The Ghost of Dome Rock Road

Oh, Snap!

Damian closed the door and gave it a quick tug, making sure it was latched. Eileen tapped on the keypad to activate the alarm. "You know, I'm not usually this impulsive. But when you showed up at my house the other day, I was so attracted to you. It was like a moth to a flame," Eileen said playfully. She grabbed Damian by his belt and pressed up against him, giving him a wet, almost sloppy kiss. Damian embraced her, letting his hands slide down to the small of her back. "We should get going," Eileen suggested. "Yeah, I need to get back to Yuma before my boss goes home for the evening. I need to run some things by him," Damian said.

The couple headed down the path to the driveway when Damian stopped and turned to Eileen. "Eileen, you need to understand. If I follow through on this, all hell is going to break loose! I mean, you're gonna get dragged into a shitstorm you may regret." "Trust me, Damian, I understand. But if I don't do something, Lizzy will." "Well, if this checks out, Koontz is in deep doo-doo. At the very least, he's got a public relations nightmare on his hands," Damian said. "Lizzy won't need to be involved, will she?" Eileen asked. "Probably not, but I can't say for sure. Her being a minor complicates things. Best not to worry about that right now. I need to discuss it first with my boss before we go any further."

"What about us?" Eileen asked. "Well... We should keep a low profile, Eileen. I'll call you in a few days to give you an update." "Ok, you be careful, Damian. I hope what we did today doesn't complicate things for you." "No way, Eileen. What I do on my own time is nobody's business." Damian knew that wasn't necessarily true. The expression on Eileen's face showed she didn't believe it either. But neither of them wanted to worry about that right now. They drove off from the Jankins lake house just as the sun began setting below the Chemehuevi Mountains to the west.

On his way back to Yuma, Damian started to formulate a plan for responding when someone asked him how he obtained the information about the sheriff. He knew they'd ask about his relationship with the person who provided the information. He'd figure all that out later. Right now, he needed to catch Captain Macias before he left for the evening. Just to be sure, he called Macias and asked him when he was leaving the office. "I was just leaving Damian, but I'll meet you at Manny's for a beer. We can discuss what you think is so important there." Damian thanked his boss and ended the call. He's been up since 2 a.m. the night before investigating the crash in Salome, and the all-day escapade with Eileen has worn him out. The thought of meeting his boss for beers wasn't what he had planned, but what the hell! He hadn't planned on sleeping with his star informant either. 'Oh, snap! Just go with the flow,' Damian thought.

Damian passed under the 1-10 overpass and began driving past the Quartzsite RV Show site. This area is hopping during January and February, but it's a ghost town this time of year. He spotted an older, heavy-set woman struggling to get a flat tire off her Oldsmobile Astro Van. He pulled up behind her and turned on his flood lamps to provide more light for the woman. Damian got out of his patrol cruiser. The woman stopped what she was doing and walked back toward the trooper. "Hi, officer! Do you have a lug wrench I can borrow? I lost my lug wrench back in Arkansas. All I have is this socket wrench." "I might have one. Let me check," Damian responded. He walked back to his patrol car, opened the trunk, and began searching.

Barry scanned the darkness around him. He couldn't see well through the dim haze, but he knew he was underground. He heard the squeaking and flapping of wings high above. 'Am I in a cave?' he asked himself. Abruptly, his train of thought was smashed. "Hey, buddi boy! Yo ex has been cheatin on you. Wit a cop no less!" A sudden bolt of fear transformed Barry's thoughts as he realized he was still in the grip of the ghostly menacing that has held him captive with no escape in sight. Though he's not as terrified by the frightening specter as he once was, he still has no idea how to break free. Barry looked down at the ground and began to gather his thoughts. Then he heard music and looked up. He was no longer in the dark cave. He was sitting shotgun in a big rig. He turned to look through the truck's back window and noticed it was hauling all sorts of gas cylinders on a flatbed trailer. The driver was a young man, maybe in his early 20s. He had a picture of a woman and two young children fastened to the air conditioning vent. 'Probably the man's wife and kids, Barry thought. The man was listening to the radio and singing along to a tune being played.

"Não preciso nem dizer

Tudo isso que eu lhe digo

Mas é muito bom saber

Que você é meu amigo"

Barry sensed the ghost was in the cab with him, but he couldn't see it. The song ended, and the truck driver began tuning to a new station when he noticed a glow reflecting off the truck's dashboard. The young man turned to see if the interior cab light was on, thinking he might have turned it on inadvertently when he reached for the radio dial. Then, he noticed a glow was coming from the passenger seat. At first, it was just an iridescent blob, but rapidly it formed into the shape of a young gringo man. The driver began to feel a tug on the steering wheel, and the truck started drifting off the roadway. The steering wheel wouldn't respond no matter how hard the driver tried to steer the big truck back onto the road. He looked down at the gas pedal. It felt like someone was pushing his foot down on the gas. When the driver looked back up at the road, he saw he was headed straight for an Arizona Highway Patrol cruiser and a minivan parked on the shoulder.

Damian asked the woman to stand on the passenger side of the patrol car. The trooper said she'd be safer over there. As the woman walked behind Damian, she looked down the road and noticed a big rig rumbling down the shoulder. It was heading straight for them! "What the hell! Officer, watch out!" she screamed. Damian popped his head out of the trunk and looked back. He looked back at the woman, who was now standing very erect - frozen with fear. He rushed to grab her arms, and they both plunged into the storm culvert that ran alongside the road. Instinctively, Damian covered the woman's body with his own to provide a shield from the oncoming danger.

The truck driver tried turning the wheel with all his might one last time. He was less than fifty yards from the back of the police cruiser. Now he was covered in a cloud of thick black smoke that began filling the cabin. It felt hot and fiery - burning needles pricked him all over his body. Everything seemed like it was happening in slow-motion. Just then, the shimmering bright blue figure of a man sitting next to him lunged toward him with its arms extended outward. The driver could hear a sucking sound like a person taking a giant breath. The black smoke was being sucked into the mouth of the glowing young gringo. The driver braced himself, but the brilliant presence seemed to pass right through him and shot out the side window of the cab. Instantly, the driver regained control of the wheel. He cranked it hard to the right. The sudden movement almost tipped the truck and trailer on its side before it careened off the shoulder, missing the parked vehicles by no more than twenty feet. Bouncing wildly, some of the gas cylinders flew off the trailer in multiple directions. The truck and trailer separated when they barreled over the storm culvert. The tractor ground to a halt just before reaching a service road. The trailer, still packed with gas cylinders, traveled another thirty yards and slammed into a guard shack at the service entrance to the RV Show, erupting into a massive fireball.