white appeared along the side of the road. For a split second the memory of the story of D’Arcy leaped into his mind, but then he realized it had to be Melissa, on her way to the club.
He slowed the car, expecting her to turn around any second, but when she didn’t, an idea came into his head. If he killed the lights and crept up on her, then blasted the horn …
He reached down and turned off the headlight, then slowed the car even further, until the idling engine was almost silent. Finally, when he was no more than ten feet behind the pale figure by the side of the road, he blasted the horn, and as the figure jumped and spun around to face him, switched the lights back on.
And gaped.
It wasn’t Melissa at all.
Instead, he saw a ghostly face staring at him, a face framed with straight blond hair hanging almost to her waist.
The memory of the ghost story flooded back to him once again, and without thinking, Jeff jammed his foot to the floorboard and the powerful engine roared back to life. The car leaped forward, its wheels screaming against the pavement. Jeff’s eyes left the road ahead to stare into the rearview mirror.
The grotesque figure in white still stood by the side of the road, staring at him.
His eyes flicked away from the image in the mirror and then widened in horror as he saw the safety rail of the coast road looming ahead of him, no more than twenty yards away.
A scream of terror building in his throat, his foot left the accelerator and smashed down on the brake pedal. The tires screamed once more as the wheels locked under the force of the brakes, and the car sloughed around, all its traction gone.
A moment later the Porsche slammed into the metal guardrail.
The force of the blow ripped the rail loose from the concrete pilings to which it was attached.
The car shot out over the edge of the cliff, seemed to Jeff to hover there for a single agonizing second, then dropped downward.
It turned as it fell, and for a moment Jeff stared straight down at the rocks that seemed to be rushing up at him. And then the car struck the rocks, and Jeff felt the windshield explode into his face.…
SLEEPWALK
Borrego, New Mexico. A peaceful little desert town. Except for one thing. Somebody here hates teenagers. Hates them. And now he’s discovered an insidious way to strike back at them. In their sleep, in their waking hours. Anytime.…
The teacher glanced surreptitiously at the clock once more. Just two more minutes. She could go home and sit in her back yard, ignoring the shade of the cottonwood trees to bask in the sun, letting the full heat of the afternoon penetrate the pain as she worked on her lesson plans and graded the examinations she’d given the class that morning.
She began straightening up the clutter on her desk.
She frowned slightly as a strange odor killed her nostrils. For a moment she couldn’t quite identify it, but then realized what it was.
It was a malodorous scent, like a garbage dump on a hot day.
She sniffed at the air uncertainly, her frown deepening. The dump had been closed years ago, replaced by a treatment plant.
She looked up to see if anyone else had noticed the odor.
A flash of pain shot through her head.
She winced, but as quickly as the pain had come, it faded.
She shook her head, as if to shake off the last of the pain, then looked out at the class.
A red glow seemed to hang over the room.
She could see faces—faces she knew belonged to her students—but tinged with the red aura, seen dimly through a wall of pain, they all looked strange to her.
Nor could she put names to the faces.
The knife inside her head began to twist again.
Just a twinge at first, but building quickly until her skull seemed to throb with the pain.
The reddish glow in the room deepened, and the odor in her nostrils turned rank.
A loud humming began in her ears.
The aching in her head increased, and turned now into a sharp stabbing. She took a step backward, as if to escape the pain, but it seemed to pursue her.
The hum in her ears built to a screech, and the redness in the room began to flash with bolts of green and blue.
And then, as panic built within her, she saw a great hand spread out above her,