When he dialed again, nobody answered.
13
Stella slept.
Sporadic at first, she fought it, but soon when I looked over, I saw the book in her lap, and her head lolled to the side. Even in slumber, though, the quiver in her hands continued. Her breathing went from steady to labored and back again. At one point, her entire body shook so violently, she actually awoke. Her skin was pasty, she appeared feverish, but I dared not touch her forehead to find out.
At one point, she woke and simply said, “I worked there for the money.”
I told her she didn’t have to explain.
“I know,” she replied. Then she was out again.
We were on CA-88 just outside of Dogtown when things got really hairy.
Static burst from the Mercedes’ speakers.
Not the static that usually found its way into a song as a radio station began to fade out of range, but hostile, sharp static at more than twice the volume of Michael Stipe and REM, who were busy losing their religion a moment earlier. The Mercedes bucked, and all the electronics went dead for a second, the gauges on the dashboard came back far brighter than they should have been, then returned to normal as the static disappeared.
Beside me, Stella jerked awake in her seat. The copy ofGreat Expectationsdropped to the floor, and her head shot quickly back and forth as she peered out the windows.
“Pull over.”
“What?”
“Pull over!”
I jerked the wheel hard to the right while slamming my foot down on the brakes. Unlike my Jeep, the Mercedes slid slightly, but I maintained control as we left the pavement for the gravel shoulder and skidded to a stop. Horns blared as cars flew past. A rusted out Chevy pickup came within inches of sideswiping us, grunting as the driver swerved around the place we left the road.
Before we stopped moving, Stella had her seat belt off and the door open. She ran from the car, climbed over a wooden fence set back about ten feet from the highway, and raced across the open field.
“Wait!” I shouted after her.
If she heard me, she didn’t care. I bolted around the car and ran after her.
The field gave way to a hill, and when I crested that hill, I saw Stella, already down the other side and running toward a large body of water (I would later learn this was Lake Camanche). I had no idea why she ran toward it or how she had even known the lake was there from the highway. I didn’t remember seeing it as we came down the highway, but the lake was clearly her destination.
I came down the hill and caught up with her at the water’s edge where she frantically clawed off her gloves.
“Get back, Jack!”
When I didn’t move, she growled at me over her shoulder. “Baaack!”
Her gloves on the ground beside her, Stella dropped to her knees and plunged both her hands into the water.
The world went completely silent, and I realized I had stopped breathing, I had stopped moving, I froze.
“Baaaacck,” Stella said again, this time her voice barely a whisper. Her eyes were pressed shut and her head tilted slightly to the left, as if listening to some far-off sound.
I’m not sure what I expected to happen at that point, but at first, nothing did. Stella remained perfectly still, her back rigid, the muscles in her neck twitching, her eyes closed, her mouth still slightly open after allowing that last word to escape.
The air became crisp, not with cold, not cold by any means, but with a rigidness as if the very molecules in the air gripped one another, forming a thick blanket. What little breeze drifted across the open field and the lake fell still. Not a single animal, insect, or rubbing of twig against weed could be heard.
The hair on my arms stood, and I looked down on it in marvel, knowing the hairs on the back of my neck were standing, too, prickling against the collar of my shirt. Ozone crept past—faint at first, then growing stronger.
In what seemed much longer, only a second had passed.
Stella gasped.
