Ken Douglas - Nightwitch

She was reliving the night before, telling herself that there had to be a logical explanation for the crazy things that had happened, when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Something out of place. Something that didn’t belong among her tree friends. She glanced right, but it was gone.

Another day she might have stopped to investigate, but she was taking no foolish chances after last night. No more than the big one she was already taking. Last night John Coffee told her to leave town. She had ignored him, thinking he had to be over exaggerating, hoping he was over exaggerating.

Then she saw the wolf, standing by the side of the road as she came around a turn. Not threatening, just there. She was past it before she had time to be afraid, but she tensed her grip on the wheel and inched the accelerator down a bit, allowing the speed to climb from twenty-five to thirty-five, until she was far enough ahead of it so that it posed no danger to her.

She eased off the gas as she rounded another turn and saw it again. This time she felt a shiver and drove over to the left, on the wrong side of the road, to put as much distance between herself and it as she went past, and once again she put her foot down on the gas, only this time she put it to the floor.

A horn blared and she forgot the wolf as she jerked the wheel back to the right. The roar of the tanker’s horn, mingled with the sound of its mammoth engine, shot through her and she felt the blast of wind as the truck-beast roared by, missing her car by a margin too thin to mention.

She hung on to the wheel and slowed down, continuing on toward the highway. She heard a wolf howl in the distance when she rounded the next turn. She rolled her window up, keeping her eyes glued to the road as she let the speedometer creep up to fifty, faster than she had ever driven on the winding road before.

Ten minutes later she jingled up the driveway into the parking lot of the Pine Tree Motel. She didn’t expect to see the Volvo backed up to one of the rooms pointing out her quarry, so she was surprised when she did. The front end didn’t seem to be damaged and that surprised her, because the force and sound of the impact when she hit the wolf had been violent and loud.

She parked her car at the far end of the lot, not sure what to do. Should she brazenly walk up to the door pointed out by the Volvo’s rear end and knock, or sit in her car and wait. She couldn’t sit alone in the parking lot for long. She’d be noticed and someone would call the manager. She wondered how the police staked out a suspect without being seen. Surely they didn’t sit in their cars in broad daylight and wait for them to make a move.

She didn’t have to wonder long, because the door behind the Volvo opened and John Coffee came out. He walked to the car, like it was his, unlocking the door with his head down. She would have expected him to be casting furtive glances around the parking lot, but instead he acted like he was doing nothing wrong.

He eased himself into the car, supporting himself by holding one hand onto the back of the seat and the other on the door. She could tell it was a struggle and she winced with sympathy pains as he arranged himself behind the wheel. He was taking his time. He wasn’t concerned about being followed.

He was wearing sunglasses, but they couldn’t hide the bruised and scabbed over face. She put a hand up to her cheek and felt her heart go out to him. He could be miles away by now, but he wasn’t. He had trusted her, believed her when she said she wouldn’t call the police. He had put his life in her hands. She wanted to know more.

But when he drove out of the parking lot, she knew it would be useless to try and follow. She couldn’t keep up with the Volvo in her old VW Beetle, so she decided to do something for herself for once. She glanced at her watch. She had plenty of time.

“ Out of the way!” Steve Kerr burst through the exit, holding a backpack over his head. A small kid from the fourth grade was hot in pursuit.

“ Give it back,” the kid wailed.

“ Catch me,” he yelled back, pushing between Arty and Carolina like a fish swimming through water, causing hardly a ripple as he weaved between the crowd of kids going home.

“ What a jerk,” Carolina said.

The pursuing fourth grader, not as successful at negotiating the throng of students, clipped Arty in the side as he shouldered his way through the crowd. Arty stumbled and grabbed on to Carolina’s shoulder to keep himself from tumbling down the steps, but he dropped her books.

“ You big jerk,” Carolina yelled at Steve’s back as he made his way across the street, running against the red light, dodging the traffic. Tires screeched, but the younger kid made it across after him, without ever knowing how close he came to never seeing the fifth grade.

Arty grabbed onto Carolina, digging his fingers into her shoulder, windmilling his other arm, struggling to keep his balance. He would have fallen if she hadn’t grabbed onto him.

“ Sorry ‘bout that,” he said, gaining his balance. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.” They were standing in front of the exit and other kids coming out of the school had to go around them.

“ It’s not your fault. It’s that asshole, Steve Kerr,” she said.

Arty bent over and picked up the math and social studies texts and was reaching for the English book when a foot flew by his face, kicking the book, sending it flying down the steps with the pages flapping in the wind, sailing Carolina’s English assignment on the breeze, like a paper airplane.

“ I didn’t see it, sorry.” Relief flooded through Arty. Better the blue eyes of Lynda Bingham than the snake eyes of Brad Peters.

“ That’s okay,” Arty said, “it was an accident.”

“ Is not okay,” Carolina said, “my homework is getting away.” Arty, surprised at her tone, started to protest, but was cut off by Lynda.

“ I’ll get it,” she said, darting off after the fleeing paper.

“ She did that on purpose,” Carolina said.

“ It was an accident,” Arty said.

“ Maybe,” Carolina said, softening her voice as she watched Lynda catch up with the wayward homework. “If she’d done it on purpose I suppose she wouldn’t be chasing after it. I was just thinking about what a bully that Brad was this morning and then this happens, so I thought the wrong thing.”

Hearing Brad’s name reminded Arty of why he was in a hurry. “We’re causing a bottleneck here. We can meet her halfway,” he said. He started walking toward Lynda.

“ We don’t have to be in such a hurry,” Carolina said, but Arty didn’t slow down and every few steps he snuck a glance over his shoulder.

“ Here it is,” Lynda said, jogging toward them. She handed Arty the English assignment. “Sorry again.” Then she said, “There’s my mom. I gotta go.”

“ She likes you,” Carolina said.

“ She does not.”

“ Sure she does, that’s why she kicked my book.” Sheila moved in the backpack and Carolina shifted it a little to make the ferret more comfortable.

“ That doesn’t make any sense.”

“ It does if you’re a girl. She wanted to talk to you. It gave her an excuse.”

“ She could just come up and say, hello.”

“ Some people are shy.”

“ I know about that,” he said, “but I don’t get it, nobody’s ever wanted to talk to me before.”

“ I did. Why do you think I called you Mr. Arty Smarty Pants?”

Arty looked at her and scratched his head. He saw movement in her backpack and she shifted it from her left shoulder to her right. The ferret moved again and she shifted the backpack again to accommodate it.

“ Do you have to move that pack back and forth all the time?” he asked.