|
The ache was excruciating. John had landed predominantly on his
good foot but still needed the other foot for leverage on contact with the
ground. It had slipped out from underneath him just as Sandy’s had done, and
that had injured it more.
Immediately, he got to his feet, and pain quickly knocked him back
down. He got up once more and stumbled painfully towards the car.
Sandy was standing at her open car door screaming, “Hurry!
Hurry, John! My God, its on the roof now!”
He slipped in the mud again as he reached the rear of the Maxima
but instantly righted himself.
Sandy started towards him to help him along, but he quickly
shouted, “No! Just get in car!” His voice carried fear and dread but had a
faint trace of misplaced hope.
She either didn’t
hear him or just didn’t listen to his plea because she helped him to the
driver’s side door anyway. Then she hurried around the front of the car to the
passenger side as the driver’s side door closed shut.
“Keys, keys, do you have the car keys?” she cried as she got
in and closed her door.
Even as she was sputtering out the words, John was reaching into
the center console, and he fished out an extra key he had hidden there.
Sandy turned and looked out the rear window. Terror rocketed
across her face and for an instant stole her breath. Finally, she was able to
scream, “My God--hurry, its jumping from the roof!”
No more than twenty-five feet away when it touched ground.
John fumbled with the key. His hands shook uncontrollably.
“Wha-what the hell is it?” she managed to force out in a harsh
whisper between clenched teeth. But her tone indicated that she probably
didn’t really expect nor want a reply, sensing that knowing what it was would
only add to its horror.
Only fifteen feet now and closing, slow, deliberate steps.
Confident steps.
John finally jammed the key into the ignition, and the Nissan
revved to life.
“Oh God! Oh no!” Sandy screamed.
John hadn’t pulled all the way up to the garage so maybe there
was enough room to attempt a U-turn and not have to waste time backing up first.
He turned the steering wheel hard left and barely but successfully--at the cost
of several small bushes--managed to turn the car around and sped down the long,
gravel driveway towards Deep Hollow Road.
He looked through his rear-view mirror at the receding house, but
the creature was no longer there. It had vanished. The only movement behind them
were the tiny chains of wet heaven beating down on the nightscape. There were
numerous shadows in which it could conceal itself, but why do that? It was so
close. Why had it just given up?
He looked to his left, past the mantle of sterling rivulets that
wept down his window into the brush line that flanked the driveway. He fixed his
gaze hard into those thick, wet shadows afraid that something would explode
through the window at them, but eerily transfixed on the dark, tumultuous night,
regardless. Everything out there seemed inanimately alive. Dark specters of tree
limbs shook in epileptic fits, tall grass and bushes became industrious little
goblins, scurrying in wind-swept ranks back and forth. Was it out there?
Everything seemed to be conspiring against them.
Suddenly, without warning, a tremendous crash buckled the car
roof.
Sandy screamed.
John even cried out in surprise.
His instincts were getting faster. He reached under his seat for
the revolver and said, “Get the shells out of the glove box!”
With the grating sound of metal stretched to its breaking point,
the roof pressed farther down as the creature pummeled the car roof. Sandy had
to scrunch down in her seat as she fished frantically through the glove box for
the shells.
The back window cracked in an arabesque pattern from top to bottom
under the onslaught of blows to the roof.
“I-I only found one,” she cried after tearing out all the
papers and maps and throwing them to the floor.
“Hopefully that’s all we’ll need,” John said, though he
really didn’t think even a howitzer shell shot point blank could stop this
thing. He handed her the weapon. “Shell the round and when I say, shoot the
damned thing through the roof!”
Finally, she was able to get the round in the chamber, almost
losing it twice in her shaking grip.
The next punch in the roof knocked out the rear windshield all
together, letting in the cold, deathly feel of the storm. Within seconds, the
side windows were disintegrated, as well.
They were coming up to the end of the driveway; a hundred feet and
closing. At the junction of the driveway was Deep-Hollow Road. It was a snake of
a road that descended steeply to the right and around a bend as the route
meandered down to the next lowest ridge and followed it into Franklin, the
county seat. Opposite the driveway, on the other side of the road, a cement
buttress had been placed to keep automobiles from accidentally falling into a
forty-foot gully as they rounded the curve by the Walker’s driveway.
John had an idea. Not a good one, just his only one. “Buckle
up,” he said.
Sandy stared at him, a sick feeling of something that was more
frightening than death, transforming her once bright, cheery face.
“Buckle up!” he urged forcefully.
Numbly, she obliged.
He accelerated. The car shuttered and bounced as it gained
momentum over the pitted, gravel driveway. Thirty miles an hour.
Sandy started to point the revolver at the ceiling, but John
cried, “Don’t shoot till I tell you!”
He began jerking the car left, then right, then left again,
fishtailing the back of the car, trying to keep the thing from getting a firm
grip onto anything.
John squinted past the thrumming wipers and cracked windshield.
Fifty feet and closing to the end.
Faster.
The ebony-dark head of the monster suddenly appeared from the top
of the windshield and gazed in at them. Its glowing-sulfur eyes burned through
the glass and cauterized John’s soul. Its figure disappeared again back into
the darkness above them.
Faster
Thirty feet.
Without warning, a massive hand smashed the windshield with a
hammer-like blow into thousands of tiny fragments, groping, grabbing.
Fifteen feet.
Faster.
Screaming.
Clawing, reeking, wanting, needing what John had and would not
give up.
As soon as the car hit the slick pavement of Deep-Hollow Road, he
slammed on the brakes.
“Now!” he yelled. “Now, now!”
Sandy aimed skyward where the roof was indented the most and fired
the round.
The mud-packed tires struggled to keep their grip on the slick
pavement. The abruptness of the deceleration threw both occupants painfully
against their seat restraints.
John let off the brakes just long enough to pull the Maxima hard
left, then slammed on them once more, spinning the car’s rear end into the
concrete barrier. The rear quarter panel and back end crumpled on impact. Yellow
and red, plastic shrapnel from the tail lights were shot into the Cimmerian
ravine.
Simultaneously, a large, grotesque obscuration was launched from
the rooftop and disappeared into night’s spiteful embrace with what could have
been a cry of malcontent.
John disengaged the metal-concrete kiss with an abrasive screech
and pulled back out into the lane. His only clear view of the road was at the
lower left corner of the windshield which hadn’t spidered or disintegrated
when clobbered by the thing. A watermelon-size hole now occupied the space where
once the rear-view mirror had been. The night now bathed them in jewels of rain
and glass.
“You okay?” he asked, shivering off dread and wet, autumn
cold.
Sandy nodded affirmative and while rubbing the soreness from her
neck, said admonishingly, “Why didn’t you tell me that you were going to
crash into the wall?”
“I was too busy panicking, and you were too busy screaming for
dear life.”
The rim of the back tire was bent, and the tire itself was flat.
The car wobbled almost uncontrollably when he tried to exceed twenty miles per
hour. John did his best to keep the car going as fast as it would permit him
without losing control.
Hunched over in her seat to keep her head from hitting the sagging
roof, Sandy peeked between the two seats and out of the narrow slit that once
was the rear window. Nothing followed.
John peered into his side mirror. The washed-out night. Nothing
more.
Half a minute snailed
by. Neither spoke, and both were slow to stop their shaking. Another painfully
slow minute. Still nothing jumped out at them or on them or followed them.
“Pretty good move,” she finally said, still rubbing her neck.
“It was the only thing I could think to do. I-I’m sorry for
not telling you so you could prepare for impact. Maybe I should have hit my side
against the wall.” He was still visibly shaken. His voice carried regret,
sadness at the thought of her being hurt by his actions.
She must have sensed his grief for she said, “You did a hell of
a job back there. You kept us alive. You did what you had to do so don’t be
sorry. Be thankful.”
He sighed and looked out his side mirror again.
She looked out at the crowding darkness that was squeezing through
the broken windows around them. The rain had subsided into slow drizzle for now,
but wan swatches of lightning and the gurgle of far-off thunder foretold of only
a lull in the deluge.
Icy fingers massaged the space between her shoulder blades. She
shivered. “Do you think it won’t follow us now? Have we lost it?”
“Are you always this optimistic?” John rebutted.
That answered her question.
“And what scares me the most,” he continued, “is that I
don’t think we’ve even seen the worst yet.”
As they approached a bend in the road, the welcoming sign of
headlights greeted them. They slowed and stopped, and the other vehicle did as
well, directly across from each other.
The trucker rolled down his window and surveying the wrecked car
said, “John Walker?”
Recognizing the accent John said, “You’re the priest.” With
a pallid hand He wiped rain and fear as best he could from his face.
“Better get in the lorry with me, quick, ” he
said. “You can catch your death out here.”
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
|
