and miles, trying to put as much distance as I could between me and… everything. But it turned out I couldn’t escape my life for very long. After all those miles and all those turns, when I could’ve already reached the state line, I ended up at the cemetery instead, parked in the lot, staring at the stone-dotted landscape.
I got out and walked to Dad’s marker. They’d finally gotten it put in about two weeks ago. It was thick and sturdy, just like Dad. I sat down and leaned up against it, hoping I’d feel closer to him if for no other reason than just physical proximity to his body.
I sat like that for a long, long time, though Dad never showed up. I wasn’t even really disappointed. That was my problem: I knew he was gone and he wasn’t coming back.
When I noticed how bright the dusk-to-dawn lights were getting, I hopped up and hurried to the car. If there was one thing I knew for sure it was that I didn’t want to get caught in a cemetery after dark.
I felt safer after I got in and closed the car door. I started the engine and leaned my head back against the headrest. I listened to the steady throb of the engine, wishing Dad could’ve driven it just once before he died.
After several minutes, I raised my head. A glimmer of movement drew my eye to the rearview mirror. There was something in the back seat.
I whirled around to look into the dark back seat just as invisible hands wrapped around my throat.
The strongest grip I’ve ever experienced pulled me up over the top of the bench seat and into the back seat. Then I was flat on my back looking up into the face of the badly burned man I’d seen in the garage. Terror gripped my heart even tighter than his hands.
On one half of his face, much of the bone was exposed and charred to a dull black though there were patches of melted flesh that remained, as well as a few tufts of hair on his skull. On the other side there was blood and soot-smudged skin stretched tight over a handsome bone structure and short dark hair that covered his scalp.
He had only one eye and it stared down at me furiously. And then, somewhere in the back of my horrified mind, something struck me about that cool, pale gray eye. It was familiar.
Before I could finish the thought, my lungs began to burn with the need for oxygen. My eyes watered. My head throbbed. I raised my hands to my throat, desperate to loosen the fingers at my neck. I clawed at them frantically, but my nails met with my own skin. There were no other hands there.
I pushed at the dark chest that hovered over me, but there was nothing but cool air beneath my palms. I kicked wildly with my feet, but they met with nothing but the inside of the car.
Tipping my chin back as far as I could, I managed to drag in a gulp of air, which only made me cough and sputter. Then his grip tightened even more.
I continued to flail my limbs, but it was becoming harder and harder to move as my struggling grew weaker and weaker.
I was fading quickly and I knew it. I had to do something. My last clear thought was to somehow get the door open so that the interior light would be triggered. That’s what had saved me in the garage—light.
I tried to formulate a plan, but it was so hard to focus. My brain didn’t want to think. It was sluggish and faint.
And then a car drove slowly by.
It seemed to happen in slow motion. Light shone first against the ceiling, illuminating the interior the tiniest bit. The man screamed and his hold on my throat lessened. As the car passed by, brightness swept through the front seat. The grip on my throat faltered, as if something was pulling the man away from me.
Then light rushed into the back seat. As it chased away the shadows (and everything that traveled in them), the pain moved from my throat to my chest. I felt the man’s fingernails tear into my skin, his fingers clutching and clawing at me as if he were being dragged away.
And for a fraction of a second, I could feel him, too.
Where I’d been trying to push at his chest, suddenly there was something substantial