Crossroads (25 page)

"I think she’ll be the one to figure that out," said Marguerite, nodding toward Kira. "The important thing to find out now is what those things want, why they’re following these two, and how."

"She says they can sense her the same way Jen senses them."

Marguerite nodded. "Then why aren’t they here? Why haven’t they followed you to my house?"

"They were on foot," said Sheila. "If you want to call them
feet...
But they moved real fast."

"Are they coming now?" Marguerite asked, this time looking directly at Jen.

Sheila repeated the question.

"Yes," said Jen, nodding.

Sheila frowned. "You said we were safe here."

"For a time."

"How long a time?" asked Sheila, irritably.

Jen shrugged. "They search."

"Will they find us before daylight?" asked Kira.

Jen nodded.

"Then we have to go," said Kira, simply.

"Where?" said Sheila. "Where are we supposed to run to?"

"Why, to the island, of course," said her mother.

"Just like that," said Sheila, shaking her head. "I show up on your doorstep with two people you barely know and a cockamamie story about little black monsters and
Empty-eyed-men
, and you’re ready to climb in the car and drive off in search of some island that may not even exist."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Well, I’m a ghost for one thing. It’s not like I have a life, but why do you think you came here, really?"

"I couldn’t think of anywhere else to run."

"Why?"

Sheila frowned, hesitating. "Because I didn’t think there was anyone else who would believe me," she admitted.

"Yes, and I
do
believe you. I believe all of you. And I also believe that things happen for a reason, that there is a higher power which guides our destiny."

"You think there's a higher power?" said Sheila.

"A
Great Creator
," whispered Kira.

"Yes," said Marguerite, turning to her. "Do you believe in the
Creator
, too."

Sheila reluctantly translated.

Kira nodded. "I am a creator," she repeated.

Marguerite frowned. "Maybe you are, at that," she said at last.

But Sheila shook her head. "I don’t believe in any
Creator
that would make things like Grigs."

"He didn’t," said Kira. "I think the
Empty-eyed-man
made the Grigs."

"And who made
him?"
asked Sheila.

Kira shrugged.

"There are things we are not meant to understand," said Marguerite. "But we are responsible for our own decisions. Jen says these Grigs are coming. Do you want to stay here? Or should we go?"

Kira couldn’t hear Marguerite, but she sensed a lot of the tension between her and Sheila just by listening to the one sided conversation. She knew that regardless of what Sheila decided they would have to go soon because she was beginning to sense the nearness of the
Empty-eyed-man
again.

"All right," said Sheila, at last. "Get in the car."

"Good decision, Sweetheart," said her mother, patting her on the cheek.

Sheila frowned, following Kira and Jen to the door. But her mother hovered near her desk, hemming and hawing. Now Sheila began to feel some of the urgency Kira and Jen were exuding.

"Come on, mother," she said.

"Coming dear. Be right with you."

Sheila sighed wearily before hurrying down the walk behind Jen.

Chapter 32

Marguerite insisted upon calling Sheila back into the house to carry all her astrological charts, her tarot cards, and a smaller crystal pyramid which she shoved into a bag full of smelly, rattling stuff of which Kira couldn’t quite get a glimpse. Sheila climbed into the driver’s seat, and Marguerite got in beside her. Jen and Kira buckled up in the rear. The stars looked like bullet holes in a black bowl outside Kira’s window, and the trees and brush surrounding the house were bleak and dark as the impossible distances beyond those stars.

Sheila turned the key, but nothing happened. She tried it again, cursing under her breath.

"Dead battery?" said Marguerite, hopefully.

"Maybe," muttered Sheila. "I had trouble starting it at the house, too."

She tried the key one more time, and when nothing happened she reached for her door handle.

"Don’t," said Jen.

Everyone but Sheila froze in place. She turned in her seat to stare at Jen.

"Don’t what?"

"Don’t get out."

Kira looked quickly around the shadowy confines of the yard. Sheila did the same, and the air in the car suddenly seemed stuffy and tense. The skeletal outline of the trees, and the night itself conspired to lock them all in place. Somehow-without actually
being
there-the
Empty-eyed-man
was reaching out for them. Kira could feel his bony hands grasping at her in the darkness, and she gritted her teeth, praying for the motor to start.

"We can’t just sit here," insisted Sheila, twisting the key again. "I’m going to check the battery cables."

But Kira sensed something creeping up on them. The feel of it tickled her back between her shoulder blades and set her fingers dancing in her lap. 

"There!" she whispered, as a shadow skittered out of the trees, across the yard and disappeared beneath the car.

"Where?" gasped Sheila, glancing nervously around, one gleaming bead of sweat dangling on her brow like a jewel in the starlight.

"It’s under the car," whispered Kira.

Sheila  shook her head, dislodging the glittering diamond of sweat. "What do you suggest we do, just sit here?"

A nasty scratching sound rose from beneath Kira’s seat, and she shifted, afraid she was going to see a claw come tearing its way through the upholstery at any minute.

"What’s that?" whispered Sheila, undoing her seatbelt to turn so she could see.

Kira pointed down at the carpeted floorboard as the sound shifted and grew louder and more insistent, like a rat gnawing at a baseboard.

Sheila’s frown spread.

"Nothing can get through the bottom of the car," she insisted, glancing into each of their faces as though she expected them to back her up. "It couldn’t. There’s just no way."

"There!" said Kira, as the needle point of a ebony claw appeared between her feet accompanied by the shrieking of rending metal.

She jerked her legs up onto the seat and tucked them beneath her, staring at the nasty looking talon. Movement outside caught her eye as two more Grigs slipped out of the woods toward them. Another grinding noise sounded beneath her, and the razor claw tore through the metal floorboard, ripping carpet and opening a foot long slit through which one red eye shone brightly. The other two Grigs stopped in front of the car, glaring through the windshield, their white teeth glistening yellow in the moonlight.

"Our Father, who art in heaven, doesn’t seem to be helping us now," muttered Sheila, glaring at the empty seat beside her.

Kira could only assume that meant that Marguerite was praying. She glanced at Jen, but her companion was in one of her trances. That could be good or bad. But right now if she was doing anything at all neither it nor Marguerite’s prayers seemed to be affecting the Grigs. Another one slipped out of the trees and ambled over to her side of the car. She could hear Sheila twisting the key ineffectually.

When Jen’s good eye opened, Kira read her mind by the look in it. She shook her head.

"If you freeze them, I won’t leave Sheila or her mother," she whispered.

Jen nodded, closing her eyes tightly again. Maybe she had another trick up her sleeve. But she knew now that Kira would die here before leaving one more friend to the mercy of the Grigs.

Kira’s fingers slipped instinctively to the Oculet, and immediately began to tingle. When she stared at her open palm, slowly something began to form there. Another key. Only this one was smaller, more modern looking. She studied it for only a moment, understanding dawning. Then she leaned across the front seat to shake Sheila’s shoulder.

"Use this," she said.

Sheila frowned. "I have the right key."

"Use this one!" Kira insisted.

Finally Sheila took the key, replacing the one in the ignition. When she turned it the car coughed to life, and she shifted quickly into gear, thumping over the first Grig like a speed bump. But Kira could hear it dragging along underneath the car as Sheila rocketed down the drive. The beast clawed its way to the front bumper, wrenching itself up onto the hood as Sheila wheeled the car wildly back out onto the highway. The other Grigs raced alongside, glaring into the car, clicking their teeth, but not attacking. Jen was still wrapped in her trance, but sweat gleamed on her forehead. She wasn’t
hiding
them from the Grigs’ sight, or stopping time, but apparently she was confusing the creatures somehow.

Sheila swerved trying to dislodge the Grig on the hood, then slammed the pedal down hard again, and Kira was thrown back into her seat as the car rocketed down the road once more, but the Grig clung on with one claw stuck through the metal of the hood. With the other he scratched at the windshield. Sheila  leaned back as far as she could in her seat.

"Get off!" she screamed, jerking the car from lane to lane as they crested a rise.

Kira noticed that the other Grigs had fallen back, disappearing as the car dropped over the top of the hill. The lone Grig swayed atop the hood but held on tenaciously, smashing its boney fist against the glass. Striking the windshield one final blow, the glass spiderwebbed with cracks.

"Who’s that?" cried Sheila, as a dark-clad figure appeared at the far reaches of the headlights, straddling the yellow center stripe.

"The
Empty-eyed-man,
" gasped Kira.

"Shit," said Sheila, jerking the wheel to send the car into a skid, spinning it back, fighting to keep it out of the gravel alongside the road. They slipped sideways, tires screeching, the figure closing so quickly it was impossible to make out his face. Then, miraculously, he seemed to pass right through the car like an illusion. But the feeling of cold, empty, hateful loneliness that passed through the car at the same time was no hallucination or vision. The
Empty-eyed-man
had been here, and left his calling card. It was a second or two that seemed more like an eon before it passed.

Kira shivered. When she glanced over her shoulder again, there was nothing behind them but open road.

The Grig managed to get one talon point through a tiny hole in the glass and tug. The broken windshield shattered into a million tiny shards and blew back into the car. Kira covered her eyes as the car skidded yet again, rubber shrieking, engine roaring, Sheila and Kira screaming. As the Grig reached for Sheila Kira instinctively jerked the amulet from beneath her shirt and waved it in front of her. The Grig froze in midswipe, staring at the pendant as though blinded. Sheila locked up the brakes, throwing the creature head over heels off the hood just as she had done to the one that attacked them leaving her house. But this one was faster, back up onto the car before she could even stomp the accelerator again.

"Stop it!" screamed Kira, turning in desperation to Jen.

And in that instant
everything
stopped. The car was frozen. Sheila had turned to a gape-mouthed statue in the front seat, and the Grig hung in midair, its claws outstretched, teeth bared.

Kira allowed herself a sigh of relief.

But no way they were out of the woods. She and Jen might be able to climb out of the car and escape up the highway, but as soon as they were out of sight time would take over again, and the Grig would murder Sheila right in front of Marguerite’s eyes. Kira opened her door and hurried around to the front of the car.

Leaning across the hood she placed a shaking hand upon the leathery hide of the Grig-that felt slimy and cold-trying to shove the creature away from the car, but the Grig was solid and steady as a boulder. She glanced at Sheila, paralyzed behind the wheel.

"Can we get Sheila out of the car?" she asked Jen.

Jen shook her head.

"Everything but you and I is frozen," said Kira.

Jen nodded.

Kira glanced around in desperation. Inside the car she noticed the heavy bag still resting on the console between Sheila and her mother’s
empty
seat. Kira dove back into the car and reached over to open the bag. but it was as hard and immobile as the Grig. She had to worm her way inside the rock-hard sack, feeling for anything that might help her, but there didn’t seem to be any weapon she could use inside. A glint from the back floorboard attracted her attention, and she discovered the rearview mirror laying there. She picked it up as though it were a poisonous adder and waved it at Jen.

Jen just shrugged, as though to say it was Kira’s decision and hers alone.

Kira climbed between the two seats until she was right in the Grig’s face. Even though it was frozen, being so close to those giant red eyes and wide, jagged-toothed mouth, was terrifying. If this didn’t work the creature would have her in its jaws before she could move a muscle, but she nodded to Jen, anyway.

"Now," she said.

Sheila shifted in the seat beside her as the spell broke. At the same instant Kira shoved the mirror toward the Grig. When the glass made contact with the creature the mirror began to vibrate in her hand, and she heard a sound like a great whirlwind although no breeze disturbed the stillness around the car. The Grig shrank and twisted like a balloon deflating as it was drawn down into the glass, sent back to its own world. As the last of the black beast melted away Kira glanced at Jen to tell her that it was okay to relax.

But the expression on Jen’s face was grief-stricken.

"You don’t know how to control it," she whispered.

At that instant Kira realized that she could no longer see her hands. They had shriveled to nothing, and her arms were beginning to follow them, like smoke, down into the horror-world inside the mirror.