Maybe Buzz blew town, like he had figured. Buzz had told Laurence he was staying indoors, but that could have been a lie. It was possible Buzz was out shopping, getting supplies. But honestly, Janus thought Buzz seemed like the kind of guy that had supplies stockpiled in the basement. He would be prepared for this.
Of course, Buzz could be ignoring the door. That made sense, since Buzz might believe the killer would actually show up and ring the doorbell.
Or Janus thought Buzz could be in some kind of danger. Maybe he was hurt, or…
He didn’t let himself complete the last line of thought.
I should get out of here, a voice in his head said. The neighborhood was oddly quiet and it wasn’t hard to guess why. Everyone was either gone or had locked themselves in. Four days to go before Halloween and people would not come out if they could help it.
So why am I here? Buzz was either gone or dead. Either way, Janus could not help. He turned on the doorstep and prepared to walk away.
And then a crash came from inside the house.
Janus stood at the doorway for a minute.
“Buzz?” he yelled from outside the door. “Are you fucking in there, mate?”
There was silence. Janus wet his lips with his tongue. Reluctantly, he tried the front door. It was locked. Janus sighed in relief.
“Buzz? You there?” he called again.
He took a step backward. Well, there was nothing he could do, he thought. He should get in the car and get the hell out of dodge.
But he knew he should check the back of the house as well. He should be sure that Buzz was not just lying somewhere, bleeding, maybe getting his guts ripped out even now…
Janus worked to get the image out of his head.
He looked around. There was no one in sight. I have to be sure, he thought. Besides, it’s a bright sunny day out. He should not be this spooked.
Moving carefully, he looked through the front windows and saw nothing. With a longing glance back at his car, Janus disappeared around the side, stopping for a second to look in the garage window. He saw only Buzz’s brown BMW.
Janus continued around the house and stopped on the back patio. There were a few rust-covered chairs there, but the yard looked overgrown.
Janus’ heart stopped when he saw the back door, however.
It was wide open.
Shit, he thought.
“Buzz?” he called moving cautiously to the door. “Look, are you in pain? Do you need help? It’s me, Janus.”
But there was no answer. Janus could see clearly into the kitchen and there was no one there. He should go, he realized. The thought of Buzz in there hurt, or tied up, kept him from running away.
Janus walked through the doorway tentatively. He tried to look around corners. But he could not see anything.
“Buzz, are you in here?” he asked again. “Listen, man, don’t blow my head off because you think I’m someone else. I’m just trying to make sure you are alright.”
He took another step forward into the house. He saw nothing.
This, Janus decided, was rapidly becoming the dumbest move he had ever made. He reached for his cell phone and realized he had left it in the car.
Here he was, with a murderer on the loose, walking around in a deserted house. He was like one of those idiots in a horror movie. That thought stopped him from moving forward.
If Buzz was in trouble, the police could help him.
“Buzz, I’m coming in, okay?”
But Janus wasn’t going to. Instead he backed slowly up, preparing to turn and run if he had to. Fuck this, he thought. He wouldn’t do anybody any good if he got picked off so easily.
He walked back out the door and then turned and ran around the house to his car. He had left Buzz’s back door open, but the police could deal with that.
Janus dug into his pocket for his keys and pulled them out. He kept looking behind him waiting for something to come out of the house.
But nothing did.
He flipped the key on his ring and practically jumped inside the car, keeping his eyes very carefully on the house. He turned on the car, shoved it into drive and tore out of the cul-de-sac.
It was only as he looked back at the house in the rearview mirror that he saw it. There in his rearview mirror was a single yellow piece of paper—a post-it note stuck right on the glass. Still driving forward, Janus read it as a feeling of dread washed over him.
“I’m going to enjoy killing you, Janus,” it said.
Kate pulled up outside the building and Quinn rushed outside.
(Gas it.) Quinn thought as he jumped into the car.
Kate tore through the streets of Leesburg and they both hoped the police had better things to do than watch for speeders.
(It’s Buzz.) Quinn thought, as the car turned on to Route 7 toward Ashburn, where the business editor lived.
(He was at the hotel) Kate thought. (But that doesn’t mean he’s Lord Halloween.)
(It means there is a damn good shot he is. And Janus was heading right towards him.)
(PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME)
The voice in their heads jarred them both and nearly caused Kate to drive off the road.
(What was that?) Quinn thought.
(That was Janus.)
In her mind, she could see him. He was being moved from his car and he was in incredible pain. There was blood. She had to fight to keep her own car on the road.
(He’s dying.)
Janus turned around while driving and looked at the back seat, bracing himself for a blow. But there was nobody there.
“Fuck,” he said, and faced the road again as he continued driving. His heart was pounding in his chest. He immediately reached around for his cell phone.
But it was not there.
“Fuck me,” he said again.
The bastard had taken it. Janus could not remember locking his car, he had been so concerned about what was going on in the house.
He pulled the note off his mirror and slammed on the accelerator again. He would head straight for the police station. If someone was going to jump out at him from his trunk or somewhere, let it be there.
He looked in the rearview mirror and felt his heart skip a beat.
A car was behind him. And not just anyone’s. It was Buzz’s beat-up BMW and it was gaining on him. The sun reflected off the car’s windshield, so Janus could not make out who was behind the wheel, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t be someone who wanted to stop and chat.
“Fuck you, then,” Janus said and sped up. He flew through a stop sign and turned right abruptly, narrowly missing a parked car on the street.
The key is to stay calm and get to the police station. There was no way whoever was behind him would think of going there. He hoped.
He rounded another corner and noticed that while the car behind him was gaining, it did not seem to be trying to overtake him. For the life of him, Janus could not figure out why.
Janus tried honking his horn—though he did not see other cars on the road. Everyone was hiding from the guy that was behind him. But maybe someone would hear the noise and call the police. No sense stopping at any of the houses on the way. There was no guarantee they would be home, and even if they were, no guarantee they would let him in or not be killed as well.
Without even attempting to brake, he swung out onto Reservoir Road and started to pray. He had gas, he thought, looking at the meter.
The key was to stay ahead of him and to stay calm.
But the BMW had gained on him and was now very close. If he braked at all, the car would ram into him. Janus floored it. If a cop pulled him over for speeding, that would be a good thing.
He had just six miles to Route 7. There were bound to be other cars on Rt. 7—someone who could help him.
With new fear, he saw the curve ahead. Since he came to this county, he had hated this curve. It was the kind where you had to slow down a lot or risk flying into the ditch. Janus had covered at least four accidents here a
nd none of them were pretty.
But if he had to slow down, so did his pursuer, right?
He reluctantly pressed the brake.
Nothing happened.
“Fuck a duck,” he said. He hit the brake again. The car didn’t slow. He felt no resistance and instead saw the curve coming up at a rapid 60 miles an hour.
Behind him he noticed that the BMW had dropped back.
And then Janus knew what had happened. The killer had cut his brake lines. In his mind, he saw the image of a man underneath his car cutting his brake line as Janus stood on Buzz’s back patio.
Janus pumped the pedals and watched the speedometer crawl down. It was 45 miles an hour now on a curve recommended at 15. He would just have to hope he was slow enough.
He braced himself and tried to take the turn as best he could. At first, he thought he might make it. But his Jeep leaned heavily to the right and then he could feel it tipping.
At least I’ll probably die in the crash, he thought.
The Jeep ran off the road, hit the ditch and flipped on its side.
Janus came to moments afterward. He was hanging in his seatbelt, the windshield shattered and he thought he could taste blood on his tongue.
Please think I’m dead, Janus thought. He hung there attempting to look lifeless, wondering if soon it would not be an act.
He heard footsteps approaching the car, heard the car creak as someone climbed up on it and opened the door.
“You almost made it, Janus,” the voice said.
Janus felt a hand reach across him and undo his seatbelt.
He was insanely tempted to look at the man, but he didn’t. He had to appear to be dead. It was the only thing that could save him.
“But close doesn’t quite count, does it?” he said.
Please think I’m dead, Janus thought again.
He could almost sense the man looking at him.
“Hmmm, maybe it got you worse than I thought,” the voice said. “Or maybe you’re just faking. Like you faked all those photos.”
Janus felt a sharp pain in his leg as the man dug in a knife.
He didn’t think quickly enough to stop himself from crying out.
“There, I thought so,” the man said, and the knife cut deeper.
The pain was excruciating. Janus’ eyes flew open and he looked at the man already pulling him out.
Janus did not believe his eyes.
“No,” he said, but it came out as a whisper.
Janus felt in no condition to resist. He tried to move, but every limb seemed to be in shock.
The man hefted Janus up and then lowered his body down to the ground away from the Jeep. The pain was unbelievable.
“You can blame this one on your friends,” the man said. “You weren’t on my list until they started avoiding me. It hurt my feelings, Janus. And I think you are the right way to send a message about this.”
Janus wanted to sit up, but the man began dragging Janus across the ditch.
Janus felt himself slipping into unconsciousness. He must have been hurt worse than he thought. A car, Janus thought. He would need a car now. Maybe someone would come by.
But there was nothing.
I’m going to die in broad daylight, Janus thought.
But the man was still talking.
“All those photos,” he said. “I know you faked them. I know because nobody is that good. It’s ridiculous, of course.”
Janus didn’t even process what he was talking about. He recognized his assailant, of course, but everything seemed different than the man he had known before. It was as if the man before and this one was not the same person. They only looked the same.
The man dragged Janus to the BMW.
“I bet you’ve been wishing for a car. I wouldn’t. Unless it was an army, I would just kill them too, you know. Say I found you after the accident, stab them in the back as they looked at you. Easy, you know. People just naturally trust me, always have.”
Janus decided then to give it all he had, before he was in that car and would never be heard from again. He lifted his head up and shouted as loud as he could, a cry into the wilderness he prayed someone would hear.
“PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME,” he yelled.
“Can you see anything else?” Quinn asked her. He could see her vision in his mind. When he tried to call something up, he got nothing.
“Someone was putting him into a car, Quinn, but I couldn’t see who. He looked bad. There is blood on his face.”
She picked up the cell phone.
“911,” a voice answered. “What is the emergency?”
“A friend of mine called,” she said. “He said someone was following him, trying to run him off the road. I lost contact with him. I think he could have been kidnapped.”
“Did he give you his location?”
Kate tried to think. In her mind, she could see a curve in a road. But she didn’t know the county that well. She tried to show the mental picture to Quinn.
“Tell them it’s off Reservoir Road,” he said. “Tell them that curve where a lot of accidents happen.”
Kate relayed the directions.
“What time did he call?” the 911 operator asked.
“A few moments ago,” Kate said, her voice completely calm. She knew how to impart information even while panicking on the inside.
“Did he see who his attacker was?”
Kate didn’t even look at Quinn. They knew nothing about the kidnapper, that was the worst part. She had a vague idea from the image of Janus that he had known who it was, but it was blurry.
“He didn’t know,” Kate said. “He only called quickly.”
“Was he armed?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” Kate said.
But the attacker would have been armed, of course. He would have had a knife.
“Okay,” the operator replied. “A unit is on its way. It should be there shortly. I need to get your name…”
Kate hung up. They could trace the cell phone, but it didn’t matter. She didn’t want to be on the phone. Instead, she looked at Quinn.
“Get out my gun,” she said.
He nodded and grabbed her purse and started looking through it. He pulled out the gun and looked at it as if it were an alien thing. In her mind, Kate showed him how to load it, which Quinn did even as they continued to tear through town.
They ran three red lights before she turned onto Reservoir Road. That distinctive curve was miles away—an eternity, he thought.
As she continued driving, she glanced in the rearview mirror.
“Fuck,” she said, and put her hand on Quinn’s thigh.
Quinn didn’t need to look behind him. He already saw it clearly in his mind.
They were no longer the only thing on the road. Behind them, the figure of the Headless Horseman had appeared. And he was gaining on them.
“Now, Janus,” the man said, and kicked Janus squarely in the stomach. “We don’t like it when people talk too loudly at the table.”
The man kicked him again.
“Goddamned boy,” the man said again. “I’m disappointed. I thought you would put up more of a fight. The last one, well, he was too easy. And you were too. Young kids. You guys these days are so soft.”
Janus said nothing. He thought his right leg was broken, it hurt so much.
And he had a feeling of time loss, so much so he wondered if there was internal bleeding. He felt himself slipping, like he might go unconscious at any moment.
Maybe that was a blessing.
“And shouting like that,” the man said, “Who did you think was going to hear you?”
The man picked Janus up and threw him into the back seat of the car.
He opened the front door, took another look around to see if anyone was watching and then got in the car. It was a clean operation, the man thought. He started the car and began to drive off.
“What do we do?” Kate asked.
“We ignore it and hope he g
oes away,” Quinn replied.
Kate looked in the rearview mirror and simultaneously sped up. How the hell the Horseman could be gaining on them in a car was insane. Didn’t this thing have to play by the rules? It was a horse after all. Horses cannot outrun cars.
“I don’t think that is a very good plan,” Kate said.
“Got a better one?” Quinn asked.
Kate nodded toward the gun on Quinn’s lap.
“Maybe,” she said.
“You are planning to shoot a headless phantom?” Quinn asked.
“We have to at least try, right?” she asked.
“But we will need that ammo if we catch up to Janus,” Quinn said. “We need something to fight off his attacker with.”
“I know, I know,” Kate said. “But we are going to have two problems at that point instead of one.”
Quinn looked at the speedometer. The car was at 75 miles an hour now. They would be at the curve in two or three more minutes.
“We have to do something,” Kate said. “He’s gaining on us.”
Quinn turned around in the seat and looked behind them. Even in broad daylight, the Horseman was a terrible apparition. If anything, he looked worse. You could see the decay on his cloak and the horse looked as if it was being tortured in an effort to make it move faster. The only difference from the last time Quinn had seen him was what was in his hand. It wasn’t a sword.
“He has a pumpkin,” Quinn said.
“Well, that’s better than a sword,” Kate shot back.
But this was not just a lump of orange vegetable. Instead the thing had a hideous grin carved on it—a demonic face—and it was on fire.
“It’s on fire,” Quinn said. “The pumpkin is on fire. I think he is trying to catch the car on fire.”
How the hell could the Headless Horseman know about flammable gasoline? It was absurd.
(He’s us, remember. He has our knowledge.) Kate thought.
Quinn looked in front of him. Just another minute or two down the road. But Quinn could see they were not going to make it. The Horseman appeared ready to throw and he was in good distance to do it.
(Take the wheel) Kate thought.
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