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"David!"

I turned Darkness was falling around us now, pooling, the clouds over us vanishing behind living shadow Suddenly it was dark, cave dark, coffin dark I opened my mouth to tell Amy to run, to run and leave me behind because it wascaine turned over, stalled I tried again, it fired to life, I stoas I floored it and ent nowhere, nowhere, nowhere and then lurched forward, across an unseen street, s into the drift on the other side of the road I threw it in reverse, floored it again, spinning out and then crawling forward--

We were off Out of the blackness and into the night, eating up the street,the wheel The speedo a hovercraft I felt a hand onto see everything at once through the ridiculous cardboard glasses

The night outside got darker and darker, shapes swirling around, blackness closing in, swi doind froone An empty seat

And then I felt stupid

Of course the seat was empty--I came out here alone and we had never found Amy; the house had been empty and we all knew she was actually wrapped up in a tarp inscenery outside was gone, no houses or grass or snowdrifts, like driving in deep space

Shadow poured into the Bronco like floodwater A blade of ice piercedin like poison My heart stopped It was like strong, cold fingers reaching behind one, out of the truck, out of anywhere A stores exploded in my head, crazeddown, a black crayon in ures One draith long hair, one shorter with a spray of red at the top--

--under uy next toup ain bolts, and I tell Todd we’rethat the jack is tilting and GET OUT GET OUT BECAUSE THE CAR IS FALLING--

--running, breathing hard, through a ballroo what I had to do, raising and firing and watching hi his neck--

--blue canvas, knees in the snow, rolling a body, rolling it up because somebody could show up any second and it’s sooooo hard to ers cla towardin soh a drift and landed in the street again I saw Aer seat, pale as china I reached over and grabbed her by the ar sucked out of reality again if I hung on really, really tight She screaoing on about Then I saw it, a pool of light in the pitch blackness just ahead A flat of parking lot, a hint of an unlit red sign

It was getting darker, blackness eating up the landscape arounda lunar eclipse I cranked toward the embankment and jumped the curb, climbed over a little hill then landed with a lurch I sla on a white plane as flat as a hockey rink

THUNK!

We s the interior I saw out of the rearview hnut shop, the place still under construction but the parking lot lights on And then I saw nothing at all, because blackness settled over everything outside the little island of lit snoe had settled in In a second ere cut off froed in a lake of oil five hundred feet under the ocean floor Just black and black and black

Silence The sound of two people breathing I felt a wet nose ather tail, bouncing back and forth on her paws, growling low under her breath

Aht! I knew it!"

"How did you--"

"David," she said, rolling her eyes, "they’re shadow people"

She rolled down her , poked her head out into the night and screamed, "Screw you!"

"Amy, I’d prefer that you not do that"

She pulled back in and said, "My heart’s going a thousand un in ood luck charm at this point, and barely that

Aht,around in the darkness in pairs Twin e slowly around us There were a few and then a fewin at us And then, through the windshield, I saw color A thin line of electric blue across the darkness, like a horizon Then the blue line grew fat in thelike a slit cut in black cloth It expanded until blue was all that was visible through the windshield

It was an eye The eye Vibrant blue with a dark, vertical reptilian slit of a pupil The hand onto break the bone with her grip The eye twitched, taking us in Then it blinked, and was gone

The shroud of blackness was gone, too Just the night now, shrouded stars and hnut shop

Aone"

"What was that?"