“What are we going to do?” she asked, with a note of panic in her voice.
What am I going to do, you mean, I thought. You’re on the other side of a mirror.
“It’s gone,” I said.
“What? No. No it isn’t,” she answered. Panic was now highlighted by confusion, incredulity. “It’s close.”
I looked back, but the figure was nearly impossible to make out against the backdrop of falling snow.
“We left it behind,” I said, firmer.
“You got close, and it latched on,” Rose said. “Believe me on this.”
Again, I turned around, trying to see where it might have done so. Nothing outside the windows, nothing in the mirrors.
When I returned my attention to the road, my eyes darting up to the mirror, she insisted, “It did. It still feels like it’s here.”
I set my jaw. What was I supposed to do if it was? If it could reach out and grab the car with some invisible hand, or if there was something screwed up going on, then what options did I really have?
I didn’t have weapons. I didn’t have much of anything. Even information was scarce. How was I supposed to label the bird skull thing?
It was only when I settled down, returning my attention to the drive ahead of me, that I saw the trouble.
The fuel gauge was dropping steadily.
It had been three quarters of the way full when I’d started driving. Now it was at the twenty percent mark.
The orange needle dropped faster with every passing second.
It had latched on, but not physically. Something else.
“The car’s dying,” I said.
“Gas station?” Rose asked.
“There’s a rest stop,” I said. “Restaurants, gas, bathrooms, stores. I think that’s what the sign said it was two kilometers away. Might be a bit further.”
Ten percent.
“Can you make it?”
Eight percent.
“No,” I said. “Not with the car.”
I watched as the needle stopped descending. No further to go.
The car shuddered, and the gas pedal quit on me. I saw the lights on the dash and the radio dim, then go out entirely.
I switched to neutral, hoping to coast, but there was nothing. I pulled over, instead. I tried to activate the hazard lights. No luck.
When I got my cell phone, a cheap non-smart phone, I found it dark.
I saw one car zip by on the other side of the divider. I hopped out, flailing my arms, but it was useless. Too little, too late.
“Guess I’m walking,” I said. I drummed the steering wheel for a second, thinking. In front and behind me, the snow looked a pale blue in the moonlight, broken up by the dark shapes of trees. Here and there, the street lights tinted things orange. The road was a stripe of black in the gloom.
“Bring a mirror,” Rose said. “Please.”
I looked around. Nothing. Joel kept a neat car. Aside from an abundance of paperwork in the drive compartment, and between the front and passenger seats, it was tidy, and tidy meant it was easy to see there wasn’t anything like that nearby.
“Sorry, Joel,” I said. I reached up to grab the rear view mirror. There were tabs I needed to depress. I had to pull off my gloves to get a good grip. I fumbled with it some more.
“Blake,” Rose said. “Blake!”
I moved the mirror to look at her, and saw her pointing.
I turned.
Behind us, beyond a point where the snow obscured the road, I saw the dim orange of the street light flicker, then die, swallowed up by the swirl of white.
“No time to get the mirror, Rose,” I said. I made sure I had the other essentials. Hat, scarf, gloves, backpack, coat…
“Break it off?”
I reached up and pulled. It didn’t budge. I hit it with the side of my arm, with no more effect.
“I can’t,” I said.
“You cannot leave me here!” There was a note of hysteria in her voice.
I pulled out my cell phone. An older model I could slide open to get at the keyboard. The screen was scuffed badly from sitting in my pockets alongside change and my keys. “Does this work? There’s a reflection in the screen.”
“No,” she said. “Barely anything coming through”
I hesitated, then used my bag, looping the strap around the mirror. I hauled down with almost all of my weight.
It snapped off.
“Good,” I said. “With me?”
“With you,” she said.
I hopped out of the car, heading into the back seat to search for anything I could use. There were a pair of skates, a bag laid out flat with a suit inside, clearly Joel’s. When I lifted up the panel at the back of the car, I found the spare tire and a slot for the tire iron. I grabbed the iron.
I left the car behind, pausing one second to lock it, and then got moving. I maintained a speed that was faster than an ordinary walk, not quite a jog. Busy walking, I jammed the mirror in the front pocket of my coat, so one end stuck out. My hands went in my pockets, one end of the tire iron finding the inside pocket, the length resting against my forearm. I hunched over to help shield my face with the collar of my coat, preparing. Conserving strength, conserving heat.
I was a fast walker. Two kilometers… that was about twenty minutes?
I didn’t want to go so fast that I’d have to stop before I got to shelter. So long as I kept moving, I was warm. When I stopped, the cold would set in. Twenty minutes of brisk walking.
When I finally broke and glanced back, I saw there were less lights than before. The thing was following me. I couldn’t be sure of the speed it was moving, given how it was out of sight. I couldn’t tell, either, if it was catching up.
“Talk to me, Rose,” I mumbled, past my scarf and the collar of my coat. “Can you feel it getting closer?”
There was no reply. I drew my free hand from the pocket and pulled the mirror free.
Fat, wet flakes of snow had clustered against the surface. With one hand, I rubbed it against my thigh.
Beads of water still obscured the surface.
“Rose?” I tried.
There was no response. Already, the mirror was fogging up from the momentary warmth and the moisture.
If the cell phone hadn’t worked because it was scuffed, then this might be having the same problems. I needed a clear reflection, apparently.
I picked up the pace a little. I placed the mirror inside my coat, in the slot where I was supposed to stick my phone. Closer to my body, warmer, where my shirt and the pocket could maybe dry off the moisture. The ‘arm’ of the mirror rubbed against my chest as I marched.
The snow that had piled up at the edge of the road, before the ditch that divided the highway from the nearby fields meant I had to walk out on the road itself. Walking through the snow would slow me down, and I needed speed. I was in a dangerous position, ready to be clipped by a car in the cruising lane.
My heart thudded in my chest. A short walk, I reassured myself.
I looked back, to look for cars, and to see the thing’s progress.
It was close enough for me to make it out. It was making long, powerful strides, at a speed I couldn’t have maintained without risking collapse. The hides it wore flew out to the side as the legs moved, but I couldn’t make out the legs themselves.
I pushed myself a fraction faster, but I knew it wasn’t quite enough to make a difference.
Still, there were no cars on the road. I needed one passerby. One person to stop and offer me a lift.
Except I couldn’t be sure it would work. They might find themselves running out of gas in some inexplicable manner. Then the good Samaritan would be caught up in this.