JACQUARIOUS

"I SAID GET BACK HERE!" yelled that distant, angry voice again as the man just meters from our car faltered closer and closer to where TaKylar and I sat in horror, motionless.

As he drew nearer, hands finally clasping at the glass overlaying TaKylar's headlights, I noticed a fleshy hole just beneath his chin, trickles of red seeping from his throat and dripping along his shirt collar.

"J—Jaquarious," my name trembled from between TaKylar's lips. "We gotta get outta—"

BAM!

The man's hand slammed against the windshield as he thrusted himself onto the vehicle's hood, every bloody detail of his corpselike body at last on full display under the faint street lights that shone through the glass.

TaKylar stabbed the keys back into the ignition, twisted them hard as the man on the car let out a heavy moan.

The engine sputtered.

Oh, no. I whipped my head to face TaKylar as ice scraped through my veins. It won't start.

She ripped out the keys and slammed them in again, just as another bullet rang out and blasted through the driver-seat window.

TaKylar screamed; the locks unhitched; frantic footsteps echoed; I shoved my door wide and toppled to the concrete.

Eyes gaping with terror, I hazarded a fearful glance behind me, where a second man closed in—this one scowling bitterly and radiating rage as he held a dark pistol toward the body still spread across TaKylar's windshield.

My hands shivered against the scraggly pavement, legs frozen in place, heart thundering in my chest.

Unmoving, unthinking, I barely registered the tug of trembling hands around my arm.

"Jacquarious! Come on! We've gotta run—"

POW! Another gunshot roared through the night, jolting me at last from my stasis on the concrete.

I scrambled to my feet and bounded after TaKylar, tearing through the midnight wind whipping my face with the lash of winter.

Desperate gasps billowing from my lungs as I ran, I swung my head backward as a final frenzied bang echoed mercilessly behind me. The man still spread on TaKylar's hood wailed in agony, another surge of ice shrieking through my veins.

The man's body slumped, rolled lifelessly from the car and onto the rocky pavement.

Smoking gun in hand, the figure standing over him stared down in rage, uttered a string of hateful words I couldn't quite make out.

Then those livid eyes looked up; they homed in on me and TaKylar, both of us willing our aching legs to carry us further and faster.

The scowling man lifted his metallic pistol streaked by the light of the moon, curved his index finger across the trigger.

"He's gonna shoot," I gasped.

"What!?"

"TaKylar, get down!" I sprang forward and tackled her to the concrete, shielded her with my body.

I clung to her, held her beneath me in terror as I waited.

Waited for the final bulleted scream of the pistol's implacable barrel.

Waited for the white-hot burn of steel searing through my flesh.

But there was nothing.

All that met my ears was the cacophonous silence of the abandoned lot, the ghostly whispering wind robbed of its whistling tune.

Sheer cold fluttered all around me, frosting my breaths as they shivered through my nostrils.

I lifted my head, shuddered to twist around, to peer over my shoulder—just in time for the man holding the pistol to howl in frustration before hurling his weapon to the ground.

Bullets...he must be out of—

He returned his menacing gaze to us, to where I lay covering TaKylar with my arms wrapped around her shoulders. Gun discarded, he balled his fists, stared straight into my eyes, and began stalking forward with bitter and determined strides.

"TaKaylar, get up!" Fear tore through my voice. "We gotta move—that freak's gonna kill us!"

I leapt to my feet and gripped TaKylar's hands, helping her hurriedly to stand.

The crunch of footsteps on the pavement grew louder with each second as we sprinted off toward the interior of Kingston Mills.

Jowls of cracked, decaying wood jutted out from either side of the entrance as we darted into the darkness between swaying cobwebs.

The shadows of the abandoned building clawed at us from every angle, their grip choking out the tiny rays of light that filtered through gaps where windows once stood.

My leg rammed into the remains of a collapsed wooden chair, pain rocketing from just above my kneecap as I plummeted to the dusty floor of gravel.

TaKylar gasped just as I held a finger to my lips, hoping that in the minor wisps of light between us, she could make out my plea for silence—a plea fighting against every raw nerve screaming from my thigh.

She was trembling as I struggled to stand, as the throbbing in my leg began to fade...as the cruel clatter of footsteps sounded from inside the mill, from behind us.

I glanced quickly left, spotted the decaying frame of an outcropped wall. "There," I mouthed to TaKylar, my words not even a whisper.

More footsteps echoed in the distance as we tiptoed through the shadows before us, securing ourselves at last behind the wall's edge.

Our bodies pressed tightly in the cramped and uneven space, TaKylar shivered against me. "H...He's dead," the words seemed to waver in the air as they escaped her lips. "That man outside—he's..."

I gripped her hand in my own, turned and looked into her eyes, glimpsed nothing but pure horror painted in agonized hues of brown.

My free hand sliding over my thigh, over the cylindrical figure of a smartphone in my pants pocket, I felt myself gulp hard.

We should call the police. I know we should, but...

The memories of that day tore instantly through my mind. That revolting stench, the unmoving fear, the shuddering body that had pinned me against the tiled wall.

And the blood—there had been so much blood.

I stood in place, eyes glazing with the shivering of my shoulders when suddenly, I was again aware of TaKylar's hand. She was squeezing mine now, warmth flowing into me.

Three dull clicks sounded somewhere in the distance—somewhere mere inches from my face—and the monotone rumble of a satined voice snapped me finally back to the present, where TaKylar held her own phone shiveringly against her ear:

"This is 9-1-1," the words trickled through. "What's your emergency?"

****

I hadn't slept, had barely breathed.

Night had faded to daylight; and though the drowsy glaze that now clouded my brain made everything seem distant and difficult to remember, it felt that I'd not so much as blinked my eyes since escaping Kingston Mills.

A blur—a frosted, cruel, and wistful blur. That's all it was, all it had been.

Those mere hours ago when TaKylar and I had run for our lives, when she'd used the emergency app on her phone to call the police, then to send them our location without even uttering a sound.

Piercing sirens had whirred through the darkness.

The man stalking through the shadows with evil eyes had fled.

Officers clad in dark uniforms had found us, found me, fear inescapable trembling all around.

TaKylar had told them that her parents were out of town and probably asleep, unlikely to answer their phones. And I'd lied and told them the same to avoid waking my mother, horrifying her, with the details of my last excursion before the start of the new semester.

Though I'd felt frozen in time when the officers dropped me back at home, time itself had refused to cease. The sun rose to take the sky as I should have been awakening to it—as I sat motionless at the foot of my bed, felt the heat of the morning shine through my window and melt into my back.

"Jaquarious!" came the sweet trill of my mother's voice from the hall, rays of light bursting behind me through the basswood blinds. "Ready for the big day? I'll have breakfast ready in a few!"

I shivered once, shaking my head.

And with that, I finally stood. Finally exhaled. Finally let out the wave of exhaustion bundled inside my chest. I felt ready to run downstairs and to collapse all at once.

The bloody talons of a grisly night had gone, vanished to leave behind their gruesome memories.

It was a new day.

A brand new day.