Back of the Envelope

I wasn't sure I really wanted to put this story online. First of all, it's incomplete. I have a beginning, but I really have no idea where it's going, or how long it will take to get there, or even whether I'll be happy with whatever ending I arrive at. Posting what I have so far is an act of faith on my part. Secondly, this has not gone through my rigorous three revision process. At best, it's one-and-a-half revision away from a first draft. I haven't even tried the read-it-aloud-and-see-if-it-sounds-stupid test. So why am I inflicting this story on you? Well, partly it's just so I have an entry in the storyblogging carnival. Yeah, yeah, I shouldn't rush something out just so I can make the carnival, but what are you going to do about it? But it's also because as rough and incomplete as this story is, it was a lot of fun to write. The main character has more of me in him than I really want to admit to, considering... well, you'll see. In addition, the sardonic voice came naturally to me, and that's also why I haven't put it through my rigorous revision process: the raw prose is partly what gives this story it's flavor. I'm worried that it would lose that if I worked too hard on smoothing it out. Anyway, here it is...

---

Chapter 1
An Unexpected Answer

Ryan was at the mall, having braved Boston's cold and snow to get to the shops at the Prudential Center. This was not a particularly unusual thing, though Ryan despised shopping, especially for clothes. He did, however, enjoy feeding his two main vices, books and computer games. They were vices rather than hobbies because they tended to interfere with things such as work, sleep, food, and other minor details, so he did his best to ration them. This mall was one of his favorites, since it was close and had two book stores and two software stores. He had already been to all four, and the most exciting thing that had happened was that one of the bookstores had temporarily moved while it's old place was being remodeled. He hadn't found anything worth buying in any of them. He had come because of a rumor that a book he had been waiting for had come out, but he had had no luck finding it. And while he'd seen a couple of things he might want at a later date, he wasn't willing to spend the money right now. Now he was just working his way through the holiday crowds, annoyed at his heavy jacket, which was hot now that he was inside. Fortunately, the central mall, which was at least three stories high and topped with sky lights, wasn't as hot as the stores had been.

Ryan wasn't really watching where he was going. He often did not, and the reason was fairly consistent: he was fantasizing. Specifically, it was about a woman. As fantasies went, it was fairly innocent. He was just thinking that it'd be nice if he met someone he knew here. Especially if that someone was Christine, a co-worker he had a crush on. Maybe they'd run into each other and decide to have dinner together (he was feeling a bit hungry), and then maybe they'd decide to see a movie at the theater here (Ryan saw, on average, one or two movies a year, and none that he'd heard were playing right now sounded the least bit interesting, but he'd go with Christine anytime), and then, who knew? Ryan knew it was a fantasy, and that it'd be a lot more productive just to work up the nerve to ask Christine out, but it was harmless. Besides, he didn't really want to believe that this whole love thing came from the accidental meeting of two compatible persons. He wanted to believe that God, or Fate, or something was behind it. "If anyone's listening, I sure could use the help," he muttered under his breath. He was starting to feel hopeful, which is why he looked up in time to avoid running headlong into the girl.

The girl had been running, and was panting right now. Her long blond hair was tousled and her freckled face was flushed. She was wearing jeans damp at the bottom where her high boots were tucked beneath them and a knit sweater in a red and green pattern that suggested stars or snowflakes. She was attractive, moreso than Christine, in fact, and maybe a bit older than Ryan's first impression. Early twenties, at least. She was short, shorter than he was, which is what had thrown him. He was shorter than most women, and just about every man he had ever met. Ryan went through all that in his head, and was just about to mutter an apology and sidle around her when he realized she was staring at him.

"What?" he asked.

"You're him!" she said between gasps for breath. Ryan almost looked behind him, but he was certain she was talking to him. It was hard for Ryan to get any sense of the emotion behind that. He was not that good at telling what people were thinking and feeling anyway, and all he could read from her expression and body language was "out of breath."

"Him who?" As far as Ryan knew, he was not famous. The widest his image had been spread was the picture on his website, and judging from the counter on it, the odds against this woman having visited there were astronomical.

"The guy I'm supposed to marry." This time Ryan did look behind him. Nope, no one there, at least no one standing still. The place was crowded this time of year, and there were plenty of people walking around back there, but she couldn't be talking about anyone else. He was suddenly wondering whether this was part of the fantasy he had been having. It didn't really seem to fit, and he wouldn't have thought even his imagination could come up with this one. Besides, he had never had trouble distinguishing the real from the imaginary before.

"I don't mean to be rude, but what are you talking about? I've never met you, have I?"

Her face had just begun to lose its flush, but now it reddened again, and her eyes, which had been staring straight at him, sought her feet. She seemed surprised, disappointed, and embarrassed, all at once. It didn't occur to him that that was a whole lot more than he ought to be able to read from anyone's expression. "But I thought... since I knew, so would you. You've never had... a vision? Never seen something that wasn't there and then known something would happen?" Ryan shook his head wordlessly, wondering whether this woman was on some illegal substance. Or off some prescribed substance. Now she seemed close to tears. "I thought with him coming after me, and now you appearing, but..."

"Wait a second, who's after you?" Ryan asked. He needn't have bothered asking, as the answer became apparent within that second. A large man, a head taller than anyone else in the mall, and head and shoulders above Ryan, stepped through the crowd. He was wide as well as tall, with shoulders that made Ryan wonder if he were wearing football shoulder pads. His dark hair and dark mustache, combined with the black trenchcoat in whose pockets he hid his hands, made him look distinctly sinister. The look of grim determination on his square face didn't help any, and people seemed to just scuttle out of his way as he headed straight for the girl.

Ryan distrusted him on sight, but he had to admit that he had no idea what was going on here. For all he knew, this man was a doctor, preferably a psychiatrist--the girl certainly seemed to need a good one. A second look was all Ryan needed to dispel that idea. He moved protectively in front of the girl, feeling foolish, but while she had seemed ready to run a moment ago, she was now staring at him in astonishment. "You can see him?" she asked, but Ryan didn't spare the time to ask her what she meant.

As the man stepped up to him, Ryan decided it'd be best to be polite, "May I ask what the prob--?" He suddenly found himself on the ground, and it took him a moment to realize that the man had shoved him out of the way. Hard, at that.

The stranger now had one thick hand fastened around the girl's arm, and seemed to be attempting to drag her off. She was screaming and trying to pull out of his grip, kicking at his legs, doing her best to stay where she was. People were streaming around them on either side, doing their best to avoid the trouble brewing in their midst. Ryan thought they were rather too obvious in not even glancing in the girl's direction. As for Ryan himself, he was tempted to follow their example. He lived in the city, where you stayed out of situations you didn't understand. What motivated him was purely selfish. He had never had any woman show him that much attention before, and there was no way in Earth, Heaven, or Hell, that he was going to let some strange man just drag her away. He scrambled to his feet as quickly as he could.

Ryan had never been in a real fight in his life. He had, however, taken kickboxing lessons as a teenager, and while he hadn't had a lesson in years, he still practiced. When he was alone and he was certain no one was watching, that is. What mattered was that he still knew the moves. He managed to get around the flailing girl and deliver a solid round kick to the back of the stranger's knee. As Ryan had hoped, the man's right knee folded, and as he stumbled, Ryan delivered a chop to the man's neck, which he would not have been able to reach had the stranger been standing straight. Ryan wasn't exactly certain what he expected the chop to do. He just knew that it was supposed to be dangerous enough that it was not allowed in competitions. He followed the chop immediately with a reverse sidekick. The reverse sidekick was the most powerful kick Ryan knew. It was also the most difficult, requiring excellent balance and coordination. But Ryan did practice, and he didn't really doubt that he could do it. He didn't really wear wet hiking boots while practicing, either, and he definitely had underestimated their effect. Even as one foot connected, he felt the other one slip on the slick tile floor. He would have fallen had something not caught the foot that had just landed on the man's stomach. That something, however, was the stranger's hands. Ryan didn't have a chance to come up with a clever strategy before the man twisted his hands and Ryan literally spun around his extended leg

He hit the ground hard, the force expelling his breath and maybe his lungs as well. The back of his head bounced off the floor, and everything was black for a moment. It was only a moment, though, and Ryan decided that lying on the ground was not a particularly good idea with this dangerous man standing over him. He rolled away a yard or two, and came to his feet with even more difficulty than last time, his heavy jacket feeling heavier than he remembered. And hotter. His little roll had moved him away from the stranger, despite the fact that his aim had been to trip him up. He was closer to the girl than the stranger was now, but the man was rapidly advancing on them both.

She was staring at the two of them, and Ryan couldn't tell whether she was frozen by fear or fascination. Or expectation? Maybe she'd never seen two grown men fight over her before. Well, he had never fought over a woman before. The main difficulty was that as far as Ryan could see, he was greatly overmatched, and the best strategy he could think of was to run. It was a good thing he was now closer to the girl than the stranger was, or he might have abandoned her. As it was, he grabbed her hand and started to run.

While no one had seemed to notice them yelling and fighting a moment ago, now everyone was aware of the two mad idiots running through the mall. Ryan was stared at as he rushed by people, cursed at as he bumped into them, nearly tripped up by some loitering teenagers, and almost caught by a large fellow who apparently took him for a shoplifter. A swift kick to the shin, delivered by the girl while Ryan fought to pull free, managed to get him out of that mess. It seemed that the strange man following them had no similar difficulty, however. He simply cut through the mass of people like a ship though the sea, the crowds dissolving in front of him and closing behind him. Yet no one seemed to actually see him. He didn't run, or even walk particularly fast, but he was not losing any ground to them either.

Ryan turned down a hallway that led to the restrooms, and hopefully an emergency exit. He wasn't really eager to set the alarm off, but if this wasn't an emergency, he didn't know what was. At least the hallway had less people in it.

Ryan glanced back just in time to see the large man enter the hallway. In his distraction, he would have run headlong into the closed door if not for the fact that the girl had reached it and gone straight through without a moment's hesitation, leaving the door open for him. A cold blast of wind hit him at the same moment as the mall's buzzing alarm sounded.

---

This chapter is 2,144 words long.

New Post: The next chapter, Flight, is now here.

Old Post: The previous chapter of this story is here.

This is the second chapter of the story in progress I began two weeks ago. Until the story is done, or until I'm no longer able to continue, this story's multiple chapters will make up my entries in the Storyblogging Carnival. It's fun to write, and I hope it's fun to read.

---

Chapter 2
Flight

The bitter cold froze Ryan's sweat and caused his entire body to break out in goosebumps. He didn't dare pause long enough to zip up his jacket when the large and dangerous stranger was right behind them, much less put on a cap to keep his head and ears warm. He did, however, manage to pull his jacket's hood over his head to keep the snow out of his hair. Unfortunately, the oversized hood was more trouble than it was worth. It blocked his peripheral vision, and the zipper which attached it to the jacket had a tendency to disengage at inconvenient times. Even now it was working loose. He glanced at the girl, who only had that Christmas sweater to keep her warm. It occurred to him to offer his jacket, but there wasn't time for that. For now the narrow alley leading away from the mall's emergency exit was still empty, but it would momentarily be filled with people fleeing from the buzzing alarm which the closed doors barely muffled. The girl was running as best she could through the six inches of snow lining the alley. Ryan somehow managed not to lose his footing in the unfamiliar powder. While snow was common in Boston, accumulation was not. The city's snow removal machinery efficiently plowed, blew, and shoveled the snow into large, dirt speckled piles with the consistency of pebble-filled ice cubes.

Lamps mounted on the walls provided most of the illumination in this empty canyon with its tall and featureless brick walls. Ryan lost sight of the girl as she left one ring of light, her figure lost behind the gauzy curtain of falling snow. Cursing himself for letting her get so far ahead, Ryan picked up the pace. Can't she wait for her fiance?

"Hell, she didn't even tell me her name. If she really believed all that nonsense about us being destined for each other, wouldn't she have told me?" he muttered.

"It's Emily," she said from below, much closer than he expected. She was on her hands and knees in the snow just beyond the ring of light whose edge he had just reached. White powder coated the front of her sweater and jeans, and more was scattered in her face and hair. There was an impression in the snow where she must have fallen, which explained how he had lost sight of her.

Ryan grabbed her arm and pulled her up. "I'm sorry, I... My name's Ryan."

She turned to him, brushing the snow off. "Ryan, I know you don't understand what's happening. Me either. But I need help, and I think you're the only one who can help me."

Ryan wanted to shake his head, say this was crazy. Instead he nodded his head and said, "This is crazy, but I'll help. We need to hurry."

"Yes, we do. Please try not to curse, though."

"Huh? What does that--"

The door squealed as it opened behind them. They both turned to look at the stranger, and then as one turned and ran, or at least stumbled along as best they could in the hindering snow. That guy is chasing us and she wants me not to curse? Dammit, I've never had a better reason.

They made it to the next lamp before Ryan dared to look back, tossing back his hood to do so. At least the snow is slowing him down, too. That-- He would have stopped if Emily had not grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him along. Realizing that stopping right now was a very bad idea, he tucked his chin so that his eyes were free of snow while keeping watch on his footing. Snow in his eyes was the only explanation for what he had seen. That large man could not have been walking on top of this powdery snow. Ryan and Emily combined had to weigh less than he did, so how could they be sinking up to their ankles while the soles of his boots were still visible? It just couldn't be. Even so, his methodical long strides were gaining on them. He had already closed half the distance.

Fortunately, the alley ended in another twenty feet or so, with a small pile of gray snow and ice blocking the way to the well-shoveled sidewalk beyond, where the concrete showed through the spattering of snow patterned by the flat edge of a snow shovel. Here the Boston snow removal machine had successfully eradicated all the clean, white snow. Street lamps lit up the area beyond the alley clearly, punctuated by the headlights moving on the busy road. His mental map of the mall was insufficient to tell him what street it was, but any street, visible to the public, had to be a boon.

Emily reached the snow pile and scrambled over. He followed her example, gripping the brick wall at the edge of the alley with his numb right hand to help pull himself over the uncertain footing, loose and powdery on the crust but with a hard and slick center. Emily, now on the sidewalk, seized his other hand to help pull him over.

Something jerked him backwards, pinching at his shoulders and armpits, lifting him up and back, as it pulled at his jacket. Ryan turned his head to see the large stranger right behind him, one hand wrapped tightly around his jacket's hood, the other scrabbling for a good grip on the back of the jacket. It was the first time Ryan had a really good look at his face. With the added elevation from the snow pile, their heads were nearly even. The face was square and blocky, too wide but otherwise normal. It was the expression which was all wrong, not angry or excited or afraid but simply blank and dull, not what Ryan would expect on a man who was trying to kill him. And there was something else, something that Ryan almost didn't notice at first. His eyes weren't normal. They had normal looking whites, irises, and pupils, except that the irises were a shade Ryan had never seen before. They were red, and not some dull, dark red that he might have believed were a normal shade of eyes for some rare ethnicity, but a brilliant, primary red that seemed to glow in the lamplight. That's it. She is crazy and somehow I caught it.

Ryan could not have spent more than two seconds looking into those unnatural eyes, one of his hands pulling at the wall with all of his strength, the edge biting into a hand too numb to feel the pain, the other pulled by Emily, as his legs just tried to keep his footing so he wouldn't fall into his pursuer's arms. The big man pulled on him with his right hand locked on Ryan's hood and his feet now sunk beneath the snow and planted firmly on the concrete beneath. How the hell is he getting traction? Red-eyes' left hand had still not found a grip on his jacket, and that's the only reason the chase did not end then and there.

The lousy, inconvenient zipper connecting hood and jacket, the zipper which Ryan cursed every time it came loose, wondering why anyone would need to detach the hood on a winter jacket, gave way. After that, physics did its thing. Pulled by Emily and his straining right arm, Ryan went over the icy ridge, stumbling three or four paces into the sidewalk while Emily somehow managed to keep them both from falling. The stranger, hood still in his right hand and left hand still empty, fell backwards, his traction finally lost, and landed in the snow with a whump. Ryan did not pause to recover his balance, but simply kept moving, using Emily's centripetal pull to make a sharp left rather than running out into the high traffic street. Now that he had clear, almost snowless sidewalk in front of him, he started running. Emily, still holding onto his left hand, joined him in his mad dash away from the stranger. Dammit, I meant to go right.

No help for it now, anyway. Now that he was out of the alley, he thought he knew where he was. Boylston Street, on the river side of the mall, but still several blocks from the river. With most of the snow shoveled away here, he had enough traction that he could run all out, and he did so, hopeful that he had at least a few seconds to gain some distance. Emily ran beside him. To the left, the wall of the mall fell away, recessed for a wide, empty plaza, behind which were the main entrance to the mall and an outdoor foodcourt, whose tables and chairs were now empty, since people with sense did not dine outside in the snow. Heh, maybe I should be surprised that it's empty. A small crowd was gathered in the plaza, having left the mall due to the alarm. The crowd was way smaller than it should have been, considering how overloaded the mall had looked when Ryan was inside. He guessed that not too many people were paying attention to the alarm. Yup, not too many people with sense here. He was just as glad, as he and Emily had been the cause of the alarm, and the emergency didn't seem to have much interest in anyone other than them. Besides, the last thing they needed right now were hundreds of people blocking their path.

Ryan and Emily plowed through the few stragglers who had drifted from the plaza and into the sidewalk, Ryan barely managing to avoid bowling over a stroller. As he looked back over his shoulder at the horrified parents with the intention of at least shouting an apology, he saw the pursuer not a hundred yards behind him and his apology froze in his throat. He was moving with the same purposeful long strides, not running but steadily gaining ground, his trenchcoat trailing behind him in the wind. Ryan would have thought they'd be further ahead by now. He whipped his head back around to face forward and narrowly avoided running into another couple who stared at him with wide eyes.

His breath was whipped away before he could see it, but he had no doubt it would be visible if he dared stand still long enough. It was coming in gasps now, the cold air raw in his throat. His clothes were damp from snow on the outside and sweat on the inside, leaving his skin freezing underneath. His clumsy, heavy boots were not designed for running, but he made do despite the soreness of his calves and ankles. He just hoped he didn't hit a slick patch of ice, as he was having enough trouble keeping his feet as it was. I'm not going to be running a marathon anytime soon. We haven't even gone a mile yet. Ryan looked back as they cleared the sparse crowd to see the red-eyed man closing on them, now within fifty yards. How can he be closing? He's walking while we're running. His blood ran as cold as his skin. If we can't outrun him, what can we do?

Ryan hadn't had time to think through a strategy, having focused on putting some distance between them and the stranger. That seemed unlikely now, but he didn't know what else they could do. Find a cop and hope he'd care more than everyone else? Ryan was beginning to doubt that a cop could stop this man. Maybe some transportation, a bus or the T, Boston's subway? They didn't have time to wait at a bus stop or a T station. Now I wish I had a car, he thought, wondering whether he'd even have a chance to reach it if he did. A cab? If they could put some distance between them and Red-eyes, then maybe they'd have time to hail a cab, but he was close and he was gaining. Besides, this wasn't New York. Cabs weren't so common that you could hail one at whim.

We can't outrun him and we can't fight him. We can't even hide unless we can get some distance. Ryan glanced at Emily. Her face was flushed and she was panting for breath. He didn't know how much further she could go. She didn't look any better than he felt, and she had been running from him longer... Of course! He's after her, not me!

Ryan skidded to a halt, shouting "Keep going!"

Emily might not have noticed him stopping, but she heard the shout. She slowed, looked back. "Find a cab or something!" he yelled after her as he turned to face Red-eyes. He didn't know whether she did as he said, but he didn't have time or breath to explain. For that matter, he didn't have time or breath to think it through as carefully as he would have liked. If he's after her, then I'm just an obstacle. If I'm enough of an obstacle, maybe she'll have time to get away. And if I'm lucky, he'll lose interest in me afterwards.

As Ryan assumed a fighting stance, he had second thoughts. He had been greatly overmatched in their last encounter. Ryan watched Red-eyes approach now, over six feet tall and at least two hundred and fifty pounds, striding down the middle of the sidewalk as if nothing could conceivably slow him down or force him to step aside. Indeed, anyone who crossed his path was out of the way by the time he arrived without even acknowledging the man who caused subconscious retreat. If I'd been smart, I'd have gone in a different direction than Emily. He considered doing that now, just getting out of the man's way and letting him do whatever he wanted with her. He could snap my arm or leg without slowing down, maybe even my neck. He certainly wouldn't hesitate to do so. He was ashamed at his cowardice, at being tempted to give up Emily to protect himself. He didn't know what Red-eyes wanted with her, but it couldn't be good.

If the big man had continued on his path, not slowing his methodical pace or even deigning to acknowledge him, Ryan might have given into his panic and run. But seeing him there, Red-eyes slowed, bearing to the right, toward the street where cars were continuing to roar past. He means to go around me? Red-eyes considered Ryan an obstacle which needed to be avoided rather than trampled. That thought gave him courage and he moved to block the man's path. Dammit, why aren't I ignoring the stupid part of my fight-or-flight response which says to fight? Ryan knew he had no chance to win, that at best he'd delay Red-eyes without being too badly injured, but even then there was a lot of pain in his near future. He resigned himself to that fact as best he could. It was the price for doing the right thing, and that was that.

Ryan placed himself in front of Red-eyes, at the very edge of the curb. His feet almost slipped on the ice, but he managed to slide off of it without falling into the standing pool of ice, slush, and water which lapped against the curb, unthreatened by Boston's drainage system. Ryan took a few steps back, away from the ice, but when the pursuer came to a halt at five paces, staring at him, he stood right on top of the icy patch without seeming the least unsteadied by it. What, is he wearing ice cleats now? "Why do you impede me, mortal?" Red-eyes said. The voice sounded wrong. It wasn't loud enough for a man speaking right next to him. It sounded distant, like the echo of a voice, pitched low and resonant to carry but barely traveling the five paces to Ryan.

"Mortal? What the hell does that mean?"

Ryan was sure it was an illusion, a result of uncertain light of the Boston streetlamps and the snow, but the man seemed to grow taller while his eyes flashed with red light. The lips in the expressionless face quirked upward at the edges. "For a moment I thought you might be a hazard, but you know even less than she does. Your courage is mere ignorance."

"Who are you?" Ryan asked. If he could get it talking, maybe he could buy more time.

"Don't you mean `What are you?' No you don't. You have eyes to see but you don't see, or you see but you don't believe. Now be gone and forgotten, mortal!"

Red-eyes started to take a step forward, not at all lacking in traction despite the thick sheet of ice beneath his feet. Ryan once again took a fighting stance, his heart thudding in his ears loud enough to drown out his panting breath. He was already sore and tired, but at least he would make this guy remember him.

Since the cab was coming from behind him, Ryan didn't see it before its tires kicked up a spray of icy water from the street and soaked his legs. With a startled cry only slightly more dignified than a four-year-old girl's, he leapt aside, all thoughts of a heroic last stand forgotten in that single freezing instant. He was glad he did, since if he had not, the cab's door, even now swinging open, certainly would have hit him. It did hit Red-eyes, whose miraculous traction finally gave way before the force of the slowing but still-moving cab. With one foot still in the air, he actually slid backwards for several feet like some huge, clumsy figure skater, before he hit the edge of the ice. Unfortunately, the edge of the ice was also the edge of the curb, and he went over, falling into the street and its standing pool of icy water. The tremendous splash must have covered the headlights of the cab, having now completed its sudden stop, with grey slush and muddy water, but Ryan didn't notice since he was staring at Emily, leaning out of the open door.

"I found a cab," she said.

"How? What--"

"Hurry!"

Ryan might have continued to ask questions if he hadn't seen the large hand on the cab's hood. He dashed to the open door while Emily scooted aside. By the time he was ducking in a large head had followed the hand and Red-eyes was almost to his feet. He slammed the door shut.

"Let's go!" he shouted to the cabbie.

"Where you going?" he asked, not at all concerned about the large, angry man with glowing red eyes who was even now coming to his feet in front of his cab.

"Um, how about the Burlington Marriott?" Emily suggested.

"That pretty far. You sure you want to go that far? It expensive."

Ryan couldn't see the cabbie, but the accent was Middle Eastern. From what Ryan saw on the news every day, much of the Middle East was dangerous even for the civilians just trying to get by, and he supposed an immigrant from one of those areas might feel a certain equanimity towards large, violent men trying to get into their cabs, but he still found it unnerving that the driver didn't react when Red-eyes, now on his feet and circling the cab, tried the passenger side front door. It was locked, and Ryan's reflexive jab at the lock on his door was so hard that the impact from the needle-like locking mechanism stung even through his hand's numbness.

"Yes, yes," Emily replied. "Now can we go?"

"Okay, but I only take cash," he said, and shifted into gear.

"Fine," Emily answered.

The large man tried Ryan's door handle and found it locked. As the cab began to move, he struck the window with his fist, and the glass jumped in its frame but didn't break.

"You hear something?" the cabbie asked as he started an illegal U-turn in the street, cutting across two lanes of traffic and into a third. Despite several long horn blasts, both from the traffic and the cabbie himself, the taxi slid into the correct lane. Ryan's eyes never left the form of their pursuer, though he thought the effort to keep him in sight might result in whiplash. Red-eyes stepped directly into the street, somehow not eliciting a single honked horn as drivers braked or swerved to avoid him. He was within a couple of feet of Emily's door as they passed him. Ryan had no doubt that if their U-turn had been just a little less brazen, he'd have managed to intercept them somehow.

When the taxi came to a stop at a red light only a few seconds later, Ryan and Emily both peered out the back window. They could see him coming, only two hundred yards behind, with that machine-like stride of his that was faster than most people could run. Ryan knew he could not see his irises from this distance, but he imagined he saw a red glow nonetheless. It had to be his imagination. Had to be.

He was walking in the middle of the street, between two lanes of traffic, but without seeming to notice the cars on either side of him. Nor did the cars seem to notice him. No one honked, or shouted, or made rude gestures at him. That was downright unnatural for Boston. They must have seen him, because their cars drifted around him with as much clearance as they would make for any pedestrian in the street, but with less commentary.

He was less than fifty feet away when the light turned green. He was within twenty feet before the cab started rolling forward, but so slowly that he was still gaining. His hand reached out to touch the trunk just as the taxi started to pull away. Ryan looked forward to see that the light, still a hundred feet ahead, had already turned yellow. Why can't Boston invent a traffic light that lasts more than thirty seconds? Even as he watched, and with twenty feet to go before they reached the light, it turned red. Ryan's heart sank. Maybe they could keep the doors locked and hope the windows held until the light changed. He looked out the back window again. Only fifty feet.

He needn't have worried, since the cabbie ran the red light.

The cabbie looked into his rear view mirror to notice Ryan and Emily staring out the back window, "What you two doing? Police not following, are they?"

"No, no they aren't," Ryan said. And the man who was following was falling behind, even his quick pace not equal to a Boston cab. Sighing with exhaustion as much as relief, Ryan turned around and slid into his seat. He was still freezing cold, especially below the knee, where his pants' legs had just suffered an additional soaking, as if running through the snow had not already let chill water seep into his socks and jeans. Above the knees, his plentiful sweat had dampened anything the snow had not. He must smell awful. Fortunately the cab was warm, and the numbness in his ears, cheeks, and fingers was beginning to recede. It wouldn't be enough to dry him out, but he'd take damp and warm over damp and cold anytime.

He glanced over at Emily, slouched in her seat, and from the way she looked, cheeks flushed, eyes closed, breathing deeply through her mouth, she was as exhausted as he was. She had somehow found time to fasten her seatbelt, however, which struck him as a singularly wise idea considering what he'd already seen of their cabbie's driving. He quickly followed suit.

---

This is Chapter 2 of a story in progress. This chapter is 4,054 words long, and the total story is 6,198 words long.

New Post: Chapter 3 of this story is now available here.

Old Post: This story begins here, and continues here.

It's a day late, but here's the next chapter of my story in progress. Just in time for the next Storyblogging Carnival.

---

Chapter 3
A Brief Respite

"So why the Burlington Marriott?" Ryan asked.

"Huh?" Emily's eyes blinked groggily. She appeared to have dozed off in the aftermath of their flight, slouching in the seat of the cab. Lights from streetlamps and cars gave the the backseat of the cab an unsteady illumination. They were now on Mass Ave, near Harvard Square, and about to head beyond the area of Boston and Cambridge which Ryan knew well. He vaguely knew that Burlington was out this way, but he rarely travelled so far. Boston was a city where people walked or took public transportation, and he rarely had reason to head out beyond the limits of its public transportation.

Ryan asked again. "Why did you tell the cab driver to take us to the Burlington Marriott?"

"Oh." Emily stifled a yawn. "It's a nice hotel. I've been there before."

Ryan held his jaw firmly shut lest it fall open. "We're running from that, that man, and you want to go to a nice hotel. Are you out of your damn mind?" That's a dumb question. Of course she is. I knew that from the moment I met her.

Her mouth twisted in a frown. "I asked you not to curse. And, in fact, I do know what I'm doing. Sort of."

"So what are you doing?"

"Running. I asked the driver to take us to the only place I could think of that's well outside of central Boston but within range of a cab. It seemed as good a place as any."

"I can think of a better one. How about a police station?" Although, come to think of it, Ryan didn't know where any of Boston's police stations were. The cabbie might, though. He seemed a bit too concerned about the Boston police. "Whoever this guy is, the police could handle him."

"No they couldn't. They wouldn't even see him. You saw how most people didn't notice him."

"They were just afraid. You know how people try to mind their own business in big cities. The police are different. It's their job to help people." Which is kind of sad, Ryan thought. People ought to show some concern for others even when you don't pay them to do so.

Emily shook her head. "You don't understand. It's not just apathy. I tried to get help from one of the security people at the mall, but he could not see him. He didn't see him when I pointed right at him, and when he was right on top of me, the security person just lost interest in me too. It was like he was invisible and no one could see him but me, and when I was close to him they couldn't see me either."

"You sound like a... you sound paranoid." She sounds like a paranoid schizophrenic.

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that nobody's after you. And he was after me. You saw him too, right? Uh, right?"

She's wondering if she is crazy. If I were in her place, I might be wondering the same. Hell, even in my place I'm beginning to wonder. "Yeah, I saw him," Ryan answered, and was not surprised when she visibly relaxed. "I wouldn't say he was invisible. People saw him enough to move out of his way. Maybe more unnoticeable."

"See. People aren't just unnoticeable. There's something unnatural about him, don't you think?"

"Maybe," Ryan grunted. Does she mean unnatural, or supernatural? Ryan didn't reject the supernatural out-of-hand, but if it did exist, he expected it to be subtle and inobtrusive, a gentle sea underlying the fabric of the universe. He didn't expect to meet it large and in-person and trying to hurt him. By far the most likely explanation was general Bostonian apathy combined with this girl's schizophrenic delusion. "What do you think it is?"

"I think he's possessed by a demon."

"Huh." Well, if you wanted a supernatural explanation, that's about as supernatural as you can get. "Are you sure he's not some kind of mutant? He might emit some kind of pheromone which causes people to tune him out."

"I'm serious!" she said.

"What makes you think I'm not? I'm not sure I believe in demon-possession. I do believe in mutation and pheromones. I don't know whether they could do what we just saw, and I admit it seems unlikely, but I think it's more probable than what you're suggesting."

"You don't believe in demon possession? Why not? You do believe in God, don't you?"

"Yeah, I guess--"

"You guess? But, how can you be the guy I'm supposed to marry if you're not a believer?"

"Hold it! Whatever you believe, I'm not so sure about this destiny... prophecy... or whatever it is stuff. I don't even believe in love at first sight."

"Who said I loved you? That has nothing to do with it."

"Huh?" That should not have hurt. Whatever attraction he might or might not feel for Emily--and he just hadn't had enough time to sort out, or even necessarily feel, any reaction to her beyond "not bad looking"--he certainly didn't love her. Why should he care whether she loved him? Why should he assume that she felt anything at all toward him? But he had assumed that she felt, well, something. "What about all that talk about fate?"

"I don't remember saying anything about fate. I don't believe in fate; I do believe in God."

"Okay, I'm not sure that made any sense at all," Ryan said.

"It's just, well, it's prophecy. God wants it to happen, but sometimes prophecy can be conditional. On the one hand God can be disobeyed, on the other, he can be convinced to show mercy and relent. Fate is unconditional, unavoidable, unchangeable. God responds to us. I guess I'm not explaining this very well. I'm not a... theologist? No. Theologian? Whatever."

"So are you saying you intend to convince God to relent and not make us get married?"

"No. I'm saying that God wants us to get married. If we're obedient, we will. How we feel about each other is secondary. I think we'd come to love each other, but I think it's silly to think we'd feel something like that right away. Don't you agree?"

"On that, at least, I do agree. Love is not a word I just toss around unless I mean it."

There was a long silence. Ryan looked out the window for a while, watching as they passed Porter Square and its T station. He had only the vaguest idea how to get here by car, although he had taken the subway to that T station plenty of times. He knew how he got to this point, but he didn't really know where it was. That might be a fitting analogy for the current situation. He glanced at Emily. God wants us to marry, huh? He didn't really know what he wanted in a relationship, but he was pretty sure sanity was in there somewhere. He wasn't quite sure whether Emily was a religious fanatic, since he didn't know enough about religion to know where the line between fantacism and normal religiosity was. He was pretty sure the mainstream churches didn't include a lot of people who saw visions.

He frowned. My skepticism isn't a whole lot of help here, is it? Probably not. She was being chased by someone--something--that wasn't normal. From her worldview, assuming a supernatural explanation made as much sense as assuming science gone awry made in his worldview. So that part wasn't so crazy, even if he cringed at such an irrational approach to the world. No, what was so crazy was the vision thing, that she believed she had seen him in a vision and that somehow they were meant for each other. Anyway he sliced it, that was a little nuts. Perhaps not stark raving nuts--lots of people believed and did strange things; he knew a few New Agers who made this girl look like a hardnosed skeptic--but enough to make him very uncomfortable around her. Still, he shouldn't jump to conclusions.

"All right," he said. "I admit I don't understand what is going on here. Whatever he is, why is he chasing you?"

"I have no idea. It could be because of the visions, but I... I'm just not sure."

The visions again. "Maybe if you told me how this all started, I could make some sense out of it."

"I doubt it," she said. "But I can try. There's not that much to tell, really. I was alone in my apartment--it's on Newbury Street, the west side of Mass Ave, where the houses are, not the east where the shops are, although..." Ryan started to say something, but Emily must have caught his mood. "So, anyway, there I was when the door just opened and that weird guy walked in. I don't usually keep my apartment door locked during the day, since the building's locked anyway and I've never had trouble. I don't usually worry about my neighbors, and if someone else came into the building it'd have to be because someone propped the door open or let him in or something, and I don't think any of the other tenants would do that. But I suppose that with his unnoticeability, or whatever, that guy could sneak in without any problem. Anyway, I was in the kitchen, not my bedroom, or else that would have been the end of it. But I was in the kitchen, and at first I thought it was my roommate, but when I turned to look it wasn't her but this big guy coming right towarda me and moving fast. I knew right away that he was dangerous. I mean, some big guy comes into your home and comes after you like he means to grab you and of course you're going to assume that he's up to no good, he's a murderer or a rapist or whatever. But when I saw him I knew he was something worse, something unnatural. I don't think it was that I saw his red eyes right away; it was more like I felt something, I felt his... evil. I suppose that sounds silly to you, but right then it was so obvious that I screamed and I ran without stopping to think about it. There's a back door to the apartment, which leads down some stairs and out into the back of the building, where there's this paved over area. It's not an alley, since it's pretty open, but nothing's back there except for some junk people have thrown out and the trash cans and such. So I ran down there as fast as I could, screaming at the top of my lungs, and I can hear him coming down the steps after me. I'm out the door and running, but of course there's snow everywhere, and I'm tripping and falling and knocking over garbage cans but somehow he doesn't catch me, maybe because he had to climb over those garbage cans I knocked over, maybe because I've stopped screaming and I'm praying that I get away. I tend to think that's the real reason, but I suppose that you don't believe that either. Anyway, I get out to the street where it's plowed and people are staring at me, but I keep running as he's coming after me, and I'm asking people to help me and to stop him, but no one stops him and then someone grabs hold of my arm and he says he'll help me if I tell him what's happening and I point to the guy, but he just keeps asking what is it, what's wrong, so I push away from him and he watches me run but the guy walks right past him, and then I know, I mean really know that this guy can't be normal. Soon I'm on Mass Ave and it occurs to me that I should find a crowd, that that may help, and I cross the street and nearly get run over because I can't stop long enough to even check the traffic, much less wait for it. But I get over and get into the mall. I think I told you about how I ran into a security guard and he couldn't see the guy either, and then I ran into you. And you know the rest since you were there."

Ryan is staring at her in awe, wondering how she managed to tell all that without running out of breath. Still, it didn't make any sense. "So, the gist of it is that he broke into your apartment, you ran from him, you asked for help but no one else could see him, then you ran into me--whom you recognized from your vision, I guess--and I could see him, and then we both ran."

"Well, sure, if you want the short version of it. To be honest, before I first ran into you, I was beginning to wonder whether I was imagining the whole thing. I've had visions before but this was nothing like any of those, so I was wondering whether I'd lost my mind. And then you showed up, and you could see him too. Unless... I guess you both could be figments of my imagination."

"Well, I know I exist, but I don't see why that should convince you."

"Let's ask. Mr. Driver?"

"Yes?" the cabbie replied.

"Do you see this guy?" she asked, pointing at Ryan.

The cabbie glanced up at the rearview mirror, where Ryan could see his eyes, so presumably he could see Ryan. "Why? What he doing?"

"Oh, nothing. Never mind."

"You sure? If he not behaving like--what the word?--gentleman, I can kick him out."

"That won't be necessary."

"Okay. But let me know..." The cabbie returned his eyes to the road in time to honk and shout obscenities to the car in front of him, which he'd come dangerously close to rear-ending.

"Was that necessary?" Ryan asked, his face flushing bright red.

"Well, I had to be sure. I know he's not imaginary, cause if he were, who'd be driving the cab?"

She has a point. "Okay, strange madman who may or may not be demon-possessed or a mutant aside, what about these visions? You say you have them. How often? For how long? How do you know what they mean?"

Emily frowned. "I don't know if you'd understand if I tried to explain. It's a spiritual gift, I think, maybe the gift of prophecy. My brother says that that's not how theologians usually interpret the gift of prophecy, but he also thinks theologians may water down the spiritual gifts because they don't see the spectacular ones very often. It has something to do with sensationalism, no, dispen-something, er, some -ism or whatever. Of course, he also says he has the gift of punctuality, and I'm pretty sure that's not in the Bible."

Ryan sighed. "Just forget that for now, okay. Do you think these visions have something to do with why Red-eyes is chasing you?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"Did any of them involve him?"

"No. I've never seen him in a vision or in real life."

"But you have seen me?"

"Well, yes, but that didn't have anything to do with this."

"Are you sure?"

"I suppose I'm not really sure of anything. I know God wants us to marry, but I didn't know anything else about you. I suppose I should learn more about you."

Ryan fought the urge to sigh again. "Forget me for the moment. So you don't know why he's chasing you. Do you know how he found you in the first place?"

"No, but he knew where I lived."

"And you don't think that was random?"

"Would he chase me so far if it was?"

"I don't know. If he's just some psycho..."

"Some psycho mutant, you mean. You agreed earlier that he's not ordinary."

"Okay, so some psycho mutant. If he's not right in the head, sure, he might chase you all this way without some clear reason. He might head back to your apartment and try to find you there, so you shouldn't go back, but there's no reason to think he could track you anywhere else."

"No, I don't think he can follow this cab."

"Okay, that's good. It's pure speculation, but good anyway. But what if it's more than just some psycho. If he knew where you lived, could he track you by your credit card or cell phone or something?"

"I thought only the police could do that."

"Them or anyone else who can crack your bank's computers."

"In that case, maybe you should pay for the hotel room."

"We're staying in a hotel room?"

"That's where we're going, silly. What did you think we were going to do there?"

"But... don't you want to stay on the move?"

"On the move to where?"

"I don't know, but getting in a car and driving to New York might not be a bad idea."

"I'm tired," she said, as if that explained everything. "I don't think I can drive a car right now." She looked him up and down. "I don't think you can either. I think it's best if we find a place to stay for the night."

No, Ryan didn't think he was in any condition to drive. It didn't help that it'd been a couple of years since he'd gotten behind the wheel. Living in a city where everyone walks had atrophied his driving skills.

"So you think this hotel will be safe? We could just stay at my apartment. It'd be cheaper."

"Where do you live?"

He hitched a thumb over his shoulder. "Back there a couple of miles."

She shook her head emphatically. "I really don't want to head toward him. Anyplace a couple of miles back is too close. The hotel really isn't far enough, but it's as far as we can reasonably get with a cab."

Ryan had to admit that heading in the direction of Red-eyes didn't seem like a great idea to him either. He'd feel better if they were farther away. "Okay, one last protest and then I'll shut up. Did he hear you when you told the cabbie where to go?"

"He was outside, on the ground in front of the cab. He couldn't have heard."

Ryan tried to remember exactly where Red-eyes had been when Emily had told the cabbie where to go. Was he in front with his bright red eyes glaring at them from the dark, hulking mass, or was he by that point pounding on the window, causing it to shiver in its pane? Ryan couldn't remember, and he was finding that he was too tired to care all that much anyway. Even if Red-eyes came to the hotel, what were the odds he'd be able to find them there?

* * *

They shared a hotel room but didn't sleep together. It surprised Ryan that this seemed strange to him. The girl, though she insisted they would one day marry, had no intention of having sex until they were married because of her religious beliefs. She said all this without any prompting from Ryan. She seemed to think every guy was just looking for a chance to bed every girl they met. Ryan had told her, rather acerbically, that he had no intention of sleeping with a woman on the first date, even if they were engaged--he had quickly amended that the last part had been sarcastic and he did not in the least bit believe that they were supposed to marry. And what he didn't say aloud was that while he thought she was attractive enough, he wasn't sure it was wise to even sleep in the same room with this strange woman who saw things and thought she was his fiancee. So if neither of them had the least intention to sleep with the other, why did it seem so odd that they were not doing so? He realized, as he lay in the dark listening to her soft breathing, that it was all a product of his culture. If this had been a movie, he was certain they'd be sleeping together. It made sense: guy saves girl from certain death (or something), they share a hotel room while hiding from the mysterious man chasing them, guy sleeps with girl. That was the natural and logical progression; he could even remember a couple of movies where that exact sequence had happened. And considering his movie-going habits, that must mean it was pretty predominant. Except, in the movies, the plot would normally make more sense.

He was just about to drift to sleep when he remembered that short, doubtful, insincere prayer he'd said just before all this started. God, he decided, had a bizarre sense of humor. Still, the prayer had been answered in a way, so he decided another, more serious one couldn't hurt. "God, help me through this." He glanced in the direction of the girl, breathing softly as she slept. "Help us both through this."

---

This chapter is 3,601 words long, bringing the total of the whole story to 9,799. I'm beginning to think this story will reach novella length before it's done.

Old Post: The beginning of this story is here, while the previous chapter is here.

Aha! The story now has a title. I would have come up with one sooner, but I needed a better idea of what the story was about. Even then the title ended up being vague and confusing. I brainstormed a bunch of different titles before coming up with this one. Some of them were pretty good, but I decided that this one worked best.

---

Chapter 4
Dreams and Visions

Ryan fled through the many-roomed house, and Red-eyes pursued him.

He did not understand this house, with its rooms and doors but no windows or furniture. It had no logic behind its design, no overarching theme, only fading yellow wallpaper and dusty hardwood floors beneath and bare lightbulbs overhead. All the rooms looked alike, small and square with doors in every wall, and he did not know whether he was going forward or in circles as he chose doors at random. He looked for footprints in the scattered dust, but he saw no trace of anyone's passage, not even his own when he looked behind him. He did not know where Emily was, although he thought she too was in this house. He could hear doors opening and closing, heavy footsteps echoing through the nearby rooms, and he turned away from them, moving as quietly as he could without relinquishing too much speed, trying to avoid Red-eyes' notice. In all the time in this house he had not seen Red-eyes, and he knew that once he did he would die. So he ran, or tip-toed when the sounds of pursuit drew near, turning the next doorknob slowly and praying the hinges did not creak as he slipped into the next room.

He did not know how long this pursuit had gone on, but he was sure it had been hours. He was panting and gasping, his breath long worn-out, sweat dripping into his eyes, and his chest sore from his hammering heart. It was not the running which had worn him down, as this chase was practically sedate compared to the previous mad dashes, but from the tension, hour after hour of near misses and narrow escapes. He thought that his heart would burst soon, the stress having overwhelmed his poor physical conditioning.

Ryan heard loud, thudding footsteps to his right, and he turned to the left, opening the next door with all the stealth he could manage.

His ears must have deceived him, as he found that Red-eyes was not in the room behind him, but in the room directly before him. Red-eyes' hand was reaching toward the same door that Ryan had just opened, and as Ryan tried to slam it shut, he caught it on his open palm and pushed it back open. The door swung open with enough force to shove Ryan back. He skidded in the dust and then fell on his rear, with Red-eyes towered above him.

At first glance Red-eyes was still a tall man with dark hair and a dark mustache. He wore sunglasses now, but they were not enough to hide the crimson glow coming from his eyes, seeping around the edges and even through the lenses. His long trenchcoat was buttoned up tight, but it bulged and twitched as odd shapes pressed against it from the inside. The chest bulged outward as the shape of a hand pressed against the inside of the coat. The two hands which were where they should be reached toward Ryan, the ill-fitting black leather gloves not hiding deformed claws within. All around Red-eyes was a darkness which seemed to leak out from within. The glow from the lightbulb dimmed as this dark aura hid it as Red-eyes leaned over Ryan.

Ryan scooted backwards on his bottom, pushing with his feet while using his elbows for support, and noticed that the left pocket of his coat dragging on the floor, drawing a rough scraping sound only partly muffled by fabric and dust. He always had things in the pockets of his coat, but this was too heavy for the usual pen and paper and calculator. His hand fumbled at his pocket, closing on cold metal, and he drew out the item. It was smooth, heavy, and cool, and when he saw it at first it was so out-of-place that it wouldn't register. A round cylinder the size of of his fist, a narrow barrel wider than a finger and as long as his hand, a grip wrapped in plain black leather. It was a silver revolver straight out of a Western. As he closed both hands around the grip, he was surprised at how comfortably it fit his hands. Ryan had never fired a pistol before, but now was not the time to argue. Red-eyes' twisted hands were mere inches from his throat, so Ryan pointed the pistol at his forehead and pulled the trigger.

At this range he could not miss, and the pistol's report echoed back and forth through the small room even as its recoil sent his head thudding against the floor. The loud crack was audible even above the pistol's echo, but Ryan could not spare a moment for the pain. He used his left hand to push himself up while his right still held the pistol pointing toward where Red-eyes had been. He saw the large man stumbling backwards, a hole in his forehead and the red eyes and dark aura gone from his body. Instead, the red-eyes and dark aura had remained where they were, unmoved by the pistol shot. A dark shadow still loomed above Ryan, having sloughed its human body like a dead skin. It eyes, now completely red except for a cat-like pupil, blazed crimson while dark talons reached for Ryan's throat even as the cast-off human body hit the wall and slid down it. Ryan fired twice more, but the bullets only passed through this shadow. It had a shape which was vaguely human and vaguely animal, and though its black mass was indistinct and even translucent, Ryan could see the bird-like talons clearly until they passed beyond his vision and locked on his throat. The fingers were icy cold and hard, more like rock than flesh despite the gaseous figure of its owner. He felt his windpipe collapsing under the pressure of those fingers, and Ryan gasped for breath as he fired once more into the darkness. The chill was radiating from those hands, spreading through his neck to his head and his chest. He thought the cold might kill him even faster than the lack of air. His vision was fading at the edges and he knew he could not last much longer. He stared into the blazing red eyes as he continued pulling the trigger, even though only a loud click came from the weapon now. The mouth opened--to Ryan it seemed more beak than mouth, but his dim vision could not hope to make sense of the indistinct form before him--to reveal a crimson glow leaking from within, and Ryan heard a single word in that deep, resonant voice which now wasn't so distant, just before all light and sound vanished with Ryan's consciousness.
* * *
Ryan sat up straight so quickly that he got a headrush. "Yow," he said, putting a hand to his damp forehead. The covers had slipped from his bare chest, also damp from sweat, to collect at his waist. He rubbed the sweat from his chest, wondering whether it came from the heat or the fading dream. The hotel room was too warm to be under the covers, but Ryan felt too naked in his underwear to sleep without covers with Emily in the same room. Fortunately, she was still asleep, soft and easy breathing coming from her bed to his right, so she wasn't a witness to his near nudity and less than athletic physique. His eyes were well enough adjusted to the dark that in the light streaming in even through the closed blinds he could see the generic furniture in the room.

Emily had shown little modesty when undressing for bed, and lay under a thin sheet which did little to hide her figure. Ryan looked away, not wanting to stare, and got out of bed on the left side. Placing his left hand on the wall for guidance in the dark, he followed it to bathroom. The wallpaper was embossed with elegant filigree, and the simple sensation of the patterned roughness against his fingers was comforting after the vague and overpowering dream. Turning the corner he came to the door to the bathroom. It was dark inside, the wall blocking the light from the window and only an illuminated lightswitch providing any light, and little enough at that.

Ryan reached for the lightswitch and then thought better of it. He didn't need much light and he really did not want to wake up all the way, even after that nightmare. Fumbling, he found the sink and turned on the faucet, setting the water to where it ought to be slightly warm. He had never met a faucet that actually gave the expected temperature, and sure enough the water was scalding in no time. His questing hands had found a washcloth by then, so he held it under the water without much regard for the temperature. The washcloth was unpleasantly warm as he rubbed his face with it, but it was bearable. He could already feel the stubble on his face, and without a razor he would look pretty unkempt in the morning. Quite an adventure, isn't this? It's been less than a day and already I'm missing the comfort of my own home. Apartment sweet apartment. Ryan used the washcloth on his chest and stomach next, cleaning off the sweat and dampening the top of his boxers. Done, he set the cloth down and forced his eyes open so he could face himself in the mirror. In the dark, all he could see were shadows and a vague, man-like shape. With bright red eyes.

The shape in the mirror wasn't him, couldn't be him. It was too big, lean and tall rather than stout. The shadows in the mirror had dissolved into a grey blur, while in the center, filling his vision, was the dark shape in his dream. It lacked distinct lines, its edges blurred and streaming and billowing, as if it were made of smoke barely able to hold its shape. Its resemblence to a human being was no more than a stick figure's--the same uprightness, the same number of limbs, a single head. Beyond that, Ryan could not make out much more. The head was indistinct, but he did not think it was human, as he could not make out nose or mouth or jaw, only the crimson eyes with the slitted pupils. The arms--if they were arms, for they moved with a fluidity more akin to tentacles--ended in talon-like hands, five fingers with long, sharp nails and no palm. These hands alone were clear and distinct, as they reached toward him. Out of the mirror.

Ryan would have cried out, screamed like a madman or a child, but he could only squeeze the barest wheeze out of his throat. He would have run, but his feet seemed rooted in place. He raised his right arm to protect himself, and his left went for the light switch, still glowing orange on the wall. His fingers found the switch even as one of the creature's talons swept aside his upraised arm.

The overhead flourescent flooded the room with light, reflecting from the mirror and the tiles and the porcelain to chase all the shadows away. Even in his horrified paralysis, Ryan blinked in the sudden light, and when his vision cleared the creature was gone. There was only himself in his boxers, bare chest and pouched stomach covered in dark curly hair. Ryan's head swiveled back and forth, looking for the thing which had been in the mirror. "What the hell is going on here?" he asked himself in the mirror, taking a good, long look to make sure it was him in the mirror.

He placed his hands on the edge of the sink, leaning on his arms as he took several deep breaths and let his galloping heart resume a more normal pace. His heart was in no condition for these sorts of shocks, nor was his mind. One or both would give if this continued, and he could only hope that his mind had not broken down already. His eyes were red with dark spots underneath. He really needed sleep, but he doubted he'd be able to return to sleep now. Had he fallen asleep standing up and dreamed? Was it a vision like what Emily claimed she saw? What else could it have been?

His right forearm burned, and he looked down to see blood running down his arm, to where his hand was flat against the porcelain edge of the sink. Ryan picked up the washcloth and wiped away the blood to reveal a long, shallow scratch across his arm. How...? He remembered the creature reaching for him, its talon brushing aside his right arm, a nail scratching across the skin. Ryan pressed the cloth against the cut and looked at himself in the mirror. It was just him now, looking unnaturally pale and frightened. He clenched his teeth to prevent them from chattering. That couldn't have been real; it just couldn't have.

Ryan was more tired than when he had first lay down, but he didn't think he'd be going back to sleep now. He didn't even want to return to the dark hotel room. Think, Ryan. Think! Was his mind really starting to crack under the strain? Or... is this situation even crazier than I first thought. He needed to come up with a course of action, but there were too many unknowns.

"Approach this logically. Like a scientist," he told himself in the mirror. Technically speaking, Ryan wasn't really a scientist. He was an engineering Grad student at MIT who did experimental research in semiconductor physics, but it was close enough. Since he was an electrical engineer, his affinity was for the design side of the experiments, but he knew how to do scientific research. This crazy situation might seem well beyond the laws of science, but was that really the case? Just because it was outside the known laws of physics didn't mean it didn't obey any laws. He just had to determine what those laws were, which could be done by forming and testing hypotheses. Apply the scientific method and everything would fall into place, right?

"Okay, problem one, I don't know that. It may be that logic doesn't work here and it doesn't obey any rules. If I try to pretend that it does, I'm dead. Problem two, even if it does, and I could apply the scientific method to mutants or demons or ghosts or whatever this is, attempting to disprove a hypothesis is liable to get me killed. There are way too many ways to die here."

Ryan stared at himself in the mirror and wondered how he had gotten involved in this. Was it just a coincidence, that he was there and Emily latched onto him as a part of her delusion? Or was there really some sort of prophecy involved, as she believed?

Okay, her visions provide me with a testable hypothesis. He could compare her visions with reality and see if they truly could predict what would happen, preferably as part of a double-blind test where people could not be influenced by her visions. Only he couldn't see how to make it work. He would need to record each vision in a lab notebook, carefully marking time and date and each detail of the vision, then keep a record of incidents which might be matches with the visions. As he was intimately involved in them right now, there was no way to make it a double-blind prophecy. To properly do this sort of study might take years, selecting for those visions where the subject did not know about the vision, and Ryan didn't have years. All right, let's save that one for a later date.

What about Red-eyes? What is he? Natural or supernatural? Science or religion? Flesh or spirit? How do you test something like that? For a start, let's list his traits. Ryan's coat was hanging in the closet directly outside the bathroom, and he braved the dark to retrieve a small notepad and a pen from an inner pocket. As an afterthought he grabbed a pencil as well. He kept a ready supply of writing instruments since he was always looking for one. Always be prepared. He kept the notebook so he could record any brilliant ideas he might have. Given his usual dearth of brilliant ideas, instead he found that he used it to write down pithy sayings of his own invention, such as Tempus fugit... et sequimur postea. and If we are what we eat, does that make us cannibals? Opening the six-by-four notebook to the first blank page as he sat down on , he considered what to write.

Tall. Big man. Strong--unnaturally strong? Dark hair and mustache. Ryan paused. Everything else he wrote would be about his unusual traits, those things that made him abnormal or even supernatural. Unnoticeable. Red irises--glowing? Super traction? That sounded silly, but he had seen it himself. Red-eyes had no more difficulty walking on ice or snow than pavement. Super fast? This one Ryan was less sure about. It had seemed that no matter how fast they ran they could not gain any distance from him, but if that was the case, how had he not caught them in the mall, where they were careening off people but the crowd parted for him like the Red Sea? It had only been outside that he had the real advantage, where even plowed streets were slick and gritty and filled with people. It could be a manifestation of that super-traction thing. Or perhaps he was applying logic to where none belonged.

"Okay, that's gotten me nowhere. Now what?"

Dream? He surprised himself with that one. But yes, he could not ignore the dream, nor the after-dream phantasm which had nearly ripped his arm off. So, yes, maybe this thing could cause nightmares. If it could cause people not to notice it, why couldn't it cause nightmares in its targets? Hallucination? And if dreams, why not hallucinations? Maybe prolonged exposure to whatever it was which caused its non-targets to ignore it also cause nightmares and hallucinations in its target. And the cut? Well, he'd had dreams which incorporated physical sensations before. That didn't mean the dream caused the physical sensation.

He looked at his notebook and wondered whether he'd accomplished anything. He'd done a fine job of rationalizing his experiences, if by rationalizing you meant accepting the fact that he was being chased by some freakish mutation which could be invisible to everyone but him and Emily while causing him to suffer strange dreams and hallucinations. And Emily? She already had hallucinations, so how could she tell the normal insanity from the new stuff? Why don't I just accept the fact that I've gone mad and check myself into a mental institution? Emily could come too. It would do her good.

Ryan looked himself in the eye. "I'm not insane." He smiled at himself, not because he was happy but because he believed it. It was true, the insane never thought themselves insane, and perhaps he was just deceiving himself, but up until yesterday his life had just been so normal, ordinary, and boring that it was impossible for him to believe that he'd gone off his rocker, just like that. Maybe the stress of the current situation was getting to him, but if so, it was because he really was in a situation worth getting stressed about. Now he could write off the dream as just a dream, and even the phantasm he'd just witnessed might be no more than that. He'd only been half awake, he'd been completely freaked out by the nightmare as much as by real life, and sometimes dreams did incorporate physical sensations, such as cutting his right forearm on something while walking around half asleep.

On the other hand... what if the dream and phantasm were not just his subconscious, but something outside at work. Whether supernatural or superscience or telepathic or something else, it could be significant. In which case... Ryan took pen to paper again and wrote out a brief description of the dream. That took up two pages of his notebook. Then, trading the pen for one of the cheap mechanical pencils which he bought by the dozen, he began to sketch the thing he had seene. The problem, aside from his complete lack of artistic ability, was that the shape he had seen had been blurred and indistinct when he'd first seen it, and his fading memory was making it more so. He found himself starting over several times, and he had ripped out three pages until he came up with a passable sketch. The shape of the head was a bit of a puzzle, and he smeared the lead with his thumb until it was as indistinct as it had looked to him, but the arms and talons, at least, looked like what he remembered. Satisfied, he stuffed pen, pencil, and notepad back in the pocket of his jacket and returned to shut off the light. He felt a moment's fear looking into the mirror with the light off, but nothing appeared but his own shadowy reflection. He found his way back to his bed, once again using the wall to navigate. The clock said it was three in the morning. He didn't remember the exact time when he had awoken earlier, but he thought it had been about an hour. He was feeling much better, his writing and drawing having leeched the emotional strain out of him. He was asleep again within minutes.

[OOC: I'd have drawn a picture, but sadly my artistic abilities are even worse than Ryan's. My attempts came far short of the image I saw in my head.]
* * *
When Ryan woke up, sunlight was filtering in through the blinds and Emily was talking on the phone. He heard her mention tickets, but he wasn't conscious enough to figure out what she was talking about. He sat up and rubbed his eyes until he could see clearly. Emily was already dressed, and she was brushing out her hair as she spoke on the phone. He yawned as she hung up.

"You're awake!"

"I guess so," he mumbled.

"Good. I let you sleep in while I made arrangements but we have to hurry if we're going to catch our plane."

"Catch our what?"

"Our plane. I got us some reservations on a flight to Columbia. It was really expensive on such short notice but I have a pretty high limit on my credit card and it is an emergency--"

"Whoa, hold on, you got tickets to Colombia, as in South America?"

"No, silly, Columbia, as in South Carolina. Although I guess it does sound sort of the same."

"Okay, first question, what do you mean `us'? I can't just join you for a trip to South Carolina or South America or South anywhere out of the blue."

"But it's an emergency! You have to come with me! We're in this together!"

"Which brings me to the second question: why South Carolina? What's there that it makes a good place to run when fleeing Red-eyes?" Ryan had never been anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line, so his knowledge of it came only from television shows like Dukes of Hazzard (Where did that show take place, anyway?) and high school classes on US history and the civil rights movement. He knew that such things hardly covered the most positive aspects of the South, and the few Southern friends he had at school made fun of those stereotypes when they weren't offended by them, but even giving South Carolina the benefit of the doubt, it was no place that he wanted to go. He could do without the hicks and the racists and the Bible-thumpers, assuming they weren't all one and the same.

"It's where I'm from," Emily said. "My parents still live there. They can help us."

Ryan had never noticed that she had much of a Southern accent, but that was not the part of that he was interested in. "They can? How?"

"Well, my father's a minister... I'm not sure how, but I'm sure they can. I feel it."

"Look, Emily, I know you think Red-eyes is a demon or something, and I don't mean to offend you, but, what if you're wrong? What if he's a mutant or something?"

"You still think he's just a mutant?"

"It's what I'm going with, yes." Since when is someone just a mutant? "I'd prefer to think he was just some dangerous psychotic who was good at mind games, but we'll go with mutant."

"So, he's just a mutant? Or just a psychotic? Or whatever? Anything but admit that he might be a demon?"

"My point is that if he's not a demon, how is the fact that your father's a minister going to help? Is he going to pray away a psychotic?"

"Why not? If prayer works against a demon, why shouldn't it work against a psychotic?"

"Why? Why?! Can't you see the difference between a physical threat and a spiritual one? Sure, if he's really a spiritual entity--which, by the way, I'm not convinced of--then maybe he can be prayed away. Spiritual beats spiritual. But if he's a purely physical being, than how can the spiritual have any effect?"

She looked at him for a long moment, and Ryan thought that maybe his argument was sinking in. "You really don't know anything about religion, do you?" she asked.

"Argh! Why do I even try to argue?"

"Good question. Anyway, I've already bought the tickets, so I'm going. Even if my parents can't `pray away' the psychotic mutant demon, they can help in other ways. So, are you coming?"

"Yeah. Sure, why not? I've come this far. How much worse can it get?"

"I don't know, but you better hurry up and get dressed if you want to find out. We need to be out of here in twenty minutes if we're going to catch our plane."

Ryan slunk out of bed and into the shower, wishing he had more time. As he hurriedly washed himself, he reflected that in the light of day his silly nightmares seemed insignificant compared to the trouble he was really facing.

---

This is Chapter 4 of a story in progress. This chapter is 4,511 words long, bringing the total to 14,310. It's not yet in novella range, but it's creeping there. It might be novel length by the time it's done. I really have no idea where the story is going from here, but it's bound to be a fun ride. One thing I really liked about this section is the phrase "psychotic mutant demon." I briefly considered making that the title of this story, but felt that it didn't quite fit. I do intend to use it more, not just in this story or even this blog: it's the sort of phrase that needs to be worked into everyday conversations.

Old Post: The beginning of this story is here, while the previous chapter is here.

Thanksgiving continued to push this story off, so it ended up being a bit rushed. I intended to do a major revision on Wednesday, but I ended up watching my niece Wednesday morning. While my niece, who's two-and-a-half, is cute, she's also a handful, and it wasn't easy to keep up: "Come on, come on!", "Outside, outside!", "Come here, come here!", etc., again and again, over and over. After that, I needed a nap, and the revision got pushed back another day, until it was Thursday afternoon and I really needed to get it done if I wanted it ready for the next storyblogging carnival. So here it is, and feel free to criticize if you don't feel it's up to my usual subterranean standards.

---

Chapter 5
Out of Boston

Those things that seemed deadly serious at night often looked silly in the light of day. Thinking back on his experiences from the previous night while in the shower, Ryan's first instinct was to simply dismiss them. Or at least the part of them that might require some adjustment of his view of the world. When he did, all that was left was some crazy guy chasing after a crazy girl whom Ryan had helped escape. He then paid for a hotel room, which made sense since she needed a safe place to stay, and now she wanted him to go with her while she went to her folks for a couple of days. So far, so not crazy. It was only when you started factoring in the dreams and hallucinations and the weird behavior of people around Red-eyes that things got interesting. Oh, and the fact that his irises were an unbelievably brilliant shade of red. That and Emily's own visions and her deep belief that Red-eyes was a demon.

Ryan dried himself off quickly, then pulled on his clothes, the same jeans and t-shirt he had worn yesterday, which were dry although the jeans were stiff, and a dark grey sweatshirt. He rubbed the steam from the mirror so he could see himself as he combed his hair. Ryan's hair was dark brown and receding, making his forehead, which had always been high, even higher. At least his eyes, also an unremarkable brown, were not too bloodshot, although there were dark spots beneath. He smiled at himself in the mirror, and then took the time to brush his teeth. He and Emily had bought a few necessities from the gift shop when they arrived last night, although he had neglected to get a razor. Rubbing the rough stubble on his cheeks, he wished he had remembered.

When he finished, he stepped out of the bathroom to find Emily packed and ready to go. Like him, she wore the same clothes as yesterday, in her case jeans and a red sweater over a white button-down blouse. She had added a blue jacket from the gift shop to the ensemble, although it looked entirely too light for winter. A winter cap of black and baby blue with a fuzzy ball on top at least kept her head warm. Her only piece of luggage was the purse she had bought from the gift shop, stocked with whatever else she had found, which raised a question he had not thought of earlier.

"Do you have any ID?" he asked. "If we're going on a plane, you'll need it."

"Yes," Emily replied. "I had my license in my pocket when I left my apartment. I didn't have a chance to grab my purse, but I always keep my license on me when I'm driving, and I had just gotten back from a trip to a friend's. I wish I could have gotten to my car, but the keys are in the purse and like I said I was in too much of a hurry to grab it and he was in the way since it was in my room--"

"Okay, okay," Ryan interrupted, raising his hands. "I really don't need that much of an explanation. So you have your license. How about a credit card? How'd you buy the ticket?"

"Oh, I have my credit card number memorized, so it wasn't a problem to buy tickets over the phone. I really am sorry to have made you pay for everything so far, so I thought I should pay for the tickets."

Unless, of course, Red-eyes is tracking your credit card purchases, in which case I should have paid for the tickets. Ryan didn't think it likely that he was. Psychotic mutant demon or not, Ryan didn't see any reason why he should have the pull to access Emily's credit card account. Besides, aside from expending all his cash on the cab ride, Ryan had put a couple of hundred dollars onto his credit card in the attempt to keep Emily and himself well-supplied and in a safe place, and he was just as happy not to be paying last minute airfare for a trip he did not want to take. So now what? Now I go meet her parents. I wasn't planning a trip, but it's Saturday today, and I'm sure I can call in sick or family emergency or something Monday and even Tuesday--Grad student work schedules were flexible that way--so with any luck, Emily will talk to her parents and they'll convince her that whatever the trouble with Red-eyes is, it's not supernatural and it's all over by now. That is assuming, of course, that they're not as crazy as she is. I sure hope it doesn't run in the family. Her father is a minister. I'll worry about that when we get there.

"Okay," Ryan said. "Let's go."

After the chaos of the previous night, Ryan was prepared for pretty much anything. Anything, that is, except nothing, which is what he got. The hotel had a free shuttle service which took them to the airport, and they arrived without incident. Once they did arrive, Ryan kept an eye out for Red-eyes, but he didn't see him. Whatever Red-eyes was, he might expect them to try to catch a flight out of the area, so Ryan would not have been surprised to find him waiting at the airport. Fortunately, Logan Airport was huge, and without any idea which airline they were taking, Red-eyes would have to rely on pure luck to catch them there. If he was waiting at the airport, Ryan didn't see him.

Ryan had to submit himself to a full pat-down to get through the security screening. One-way tickets were considered high risk, and evoked stronger security measures. By now, though, the terrorists must know this, so they'll get round-trip tickets. So what if they're not planning on coming back? It's not like they're saving the money for retirement. Ryan got through the examination with as good a grace as he could manage, although Emily looked unhappy when she came out. Still, Ryan felt better once he was on the other side, hoping that such extreme security measures might slow down Red-eyes. How could even he slip through that unnoticed?

Since they were flying on Delta, their flight to South Carolina would take them through Atlanta. While it still seemed silly that they needed to practically fly over their destination before switching to a plane heading back, Ryan was an engineer, and he had little difficulty grasping the utility of hubs. The number of permutations connecting any one city to any other city would result in an incredible number of flights. With a hundred cities, one connecting flight between every two of them would take 9,900 flights. Use a hub instead, and you need one flight from each city to the hub, and one from the hub to each city, and you could connect them all with 200 flights. 198 if the hub was one of the cities. After having done the math in his head, Ryan decided that he really had put the previous night behind him. If he could pause long enough from checking over his shoulder to work out an entirely useless math problem, then maybe the paranoia was finally wearing off.

They boarded the flight to Atlanta around nine in the morning, and they were in the air by 9:30. Ryan had a window seat near the wing, and for a moment his paranoia returned as he remembered an old Twilight Zone episode. In it, the man sitting in a window seat could see a monster standing on the wing, but it was never there when anyone else looked. The similarity to their situation was uncanny, and if Ryan had seen Red-eyes or that shadow thing which had been inside him in his dream, he would have gone as crazy as the man in the Twilight Zone episode, but he would not have been entirely surprised. It wasn't until half an hour into the flight that his irrational fear finally stopped nagging him.

For someone who had the most fanciful beliefs about their pursuer, Emily seemed even less worried than Ryan was, all fear forgotten the moment the plane was in the air. In her relief, she talked non-stop, and Ryan learned more than he had ever asked to know about her. Her last name was Adams. It only surprised him that he had not already learned it. He had never directly told her his last name, but she knew it already, having heard him use it when he checked them into the hotel room. She had grown up in South Carolina, and lived there her whole life, where her father had worked at Dutch Fork Baptist Church in some manner for as long as she could remember, finally accepting the position of Senior Pastor five years ago. She had done an undergraduate degree in Education at the University of South Carolina, in Columbia, and then come to Boston to pursue a Master's degree at BU. She had considered just staying at USC for her Master's, but she wanted to get out of South Carolina for a few years, and she really felt God calling her to go to Boston. He tried to get a clearer explanation of what that meant: Did it have something to do with those visions? Did she actually hear God's voice? The only explanation he could get was that she felt that she had to go, which left Ryan confused. She had an older brother, Dominic, who was currently in Grad school out west, at Stanford, studying Physics.

She asked him a few questions about his life, which he answered politely, but not in great detail. He had lived all over the Northeast as he grew up, his family travelling with his father, who was a Nuclear Engineer doing contract work. His mother was a nurse and could find work pretty much anywhere. He had graduated from the University of Rochester in New York and gone to Grad school at MIT, which is where he was now--assuming he got back before his advisor decided to fire him.

All in all, it was an educational flight, but he wasn't entirely sorry to see it end as the plane touched down in Atlanta. He had been annoyed with her constant chatter at first, then later found himself just enjoying the sound of her voice, which made him even more annoyed. The opportunity to get off the plane provided a welcome distraction from his tangled thoughts. As soon as they left the gantry, they had to hurry to find the gate for the next flight. The Atlanta airport was huge, and it was a long way from Terminal E to Terminal B. Only after they had located their gate did they determine they had enough time to look for something to eat. It was just past noon, the first flight had not provided a meal, and the itinerary said that the next one would not either. Emily found a McDonald's, but Ryan wanted something less bland, so he headed further down the terminal. Meanwhile, he stopped at the Men's room.

Washing his hands, Ryan took the opportunity to splash some water on his face. He looked at himself in the mirror again, realizing that he was paying way more attention to how he looked than he usually did. Want to look good for Emily, huh? He wished it were that simple. What are you doing? Looking for signs of madness in your eyes? If he was going crazy it wasn't something he could see in the mirror. Maybe you're looking for ghosts in the mirror. Well, none of that here in the light of day. Or the light of the fluorescents, anyway. Just myself and the other guys... What?!

His head twisted so fast his neck cracked. He had thought he'd seen... but no, looking behind him he just saw two guys at the urinals, taking care of their business and not the least bit interested in him. I must have imagined it. I've been doing that a lot recently. Since when has my imagination been so good? By which I mean overactive and vivid, which is decidedly not good. He turned back to the mirror, and he was still there. Red-eyes, large as life, standing behind him and watching. Well, there's my sign of madness, right there. How? He looked behind him again, subtly this time, turning his head just enough that he could look out the corner of his eye, perhaps hoping Red-eyes--It can't be Red-eyes!--hadn't noticed his previous whipsnap motion. He still couldn't see him, just the four urinals and the two guys and no Red-eyes. He looked back at the mirror and there he was. What the hell...? Ryan frowned. In the mirror there were five urinals, not four. Turning and leaving the sink behind as he headed for the door, Ryan scanned the wall, counting. Just four, no sign of Red-eyes or the urinal he was standing right in front of. Okay, I can believe that my mind is so far gone that I'm imagining Red-eyes, but a urinal? Exactly how perverse is my imagination? Is it a magic urinal? Ryan blinked and stopped just as he neared the door. No, wait, there were five there. But I counted four just a moment ago? This doesn't make any sense.

Ryan started walking again, this time quickly. He had to find Emily. What if...? Red-eyes could become invisible, only it wasn't invisible, it was unnoticeable, which meant that while your eyes could see him, your brain didn't know he was there, and you just instinctively reacted to him, going so far as to get out of his way, but all at a lower level of your brain without your subconscious bothering to inform you that "Hey, there's a big guy with glowing red eyes over there!" What if he was standing in front of something, like a urinal, blocking your view of it. Well, your brain wouldn't see it, but it wouldn't bother informing you that that was because some big guy was blocking your view. You just wouldn't notice it. But... I knew the urinal was there. Even with Red-eyes in the way, I could see part of it. Why didn't my mind just fill in the rest. Having reached the limits of his knowledge of psychology--Or is it parapsychology? No, more like psychology of the paranormal, as--Now is not the time for this, okay?--Ryan not only didn't know the answer to that question, he also had no idea where to go to find an answer to that question. He did know it wasn't the question he wanted to be asking right now.

I had assumed Emily and I were immune to his disappearing act, but what if we're not? What if we're only immune when he's trying to hurt us, or what if he can control whether we can see him or not? But why--? That was the problem with asking why. There were too many whys and he didn't have time for them. Enough whys, concentrate on the what. Is he following us now? That seems likely. Can I use a mirror to see him again? I sure hope so.

There was the McDonald's, now where was Emily? There, eating her salad at one of the tables. He went to her table and sat down.

"Hi, Ryan. Didn't you find something to eat?"

"Do you have a mirror?"

"Huh? Why do you need one?"

"This is an emergency. Do you have a mirror?"

Emily started to smile, but it faltered when she saw his expression. "No, I don't have one. Why? What's so important about a mirror?"

"Wait here. I'll be right back."

Ryan scraped the chair back and headed over to the small convenience shop next to the McDonald's, doing his best to keep Emily in his sight the whole time. He searched as quickly as he could, until he came across a small travel kit which included a small handheld mirror. He paid for it and headed back to where Emily sat, looking bewildered. He opened the kit and took out the mirror, pretending to study himself in it, while in reality looking for Red-eyes. He found him almost immediately, sitting at the table next to them. A table he had not noticed before. Ryan slid the mirror over to Emily.

"Look into it, and tell me what you see over there," he said softly. He gestured in the direction he knew Red-eyes to be, pointing with his left hand as it lay on the table while his right forearm blocked it from Red-eyes view. "Try not to get his attention."

"Whose attention?" she whispered back, but she had caught his mood, so she tried to use the mirror to look in the direction he indicated while only appearing to look at herself. When her eyes widened, he shook his head slightly. She handed the mirror back, then they both stood up, leaving her salad behind. They walked away with their heads together.

"We do not want to get on a plane with him. There'd be nowhere to run," Ryan said as softly as possible while still being audible in the noisy airport.

"I agree. But how did he get here? Did he fly with us? Why didn't he attack us then? Why isn't he attacking us now?"

"I don't know. Nor do I know why we can't see him normally now like we could before, or why we can see him in the mirror. I doubt he knows about that, or he would have been careful around mirrors."

"I don't think the rules apply to psychotic mutant demons."

Ryan shook his head. "No, I don't believe that. There have to be some rules or else we'd be dead already. You know more about theology than I do, but isn't it the study of spiritual rules? They're different, but there are still rules."

"I've never heard it stated that way. I'm not sure whether that's a good definition of theology or not; I'll have to ask Dom. Anyway, maybe he does follow some rules. So what? We have no idea what they are, and from what we've seen they're incredibly complicated, unless..."

"Unless what?"

"I thought I had an idea there, but I guess I didn't."

"Well, if you do have an idea, please share it with me, because I am really, really lost here."

"So what do you want to do?"

"If we're not getting on that plane, we need some other transportation. I say we leave the terminal and go rent a car."

"Just like that?"

"Why not? Atlanta's not just a Delta hub, it's also a major destination in and of itself. People fly here, leave the terminal, pick up their baggage, and rent a car. That's what we're going to do, minus the luggage."

"And if he follows us? He might attack us, or get in the car with us, or whatever."

"We'll use the mirror to keep an eye out for him, and we'll check the car before we get going. If we see him, we run on foot. But I'd rather be driving a car, wouldn't you?"

---

This chapter is 3,326 words long, bringing this short story to a total of 17,636 words. I still have no clue where it's going or how long it will be, but I am starting to get an inkling of what's been going on. Before this, I was as confused as Ryan, now I'm slightly less confused.