Pursued.
I threw the blanket off, put the house slippers on.
It was a frosty night. A bedroom was frozen hard, though I didn’t feel anything. My skin was burning like a piece of paper upon the fire. My body was trembling with fear.
I ran out of the bedroom, quickly ran down. I pulled the freezer door handle with my shaking hand and took out a bottle of vodka. In one gulp I drained a shot glass. A wooden cuckoo clock on the wall stroked four times, what gave me a start. A bird call sounded like a caw.
In fear and panic in five seconds I appeared in the full dark, without stars. I rushed to the right, then back to the left; after all stopped and looked around. Black headlights of my car, like eyes of a bulky buffalo were staring at me. The street didn’t change; it was the same like I saw it in my dream but the movement under the truck. I concentrated calling a memory of a dream.
When I was running down the street, an old dark green truck appeared on my way. I have seen it before more than once, but the point is that it didn’t call my attention to look at it. Something was underneath its body. Now it disappeared from there; it seemed so strange to me. A slow motion should have been there. I still believed it was there, though nothing caught my eye.
My chest was wet; some parts of my body were in a crystal white snow. Lying there on the ground, I peered into the darkness underneath the car body. But I didn’t see anything; it wasn’t there. When I moved closer, some snow soaked through the slippers.
I could see the bare asphalt under the front bumper of the dark-colored truck. Nothing but the bare surface. It really gave me to understand that truck has been here for all winter months.
I was not a kid, I wasn’t going to play hide-and-seek, but it was time to deceive it as far as that goes.
I was running faster than ever before. The engine of the accelerating car was roaring inside me. My burning tires – bare feet in only slippers – were drifting on the icy rime.
Maybe I will deceive it like a naive child. Maybe it was waiting for me around the corner of the large nine storey building that was rising above the town.
The lights were off. I took no notice of the light on the street. Even an every house was full of dark. My town was sleeping in the dim night like it never slept before; except me and it. The stores were also glooming, the stoplights were off. The top floor faded into dark as I looked upwards.
Five meters left before I reached the corner. I stopped dead for the first time. The only sound I heard was leaves’ rustling. I peeped out my head from behind the corner and went deaf.
Nothing could have been so weird. It was a winter; trees were bare. But even the bare trees couldn’t be seen a few blocks away; I certainly knew that.
Not everyone was sleeping.
A secluded trash dump with a few garbage cans was there. Flies were patrolling a trash dump. A choking smell wafted to my nose from the corner. A couple of tramps – two jet-black cats – had a night lunch while rummaging in the cans.
I leaned on the wall puffing and gasping. After a few seconds I turned around the corner passing a lovely couple which looked at me furiously. I rounded the second corner, went out into the street. Five minutes before I was there on the other side. Carefully I examined the street and the nine storey building I was leaning on. From here I could see the place at a crossroads where I was staying on my knees and peering into the darkness while it was hiding and waiting for me to come closer.
Truck was not there.
A heavy snowfall we had in our town already for several weeks. On the empty space where the truck was I didn’t see anything. A snowdrift, like on the other sides of the road, was there; so white with six-sided ice crystals.
On the other side of the road, the backlight of my two-door coupe, motionless and savage at the same time, gave me to understand that I was doomed.
I turned back on my feet again trying not to slip accidentally. It was difficult to keep my footing in the snowy and icy path. The street was perfectly quiet but my breathing – a roaring engine of the newest sports car.
It became darker than it was; like I entered the tunnel running further and leaving the light at the beginning of the tunnel behind me. But I wish I was getting closer to my house running around the town. Hoped to get home without a tale. I supposed to lead it away, to avenge it, then to come back and sleep well; surely without anyone to disturb me again.
The road went down; I was running faster. In the only window of an English-style house with dark green shutters was a shimmering candle light. Almost losing a control on my way I kept on my feet. I quickened my pace.
And slammed a goddamn chin. Bleeding badly my face was down on the white-red snow. The blood started to squirt covering the snow with dark spots. I tried to sit up; felt dizzy. Finally I got up and swerved to the right because of the gale wind. I stroke my head against the telegraph pole. I passed out.
I didn’t know what time it was when I opened my eyes in a dark night. I raised my head from the snowy pillow as I thought. But there wasn’t any snow even half meter away from me and under me. The snow melted around me when my hot body and blood reached it. I was lying in the bloody puddle, blazing with heat.
Though, I felt even better. Maybe I wasn’t awake for almost an hour. Maybe less. But the snow was melting too fast before my very eyes. I touched my chin; the blood stopped squirting. A dry scab formed on my chin where the wound was, and it really stopped bleeding.
I rose to my feet, shaking red slush off my legs and chest. When I turned my head back I saw the street corner in a few meters. I remembered it was a long and endless street without any turns and corners, before I had come to be here.
I assumed a crouching position like a sprinter before the race, leaned forward and started my running from it in the direction of my house or Wal-Mart store, which never turned its light off. Though I didn’t see the store today’s night because I could only see it from my bedroom window or from the backyard.
Thoughts were completely messed up and it wasn’t easy to understand where I was. And if I didn’t err, I would be able to find the shortest way to get home as fast as I could. It was an easy thing to lose my way in this block.
There was a path running to the right between the bakery and old man’s wooden house fenced around. I got over the fence, stopped and hesitated when a weird sound coming from behind disturbed me.
I squatted down, sneaked up on the fence and peeped in the chink in the fence. Then I would be able keep an eye on the road. For a moment I closed my eyes and tried to relax myself. I was still breathing hardly.
The old man’s yard was full of different stuff, brought from the garage. A wooden house looked so outdated. In his early twenties he was an auto mechanic. Since he was 35 or so, he has been running his first auto repair shop. Tire casings, mufflers, brake discs – all the junk he brought here.
Poor old man really went mad about it.
A sound was heard again. I fixed my gaze on the truck that stopped in front of the motel gate across the road. I couldn’t realize how it had found me.
So I’d better flee away, from it or whatever it was, by running along the main road, where if something happens, I will definitely find someone. Or something, that could help me. As fast as I could I passed two more blocks and ran out into the road. From an outside it looked as if Formula One car completed the race with a few meters left before to cross the finish line. And the car driver was almost nude; he was in boxers and house slippers.
I heard the sound of the truck engine in a dead night again. Though it was not somewhere behind; the roaring sound came from the crossroads I was heading to. Anything could be an illusion this night.
While running I looked back anxiously from time to time.
My inner voice told me to run where I supposed to run, even when I saw some kind of motion behind. It told me not to stop in an inappropriate moment. I sharpened my eye on the object moving backwards, which disappeared from my field of view in one second. For sure there was a truck, though I couldn’t define in what direction it was coming from. Then fear and terror swept over me.
I hugged the wall with my right body side, recovered the breath and run further.
The black sky covered me; limited visibility. I was completely plunged into darkness. The nightwalker, which was born in me, pulled me deeper in my dreadful nightmare. The closer I was to the wall, the better I could make out my way.
I was looking at it; it looked aside.
The back hurt badly, when I had fallen on it, after I bumped into the truck cover. I didn’t notice its approaching, because I turned up from behind the corner and then accidentally ran into something gross. I nearly half-rose when stood rigid.
There was something or someone behind the wheel. The dream, I had less than hour before under the thick downy blanket, arose in my mind revealing how it really look like. If you could see it, you would have said, that it was a death wearing a black mourning robe. But I wouldn’t better make guesses about who was it. For a minute it seemed to me, that an intruder was scared rigid no less than me. It was still sitting in the truck not even intending to move. Though, the last second lasted at least a minute.
I bet we both wet our pants. A second of a mortal fear expired abruptly, when a hooded guy crawled over the passenger seat and opened the passenger door. Pretending not to notice me, it or he, got out of the truck and drag himself to the truck cover. I hardly tried to run when jumped up, but stopped in time. It was not a right moment. The only thing I could have done was to be driven into the truck wheel, while a guy was pottering about in the trunk. So I did.
I heard approaching steps in the snow, when I bend my head under the truck to take a look what was going on beyond it. The man stepped a short left leg in jeans on the threshold of the truck, get on, started an engine and vanished in the night obscurity.
Behind him, he left a pile of fresh newspapers right next to the door of a newsstand. Though, it was too early for the morning papers to be printed.
A weird thought crossed my mind again, about how the truck could hang around all the night. What a mess was in my head by now.
A damned dreg was not a newspaper deliveryman. It wanted to make me confused, posing itself as a young guy in jeans and a black hoodie.
I followed the way it went to. I didn’t want it to catch me up in the middle of the night again. It couldn’t come close to my butt, if I was on its trail. As I was speeding, I felt something put pressure on the thighs and back thigh muscles were aching. Finally, when my legs gave way, I was unaware of what was forcing me to run further and further.
I groaned. I hurt my wrist, almost broke it, when hit a cold metal surface.
It pressed the clutch hard; a truck was going as fast as the driver could make the most out of it.
Having no hesitation about how it has stolen up to me, I ignored the pain I had. I reached out my hand, but couldn’t make out fingers, because of the occurred snowstorm, as luck would have it. Apparently, a crossroads was not more than twenty meters far. A red light struggled through the heavy snowstorm. I was blown away by the strong wind.
I stopped dead when I jumped on the hood, with two white vertical bands running down, of the brand new red Shelby GT500. It appeared just face to face. There was nothing else left for me to do but to jump on its hood and hurt my knees. I took a quick look at the back, but everything seemed quiet – no trucks and a snowfall abated.
Shelby’s engine wasn’t started yet. Nobody was behind the wheel. Lights were on. A windshield was broken or was absent at all. Keys left in ignition.
Not a minute for reflection.
To be honest, if there was anyone, whoever it may be, I would chuck him out of these red wheels.
I stood for a moment orienting myself toward the way home. Then backed out on the road and drove out swiftly homewards. The wheels were tearing along the road until I found out that a fuel gage indicator needle fell down and now pointed to ‘e’. Of course, I started swearing like a trooper and muttering something.
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Shelby started to slow down. I drew in to the side of the road; spun and turned round, running round like a squirrel in a cage, after I got a heavy blow. I didn’t know what happened and better wouldn’t know it. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
When I drew in, I drove up to a gas station, about twenty meters far from the closest pump. Whereas, after I was hit, I passed all the pumps and came to be on the opposite side of the station. Airbags didn’t inflate; I won’t be surprised if they were absent, as a windshield was.
I tumbled out of the car, not aware of how I felt – as good as before.
No dreadful mistakes to be done today anymore. If I keep the eyes open, I won’t get caught again.
I left Shelby, like an abandoned friend, said ‘goodbye’ and went. Like a raccoon, who has just stolen a carpet, I broke into a run until I wasn’t out of breath.
I slowed the pace down when saw a neighboring house. I turned left into the yard, reaching the front gates. A tickling shiver was sent down my ankle. A smart and small terrier touched my ankle with his wet cold nose. Jack Russell wanted to seize my pants with his teeth, but couldn’t, because I was in boxers. He whined and pushed his nose as if he wanted me to go somewhere to have a look at something. Then wagged his tail and I had to run after a little terrier.
He took me to the garbage cans, where two cats were already full up. Bloody footprints in the snow reminded me of the latest horror movies, where criminals run away from the scene of the crime leaving tracks. They were covered with snow, but still perceptible. Tracks stretched for a long distance towards my house. Terrier minced along the way I came from after I left the house.
Those feelings I experienced are quite loathsome. When I so a porch, marked up with dirty bloody boots, I rushed in the closed door, trying to open it. It was uselessly; surely I didn’t take the keys and an entrance door was shut.
I ran around the house; one can enter the house through the back door located in the backyard, eleven footsteps lower. A staircase, more like a ladder, lead down to the door. I had barely seized a handrail with my left hand – I was a left-hander – when slid off the third iced step. I have bumped a back of my head, hit the bull’s eye.
I passed out the second time this night.
Everything went dark before my eyes. It was hard to open them; I felt dizzy. Though, as if nothing had happened, I got up and reached the door. It wasn’t closed, but opened hard inwards, because we haven’t opened it for months. I burst into the staircase, then into the room where my wife and I were sleeping well last night. The room was empty; a downy blanket was on the floor, pillows tainted with blood. There were two more bedrooms on the second floor, where I also dropped in. Calmness showed no sign of what I saw in our bedroom.
As I have walked down the stairs, I shambled into the hallway. I stopped by the large wood-framed mirror. I was hot and naked, wearing boxers and nothing else. Like a doctor treating his patient, I examined myself from head to foot. A right lower corner of the mirror was stained with blood. I touched a spot, but none of the blood left on it.
At the moment I discerned a figure in the kitchen, where the lights were still on since I left the house. And now I wasn’t sadly mistaken.
Before my eyes, three corpses in a dark red puddle appeared. Girls – my pregnant wife and my younger daughter, and a grown terrier – I had two, but one vanished in the darkness this night.
I dashed for the front door, which had been uselessly to open and locked, but now was opened. No wonder, that it was so. I recognized some footsteps, distinguished those I have seen on the show. It left the house, then went to the place, where a little terrier brought me, leaving footsteps on the way. A footprint looked like it was certainly not in sneakers, but in felt boots or house slippers…
Siren blaring was coming, when a thought of me killing my family reached my mind. I killed the three in my dream obviously. A sudden idea to run off like a schoolkid struck me. I wish I could find the best way what to do. But it was too late.
I was out the house. An approaching truck with flashing lightbar was going at full speed. I have seen it tonight so many times, but the first time it had a lightbar. A darkened street flickered.
Yes, it flickered, but not lightened.
I fell into the opened manhole; its cover was removed for some reason.
I was swallowed up in the endless dark once and forever.