Chapter 6


                                                                                                                   Chapter 7

Andrea was sitting in her reading chair as she turned the page to chapter seven, her neighbor's accident all but forgotten. She was deeply engrossed in the book. The protagonist, Jack had just had a date with a woman named Joan, and Andrea expected a beautiful relationship would form before the end of the book. She loved a little romance in the suspense novels she read. She looked at the page, her mind falling once again into the story and she found herself in Jack's car, on the way to pick up Bowser.

John's phone rang, startling him and making him swerve a little, luckily, the traffic was light and he didn't hit anyone. He had been daydreaming about Julie. It had started as a fear for her: if he was crazy, wasn't he a danger to her? Wasn't he more of a danger if he wasn't? Then his thoughts had gone to the confidence and strength that she seemed to exude and that had launched his mind into an all out fawning session. He shook his head and pulled the phone from his pocket. No need to act like a silly schoolboy with a crush, he was a man and a professional to boot. He pushed the talk button and greeted the person on the other end.
"Oh my God, John, I have to talk to you now. Turn your car around and meet me at the mall. I have to show you something."
Julie's voice was full of astonishment and fear. He pulled the car to the off ramp, cut off a small white dodge and headed across the overpass to the on ramp for the 15 south.
"What happened, are you all right?" He asked.
"Don't hurt yourself, no need to crash the car so that you can get here one second earlier."
"What's happening? You sound upset."
"I found something that is an odd and amazing coincidence. Have you ever heard of the author, Donald Kingsley?"
AYeah. Never read his stuff, but he was my neighbor for about a year. He moved out about six months ago."
"Was he angry with you?"
John was getting more and more confused. What was going on here?

"Well, I don't think so, not anymore. We had a fight over a tree that was on the border of our properties. He wanted to remove it and I wanted to keep it. Some stupid and petty nonsense came from it, but I don't think he would still be angry over something like that."
"Um, well, " Julie said as if she was unsure of how to say something. "I'm not so sure. It could be a huge coincidence, but it just doesn't make sense." She spoke more to herself than to him.
"What's going on?" The urgency in his voice must have broken through her uncertainty, because she began immediately.
"I like Donald Kingsley, I get his new books whenever I have time to read them, and between classes is the perfect time. I was on the way to my class after we were done at the restaurant and I realized that I needed a book. I stopped at the mall and I got the newest Kingsley novel. When I was reading the back cover, it struck me as familiar. I'm not sure why, but I started reading it right in the store. I have to be honest; at first, I was mad at you. The book parallels the story that you told me over lunch. A man, Jack O'Connel and his dog Bowser are tormented by a shadowy figure, but then I got to the part that included me. The girl that Jack meets at the restaurant is Joan and she leaves him to go to her class. That is when I tried to skip forward, but I couldn't get past chapter seven. It seems that when I got to the end of the page where Jack is driving to his friend, Peter's house, my hand just didn't want to turn the page. I started thinking of how late for school I was and I found myself in my car. I had payed for the book and even started the car before I even realized it."
She paused a moment to let this soak in before continuing.
"I called you the minute that I realized I was in my car. There has to be a connection. I know it sounds insane, but it can't be coincidence."
He heard the rustling of plastic and paper. There was a pause, then a small gasp.

John looked behind him, to get over into the next lane and froze. He saw the hands. The darkened cab of the car slightly behind him on his right held the claws of his tormenter!
In the phone next to his ear, he heard her reading.
"Jack looked over his shoulder and felt his heart begin to race. Thin beads of sweat broke out on his forehead and upper lip. The claws, those misshapen grey razor blades seemed to reach for him as they clutched the wheel of the car. The unnatural darkness of the driver's seat was broken only by the two black orbs that seemed to make the light in the car flee in terror."
"Oh my God." John said. It was as if she were narrating his life as he lived it.
"Are you ok?" She asked. "John answer me."
"He's there." John's foot moved of its own volition, pushing the pedal to the floor as hard as he could. The car was shaking and groaning as he hit ninety-five as if it was also worried that something might happen to him. The car was barreling along, but the car that followed never seemed to lose pace with him. The grill of the car took on a smiling appearance as they raced along the freeway. He looked behind him and what he saw very nearly made him stomp on the breaks. In the darkness, the black hole eyes weren't the only thing that could be seen anymore. A skeletal yellow grin that was too wide to be human was becoming visible in the darkness.

He was doing just what it wanted, he realized at that moment. He had been doing what it wanted from the beginning. It had never pulled into the lane behind him; it had only kept pace, playing on his irrational fears. He pulled his foot off the accelerator, letting the car begin to slow naturally. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the car was gone. Had he only been imagining that he was being followed?
In the distance, he heard his name being called and he realized that he had dropped the phone. He pulled off the freeway, listening to his heart pound and his breathing slow. As he exited the freeway he saw that a big rig was passing another a little way down the freeway and if he had continued like a mad man at ninety to one hundred miles an hour, he would have been jam on its fender.

The mall was big, but he had no problem finding her. She stood next to her car in front of the Borders bookstore. When he saw her, she was furiously reading the page that the book was open to. After a moment, she looked up and glanced around as if she were looking for something. She spotted him and waved him over. She got in the passengers seat when he pulled into the empty space next to her car.
"Listen to this. Joan was on the other end. 'Hi,' she said. 'I enjoyed our date, and I hoped that we could see each other again. Maybe now?' That is when you see the hands and the car, you race along and you lose the car, almost running into a big rig in the process. Then you pull in here and see me."
He just looked at her for a minute, a little overwhelmed.
"Don't you see, it replaced my version of what was really happening with some inane dialogue. Everything about the author; the book; all gone. The only thing that's left is some see-through ploy to get you to come see me. That's not all that's missing either, the woman who came out to help you when the car almost hit you in front of your mother's house isn't mentioned either. It only says that you rolled out of the way just in time to miss the tire."
John looked down, remembering the disturbing feel of the car that had turned to pudding as it struck him.

"I wonder if I'm the first person that this has happened to. Has anyone else been terrorized because of arguments with Donald Kingsley? Is that even what's happening here?"
"And why can't I turn the page past the present?" she finished for him. A I only get to read a paragraph or so into the future, whatever is at the bottom of the page. Right now, I can't even turn to the next chapter for some reason, every time I try, I keep thinking of the things that I need to do today."
"We need some of his other books. There has to be something in them to help us."
They went back into the bookstore, grabbed the three most recent novels, and went back to his S.U.V.
"The one thing that was accurate was the area, every city that we went to was right, including the cites where you and your mother live."
She plucked the phone from the floor by her feet and handed it to him.
"Why don't you call her and tell her that everything's fine, but she should spend another week in her vacation spot. She is probably too worried to have a good time."
He smiled at the genuine concern that she held for this woman that she knew only as >his mother'. While he called his mother's cell phone, Julie began to scan the first of the books. This one was about a waitress at a small coffee house in San Bernardino who is tormented by a stalker in a ski mask.
"John? How are you feeling? Is everything all right; can I come home?"
He told her that everything was fine, and heard the audible relief in her voice.
"That's great, I'll come home right now."

"Mom." He scolded, trying to sound casual about it. "Have you even spent one minute enjoying yourself? Have you even seen anything other than your hotel room? You are in a place that you have wanted to go for a long time now. Relax and enjoy yourself. I'm fine and I will see you next weekend, give or take. Try to have some fun."
He said goodbye and put the phone back in his holder.



Chapter 8