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“You don’t think we should check if someone needs help?” I asked, looking at the cars shrinking from view in my side mirror.
“No, I don’t. My priority is getting you to Gary’s where you’ll be safe.”
I reached over and set my hand on his leg.
“Everything will be okay.”
He didn’t glance at me or agree, and that worried me more than the empty highway around us. At the next exit, he got off the highway.
“I think we should stick to back roads,” he said before I could ask.
We drove in silence for an hour before we saw another car pass. It flashed its lights at us rapidly and slowed.
The man behind the wheel only rolled his window down two inches to shout at us.
“Don’t stop for nothing, you hear? Nothing!”
Then he took off with a squeal of tires.
Adam gunned it, too.
“Call my dad.”
I tried his dad, his mom, and his brother, but no one answered.
The lights we saw ahead indicated a small town.
“My gut is telling me this is a bad idea,” Adam said.
“Should we turn around?”
He tapped the steering wheel more rapidly, and the truck gained speed. I kept quiet as we hit the 25 miles per hour zone at 40. The streets were quiet but many of the houses were lit. I saw a curtain flutter out of one broken window. Adam did, too, because he didn’t bother slowing for a stop sign.
Something big and black came running at us from the darkness. As the creature landed on the hood, its claws screeched over the metal surface, and our forward momentum caused it to crash into our windshield. The glass instantly shattered and bowed inward. Adam slammed on the brakes hard. The thing rolled off even as Adam jammed down on the gas.
In my near frozen state of shock, I registered two things beyond my racing heart and rapid breathing. The thing Adam just ran over had red eyes. Not just red, but glowing, as in illuminated from within. The second thing was that someone had screamed before we took off down the road.
My gaze slid to the side mirror, and I saw the thing get to its feet and bolt off in the direction it had been headed before we hit it. Or it hit us.
“What was that?” I rasped shakily.
“I don’t know, babe. Our windshield can’t take another hit like that, though.”
I glanced at Adam, who was leaning toward the outside of the truck to see through the bits that had fewer cracks in them.
“I don’t want to change vehicles if we don’t have to,” he continued. “This one can take us through the fields if it comes down to that. Keep the handgun ready. Next time, we might need to use it.”
Not far out of town, a station wagon idled in the middle of the road. Adam slowed down to take the shoulder on the opposite lane. As we passed, I glanced at the car. My breath caught as the little girl strapped into her car seat in the back turned her head to look at us with her milky white eyes.
“Babe, talk to me. What’s wrong?”
It wasn’t until he spoke that I realized I was making gasping noises.
“There’s a little girl—”
Ahead, a woman appeared in our lights. She stood in the middle of the road, her back to us.
Adam slowed further.
