Brian Freeman - The Burying Place

Kasey drifted to a dead stop, her engine idling, her eyes locked on the rear-view mirror. Giant stretches of black water loomed on both sides of the highway. Her patrol car shuddered as wind hurtled across the open lake, bringing streams of snow. Half a mile behind her, the car with the lone headlight stopped too. They played cat and mouse on opposite ends of the bridge.

She didn't want to give in to paranoia. It might be nothing. It wasn't uncommon for teenage thrill-seekers to shadow police cars. She turned on her light bar, and almost immediately, the headlight winked off. She saw red tail lights as the person behind her did a U-turn and retreated at high speed. In the darkness, she couldn't make out details of the car that had tracked her.

She waited another minute, and when the odd headlight didn't return, she continued to the far side of the lake and followed the highway where it hugged the north shore. On her radio, she listened to chatter among the other cops as they patrolled the farmlands, sweeping back and forth across the zigzagging roads. It was a cold, lonely evening. For the most part, they had the countryside to themselves.

Her cell phone rang. She dug it out of her shirt pocket and saw that her husband was calling.

'Is everything OK?' Bruce asked her.

'Yeah. I'm fine.'

He picked up on the nervousness in her voice. 'Are you sure? You sound freaked.'

'It's nothing,' Kasey told him, glancing in her mirror again. 'I thought somebody was following me. I thought maybe it was him, you know?'

'Jesus. I don't like the idea of you out there alone.'

'I'll be all right. How are things at home? Are you taking precautions?'

'I checked the basement and all the windows,' Bruce said. 'I put a baby monitor down there too, so I could hear if anyone tries to get in.'

'Good. I should be home sometime after midnight.'

'I'll be up,' Bruce told her. He added, 'We can't live like this forever, you know.'

'I know. We're going to get out of here, just like we planned.'

'So let's do it. Now. Pack up and head for Nevada. We can leave tonight.'

Kasey let the silence drag out. 'Not yet.'

'What are we waiting for?'

'If we leave and this guy is still out there, I'll never sleep again,' Kasey said. 'I'll always wonder. It doesn’t matter where we go.'

'Do you think he'd follow us?'

'I don't know!' Kasey shouted. She took a deep breath and lowered her voice, reining in her panic. 'I have no idea what he'll do next. He's obsessed with me now, don't you get that?'

'All the more reason to get away ,' Bruce pressed her.

'Let's talk when I get home. OK? I can't talk about this now.'

'I know. Watch your back.'

Kasey hung up. Her hands were trembling. She chewed her upper lip and peered through the windows. Farmhouses and vacation homes were notched into the forest every quarter-mile or so as she wound through the roads bordering Island Lake. She spent an hour doing a reconnaissance of the gravel roads near the water. Twice she had to break for deer frozen in the lane, staring at her. The animals were the only things out here that were alive and awake.

She knew that Maggie wanted a mammoth police presence to spook the killer. Let him see cops on every road. Let him know that the risk of another assault was too big to take. If it was a waiting game, though, he was bound to win. There were too many long miles of rural land to watch them all.

Kasey radioed in her position. The dispatcher routed her on a reverse course south and east toward Highway 44. More travels through no-man's-land.

She retraced her path and headed across the open stretch of lake again, where the wind was worst. As she cleared the bridge, she spied a black van parked on the shoulder, its lights and engine off. She didn't think the van had been there as she headed north, but she'd been distracted. As she passed, she studied the driver's window but didn't see anyone inside. There was no steam gathered on the glass.

She pulled on to the side of the road twenty yards ahead of the van. Watching for movement behind her, she opened her door and climbed out next to the patrol car. She unhooked a flashlight from her belt and aimed it at the van's license plate, but the surface of the plate was caked with mud. She couldn't read the numbers. When she shot the beam at the windshield, she realized that the van's windows were smoked. She couldn't see through them.

She didn't like it.

At that moment, inside her patrol car, the radio crackled to life.

'All units in vicinity respond to a nine one one emergency call, felony assault in progress.' The dispatcher gave the address, which was on Highway 12 in the heart of the north farmlands. Kasey was fifteen minutes away at high speed. It had to be him.

She hesitated, studying the black van. Had it been there the whole time? Was it abandoned? She didn't have time to worry about it. She got back in her patrol car, slammed the door, and shot southward along the highway between the dark columns of pines.

Less than a mile later, her eyes flicked to her mirror, drawn to a sudden beam of light like a moth.

'Shit,' she said aloud.

The single headlight was back. Following her.

Kasey had a split second in which to decide whether to join the units responding to the assault call or find out who was in the van behind her. She chose the van. At the next intersection, she spun the patrol car into a hard U-turn. She pushed the accelerator to the floor, and the car leaped forward with a growl. Ahead of her, she heard the squeal of brakes, and the van lurched into an awkward turn in the middle of the highway. Its engine was no match for Kasey's patrol car.

'I've got you,' she whispered, taking one hand off the wheel to unsnap the thumb break on her holster.

She closed the gap quickly, but when she was a quarter-mile behind the van, its lights vanished. She switched on her high beams, but the black stretch of asphalt was empty. The vehicle had disappeared. Too late, she spotted a dirt road winding eastward off the highway toward the lake. She braked hard, but as she turned the wheel over, the rear of her car skidded on the snow piled on the shoulder, and her tires spun. She jammed the accelerator, but the wet slush gave her no traction. Frustrated, she feathered the pedal, and the car inched forward in fits and starts until it cleared the shoulder, where the tires grabbed the road and shrieked as she bolted forward.

The dirt road was barely a crease in the forest on her left. Nearly a dozen mailboxes leaned out toward the highway. When she turned, she realized she was on a private road that dead-ended at the water. There was no way out. The van was trapped somewhere ahead of her, between her car and the lake.

She slowed to a crawl, studying the maze of driveways that split from the main trail toward the lake homes, which were dark squares nestled among the trees. Snow-covered spruce branches dangled over the road, hanging low enough to brush the roof of the car. Gravel scraped under her tires. She drove for a mile until the road ended at a concrete boat launch that sloped downward, disappearing into the dark water.

The van was in the lake.

It floated away from the ramp into the open water like an off-balance toy. Its driver's door was open. As she watched, the vehicle sank lower, water spilling inside. The frame wobbled and dove awkwardly on to its side with a splash. Its tires broke through the surface. The van made a slow circle, spinning lazily from the shore before the heavy engine drove it downward front first. With hissing and ripples, the entire vehicle settled to the muddy bottom.

Kasey withdrew her gun from its holster. She squinted through the windows and did a careful scan of the area around her car before she opened her door and slid out, staying behind it. Her eyes moved from tree to tree, watching for movement. She listened. Dried leaves clapped as the wind blew. Snow sprinkled from the evergreens and made a cold landing on her face. A chorus of crows erupted nearby, and she jumped.