Getting Home

Part 9

"Henry, we need to go now!"

A pointless statement—he was already two steps ahead of me by the time I finished the sentence. He had linked his arm in mine and was literally pulling me along behind me. I was pulled along on the heels of my sneakers like I was on ice.

Until I remembered how to run.

We sprinted arm-in-arm, our feet moving in unison, him pulling me just faster enough that my toes seemed to float over the ground. I looked back over my shoulder.

And finally caught a blurry glimpse of it.

Whatever it was.

It was more of a vague impression—a black, hovering, blob shape? It glided smoothly a couple of feet above the ground... right towards us. It looked like a black, sleek eternally frozen icy fog that didn't swirl or move; it took up most the width of alley way.

We burst out of the alley onto the sidewalk, the sun momentarily blinding me.

Didn't matter. Henry pulled me along towards where we had parked the Civic.

I caught a flash of a yellow Labrador dog head sticking out from where my passenger side window used to be. Our arms slipped apart as we split off. Henry had learned how to use the door handle, at least—he moved quick and was already in the car before I even got to my side. I hopped into the driver's and frantically scrabbled for the key in my tight, barely existent front pocket.

"Hurry. Please, hurry. Hurry now." Henry was craned backwards, looking behind us. The dog was hunched up behind him on the backseat floor, whimpering quietly.

"I'm trying!" I said frantically. The key lodged itself even more firmly at the bottom of my pocket. "I can't get the key out, these stupid—"

The car suddenly started.

I looked at Henry. Both of his hands were braced against the dash. He pulled them away and then looked at me—his pupils were huge, but there was a slim rim of beautiful silver iris running around them.

I mean literally. The thin rim of his silver colored irises rotated around his pupil, slow and hypnotic.

"Must go," he said. His voice was still in-control—but barely. "Must go now. Can't protect Ava—I can't protect you. GO!"

I floored it.

The tires gave a tiny little chirp as the Civic hopped forward.

The smooth blob appeared from out of the alleyway finally—I only saw it through the rearview mirror. It wasn't floating anymore; it seemed to have solidified, running on large proboscises, the entire thing looking more...

Animal shape.

It was large—it came rocketing out of the alleyway, slamming into the side of the work truck that had been repairing the roadway. The entire truck was instantly launched low and sideways through the air in a violent spin.

I saw one worker in a yellow vest thrown. Far.

Oh my God that poor guy.

"Go go go!" Henry was urging, turned half around to look behind us again.

I looked down from the rearview mirror—and almost head-on collided with a car. The car honked wildly, and I snapped the Civic to the right, swerving hard and narrowly missing him.

Oh my god Ava oh my god THAT WAS SO CLOSE.

Something slammed into the back of us—I was jolted forwards, my head snapping forward then back. I heard a loud crunch, along with the shattering of plastic.

There goes the taillights.

And then...

The unmistakable sound of tempered glass being broken.

Go faster go faster go faster.

There was a heavy thunk of something on the trunk, and the car violently bounced again. Then, incredibly—

The nose of the Civic began to rise.

Oh my god, we're really going to die right now.

Henry suddenly climbed into the backseat—as he scrambled between the seats, his foot tapped the radio.

A song came blasting out of the speakers: "Oliver's Arrow" by Rory's First Kiss.

Everything seemed so slow, and surreal. It's not like the movies, where everything moves in slow motion—only your brain, which has infinite time.

There was a loud, scraping noise—metal shredding against metal. The front of the car suddenly dropped down, bouncing me in my seat which then made the top of my head jounce into the, padded ceiling.

We zoomed off.

"Henry, what is going on? What the hell was that!?" The radio was still blaring and I quickly snapped it off. The road was clear behind us.

Henry climbed back over the console to the passenger seat. "I... I don't know. Enemy. Unfriendly."

From the corner of my eye I could see—feel—him suddenly and intensely looking at me.

"What—what was that..." He struggled to find the word. "Vibration."

He pointed to his ears.

"What?" I said. "Sound? I don't know Henry, there was a lot going on."

I chewed my lip as I tried to calm down. What the hell was I going to do? Call 911? But after I'd seen what Henry had done—what would happen to him? What would they do to him?

Or him to them, my mind whispered.

And what about that... that thing? I just needed to get somewhere where I could get my bearings and calm down. I needed to rationally think about it for at least a little bit.

Jorge's.

"We're going to go to a friend's house, okay?" My voice was shaky—as I spoke, my eyes began to sting with tears. "I'm just really scared right now and just need to calm down and think about what to do for a second, okay?"

Keep it together.

Henry's hand was suddenly softly resting on top of mine.

"Ava saved... you saved me, I mean... again." He squeezed my hand. "Thank you."

I squeezed back.

The Civic began to make a clunking noise.

And died.