For a moment their three heads were all in a line: Glory’s, Howard’s, and Lovecraft’s, all screaming in unison in an unexpectedly harmonious pitch against the background of the truck horn. Their eyes wide in the headlights, their mouths agape, they might have been the trophies of some ghastly headhunt. But Glory regained her senses just in time to swerve back into her lane and the truck whizzed past them, buffeting the side of the car with gravel.
“W—Whereabouts are we?” said Howard. He tried to sound casual, but his voice cracked.
Glory answered with equally feigned casualness. “Just passed through some town called Solomonsville…” She gulped air before she finished, “…New Mexico?”
“Already?” Wiping his damp brow with his handkerchief, Howard leaned back in his seat and reached under his right arm to unstick his shirt from his armpit. “Makin’ good time.”
Lovecraft stared ahead blankly, unconsciously licking the sweat on his upper lip.
Howard continued in a feigned nonchalance as he looked out toward the southeast, “Damn shame we ain’t got time to pay a visit to Tombstone.”
Lovecraft pulled his watch out of his breast pocket. He was still staring blankly into the darkness ahead, and his voice came out in a soft monotone. “Don’t fret, Bob. I believe there’s an OK Corral of our very own awaiting us.”
Now Howard was gazing into the same sea of black just beyond the shivering beams of the headlights. “You’re right, HP, but I’d damn well rather shoot it out alone with the whole Clanton Gang than face whatever the hell’s waitin’ for us at Shadows Bend, that’s for sure. What about you, Glory?”
There was no reply.
Lovecraft clicked open his timepiece, and straining his eyes in the darkness to read the time, he was able to make out 1 :07. He looked at Glory, sitting rigid behind the wheel, her face oddly frozen in the dim light of the dashboard, and suddenly, the memory of his nightmare flashed in his mind, turning his face white with fear. “Glory,” he said. “Glory, stop the car this instant!”
Glory’s eyes fluttered.
“NOW!”
Glory shook her head quickly; as if she were trying to stay awake.
“What?” she said.
“Just do what I say, woman!” In his panic, Lovecraft leaned over to grab the wheel from her hands.
From the backseat, Howard sat up and put his hand on Lovecraft’s shoulder, restraining him. “What the hell’s gotten into you, HP?”
Lovecraft jerked away from Howard’s hand and lunged across the front seat, trying to wrest control of the vehicle from Glory. He pulled at her rigid hands and put his foot over hers on the brake, but it was too late. With Howard pulling him back, he had failed, and now, in what seemed a single blink, the color in Glory’s eyes changed from a , bluish green to a glowing red, and a guttural voice echoed from deep in her throat in a barely intelligible whisper. “Ia! Cthulhu! Ia!” Suddenly Lovecraft saw it just ahead, the image from the dream, the right-hand curve in the road, the guardrail, the blackness above the cliff.
“Eh! S’yas!” said Glory. “Eh! K’neros mi a oloruc retwa isnat!” Her lips did not move. The voice came fully formed from inside.
Now Howard realized he had misread Lovecraft’s intent. He grabbed Glory by the shoulders from behind and tried to pull her , away from the wheel. The car swerved, swerved again, and she did not budge from her frozen posture. “Eh! S’yas inur!” she whispered. “Nad h’net inur f’mor ihm! Nad h’net inur!”
Lovecraft frantically tried to pry Glory’s rigid fingers. from the wheel. His own strength was amplified with fear, but it was futile against Glory’s demonic strength.
“Bob! Help me!”
A low laugh issued from Glory’s throat. “Eh! Nidd’t eees’m tchwa n’ig!” she said. Her head turned in a bizarrely smooth motion and her eyes glowed brighter. “Eh! P’wi eda r’tea!” With all his might, Howard reached under Glory’s armpits and tried to pull her up, but he didn’t have enough leverage from his position behind her. It was no use. WIth Glory petrified like the victim of a Gorgon, the car swerved just as it had in Lovecraft’s nightmare.
Glory’s mouth opened wider, into a circle. “Gnish’ton nog’na p’sto r’fomem olat f’gni!”
The cliff looming ahead of them, rapidly and relentlessly approaching, Lovecraft and Howard released their grips and slid to the right side of the car. They glanced at each other, then at Glory, their eyes frantic.
“It’s too late, HP! Jump for it!”
They opened their doors simultaneously, but just then Glory hit the brakes and the car skidded, fishtailing left and right on the gravelly earth until it came to a rough halt at the very edge of the cliff, stopping with a jolt as the two front wheels left the edge and crashed the car’s frame against the rock.
17
A THICK CLOUD of dust swirled around the Chevy. Lovecraft couldn’t see it, but he could taste dirt, and he spat to clear his mouth. There was no sound-not even the wind-until Howard heaved a sigh of relief that ended up as a sneeze. And now they could feel the gentle night breeze. It made the open doors swing subtly, and from the back,
Howard heard a dry sandy rasp in the hinges.
Suddenly Glory lost her rigid posture all in an instant. She slumped over, unconscious, onto the steering wheel, and the horn blasted so loudly that Lovecraft nearly leaped from the car in sheer reflex. When he cringed involuntarily, then tried to reach out to move Glory, he felt the car shift. The front seemed to be tilting down, then coming back up, but he wasn’t sure if it was real motion or simply his disoriented imagination. “Bob?” he said.
Howard couldn’t hear him. He grabbed Glory by the shoulders and pulled her head away from the steering wheel. She slumped against the back of the seat, her head flopped backwards, her mouth open, her neck bent at an alarming angle. The horn stopped, just as abruptly, and in the ringing silence, the world moved, gently, up and down, up and down, as if they were bobbing in a boat. Suddenly, there was a jolt, a grating noise, and the nose of the car slipped a bit farther over the edge before it stopped.
“Damn it, HP! Sit still or we’re done for!”
“I am not moving, Bob. I was attempting to warn you not to make any sudden movements, but you were apparently deafened by the horn.” He lay there on the floor with his hands clasped over his chest like a man in a coffin. “My sincerest apologies if I have failed to intervene in time. What do you propose we do next?”
“Let’s hope she don’t wake up.”
“How is she? I can’t see from down here.”
“Looks like her damn neck’s broke, but I don’t think it is. Maybe it’d be better if it was.”
“How far have are we extended beyond the lip of the precipice?”
“What?”
“To what degree is the car’s balance precarious?”
“What the hell are you sayin’, HP?”
“How far over the cliff are we?”
“I can’t tell, and I sure as hell ain’t gonna try movin’ to find out. Can ya look out your door without movin’ too much?”
“I can’t quite determine the degree of our predicament. The front tires are certainly over.”
“See if there any rocks on the ground ya can pick up without actually gettin’ out of the car,” said Howard. From his position, pressed as far as possible against the backseat, he carefully looked behind himself and thought through the possibility of kicking out the back window. It only took him a moment to realize that if he failed in the first attempt, the recoil would drive him toward the front of the car and possibly tip the balance. He was wondering if he could lie sideways and kick with one leg instead of bracing himself against the front seat and kicking with both when he heard Lovecraft’s reply.