Night Drifters: The Knight

Chapter 29: Lucas

Wendy knows about the stalker, but that’s it. She will be furious when she knows there’s more to the story, but maybe now she’ll realize how crazy the situation is and won’t get petty.

I need time to myself. Time to think.

I put on my white running shoes and my blue velvet jogging sweat pants and blew out the door.

I drove to downtown Clementine and parked, putting fifty cents in the meter.

I had three hours before nightfall and then I would go home.

I put on my earphones and turned my iPod to play the Red Hot Chili Peppers album.

Once I heard Californication banging into my eardrums I ran. Ran through Clementine Pier Park up trails and down trails, passing tennis and basketball courts.

Halfway through the album the songs started to become stagnant and I pictured a television screen snowing black and white.

I came to a stop and my breath was like a warm fog in the evening air.

I flicked the ear buds, but they were still static.

I looked around and found I was the only one on the trail. The sky was a brunt red just about ready to turn dark and I could faintly see a crescent moon in the sky.

Abruptly something passed by my peripherals and I glimpsed up to see an empty playground, swings blowing lifeless in the wind.

I switched my iPod off and it passed by again.

Not bothering to take my ear buds out I began to run again. My shoes beat against the ground with every stride.

Almost to the pier, Danny, I told myself even as my lungs felt like giving in.

All of a sudden it was clear somebody was keeping up pace and I looked off the trail into the forest and a body glided amongst the trees. Their legs going at such a speed that they blurred.

Once they got ahead, they’d heed slack for me to catch up.

I couldn’t make out who they were or even what they looked like, but some how I recognized their presence.

I also knew they weren’t trying to hurt me, just playing with me.

Teasing me.

I had to admit I was kind of enjoying the race even though I was evidently losing when they disappeared far ahead.

But then there they were, a shadowed figure, standing under an old-fashioned light post at the pier.

Do I dare get any closer to them?

I ran and ran until I became aware of the black, leather jacket and tall physique. That long, wavy black hair.

Nick?

His name rebounded around my brain.

Nick, is that you?

Obviously if it was he couldn’t hear me.

Dani California blasted into my earphones after I turned my iPod off and yet somehow they turned on by themselves and went to the song Nick played for me that night at his house.

My favorite song.

It had to be him.

I stopped running and only a street stood between us.

Instead of flipping out when his name comes to mind and wanting to run away, I got an entire different feeling.

This feeling that tickled my insides and brought warmth to my pale fingers in my mittens.