Tucker was stuck somewhere in the middle, unable to dislodge himself.
He liked the adrenaline, the excitement, the risk. Fine, even the romantic, forbidden quality of doing something illegal on a Saturday night. But there was a part of him that questioned why. Or if maybe he’d just convinced himself he preferred the buzz and relative stardom that came with running the drag races, because adulthood was going to be a disappointment.
Why grow up at all? What was waiting for him there?
His father’s well-known oddities notwithstanding, Tucker was slightly overweight, a mechanic, a jokester, not that pretty to look at. He’d never had a girlfriend. Women tended to give him a pat on the head, then work their way toward greener pastures. Toward guys with college degrees or a foot in the door of a family business. No questionable DNA or missing mothers. And hell, now he’d just gotten to a point where he lacked so much confidence with women, he didn’t even bother trying to get past the jokes to something deeper. The rejections had worn his self-assurance thin.
So here he stood, in the middle of a dark road, cigar smoke obscuring his vision just slightly. Enough that the young folks looked like something imagined. The crowd would be different next year. The girls would start wearing different kinds of clothes, the guys would be buying a new brand of jeans, the music would change. But Tucker wouldn’t. He didn’t know how to walk from one side of the road to the other. How to go forward when so many things seemed to be holding him back.
Forcing a smile onto his face, Tucker pulled a bandana from his back pocket and held it up, waiting for everyone’s attention. “All right, kiddies. Let’s have a clean race.” He eyed the audience. “First one to shotgun a beer doubles their odds.” A rusty chuckle escaped him as every guy in attendance scrambled to puncture a can, foam spraying everywhere, girls laughing. And those sounds carried into the night sky as Tucker boomed, “Three, two, one—”
Tires shrieked and the two souped-up cars shot forward, roaring past Tucker. He turned without hurry and pulled on his cigar, waiting for the victor to be declared so he could divvy up the winnings. The races didn’t usually take more than twenty seconds and he tended to go home with at least three hundred bucks. Come to think of it, that hourly rate made him better paid than a big shot lawyer—
Tired skidding, metal crunching, glass shattering.
Screaming.
Screaming on all sides of him. And running.
No.
No, in almost a decade, there’d never been a crash. It was a wide road, he didn’t let hotheads race, inspected the cars himself at the shop before Saturdays rolled around. He took every precaution, but…Jesus. Jesus, the fire bloomed down at the end of the dark road, reminding him of birds of paradise. Jagged orange and pin pricks of blue.
He dropped the cigar and started to run.
God, please. Please don’t let anyone be hurt or worse.
He’d never forgive himself.
Not a kid with a future. Please.
The flames balled up and exploded, smoke pluming into the sky, the hip-hop music playing in the distance now an eerie soundtrack to…what? Death? A hoarse sound left him and he picked up his pace, sprinting now toward the wreckage. “Stay back,” he shouted at the other young people on the road. “Call nine-one-one. Do not come any closer!”
Thankfully, they listened to him and Tucker kept running, alone now.
But when he reached the crash site, his steps slowed.
Both drivers were lying side by side in the middle of the road.
And there were two men standing above them. Adults that definitely didn’t fit into the crowd. The unnaturally still figures were dressed in black pants and jackets, watching him approach in a way that sent a shiver coasting down Tucker’s spine. There was something predatory in those eyes. And a wealth of…knowledge? If so, it was definitely more knowledge than he had. That seemed to be understood. That they were superior, unafraid of the flames behind them. They made him the outsider, an intruder, with one sweep of those sharp gazes.
These guys couldn’t have been standing at the starting line. They never would have been able to make it here so fast. Who the hell were they?
Tucker looked around for the finish line crowd. The ones who always stood at the end to congratulate the winner and corroborate his claim of passing the finish line first. But there was no one in sight. No one…
A foot was sticking out into the road.
No. More than one.
As Tucker’s eyes adjusted to the dark, after looking into the fire, he saw them. Three young people, lying in a tangle of limbs just off the edge of the road.
“Oh Jesus,” Tucker breathed, raking his fingers through his hair. “Were they hit by one of the cars? We need to get a goddamn ambulance out here.”
This could mean prison for him. These were his races. He was responsible. That was a problem for later, though. At that moment, he was torn between assisting the drivers and the threesome of injured spectators. Getting the drivers away from the fire was most important, right? “Help me move them.” His lips were numb. “We shouldn’t, but I’m worried about them being so close to the cars. There could be an explosion—”
“No need to bother,” said one of the men, quietly, calmly.
The other added, “Not about any of them, really.”
A chill spread through Tucker. “What?” He looked back at the starting line and saw an outline of several heads—the people he’d told to stay back—and he had the sudden urge to warn them to run, run as fast as they could. That instinct was only strengthened when he turned back to face the wreckage and the two men were standing mere inches away from him. He hadn’t even heard them move.
This wasn’t right.
This whole thing, the way the bodies were lying, the way these creepy assholes weren’t even remotely concerned or rattled or anything. It was all wrong. They didn’t even breathe or blink. They could have been made of wax, if it wasn’t for the odd glow of their eyes.
“Did you…have something to do with this?” Tucker asked through stiff lips.
The men turned to one another and laughed. “Of course we did.”
“Oops,” said the second one, nudging his tongue to the corner of his mouth. Was that blood on his lip? “We were starving.”
“And let’s face it, bored. Not much else to do in West Virginia.”
“Amen to that.”
“Who are you?” Tucker interrupted raggedly. “Why…hungry? I don’t…”
One of the men glanced back at the drivers with an eyebrow raised. A moment later, one of the prone figures started to move. He rolled over and groaned, sending a wave of relief through Tucker, nearly staggering him backward. “Tell you what, since we’re bored, let’s play a game,” said one of the men. “We were planning to Silence one of these nasty little daredevils. But perhaps you’d like to trade yourself?”
“Oh, sound plan,” the second man crooned, looking Tucker over. “He’s got a lot more meat on his bones. We could have spared the others and simply dined on him.”
“So wasteful. Can humans be recycled?”
“Yes! It’s called Silencing, silly. We’ve literally just been discussing this.”
“Shut up,” Tucker growled. “Explain what you mean by…you could have spared them. You…” Attempting to swallow, though his mouth was bone dry, he glanced over at the tangled limbs off the side of the road. “You did this to them? You did this and you caused the accident. How? Why? Why the hell would you do that?”