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As the siren swelled louder, rotating e

Immediately ahead of me, aout of a Ford Explorer parked at the curb Leaving the driver’s door open and the engine running,sound, he ran past the bank in front of which he had left the SUV, raced past two other buildings, and disappeared around the corner, as if perhaps he had a prostate as big as a grapefruit and an urge to pee that sent hi pell-mell toward the nearest restroo s In spite of the tinted glass, I could see twoidentical President-of-the-United-States rip shotguns I figured the e on the floor Evidently, none of them in there could hear the siren yet

At once I climbed behind the wheel of the Explorer and closed the door I put the SUV in gear, pulled into the street, and drove perhaps seventy or eighty yards before the racing police car swept past me on its way to the supermarket

I have never owned a motor vehicle If you own one, you must purchase insurance for it, repair it, wash it, wax it, fill the tank with gasoline, scrub bug remains off the windshield, periodically rotate the tires… The demands of a motor vehicle never stop

Because my sixth sense is a massive complication, I simplify my life every way that I can I own little, and I have no desire to possess any more than I already do I would noelephant

In the past, when I had needed wheels, I’d borrowed vehicles froe But I had lived in this town only aout and waiting for the call to action that would send roup or claimed a personal stool in a favorite pub where everybody knew ency, the only way that I could obtain a suitable vehicle was to steal one Stealing fro froo so far as to say that Providence put this Explorer before me precisely when I needed it, because I wouldn’t want to imply that God collaborated with me in auto theft But if it wasn’t Providence, it was so, and headed south this time When I passed the bank, tell-ar on the sidewalk, frantically looking north and south for their getaheels I felt that I should do so these guys down seenized the Explorer and started into the street I waved, trae in about three seconds

A couple of blocks south of the bank, a decapitated woh heels and a slinky blue dress, she appeared to be attired for a party, and she held her severed head in the crook of her left arm

Ordinarily, I would have stopped to co to help her move on from this world But she was already dead, just a spirit now, and those three imperiled children were still alive, so the kids came first

Rare prophetic dreams and keen intuition are not the primary aspects of my paranormal ability If those were the only unnatural talents I possessed, I ht lead a relatively ordinary life and be able to hold a jobthan that of a short-order cook Say a furniture-store er or a ho isdead They are reluctant to leave this world either because they are afraid of what awaits them on the Other Side or because they reht to justice, or because they love this beautiful world and refuse to let go of it

The dead don’t talk At best, they lead me to their killers or, if they weren’t murdered, react to me in ways that allow me to make accurate deductions about them based on what their behavior implies At worst, they resort to an insistent panto as the least-talented street ainst a nonexistent hurricane wind In the case of a ive hiht respond to his perfor; but that see with the dead

Generally speaking, these spirits aren’t threatening, but now and then one of theer or frustration The results can play havoc with your household budget Trust me, no insurance company on Earth will pay on a claim that an infuriated spirit tore apart your plasma-screen TV and wrecked your family room

In this instance, the decapitated wo dead know that I can see them, and they are drawn to ht through her with no h a swirl of mist

Suspended on a chain arounditself again, three silvery bursts of sound like those it had produced shortly before dawn

The bell had been given to ht when Annamaria told me that certain unnamed people wanted to kill her She had taken the pendant from around her neck, offered it toof the bell apparently signified that e was at hand, that the ti and purpose

To the east, several residential streets ran parallel to the village’s hway underpasses that led to shoreside neighborhoods, but I was conore them I drove directly to the access road that carried hway, past the town line, with the ocean to ht, the crazier part of California a few hundred miles behind me, the somewhat less crazy part of it still about seventy miles ahead

The final aspect of netism If I need to find someone and don’t knohere he is at the moment, I concentrate on his name or picture his face in my mind’s eye, and then I walk or bicycle or drive around at randonetism draws me to him Usually I find him within half an hour

Ahead, flanked by parched rass stippled idely separated live oaks, the highway rose gradually toward a crest In this sparsely populated stretch of coast, traffic reht If the cowboy in the ProStar+ was ahead ofbeyond this hill

The Ford Explorer was a fine machine Sturdy, easy to handle, it rode almost as smoothly at seventy hty I looked forward to seeing how it handled at ninety

Soht think that I’m a lawless youth, an itinerant fry-cook rebel But I didn’t steal the car to profit froet on the trail of the hoe of my paranormal perception

For the same reason, I broke the posted speed limit, which otherwise I would not have done Probably would not have done Might not have done I et, the more I like speed althat stirs the soul, and the same is true of speed

Now, ahead of uy behind the wheelwas a disciplined ress

Intending to pass, I glanced at my side mirror to be sure that the left lane was clear, and I discovered an eighteen-wheeler looly close I hadn’t heard the truck, but now I did, and when I glanced at rille of the ProStar+ see its chro I failed to disclose about psychic h to make me wonder when I will be sufficiently frazzled to require a Prozac prescription, this strange gift draws ht seem to be a fine distinction of little i, weighing seventy thousand pounds or more if loaded, driven by a maniac, hurtles into the rear bumper of your stolen Ford Explorer

Before I could stomp the accelerator to the floor and try to outrun the cowboy, he rah to bounce the Ford off its back tires, tipping it forward for an instant The steering wheel spun through ateimploded, plastic cracked, ain control than I could vaporize the big rig with a well-chosen ic word

I spat out a nuic

I’m not quite sure of the subsequent physics of the encounter, but somehow the Explorer turned its starboard flank to the ProStar+ and briefly stuttered violently sideways More s burst and the SUV noisily cast off pieces of itself, like one of those lizards that can escape by shedding at will the tail that is in the teeth of its attacker Then, with the indifferentruraveled shoulder It plunged bow-first down a long, grassy embankment It ricocheted off a boulder, off an ancient ficus tree, tipped, rolled, and slid on its roof about fifty feet until it carass transitioned to sand

I wondered why the air bag hadn’t deployed But then I realized that a vehicle belonging to professional criht have been modified to make it not only faster and easier to handle but perhaps also to reht ha pursuit with police hot behind them Besides, they weren’t the type to worry about collision injuries, any more than they would employ a BABY ON BOARD bumper sticker even if they turned fro

Happily, the safety harness keptupside down in the inverted vehicle, with the ocean vista above ht have taken a little while to savor this unusual perspective if I hadn’t sasoline

Three

AS I CLIMBED THE MEADOWY SLOPE TOWARD THE COAST Highway, I expected the Explorer to burst into flames behind me, but it merely lay in ruin, belly exposed as if it were some sad beast soon to be a meal for carrion crows

By the time I arrived at the summit and stood on the shoulder of the road, the ProStar+ was long gone, as were the other cars and trucks that had been in the northbound and southbound lanes when the cowboy had attehteen-wheeler Blacktop receded into sun-baked silence, still and lonely, as if the rest of humanity had vanished from the planet while I’d ridden the runaway Ford to the shore

Some of the people in those vehicles must have seen what happened, yet none stopped to ascertain my condition or to offer assistance The world howls for social justice, but when it comes to social responsibility, you soine noise drew my attention to the north A car appeared in the distance, and the closer it cahway, in front of me, it proved to be a black superstretch Mercedes lier side powered down, and when I bent to peer into the li, she ht have been an inch short of five feet She could see over the steering wheel only because she was perched on a firht but not frail, she wore her white hair in a Peter Pan cut