t help it, though. I just still feel something—just here.” She clamped her arms around her midsection and fixed him with a worried frown. “I just feel like something about this isn’t right. It’s just this awful nagging feeling, and it won’t go away.”
“You’re probably feeling a lot of things right now,” Byron reminded her. “You thought you had the necklace, and you’d psyched yourself up to face it.”
“So did you,” she said quietly.
He shrugged. “Emotional roller coaster.”
“You’re right. I don’t know whether to be scared now, or relieved.”
“How about a little of both? It’s okay, you know, to feel both.”
She tried to smile at him, but her emotions were at full pitch. As they sailed along the highway, she leaned against her door and stared out the window of the van. Everything’s flowing tonight, she thought vaguely … flowing road … flowing van … flowing curves … flowing hills …
She could still see that strange red moon watching her through the clouds. The color of rust … the color of decay. A stain of old dried blood on the wrinkled flesh of the sky.
Shivering, Lucy hunched her shoulders and burrowed deeper into her jacket. It felt like it was getting colder, both outside and in. And the moon … that eerie red moon … actually seemed to be growing. Growing and glowing among the tops of the trees, like some forgotten Christmas ornament.
Lucy frowned and burrowed deeper. Why did full moons like that make her feel so weird? Make her think of creepy things like … like …
Prey …
“What?” She sat up straight and looked at Byron, who looked back at her suspiciously.
“What?” he echoed.
“Did you just say something?”
“Yeah, I said, just pray my brakes hold out.”
“Oh my God, don’t tell me that—your brakes?”
“Well … all these curves sure aren’t helping my van.”
“Thank you, Byron. That definitely eases my mind, your sharing that with me.”
She saw that slow half smile working at one corner of his mouth. She realized that she really loved it when he smiled like that. She wished he’d do it more often.
“Stop staring at me,” he said, and, grinning, she turned back to her window.
She closed her eyes. The hum of the motor, the rocking motion of the van on the road … she could feel herself drifting off. That pleasant state between sleep and attention, when everything seemed soft and warm and safe. She forced her eyes open and searched for taillights up ahead of them, but the road was so twisted, she couldn’t see a thing. There wasn’t even traffic out tonight, she suddenly realized. But she could see the slow, pale curls of fog beginning to creep in over the highway … blurring the yellow line … swallowing the road ahead of them.
That feeling again. Gnawing at the pit of her stomach.
“Byron,” she said uneasily, “be careful.”
He cast her a sidelong glance. “Always.”
“No, I mean it. Please.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes … just … I don’t know. Restless. Nervous.”
“If you want, we can stop for some coffee the first place we see. It might be a good idea.”
She gave a distracted nod. She gazed out into the darkness … out at that bloody moon. She wished it would go behind a cloud for the rest of the night … she wished it would just go away.
She sensed something beside them on the road.
Something she couldn’t actually see, something just out of sight off the shoulder, something moving swiftly through the tall needs, keeping pace with the van.
Strange …
Lucy looked over at the speedometer. Sixty. Yet she was sure—she was certain—that something was out there running, running even faster than the van could go, running even faster than the wind could go …
“Byron,” she mumbled.
“What?”
She saw him turn toward her.
Saw his hand slide across the seat and reach for her.
She looked into his eyes … deep and black as midnight … and in that moment she could see in their depths all the truths and emotions that she’d felt that morning with her hand upon his heart.
A sob went through her.
Byron opened his mouth and started to say her name.
But he never got the chance.
As the dark shape came out of the fog, Byron hit the brakes, the tires screeching, the van skidding, sliding, going into a spin. As they whirled around and around, Lucy could see it there—the huge, black shape silhouetted against the fog, standing on all fours, statuelike in the middle of the road. Watching them … watching them …
She tried to reach for Byron—reached desperately for Byron—
But her head slammed the window, and the van careened off the hill, and all she could think in those last few seconds was he never got to say it …
Byron never said my name.
32
So this is what it’s like to die …
Lying there on her back in the grass, all alone in the darkness, she could sense the wet, runny mask of her face—tears? blood?—she couldn’t be sure, couldn’t be sure she even had a face, couldn’t be sure about anything except that her body screamed in pain each time she tried to draw even the shallowest of breaths.
I can’t move … help … somebody, help me …
With a ragged cry, Lucy tried to lift her head, tried to peer through the thick, endless night surrounding her. As in a dream, she could see the faraway sky bla
zing bright, lit by a giant fire—and along with those sickening smells of pain and fear and despair that threatened to choke her, now there was the gasoline … burning rubber … white-hot metal … and something else … something dear to her heart …
Byron!
That’s Byron’s van!
She’d been sitting in the front seat beside him, and she’d been staring at the moon. That bloodred moon hovering there behind the trees and glowing out through the dark, shredded fabric of the clouds. She’d been staring at the moon, and then she’d jolted with the first sharp swerve of the van. Confused and groggy, she’d heard Byron’s shout, the piercing shriek of brakes and tires; she’d felt the road give way to air beneath them as they dove off the shoulder and off the crest of the hill, and out through the foggy night, plummeting down and down into nothingness …
Byron? Can you hear me?
She knew somehow that she hadn’t spoken aloud, knew somehow that her thoughts had burst free of her pain, only to fall silent among the shadows. It was so dark out here. So dark, so frighteningly still, except for those flames leaping and glowing against the distant horizon …
Something ran in front us.
With a moan, Lucy struggled to shut out the pain, struggled to focus her hazy thoughts.
Byron tried to swerve, he tried to miss hitting it, but something ran in front of us …
She wished she could remember. She wished she could remember what it was that had caused the accident. But there was only the briefest glimmer of memory in that last fatal second, only the briefest image of something caught in headlights as the car veered and left the road.
What was that?
It seemed so familiar somehow …
But her thoughts were fading … fading … and she knew she was slipping away. In desperation she stared up at the trees overhead, great gnarled branches etched thickly against the black dome of the sky. And then she noticed that moon.
So full and round. So red like blood. Caught in a web of tangled limbs, oozing out through the clouds, wine stains on velvet.
Byron, I’m so scared! Please help me!
And that’s when she heard it.
The soft rustling sound, like wind sighing through grass. Except that she couldn’t feel any wind, not even the faintest of breezes, in this heavy night air.
The sound was close by.
Coming even closer …
Oh God!
Once more she tried to lift herself, to call out for help. But the rustlings were in her head now, in her thoughts and in her pain, like so many urgent whispers, whispers of great importance.
As Lucy’s head turned helplessly to one side, she saw shadows all around her, shadows slinking along the ground and through the trees, slivers of black, and pale, pale gray, and sparks of amber light …
Terror exploded within her. Even through the paralyzing numbness of pain and shock, she sensed that these were animals, and she sensed why they were here. Instinct told her that she was surrounded, though one stood closer than the others. She could hear the slow, calm rhythm of its breathing as it watched her from a place she couldn’t see.
Oh, God, don’t let me die like this!
She thought of Byron. The vision burst inside her brain with such force that she choked and gagged and vomited blood in the grass. In that one instant of agonizing clarity she saw his midnight eyes, heard his calm, deep voice, telling her not to be afraid. Now she remembered how he’d turned to her in that last split second of his life, his eyes desperate with helplessness and disbelief as he’d reached for her hand. Did he touch me? The thought drifted through her mind, light as a feather. Did we touch one last time?
But the whispers were louder now, and the fire was brighter than ever, and she was so weak … so tired.
Please … please … just let me die fast …
Night swayed around her. As tears ran silently down her cheeks, something huge and dark leaned in over her, blocking her view of the sky.
She steeled herself for the end. Felt hot breath caressing her throat … smelled the faint, familiar scent of something sweet …
Byron … I’m so sorry…
“Byron has gone,” the voice murmured. “Only I can save you now.”
Who are you? What are you?
Down … down she sank into the endlessness of time.
And that voice … fading far into nothingness …
“Oh, Lucy … There’s no name for what we are.”
The
Unseen
part 2
rest in peace
by RICHIE TANKERSLEY CUSICK
Stalked by an unseen force and plagued by unspeakable visions, Lucy feels she cannot carry on for much longer—especially now that Byron, the one person who understood what she was going through, is gone. No one else believes her. She is still alone. And still in grave danger …
It Begins Page 16