Voracious - Alice Henderson [70]
And what of Steve? She remembered Noah telling her it could look like anyone it had killed. He’d been kind to her, and she had cost him his life. She thought of Steve’s sister in Missoula, and how she’d never get a visit from her brother again.
A sudden anger swelled up within as she realized the unfairness, the advantage this creature had over all its victims, past and future. They had no chance. It had been killing for at least two hundred years, and no one had stopped it yet.
Yet.
She had the ability to know where people were going before they were there, to know their motives, their thoughts. So far Noah had only been able to follow along in the aftermath of the creature’s killings, racing from country to country but always too late. He needed an advantage if he was going to catch the beast, needed to anticipate the creature’s next move.
She could be that advantage … touch things the creature had recently touched, know where it was going, whom it had chosen as its next victim. She knew then what she had to do. She had to go back.
She had to help Noah stop it.
MADELINE sat in her car, coughing black-lined mucus out of her lungs. She rolled down the window and spat, then leaned her head against the headrest. Its familiarity was comforting, like an old friend cradling her head. For a moment she closed her burning eyes and exhaled deeply.
Immediately an image of the creature, half-burned and desperate, clawing at her window snapped her eyes open. Furtively she glanced out all the windows of the car, the sides, the back. The fire was now smoldering out at the far edges of the meadow, and the air was filled with thick, acrid smoke that drifted lazily with the faint breeze.
Though it was partially burned, she put her shirt back on and shivered in the night air.
The full moon, now risen, set the smoke aglow, giving the eerie impression of a gathering of spirits, floating and ethereal, mingling and drifting by each other, intent on taking over the world of the living.
Beyond the meadow rose the impassive granite cliff, disappearing into the darkness. On the other side of the road lay forest, dense and dark. Madeline reached down and closed her hand around the keys in the ignition. The car sprang to life. She pulled out on the road and did a U-turn. She had only driven a few feet when she saw movement in the back of her car.
Slamming on the brakes, she threw open the car door and leapt out, then ran to the back of the car to peer into the backseat and hatchback. The backseat was empty, but she had a tarp in the hatchback, and beneath it lay a large lump.
She staggered back, not sure what to do, and then remembered. It was an extra spare tire. She’d bought one before she drove up to the mountains. Once she’d been stranded on a remote road with a flat tire and a flat spare, and for this trip she’d brought along an extra.
Even still, for several minutes she started at it intently, waiting for it to twitch or breathe. No movement occurred. Gingerly she approached the car and removed her keys from the ignition. Crept around to the back of the car. Inserted the key in the trunk lock. Pressed the button. Raised the hatchback. Again she stared at it for several minutes. When it still didn’t move, she ripped the tarp away. The spare tire lay beneath, along with jumper cables and an oil funnel.
The wind from the open window must have ruffled the tarp. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d imagined things in the back of her car. The way the glass of the hatchback slanted, when streetlights played over it, often gave the illusion of something rushing forward from the backseat.
Madeline lowered the tarp over the tire. Mucus rattled in her lungs, and she coughed for several long minutes until her throat