by Tammy Walsh
“Excuse me,” a voice said. “Are you coming back inside?”
It was the guy Hazel had been kissing earlier, no doubt hoping for Round Two.
“How dare you!” Hazel said sternly, wiggling her beringed finger in his face. “I am engaged to be married! I can’t be seen cavorting with ne’er-do-wells!”
The guy nodded, a little disappointed, and headed back inside.
I shared a look with Hazel. We burst into laughter.
“He looked terrified!” Hazel said.
“He’s probably keeping an eye out for Tom,” I said. “Ten points for the use of the word ‘cavorting,’ by the way.”
“It was one of my better moments, I thought,” Hazel said triumphantly.
She hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For being a great friend.”
She smiled at me and I smiled back. Then I wrinkled my nose and pulled back.
“What?” she said.
“Go inside and get cleaned up,” I said. “You smell worse than a monkey’s ass.”
Hazel led the way. I couldn’t help but glance back at that wall. I felt like their eyes were following me.
We joined the others at the minivan and hit the road. I had to turn back and return to the hotel twice—the girls having put something in the wardrobes and drawers too important to leave behind. After the second time, I went through all the rooms myself and made sure nothing had been left behind.
To my complete lack of surprise, they had forgotten a bunch of stuff.
I packed them in a single tote bag and dumped it in the back. And still the girls spoke up, suddenly remembering something they’d forgotten:
“My comb!” Victoria said. “We have to turn back! I forgot my comb!”
“Got it,” I said.
“My hairdryer!” Sirena said. “I can’t live without my hairdryer!”
“Got it,” I grunted.
“My makeup bag!” Bianca said. “I kept it under my mattress!”
“Got it!” I said loudly. It was only a moment later when I thought again. Makeup bag under the mattress?
Oh well. I’m sure the hotel would send it to us. We were leaving Party Central and I wasn’t going to turn back now.
Victoria and Maddy sat on the seats at the very back. They pulled blindfolds over their eyes to block out the lights from the few cars that passed. They lay sprawled on comfortable chairs. That was why I ordered this particular minivan ahead of time. The chairs were leather and you could lean back and really get comfortable. The journey was a three-hour drive with traffic and, although not long, I knew what state the girls would be in once we began to head back home.
Bianca and Sirena sat in the middle seats directly behind me and Hazel. They squirmed in their seats as if they had ants in their pants.
“Turn the music up!” they kept saying. “Louder!”
Meanwhile, those in the back, already close to drifting to sleep, groaned and complained about the music being too loud. We were only twenty minutes into the journey and already I wanted to pull over and dump them by the side of the road. I couldn’t put up with this for another two and a half hours and, thanks to planning ahead of time, I didn’t have to.
I opened the glove compartment and pulled out the large headphones I’d stored in there. I handed them to the girls behind us. After several failed attempts, they managed to plug them into the car’s audio system. They could listen to music as loudly as they wanted.
I glanced over at Hazel. “I can turn the music up if you want to listen?” I said.
She shook her head. “I like the quiet.”
She returned to staring out the window. I thought about our conversation earlier when she was spewing her guts out. About her second thoughts of marrying Tom. The others were distracted, so it was the perfect time to bring it up. But how? It was a difficult subject to broach.
Just then, a bright light illuminated the entire minivan, filling every nook and cranny with glaring amps. I turned the rearview mirror to one side to avoid it glaring in my face.
“Damn drivers,” I grumbled. “Why do they always use the high beam?”
I focused on the road ahead, purple cigarette burns dancing in my vision.
“Slow down,” Hazel said. “Let them overtake.”
I put my hazards on and pulled over as close to the side of the road as possible. The barrier prevented me from going any further. The lights remained just as bright.
I could see far ahead down the long straight. No trucks or other vehicles came toward us. I lowered my window and waved my arm for them to overtake. It was safe.
“Asshole wants the whole road,” I said.
A strange electronic thrum strummed from behind us. I shared a look with Hazel. It was the weirdest noise I’d ever heard and wanted to make sure someone else had heard it too. By how she clamped her hands over her ears, I guessed she had.
The bright light dimmed, but not because the driver had kindly lowered the brightness level, but because the light moved away from us…
Directly up.
The vehicle—whatever it was—had shot up into the sky at a terrific speed.
A cold tingling sensation shivered up my back. There had to be a plausible explanation. Maybe we were driving over a hill and the lights only appeared to move up into the heavens.
But the road was flat. Sure, it was winding, but horizontally not vertically.
I ignored my dry mouth and jammed my foot on the gas.
“Alice…” Hazel said.
“I know,” I said, not looking over at her.
“It just…”
“I know.”
I didn’t want to talk about it.
I sat bolt upright, staring out the front window as if we were suffering from torrential rain and it was difficult to see. Maybe if we ignored it, pretended like we hadn’t seen or heard it and never spoke about it ever again, we could believe it hadn’t happened.
In the back, the music still blared and the girls danced merrily, grinding against the grateful seats. Further in the back, one of the girls was snoring. Probably Victoria.
The rest of the world hadn’t noticed the bizarre goings-on. It was probably just us. It was nothing, I told myself. Nothing but a figment of our imagination.
Then the light blinked on again, this time directly above us. It was even brighter this time, like a hospital’s fluorescents. It exploded across the front and side of the minivan, spreading our shadow over the canvas of the sheer mountain alongside us.
I felt the effect immediately—a gentle but persistent tug on the roof.
I pressed my foot on the gas. The engine roared but we didn’t zip forward. The front lifted, dragged by that incredible light.
Thinking quickly—or perhaps not thinking at all but letting my instincts take over—I shoved the car into reverse and slammed my foot on the pedal.
The rear wheels bit the tarmac and pulled hard. They didn’t pull us backward, and instead shook us left to right and kicked up a thick cloud of smoke.
Hazel screamed. The girls sleeping in the back—previously unaware of what was happening—bolted to attention.
“What in God’s name is going on?” Victoria said.
“We just want to get our beauty sleep for the wedding tomorrow,” Maddy said. “Can’t you be quiet for one minute? Oh.”
They both turned to face the immense light that streamed through the windows and turned the world white.
“What the hell is going on?” Victoria said. “Is a helicopter chasing us?”
Hazel was too scared to answer her. And I was too busy trying to escape.
The smell of burning rubber filled the cab until even Bianca and Sirena noticed it.
Sirena screwed up her face. “Victoria! Will you stop farting for five seconds?”
The minivan rose off the road. There was no doubt in my mind that this thing, whatever it was, was going to take us with it.
Ho
nk!
Honk honk hoooonk!
The light blinked out and we fell the few inches it managed to lift us.
Honk!
The noise grew louder.
In the rearview mirror, the headlights of a large truck raced toward us, growing louder, brighter, and closer.
The engine had stalled. I turned the key in the ignition and muttered a silent prayer as the engine roared back into life.
I slammed my foot on the gas. The minivan bolted forward as if it’d been stung. The cliffside reared up fast. I swung the wheel and worked around the long curve, struggling to keep ahead of the truck behind us.
The girls in the back screamed as we came within inches of sailing over the edge. My hands shook so violently I could barely keep them on the wheel.
I was all over the road, struggling to keep us straight. A car heading in the opposite direction flashed its headlights at us.
Unable to focus, I rode the dirt shoulder and let the truck overtake us. He blasted his horn one last time and barreled down the road, tail lights glowing like red eyes.
We sat there, panting for oxygen, struggling to breathe, puzzling over what we’d seen.
“W-What was it?” Hazel said, her voice barely a whisper.
“I… I don’t know,” I said.
But that wasn’t true. I knew what it was. We all knew what it was.
“It was… It was… a… a…” Victoria said.
“No, it wasn’t,” Sirena said. “It couldn’t be. They don’t exist.”
“I know what it was,” Maddy said. “We all do.”
“I’m with Sirena,” Bianca said. “It was a trick of the light, that’s all.”
“And the minivan rising into the air like that?” Hazel said.
“A figment of our imagination,” Bianca said.
But her face was pale, her eyes wide and bulbous. Somehow, she still managed to look gorgeous.
“If it was a… a… you know,” Sirena said. “How are we still here? It should have sucked us up by now.”
“It would have,” I said. “But the truck came in the nick of time and stopped it.”
Out the front windshield, the big truck’s taillights shrank as they wound around a wide bend that would take it to the other side of the mountain.
The other side of the mountain.
The truck would be gone and we’d be alone again.
I turned the key in the ignition and pulled out without checking my mirrors.
“I’m not sure you should be driving,” Sirena said. “I mean, if you’re seeing things that aren’t really there…”
I kept my eyes focused on that truck and didn’t slow down as I took each bend of the road. I usually kept strictly between my lines but tonight was different.
“Can you slow down?” Bianca said. “I’ve never known you to speed before, Alice.”
“If we lose sight of that truck, that thing is going to come for us again,” I said. “We have to catch up to it.”
“We’re not going to catch up to anything if we slam into the cliffs—”
“Sirena,” Hazel said, not taking her eyes off the road. “You know I love you, but shut the fuck up. Let Alice concentrate.”
Sirena was just scared like the rest of us, but if we wanted to avoid seeing that bright light again, I needed to focus.
Two minutes of driving like a madwoman, I caught up to the truck. The tension in my muscles eased and I hung back at a safe distance. I didn’t care if the truck was slow. It could get us home safely. That was all that mattered.
The others relaxed too. They no longer slept or listened to deafening music. They stared out the windows, peering up at the twinkling stars and the dead of night. Never before had the night sky seemed so dangerous.
All memory of the bright light faded. We’d probably just drank too much. That was all. We imagined everything.
I ignored the fact I hadn’t drunk so much as a single drop. Alcohol was as good an explanation as anything else, and that was all I needed to get on with my life.
I started to smile. So did the others.
The horror was over.
And then the truck signaled.
It was going to pull onto another road, heading somewhere other than New York.
“Uh, guys,” I said. “We need a decision pronto.”
They peered out the windshield and noticed the winking orange light.
“The asshole is turning off?” Maddy said. She rarely swore. “He can’t do this to us!”
“Looks that way,” I said. “Do we follow or do we head home?”
“Whatever happened to us before is over,” Hazel said. “It’s gone. I say we head home.”
How can she be so sure? “Do you really want to travel these roads with no truck to protect us?”
“I vote we get home as soon as possible,” Bianca said. “To hell with the truck.”
“Listen to you guys,” Sirena said. “Jumping at shadows.”
“It wasn’t a shadow,” Victoria said. “It was a bright white light coming from the sky.”
Sirena rolled her eyes. “I vote to head home. We can’t follow the truck forever.”
“I’d rather get home eventually than not get home at all,” Victoria said. “I vote to follow the truck.”
“That’s three to head home, one to follow the truck,” Hazel said. “Maddy?”
“Truck!” she eked.
Hazel turned to me. “You get the deciding vote, Alice. What’s it to be?”
I didn’t get the deciding vote. If I said to follow the truck, it would make votes on both sides tied.
The truck began to turn off. My hand perched over the turn signal. I had to make my decision now.
The things I’d seen, the things I’d felt… With the passage of a little time, the fear had already worn off. It didn’t seem as bad or as scary as I’d thought in the moment.
I shook my head and lowered my hand. “I’m the maid of honor. It can’t be my fault you don’t get to your wedding on time. Let’s get home as quickly as possible.”
Sirena and Bianca sighed with relief.
“Thank fuck for that,” Bianca said. “I had a hot date I don’t want to miss.”
Victoria and Maddy weren’t so relieved.
The truck slowed as it made its turn. I glanced at it every few seconds in the rearview mirror.
Then, we were alone again on the open country road. I watched the night sky, looking for any sign of that bright light to come visit us again.
But nothing happened.
We’d made the right decision. We’d be home within the next two hours. And then we’d have the wedding to look forward to in the morning. A new beginning for my best friend.
I turned a corner and there, right in the middle of the dark tarmac, laid like a police trap across the road, a bright spotlight. It would ensnare us the moment we entered it and there would be no escape.
I swung the steering wheel, swerving around the spotlight, but my success was shortlived as the barrier raced up to meet us and we smashed right through it and plummeted into the dark ravine on the other side.
Nighteko
It was a memory. A bad one—one I didn’t want to recall. It ended in disaster. I tried to throw myself from my subconscious but there was nothing I could do.
Someone might have been holding my head in their hands, forcing me to watch, and I was powerless to stop them. I couldn’t even shut my eyes.
My hands were fat and chubby and I waved them in front of my face. I tugged on my mother’s skirt. I could barely reach her waist. She was cooking something—something delicious—and sweet white powder puffed up and burst, drifting down over the side of the table and tinkled my nose, making me sneeze.
Mom raised an elbow and looked down at me through the gap. She beamed and handed me a piece of what she was cooking. I ate it directly from her hand. The flavor conjured all kinds of memories and feelings. It was crunchy and I loved the feel of it on my tongue. It sent a tingle
down my throat.
“So that’s where my food’s been going,” a stern voice said.
My mother spun around to see a large Titan male standing in the doorway of the kitchen. He placed his hands on his hips and scowled at the two of us.
“Are you sharing my favorite treats?” he said, voice loud and booming, scary to my infant ears.
“It’s only one,” Mom said. “I’m sure even you can spare that many.”
My father crossed the room on his treetrunk-like legs with two strides. The ground shook at his approach. I looked up fearfully at my mother. Her eyes were fixed firmly on my father. She was going to get the blame for sharing the treats and it was my fault.
I tugged on her skirt and my bottom lip quivered with approaching tears. Then I regained control of my courage and leaped out from behind her skirts. I beat my fists on my chest the way I saw the hairy creatures in the trees did in the jungle behind our hut and braced my father’s shin to hold him back from harming my mother. I barely reached his knees.
“And what do we have here?” he said.
He bent down and picked me up, holding me in front of his face.
“I have a challenger for your love, do I?” he said.
I swung a fist at his face. It connected, striking his cheek and barely made a dent.
His face split into a grin. He raised my shirt with his thumbs and pressed his lips to my belly and blew, making a loud rasping noise. I giggled and laughed, throwing punches and kicks when I could, but he took the blows as if they were nothing.
My father wrapped his huge arms around my mother. I was sandwiched between them. I blew bubbles and enjoyed sharing their warmth.
Then a shout rang out from somewhere outside our hut.
“Defend!” the voice shouted. “Defend yourselves!”
“Get down,” my father said, snatching up his giant sword from the corner. “Hide.”
“Come back to us!” my mother bellowed. “Come back!”
She clutched me close and watched as outside the fires rose and the screaming began—
“Captain? Captain? You need to wake up, sir.”
My eyes burst open and I shot up, grabbing the man’s arm and jabbing a razor-sharp blade at his neck. I stopped an inch from his skin.
