The Nightworld - Jack Blaine [29]
It’s a sedan of some sort, and it’s traveling fast. The closest exit ramp is not in sight, so there’s no way we could run for it. I check over the side of the freeway to see if we could jump, but it’s too high. We’d probably both break our legs. I look around, but there is just no place to hide. The best I can do is to make myself and Tank as small as I can against the concrete barriers. I crouch down next to him and watch the car come. Maybe, just maybe, they won’t even notice us, given how fast they’re speeding along. I’m wearing dark clothes and Tank is a mixture of dark brown and black, and we’re not directly under one of the lights.
No such luck. The sedan slows as it approaches us. It’s a dark color, with sleek, low lines—I don’t think I’ve seen a car like it in real life, only in those ads in car magazines. The tinted windows keep the interior a mystery. I have my gun in my hand, like Gus told me to do, but I don’t know if I should show it. Whoever is in the sedan might just shoot me dead if I do. I stand up as it pulls closer. The freeway here is split by concrete barriers instead of a median. The car pulls up right next to the barrier, as close as it can get to our side of the road.
Nothing happens. I stare at the driver’s-side window, and I’m sure whoever is inside is staring back at me. But neither of us makes a move. Finally I start walking in the direction we were headed before the damn car showed up. When we get past it, I turn and walk backward. It starts moving in reverse, keeping pace with us. I show my gun, and the car slows, then stops. But after two seconds, it starts following us. I show my gun again, this time in a more no-nonsense sort of way. The car stops. I keep moving, slowly, watching, trying not to trip. The dark window rolls down about four inches. I stop and point my gun straight at the window. I can see the gun shaking in my hand, but I’m hoping whoever unrolled that window can’t. I hope I look like I mean business. I also hope, rather fervently, that I’m not about to die.
For a few tense moments, nothing happens. Then I see movement and a hand comes out of the window waving something—it looks like toilet paper. Finally I just shrug and hold up my own hands in the universal WTF? sign. The window rolls down even more, and I can see a guy in the car, a balding guy wearing wire-rimmed glasses. He keeps waving the toilet paper.
“White flag?” He sort of whisper-shouts the words, looking around like he’s afraid someone will hear him. I am afraid someone will hear him, so I walk over closer to the cement barricade, keeping the gun pointed just below the window. The guy’s really ugly, with old acne scars all over his face—the worst case I’ve ever seen. But he doesn’t look like a killer.
“What did you say?”
He looks exasperated. “White flag, kid. Surrender, you know? As in, don’t shoot me.”
“Oh.”
The guy watches me for a minute to see if I’m going to lower the gun. I keep it where it is.
“Figures,” the guy says, looking disgusted. “I feel like I have to stop because I see a teenager and his dog walking around in the dark. Only it turns out the teenager is armed and dangerous. Great.” He starts to roll up the window.
“Wait.” I point the gun at the ground. “I have to be careful, you know?”
He stops the window, looks at me with an expression I can’t quite read. “Oh, I do know. I’ve seen some crazy stuff the last few days. Tell you what. Let’s make a deal that for the next three minutes, because that’s as long as I plan on staying here, neither one of us will shoot the other. Okay?”
“Do you have a gun?”
“For all you know I’m pointing one right at your balls, okay?”
I nod.
He nods back. “Okay. So, thing one, you seem to be headed in the wrong direction—the city is a mess, or haven’t you heard?”
“I have to check on someone. And where you’re headed isn’t so great either.”
He sighs. “My luck. I have to check on someone too, though, and then I’ll be hightailing it to warmer