Untitled Book. Chapter 3

The night wound endlessly around the SUV.  Digital numbers on the console announced the arrival of three in the morning – for all those who cared.  The radio continued to play loops around the single CD I had inserted the previous day.  For some reason I was stuck in a soft rock mood and that CD was it.  The songs raced by in the background.  After the first hour I had stopped listening to the music.  I used it now as a tool of comfort.

My comfort level dived when the music went mute.  Sudden silence deafened the enclosed space around me.  The hairs on the back of my neck rose at attention.  My breath grew short.  I knew something was about to happen.  Something I wouldn’t want to consider.

“It’s up ahead in the road.”

The ghost from the restaurant appeared in the passenger seat.  The small girl could barely see over the dashboard.  She sat perfectly still, her hands balled in her lap and her eyes looking straight ahead.

I decided not to ask questions and quickly turned my own attention back to the road.  I led the SUV at a safe speed down highway 40.  I had gone west, choosing the way that had felt right; just as Jack had instructed.

On the side of the road a speed limit posted itself at 65MPH and was shortly followed by the mile marker 131.  I had left home nearly an hour and a half ago, and already I was facing trouble.  What ever it was, it was waiting for me up ahead.

The night seemed reluctant to show me anything past my headlights.  No other cars were to be found.  I felt isolated, alone and for the first time hunted.

What happened next spanned only a few seconds’ time, but time worked in movie-quality slow motion for me.  A figure appeared suddenly in the road.  He was tall, looking me eye to eye as he stood motionless in the middle of my lane.  His eyes were completely black; darker than the night.  His skin was pale and shimmered like fish scales in the summer sun.  Thin black lips spread unnaturally wide across his face.  He was dressed in only a black robe which hid everything but his disproportioned hairless head, hands and the grey feathered wings that sprouted from his back.

If I had to tell you what he was at that moment in time, I would have said he was the angel of death.  I would find out later that I wasn’t that far off the mark.

Instincts took over and I swerved hard to the left to miss him.  My verbal protest was nothing more than a small squeak as the SUV tilted dangerously to the left shoulder of the road.  I was almost certain I would roll, but the car kept all four wheels in contact with the pavement underneath.  Both of the tires on my side of the car dropped off the pavement and onto the soil before I could gain control enough to center myself back into the fast lane.

My heart pounded with enough force to cause my head to ache in rhythm with it.  I smacked my lips a few times as I glanced into my rear-a-view mirror.  All I saw as darkness, as it had been my entire trip so far.

Glancing in the passenger seat, I expected it to be vacated.  It was not.

“What was that?” I asked the girl softly.

“They won’t stop until they find you.  Now they know where you are.  You must travel south when the road west is high.”

I grimaced at her riddle.  Though it wasn’t hard for me to figure out, I would have given anything for a straight answer.  When the road was high… I was headed straight for the mountains of North Carolina.  I supposed when I had come to the highest point of those mountains I would continue southwest.  For some reason, my gut nagged me to continue on a western path.  It was almost as if I was draw away from the rising sun.

Instead of asking her to further explain things, I remained silent.  After a few minutes my radio came back on and I knew without looking that she was gone.

It was at that point I decided to give her a name.  I would call her Dorothy, because I certainly wasn’t in Kansas anymore.  Not that I’ve ever been to Kansas, but the name fit just the same.

It didn’t take long for my newly awakened mind to warn me of further complications.  I had in my possession a bank card.  I used it regularly and had not thought about it until now.  Bank cards were nothing more than electronic money.  Anything electronic could be tracked.  I was currently being stalked by something not human, but the last thing I needed was to be filled as a missing person and have any transactions I made tracked.  Jack had warned me not to get my family involved and I wasn’t curtain she would, but I could predict my mother hiring someone to try and find me.  She would mean well, but even the best of intentions could be the worst of actions.

With this in mind, I stopped as the first ATM I could find and withdrew the maximum it would allow me to take.  If I combined the cash I got from the machine to what was stored away in my change purse and the bag in my trunk, I had a grand total of six hundred and forty three dollars.  It would seem like a lot; but if you were no longer working a job and driving to some unknown location, the cost of gas and lodging would consume a large amount.  Not to mention food cost and anything else that might come along.

After a rest stop, where I took my time stretching and soaking in the night air, I found myself in Ashville a couple of hours after my encounter on the road.  It was almost six in the morning, which meant that soon the stores would open.  So far my plan was to find a grocery store and stock up there.  I saw no point in spending even more of my limited cash on fast food when I could save my doe and have what I needed in my vehicle.  By seven thirty I was passing through Cherokee North Carolina with a full belly and enough supplies to last me through the next two days.  Now all I had to worry about was where I would find lodging later that night.  After sleeping only a few hours the night before, and driving hours on end, I was close to ready for bed and the morning was still blooming.  By the time night rolled around I would have to get some sleep.

Most of the day was uneventful.  I was stuck in traffic at one point due to road construction, but I can’t recall which city I was in.  It was shortly after noon and it was a Friday.  Everyone was busy getting home while I was busy making as much distance as I could between myself and my home.  I tried not to think about my family, but images plagued me.  My brother would be shocked at the fact I would pull one of his stunts.  A few years back he had disappeared for five months.  Later we found out he had just gotten the urge to travel cross-country.  Mom was, to say the least, mad.  He was an adult but he had us all worried.

Mom, I’m sure, was worried.  As would be Dad.  I hoped they knew me well enough to know I was responsible and not to question my reasons for bolting.  I had the funny feeling that my grandfather would understand.  Perhaps he would understand more than any of them.

Around two-thirty, I had crossed the border to Alabama.  The mountain roads curved around gorgeous landscapes.  Trees littered my field of vision from all angles.  I drove in the slow lane so to be as close to the mountains edge or wall (it alternated) as I could.  When the ground dropped beyond the road I could see trees marking the mountain’s decent.  When the mountain rose up to create a wall, springs would burst from the rock.   I loved every minute of it.