Disclaimer: This excerpt contains adult content and is not suitable for readers under the age of eighteen (18). By reading further, you acknowledge that you are at least eighteen (18) years of age.
As Jack slipped the key into the ignition, he glanced up into the rearview mirror, then yelped in surprise. A woman sat in the backseat, unmistakable despite the shadows. “Laura?” he gasped, then whirled around in the seat to face her. “Jesus Christ, where did you…”
“I’m cold,” she whispered, and now he could see that her eyes were glossy, swimming with tears. She wore only the red slip dress again, her arms wrapped around her narrow frame as she trembled. “Please, I…I’m so cold.”
“Here.” Shifting his weight, he unzipped the front of his coat. He shrugged it off, then leaned over the center console to tuck it around her shoulders. “Laura, listen to me.” He smoothed her hair back, then cupped his hand to her face, drawing her gaze. “How did you get in my car?”
“Here.” Shifting his weight, he unzipped the front of his coat. He shrugged it off, then leaned over the center console to tuck it around her shoulders. “Laura, listen to me.” He smoothed her hair back, then cupped his hand to her face, drawing her gaze. “How did you get in my car?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Where did you come from?”
“I don’t know,” she whimpered again. “I can’t remember.” Then, with a hesitant glance over her shoulder out the back window, she said, “But she’s after me again. She was chasing me.”
“Who?” Jack pressed.
Her bottom lip drew in beneath the edge of her upper teeth. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “But she can fly.”
“What?” Jack cocked his brow, dubious.
“I heard her,” Laura insisted, her eyes round and urgent. “In the tree tops. She was flying through the trees, trying to find me. I heard her laughing.” She blinked at him, mournfully. “You don’t believe me.” Covering her face with her hands, she began to cry.
“Hey.” Leaning further in the seat, he touched her face again. “I didn’t say—”
“Help me.” She caught his hand between her own, clutching at him with a frantic sort of desperation. “Please,” she whispered, her cheeks tear-streaked and glistening. “Help me.”
The car stereo snapped on all at once, completely of its own accord, tuned to a sudden, ear-splitting volume. A shrieking guitar riff tore through the Jeep at what sounded like at least one hundred and eighty decibels.
“Shit,” Jack exclaimed, reaching for the radio, pawing at the control as Laura shrank back in her seat, clapping her hands over her ears. No matter which direction he turned the knob, the volume only spiked higher, thrumming through the entire chassis. At the same time, all of the dashboard lights began flashing and blinking, manic and strobe-like, while the dome light overhead burst into life. Its dim yellow glow grew progressively brighter and brighter, until the little bulb inside burst, shattering the plastic fixture cover, sending a spray of broken, jagged fragments flying.
Jack yelped, then, from the backseat, Laura uttered a shrill wail. He glanced up past the dash, beyond the windshield, just as something enormous came swooping down directly at them. He didn’t get a good look at it, no more than a split-second glance, but he could have sworn it was a woman, her skin as alabaster as the surface of a glacier, her body nude, her lips pulled back in a gruesome snarl to reveal a mouthful of wickedly hooked teeth.
And she had wings.
“Shit!” He threw his arms up to protect his face as the woman crashed headlong into the windshield, shattering it in a sudden spray of high velocity glass shards.
The Jeep’s alarm went off, the horn blatting out in a disharmonic din to accompany the blaring stereo. The headlights blinked and flashed, the wiper blades flopped crazily back and forth against the gaping maw where the windshield had once been and all at once, the airbag deployed. It sounded like a shotgun blast leveled squarely at his face, and Jack’s head snapped back as it knocked the breath from him, stunning him momentarily senseless.
Reaching blindly, he pawed for the door handle. He tumbled out of the Jeep, his ears ringing, his head swimming. As he staggered away, he looked around wildly for the woman who had struck his car. Somehow he’d lost sight of her after she hit the windshield, and there was no sign of her now—no body crumpled against the hood or roof of his Jeep, or on the pavement nearby. There was no blood, nothing except a small crowd gathering nearby to watch the spectacle with curious expressions.
“Where’d she go?” he cried to the nearest bystander. “The woman who hit my car! She just…Jesus Christ, she flew right into the windshield. Did you see her? Where did she go?”
The man shook his head, mute and dumbfounded, as he backed away nervously, as if Jack was foaming at the mouth. Laura hadn’t gotten out of the Jeep yet, and he floundered back toward the truck.
“Laura?” To his surprise, he found the cab now conspicuously empty. Like the winged woman, Laura, too, had seemingly vanished.
“Laura?” Stupidly, he reached out, leaning past the driver’s seat and patting his hands against the upholstery, as if he needed palpable evidence to be certain. Against the interior of the Jeep, he caught sight of new reflected lights flashing, these red and blue. Biting back a groan, he turned to find a South Lake Tahoe police cruiser pulling in to the parking lot immediately behind him.
Oh, shit, he thought, as a uniformed officer stepped out to face him.
(c) 2011 Sara Reinke
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