shimmering up ahead. Then, not so distant and not shimmering, but a glowing blob, glowing and growing, getting bigger and bigger as sixty-six gobbled up the road in front of me.
"'I eased up on the gas. Watched the blob rush toward me, take definition. Sprout one, two legs. Arms. A head. Coal eyes growing larger, larger, until the road, the night disappeared, and nothing but glowing yellow and huge black circles filled the windshield.
"'I slammed on the brakes, felt the back-end fish-tail. An inhuman squeal filled the air. Was it me or the screeching tires?
"'And the entire car was engulfed by glowing yellow. A chill like dry ice passed over me so quickly I hardly felt it, but I did, and a memory of it stuck, like the way dry ice peels skin off bones.
"'Then nothing. Just me and old sixty-six sitting stationary out there alone in the blackness, no sound except six-six's steady chug-chugging and my pounding heart.
"'Treat a good cab like a lady and she'll always get you home. Like any good cab, double-six kept her head, found the next exit, turned us around and took us back toward town at a nice, safe sixty miles per hour.
"'In defensive driving, they train you to check the rear view mirror a couple times per minute, even when there's no other vehicles on the road, even all alone on a nice, private little highway, nothing but me and good old sixty-six.
"'And some glowing creature out there someplace.
"'I checked the rear view mirror. Nothing. I stared at the road ahead. Nothing. Well, road and darkness and trees mostly bare, almost all their leaves torn off by a sharp December wind.
"'Headlights from behind sparkled in the rear view mirror. I glanced up. Not a pair of headlights! A single, Cyclopean eye sparkling from the distance! Shimmering, splintering into a thousand filaments with a light at the end of each.
"'The shimmering mass grew as I watched. I punched the gas, checked the mirror, studied the shimmer.
"'Floored it. I heard a thump, felt six-six shudder, then roar! She obeyed, responded to my will, propelling me forward as I watched the shimmer in the mirror shrink. Then grow! First, the same size as before, then bigger, just a little bigger, still like radioactive tentacles, still not big enough for me to tell what the hell they were.
"'With that Police Intercepter engine opened full throttle, we were flying, sixty-six guiding us forward while I watched our backs, waiting for the shimmering to make its move.
"'Light flashed in front of me. The shimmer was just a diversion. A pair of shimmers in front. Bright red eyes glowering at me. Eyes!
"'No! Taillights. Impact coming!
"'I cut the wheel sharply to the left. Swerved, passed and flew onto the left shoulder. Barely enough time to brake and cut the wheel to the right to keep from flying off the road. The trucker honked as I eased to a stop. I glanced over in time to see him flip me off.
"'There was this screaming inside my head. I looked ahead at the lights of town. The stars were invisible, washed away by the lights of civilization. And the rear view mirror - well it was dark, the shimmer gone. Gone, but it was there. But was it still there and just hidden or was it just hiding for now? Was it scared of civilization - our civilization - or did it use civilization as camouflage?
"'I drove home slowly. It was three-thirty in the morning when I finally parked good ol' six-six. The adrenaline finally gone, I was worn out. What do I do now? Well, there wasn't anything to do until morning, and I was beat, so I stripped, hit the lights and crawled under the covers, for awhile fidgeting and shifting, trying to find the warm spot in the bed while waiting for the electric blanket to kick in.
"'Almost asleep, then a chill washed over me, pulling my shoulders up to my ears. I curled into a tighter ball, pulled the covers tighter about me. Then, I felt the chill again.
"'A chill and something telling me to look toward the window. I'd try to ignore it, but the chill began settling into my bones, turning into a dull ache. And my head was buzzing with a voice that wasn't mine, telling me, telling me to look, look, look toward the window.
"'I turned, opened my eyes and looked toward the window.
"'And there it was, glowing and glaring, that bowling ball head