Sarah's Story, Segment #4

Dear readers,

It has been brought to my attention that, in the poll following this post, the word "defense" has been misspelled. I could lie and say that I deliberately chose the European spelling, but the truth is simply that the poll widget has no spell correct. *sigh*

Since I can't make changes to a poll after a vote has been cast, I must live with my mistake until Sunday, when I will at last be able to take down the poll. Until then, enjoy the post and my error - and know that there will likely be many more of both to come.

Sincerely,
Lillian James  

The poll: What makes Sarah scream?

And the winner?  (insert drum roll here...) 

Sarah sees a car about to crash into the diner!

So here you go, with a brief lead-in from segment #3 (or read from the beginning):

She hesitated, but if they couldn’t trust Benny’s father, then who could they trust? “That man was present at the declaration of every war I could find. For the last three hundred years.”

“Well,” Benny clarified, “not that man. That name, passed down through a family, I guess.”

“No, Benny,” she said, shaking her head. She pulled another piece of paper out of her bag, this one a print-out of a faded picture from the 1920’s. “The same man. This man.” She pushed the paper forward, but she could already see by the look on Henry’s face that she was right. “Is this the man you saw in Vietnam?”

“Yes.” His voice shook, and the memories flashed through his mind, conjured by the image of a man who should never have existed. He pushed the picture away with trembling hands. “You’re saying that man, the man I saw kill more than twenty men like they were nothin’, has been alive for three hundred years?”

“Not just that. I’m saying he started every war that occurred in his lifetime.”

Henry shook his head, and he looked at Benny. “Listen, kid, I know what I saw was crazy, but this…. This goes beyond nuts. This is just plain impossible.”

Sarah began to answer, but then something moved in the window behind Henry. She couldn’t see what it was at first, but something in her, some instinct she couldn’t have voiced, had chills racing over her spine. Suddenly, the movement stopped, and what stood behind Henry came into focus.

And Sarah opened her mouth to scream.

Almost before the sound of her fear registered with Benny, the blinding glare of high beams filled his vision. Somewhere in the street that he could no longer see, an engine revved, and the roar was louder than any sound he’d ever heard a car make. The window rattled in its pane, and one of the servers behind them dropped a coffee pot. The glass shattered against the linoleum, spewing stale coffee down the aisle. Sarah’s scream cut off with a click as her jaw snapped closed, and then she whimpered something he could barely understand.

“It’s just a car, Sare,” he reassured her, though he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it. The engine roared again, and the window behind Henry burst into a million prisms that refracted the light from the car in a beautiful and deadly array.

“Jesus,” Benny said. And then he understood what Sarah had tried to tell him.

Venquist.

“You saw him?” She didn’t answer, just continued to stare at the headlights now framed by shards of glass. He took her by the shoulders and shook. “Sarah! Is that him?”

It was the warmth of his hands that snapped her out of it. Strange how she could feel them through her jacket, as if the intensity of the moment had stripped away all but the most essential of sensations.

She didn’t understand what was happening here, didn’t know if they’d survive this. But she knew that there was no time now to explain.

“Come on,” she said. She grabbed her bag and slid out of the booth, pulling Henry’s hand as she moved. On some elemental level, she knew Benny moved with her. On that same primal level, she knew they were too slow.

The car surged forward, its growl a chilling sound of triumph. Henry froze under the white of those headlights, his hair frosted with bits of untreated glass, entranced as the car jumped the curb so that its hungry grill angled up toward his haggard face.

“Dad!” Benny screamed and dove toward his father, sending them both to the ground.

The instant before the car hurtled through the diner window, a flash of silver shone beside it. And from that silver, a blue ring of light burst forth on a strange reverberation of sound that seemed to pulse through the diner with physical force. The ring of blue hit the side of the car, buffeted there for a moment.

And then the car flipped over with a great wrench of metal. It landed on its roof with a horrendous crash, and the windows burst onto the street in tempered fragments.

The headlights winked out, and then the lights in the diner, and then every light on the block. And in the midst of all that dark, Sarah could still somehow see the man standing on the sidewalk. He met her eyes, and this time he didn’t bother to cover the silver cuff that covered his left forearm.

It was the law student again. And this time, he wasn’t trying to hide what he’d done.

Sarah could feel the blood drain from her face. He took a step toward her, and then another flash of blue filled the street, and he was thrown out of sight.

“Come on,” she said again. She grabbed Benny, dragging him more than helping him up, and they pulled Henry up together. “There has to be a back way out of this place. Let’s go!”

They made their way through the kitchen while the servers screamed and chilling, otherworldly booms of power filled the air. At first she couldn’t find the exit, but then a series of arrhythmic pulses of blue flashed against the back wall, highlighting the door they needed. When they spilled out into the alley behind the diner, Sarah looked desperately around. If they went left, they’d end up back on the street beside the diner. So she turned right, and she began to run.

With Benny and Henry keeping pace, they sped down back alleys, taking every turn that seemed as if it would put more distance between them and the diner. It didn’t take long for each inhalation of frozen air to become an exercise in agony. Still, when Henry held up a hand to stop and sank into the shadow of an empty house, Sarah was reluctant to pause. She looked over her shoulder warily, searching for some sign that the impossibility that had followed them to the diner had somehow found his way here, too.

Benny leaned forward, hands on his knees, and gulped in the freezing air. When he had enough breath to speak, he asked, “Was that Venquist?”

“No.” Sarah frowned and shook her head. She knew they needed to rest, but she couldn’t seem to keep her feet still, so she paced back and forth in the dim. “When I saw the car, my first thought was that Venquist was causing it, but I didn’t see him.”

Benny frowned at her phrasing. “Causing what? Are you saying he was causing whoever was driving that car to aim it for us?”

“Benny, the car was empty.” When he just stared at her, she threw her hands into the air. “I know it sounds crazy, but there was no one in the car. That thing drove itself into position, and then it tried to drive itself into the diner.”

Benny hesitated, but one of his brows rose into what she’d always affectionately called his Look of the Skeptic. Affectionately, that was, until now.

“I know what I saw,” she snapped.

He held up his hands in a gesture of peace and sat down beside his father. When Sarah continued to eat up the ground at their feet, he grabbed her hand and tugged. At the touch, Sarah stilled and took a small breath. It was his warmth again, she thought. His calm assurance settled her thoughts enough to allow her to rest. She sighed and sat before he and Henry so that they formed a triangle, but she didn’t let go of Benny’s hand. She needed his warmth for a little bit longer.

She didn’t notice the look he gave her when she held on.

“I didn’t see Venquist,” she explained slowly. “But…I saw someone else. When I walked into the library tonight, there was a law student sitting near you. Did you see him?”

He frowned and shrugged. “Maybe. Yeah, I guess. Why?”

“After the bookshelves fell, I looked back to where they’d started to come down. He was standing there. He had something silver on his arm.” She glanced at Henry. “It ran from his wrist to his elbow.”

“Venquist,” Henry said and visibly paled.

“No,” Sarah assured him. “I don’t think so. This man looked different. But he saw me looking at him, and he covered whatever was on his arm and gestured for me to keep quiet. I thought it was a threat; that’s why I left. But he followed us.”

“He was at the diner,” Benny guessed.

Sarah nodded. “I think he’s the one who stopped that car from hitting us. That thing on his arm…it has some kind of power. Like a…” She sighed in frustration. “I don’t even know how to describe it. It was like a wave of energy came out of the thing and just pushed the car over. But someone else was there, too, someone I couldn’t see. They had the same kind of power, and they used it to push him over.”

When she fell silent, Benny was quiet for long enough to make her fear he wouldn’t believe her. But then he said, “He was trying to help us.”

“Maybe,” Henry said slowly. “Or maybe he just wanted to get to you first.”

Sarah met his eyes and shuddered. She wished the same thought hadn’t already occurred to her. The fact that it had only made it seem more likely.

“So how do we find out which?”

Henry held her gaze for a long moment, and then he gave a surprisingly wicked grin. “We ask him.”

With that enigmatic statement, he stood, mumbled something about needing to make a call, and wandered a short distance away.

Sarah raised a brow. “What’s he doing?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” When she glanced over to watch Henry, Benny studied her profile. Before he realized the thought was there, he heard himself say, “I’m sorry I never told you about him.”

Surprised, she turned back. “You don’t owe me an apology, Benny. It’s really none of my business.”

He stiffened and drew his hand from hers. “I understand.”

She realized she’d said the wrong thing. “No, you don’t. Even if it’s none of my business, I’m glad to know him. Benny…” She struggled to find the right words, and finally she decided that she couldn’t plan what she needed to say. She had to just say it. “I want you safe, maybe more than I want anything else right now. But…I’m really glad you’re here.”

He tilted his head, and his fingertips brushed lightly against her cheek. When he pulled them away, they were dotted with blood. “You’re cut. The glass from the window, I guess.”

Something in his gaze made her heart trip, and suddenly she found it hard to draw in a breath. “Benny…”

“Alright,” Henry closed his old flip phone with a snap as he walked up behind them. The sound made Sarah jump, and she realized she’d leaned embarrassingly close to Benny. She pulled back, face hot, and rose quickly to her feet. “We’re ready to roll, kids. Let’s move on out.”

“Wait,” Sarah said. “What are we going to do?”

“First, we’re gonna figure out what the hell it is that they want. And then,” Henry added with a dangerous glint in his eyes, “We decide if we’re gonna let ‘em have it.”