Andrew Klavan - Nightmare City

At that moment, with a horrible thud , something—someone—smashed into his fender.

Without thinking, Tom hit the brakes. The tires squealed as the Mustang skidded to a stop. Tom shouted in fear as a figure tumbled out of the fog and collapsed over the side of the Mustang’s hood. At first, he thought it must be a malevolent. But it wasn’t. It was a man.

Sprawled over the front of the car, the man looked up through the windshield, looked at Tom desperately. His forehead was streaked with blood. His eyes were wide and shining with a sick brightness. His expression was one of terror.

Shocked, Tom realized he knew the man. He recognized him. It was the lanky, long-haired young guy from the heavenly garden. The man with the sunken cheeks and hollow eyes, the addict he’d seen on television lying in the hospital bed next to his.

Slowly, the man raised one hand, his wrist bandaged. He reached out desperately as if trying to touch Tom’s face through the windshield glass.

Then, in the very next second, before Tom could react, two of the hungry-eyed malevolents lunged out of the surrounding whiteness and seized the man in their poisonous hands. The man shrieked in terror as the creatures’ long claws dug into the flesh of his arms. He shrieked again as, gibbering, the malevolents dragged him off the car’s hood. The man went on screaming and screaming, but it was no use. With wild cries of triumph, the creatures hauled him away into the mist.

The calm voice on the radio gave a warm laugh. “Now there’s a man who finally got what he wanted,” he said.

Openmouthed, Tom stared out the windshield at the place where the long-haired man had been. The whole awful scene had happened in an instant, and another instant passed before Tom could break through his horror and amazement and act. Then, quickly, he reached for the baseball bat next to the seat beside him. He had to do something. He had to… what? He didn’t know. Would he go out there? Try to fight the monsters? Try to save the man? What chance did he have?

It didn’t matter. He had to try. He wrapped his fingers around the Warrior and turned back to the windshield, grabbing hold of the door handle with his other hand, ready to leap out.

But it was already too late. The fog swirled and tumbled past the Mustang’s windows, deep and thick and empty. The long-haired man had vanished. And what Tom saw next filled his whole body with an acid fear.

The malevolents. They were coming for him. They were everywhere.

His car had been stopped too long. The monsters had spotted him. They were swarming around him now, hunched figures limping and hunkering toward him out of the mist, becoming visible on every side of the Mustang, at every window.

There were two right in front of him, their raw, hideous, misshapen faces caught in the out-glow of his headlights. They were approaching the hood of his car, their arms raised for attack, their clawed fingers reaching. There were more of them to his left, out the driver’s window. Three more hungry-eyed beasts slouching out of the drifting whiteness, closing on him. Two more to his right, coming toward the passenger window. And when he looked up into his rearview mirror, he saw the lumbering figures coming up behind him, too.

He was surrounded. There was no way past them.

“I told you, Tom,” the Lying Man said quietly over the radio. “You’re never alone.”

Tom’s muscles had gone weak with terror. Second after second as the creatures closed in on him, as they limped closer and closer toward the car from every side, he sat behind the wheel frozen, unable to will himself to move. The monsters in front of him reached his fenders. Their claws were on his car, scraping horribly against the metal. They were beginning to climb up onto the hood, making the Mustang rock. Tom’s heart pounded as one of the malevolents reached his door. He heard its claws scraping at the door’s handle. And now another one started pounding at the passenger window, trying to break through the glass. And the car rocked even harder as yet another of the things started to climb onto the trunk in back.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of, Tom,” said the Lying Man. “Soon you and I will be together forever.”

Tom let out a roar and hit the gas. The Mustang’s tires squealed and the car shot forward. The monsters on the hood went flying off to either side. For another second—and then another—Tom saw the creatures at the windows running alongside him, hanging on to the doors, trying to keep him from getting away. But the car kept racing forward. The malevolents lost their grip and tumbled off into the mist. Tom kept roaring, kept the gas pedal pressed down hard beneath his sneaker.

The car broke out of the closing circle of creatures and shot away. Tom was free—free but blind because now the mist was thick again, tight against the windows again, and the car was speeding, speeding through a swirling, cottony mass in which he could see nothing.

Moving so blindly at such a speed, Tom quickly lost his sense of direction. He didn’t know where the road was. He didn’t know where he was going.

There was one more giddy second of racing blindness. Then the Mustang hit the curb, bounced up over the sidewalk, and smashed into a tree.

The car stopped. The engine died. The fog closed in around him.

In that first moment of impact, there was a crunch of metal, a clatter of shattering plastic, a tinkle of breaking glass. The left side of the fender collapsed as it smacked into the tree trunk. The left headlight disintegrated. The jolt threw Tom forward against the seat belt, and the belt threw him back against the seat. He was dazed for a moment—but only for a moment. He willed his mind clear. There was no time to waste.

The malevolents would catch up to him in seconds. With the car dead, he’d have no chance to escape.

He grabbed the ignition key, wrenched it over, trying to start the car again. The engine wheezed and coughed but wouldn’t catch. He could see smoke beginning to pour up from beneath the hood. No, it was no good. The Mustang was finished.

Time to go .

He grabbed the baseball bat. Yanked it out of its space by the door. He glanced through his window to see if the path was clear. He saw the malevolents, dim in the thick fog, but getting clearer every second as they came humping after him.

Moving with the speed of panic, Tom pressed the button to release his seat belt. He grabbed the door handle. Pushed the door open. Dragging the Warrior with him, he tumbled out into the mist.

The cold, damp air closed over him, chilling his cold, damp skin. But it wasn’t just the air that chilled him. It was the beasts. So near. He could see their dark shapes. He could hear the brusque grunts of their breathing, the shuffling rhythm of their oncoming footsteps. Without the car around him, he felt totally vulnerable—he was totally vulnerable. He had to get out of here. Now.

He’d lost his sense of direction. He wasn’t sure where he was. He wasn’t sure which way to go. But the monsters were closing in to the left of him, so he turned to the right, made his way around the fender of the car, and headed into the white murk.

The fog embraced him. Moving blindly, he half ran, half staggered forward. Guessing the direction, he tried to angle his way back to the road. He got it right. A few steps and he stumbled over the curb—nearly tripped, nearly went down, but was then running over the open asphalt with the mist drifting by his face.

He felt afraid. Worse than afraid. He felt hopeless. The fog was everywhere. The creatures were everywhere. He didn’t know where he was. He couldn’t see where he was going. How could he ever expect to escape?