Nicholas Sparks - The Best of Me

But he wasn’t going to do that. Oh, no. Because first, she had to understand exactly what was going on. She had to understand that he made the rules.

Beside him Ted was remarkably steady on his feet, almost excited. Faint strains of music from the jukebox came from inside, the neon rope that spelled out the name of the bar painting their faces with a reddish glow.

Abee nodded at Ted before raising his leg to kick open the door.

Dawson slowed the car to a crawl, every nerve ending on high alert. In the distance, he could just make out the lights of Oriental. He was overcome by a sudden sense of déjà vu, as if he already knew what was coming but was powerless to stop it, even if he wanted to.

Dawson leaned over the wheel. If he squinted, he could make out the convenience store, the one he’d passed on his morning jog. The spire of the First Baptist Church, illuminated by floodlights, seemed to hover above the business district. The halogen streetlights cast an eerie glow on the macadam, highlighting the route that led to Tuck’s, taunting him with the possibility that he might never make it there. The stars he’d seen before had vanished, the sky above the town was almost unnaturally black. Up ahead on the right squatted the low-slung building that had replaced the original copse of trees, almost exactly central to the curve in the highway at the edge of town.

Dawson scanned the landscape closely, waiting for… something. Almost immediately, he was rewarded by a flash of movement beyond the driver’s side window.

He was there, standing just outside the edges of the headlights’ beams, in the meadow that bordered the highway. The dark-haired man.

The ghost .

It happened so fast, Alan couldn’t even comprehend it.

There he was, chatting up Candy — or trying to, anyway — as she was getting ready to drop off another beer, when all of a sudden the front door of the bar was shoved open with such force that the upper half was torn from its hinge.

Before Alan had time to flinch, Candy had already begun to react. Recognition flashed across her face, the beer bottle halting in mid-delivery. Candy mouthed the words Oh, shit before she suddenly let go of the bottle.

By the time the bottle burst into splinters on the concrete floor, Candy had already turned and was sprinting away from him, a scream rising in her throat.

Behind him, a roar echoed off the wall.

“WHO IN THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!”

Alan shrank into himself as Candy raced for the far end of the bar, toward the manager’s office. Alan had been coming to the Tidewater long enough to know that the manager’s office had a reinforced steel door with dead bolts, because that was where the safe was kept.

Cringing, Alan watched Abee zero in on her as he rushed past him, chasing Candy’s blond ponytail to the end of the bar. Abee, too, knew where she was going.

“OH, NO, YOU DON’T, YOU BITCH!”

Candy threw a terrified look over her shoulder before grabbing the doorjamb of the office. With a cry, she catapulted herself through the opening.

She swung the door closed just as Abee planted a hand and lunged over the bar. Empty bottles and glasses went flying. The register crashed to the floor, but he got his legs out in front of him.

Almost.

He hit the floor, stumbling, knocking liquor bottles off the shelf below the mirror as though they were bowling pins.

They barely slowed him down. In a flash, he was solidly on his feet and at the manager’s door. Alan saw everything, each scene unfolding individually with surreal, violent precision. But when his thoughts caught up with what was actually happening, panic flooded every inch of his body.

This isn’t a movie.

Abee began to pound on the door, hurling himself against it, his voice a hurricane. “OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!”

This is real.

He could hear Candy screaming hysterically from the locked office.

Oh, my God…

In the rear of the bar, the guys who’d been playing pool suddenly bolted toward the emergency exit, dropping their pool cues as they ran. It was the slapping sound the cues made as they hit the concrete floor that caused Alan’s heart to hiccup in his chest, kicking into gear a primitive instinct for survival.

He had to get out of here.

He had to get out of here now !

Alan shot off the stool like he’d been jabbed with an ice pick, sending it toppling backward and grabbing at the bar to keep from falling down. Turning toward the cockeyed front door, he could see the parking lot beyond. The main road out front beckoned, and he surged toward it.

He was only vaguely aware that Abee was pounding and shouting that he was going to kill Candy if she didn’t open the door. He barely noted the overturned tables and chairs. The only thing that mattered was reaching that opening and getting the hell out of the Tidewater as fast as he possibly could.

He heard his sneakers hitting the concrete floor, but the cockeyed door seemed to be getting no closer. Like one of those doors at a carnival funhouse…

From far away, he heard Candy scream, “Leave me alone!”

He didn’t see Ted at all, nor did he see the chair that Ted heaved in his direction until it smashed into his legs, sending him sprawling. Alan instinctively tried to break his fall, but he couldn’t stop the momentum. His forehead hit the floor hard, the impact stunning him. He saw bursts of white light before everything went black.

Only slowly did the world come into focus again.

He could taste blood as he struggled to untangle his legs from the chair and turn over. He felt a boot step down hard on the side of his face, the heel cutting sharply into his jaw as his head was pressed to the floor.

Above him, Crazy Ted Cole stood pointing a gun right at him, looking faintly amused.

“Just where do you think you’re going?”

Dawson pulled the car to the side of the road. He half-expected the figure to vanish in the shadows as he stepped out of the car, but the dark-haired man stood in place, surrounded by knee-high grass. He was perhaps fifty yards away, close enough for Dawson to notice the windbreaker rippling in the evening breeze. At a sprint, even fully clothed and running through high grass, Dawson could reach the man in less than ten seconds.

Dawson knew he wasn’t imagining the stranger. He could feel him, could sense him as plainly as the beating of his heart. Without taking his eyes from the man, Dawson stretched his arm into the car and turned off the engine, killing the headlights. Even in the darkness, Dawson could see the splash of the man’s white shirt, framed by the open windbreaker. His face, however, was too vague to make out, as always.

Dawson stepped from the road, onto the narrow gravel median beside it.

The stranger didn’t move.

Dawson ventured farther into the meadow grass, and still the figure remained, unmoving.

Dawson kept his eyes trained on him as he slowly began to close the distance. Five steps. Ten. Fifteen. Had it been daylight, he knew he would have seen the man plainly. He would have been able to make out the distinct features of his face; but in the darkness, those details remained obscured.

Closer now. Dawson moved deliberately, feeling a wave of disbelief wash over him. He was as close as he’d ever been to the ghostlike figure, near enough to reach him in a single burst.

He continued to watch, debating when to break into his run. But the stranger seemed to read Dawson’s mind. He took a step backward.