A Darker Shade of Fear - Pt 10

Raven

Here - watch THIS!
Joined
May 24, 2001
Wet Oranges…

The cars slowly left the airport… much quieter than when they had arrived, cooler heads prevailing to everyone’s satisfaction. After Dan and Sally had pulled in, Megan (with Sarah riding shotgun) pulled up alongside but then continued on out the exit road. Carl had won his race with the Z06 – but just barely; still a win IS a win – and it seemed for the briefest of moments (like those randomly rare times when the sky is a deep, crimson-rose color… just before sunset on a late fall evening) that an all-out race fest was about to ensue.

They were there… all of them it seemed. Except one…


As Carl led the procession up towards the start line, the breeze changed suddenly. No one had noticed how the stars and the moon had become hidden in the short time they had arrived at the abandoned airport. Nor had they noticed that the wind gusted occasionally, causing the rotting hangar doors to creak and moan in the night like lost souls of past times, begging for release to an oblivion unknown.

As the lights approached the crowd, the gusts became harder yet and thunder could be heard rumbling in the distance. A few in the crowd looked back over their shoulder, or perhaps covered their eyes from the glare of the headlights to try and scan an ominous sky. When they looked long enough, nearly hidden flashes of light, some of them roaming across the heavens could be seen deep within the crowds.

Rain was coming and it was coming fast.

Dan had stopped and stepped out of the White Buick, the gusts whipping the collar of his jacket up against his face and made his hair flatten against his head. He had to squint and did so as he waved at Sally to stop near him. He ran over to the passenger’s window which she had rolled down.

“We can’t run tonight – not with the weather that’s blowing in. Take the X on home and I’ll be right behind you.”

Sally nodded, rolled up the window and headed on out the exit, the first to leave. Dan got back in his car and as he went to pull the door closed – it was stopped midway.

By a woman’s gloved hand.

It was Megan… standing with a red umbrella above her, her hand solidly on the door of the Buick.

“Hello, Dan. It’s been a long, long time…” Those words seemed to make the wind stop blowing. Or was it ever really blowing at all?

Dan looked up into her eyes but couldn’t see them. He could only look, not in a good way. More like the way you try not to stare when you pass by a bad car wreck and you want to look away, knowing that looking directly at the scene may bring bad things to your memories. But you can’t. And so you look, your eyes taking in the broken and scattered glass, the mangled metal, the bodies slumped or sprawled on the road, the pain sometimes evident, sometimes not; your eyes feeding those views to your brain to recall later, over and over and over…

Dan felt those same deeply sad feelings and emptiness as he searched for Megan’s eyes. Cold ran down his back and through his blood; a deep bone-numbing cold, so firmly did Megan grasp his emotions. And even that set off a flood of emotional combat for his heart – he KNEW that he loved Sally, and only Sally. His sun rose and set upon Sally’s face and she was his universe.

But for some unknown and mysterious reason, hearing her say his name – HIS NAME – set something off in his mind.

The dreams…

And suddenly he was somewhere else… in an orange grove on a rainy Tuesday morning, dark and gray. He was wet to the bone, having walked in the grove for hours it seemed, trying to find someone but trying to hide from someone else. Who WAS it that he was hiding from? He didn’t know…

So all he could do was run… run as fast as he could and try to find the house with the yellow glow in the windows that meant it was dry and warm inside.

Inside…

Away from the rain. Away from the smell of rain, heavy and dank. Away from the smell of too-ripe oranges, oranges that had fallen from leafy green trees to lay on the wet, emerald grass glistening with diamonds of raindrops that surrounded hundreds of fallen oranges.

He looked at the oranges and realized they weren’t really oranges at all.

They were eyes… staring at him. Not blinking, but all of them following his every movement. They were everywhere; like the television sets in a major department store all tuned to the same channel. Those eyes all looked and rotated in his direction, no matter where he tried to hide. They saw him… they saw his heart… they saw his soul…

So all he could do was keep running through the wet orange grove with the orange-eyes following him, getting wetter and wetter and wetter…the trees becoming closer together and he had to watch where he stepped for fear of stepping on an orange/eye... the leaves grabbed at his wet skin and clothing, pulling him in toward the trees...

It was getting darker and darker - what time IS it??? - his watch, wet with rain drops showed nearly 10am but it was as if darkness was falling...

and those eyes...


“Hello, Megan…” his voice trailed off. “Yes, it has been a long time.” Where were her EYES?
She didn’t say another word but simply handed him a piece of paper, turned and left and got into the long black car. Dan watched her drive off, not really aware that he was holding the scrap in his left hand. He felt so very, very cold and he noticed that several cars were leaving, intermittent drops of rain could be seen in the headlights’ glare.

He slid on inside the Buick and closed the door. Reaching down to his left on arm rest he pushed the power lock button forward and heard the satisfying sound of the locks securing him inside. Reaching over onto the left side of the instrument panel, he rolled the dome-panel light dim control upward to turn on the over head lights and looked at the paper in his hand.

It was folded three times and had apparently come from a spiral bound steno tablet. She hadn’t trimmed the greenish cast paper and the rough edges remained where she had torn it free.

He held it for a moment, the rain coming harder now on the roof and windshield of the car; a steady, driving staccato beat. Rumbles of thunder and flashes of lightning were much closer now and a few cars pulled alongside as if to look in but seeing the interior lights on, they merely honked and moved on out onto the road and sped away into the wet night, leaving Dan finally alone with the paper.

His eyes tried to not look at the words but he could not NOT look at them. He glanced up for a moment and then looked back down, holding his breath. In his hands were the first written words he had seen from Megan in many years and still, her handwriting made him nervous. Was he REALLY over her, he asked himself???

Then, he realized what he had read and he sucked in his breath, hesitating to let it out. He felt hot all at once, the chill now gone. The windows on the car were fogging up, and he had to loosen his jacket, so shaken was he by the words. He tried to look out of the windows and then realized that he was all alone now, in the midst of a storm and he knew that Sally would be worried.

He tossed the paper to the passenger seat and reached for the key, turning it in the ignition.

The car fired and ran smoothly but just as he slid his hand down to the T-handle shifter, it died. He tried to start it again, the wind blowing very hard now, rocking the car as if a giant invisible hand was trying to tip it over.

“RRRR-rrrr-rrrrrrrr-rrr…” No luck.

Again and again he tried. And still, the car would not start.

Better let the starter cool for a minute, he thought to himself. Damn! Why didn’t I grab the cell phone????

Then he noticed lights out on the highway coming from the south. They seemed to be slowing… slowing… slowing…

The car slowed to a crawl by the entrance of the airport and then stopped. Dan could see it was a long, dark car with odd headlights and fog lights in the lower part of the facia. It looked oddly familiar… who was it?

The car then pulled into the airport ever so slowly, turning its headlights directly at Dan’s Buick.

But then it stopped… about a hundred yards away.

The driver of the mysterious car then hit the highbeam switch, causing the fogs to go off and at the same time, nearly blind Dan. Fear now gripped his heart… cold, illogical fear. Who was in the car???

He could see sheets of rain falling in the glare of the headlights facing him… then, a figure seemed to appear in front of the lights. In just a moment, another figure joined the first and they stood in the rain facing Dan. He could feel their eyes upon him and he felt naked and powerless before whoever had him in his helpless state before them.

The figures disappeared as quickly as they came and then the lights went out. He was effectively blinded by the sudden change of brilliant incandescent light to utter darkness. Then, a large bolt of lightning flashed and he could see that the car was backing out of the airport drive and he could see the plate in the flash.

ANNIL8R

He tried the key once more and –

“VROOOOOOOOM!!” – it started. He quickly pulled it into gear and headed out onto the highway but the other car was gone. Was it really there at all??? He felt fear grip his heart even tighter as he turned back, back towards home and to the light and safety it would bring. On the floor of his car, the paper from Megan rustled from the air movement within the car. He reached over and across the console to pick it up, the words glaring at him in the passing light as he went beneath the dripping streetlights.

“I knew you then, I know you now,
I watched you then, I watch you now…

What was whole is split, what was split did die,
But you never left and so I cry…

The rose will bloom when spring doth come,
The rose will die, in winter’s sun.

What was will be and what could not, will…
I loved you then…

I love you still”

He was angry. He did not want Megan to know him, much less to still love him. How could she DO this to him???

The rest of the note hung in his mind, its words taunting him….

“Orange County Raceway Park…. Tuesday Night… Track rental 9pm – Midnight… By invitation only.

I’m waiting…”


OCRP was about a one hour drive from Dan’s house. He had to know more before he would tell Sally about it, he decided as he pulled into the drive and on into the garage.

Scurrying on inside, he nearly knocked Sally over at the door. She had been crying.

“What’s wrong, Sally?” he asked, shaken even more now…

She didn’t answer at first, instead sitting down at the table in the dimly lit kitchen looking at Dan sadly, fear mixed in as well. Her robe was open and revealing much but Dan didn’t notice…

“Someone just called Dan. The said to look on the porch and then hung up… the voice was really… scary…I think it was a woman’s voice…” She sobbed again

Dan headed for the door but Sally’s voice stopped him – cold.

“Here’s what was out there Dan. It was a piece of paper taped to our door… read it…”

Taking the paper into his hand he knew immediately it was the same kind as the note Megan had given him at the airport. He read it slowly, listening to the ticking of the mantel clock in the living room, the whooshing sound of the water softener running through its backwash, and Sally’s soft sobs…

“What now is yours used to be mine,
What have you now is only time…

A change will come, a life will end,
A lover go, a loser – win…


Orange County Raceway Park…. Tuesday Night… Track rental 9pm – Midnight… By invitation only.

Bring it… to lose it.”

Dan sat down in the chair to Sally’s left and touched her hand… it felt cold and sadness seeped from its surface.

“What’s this all mean, Danny? What IS this all about?”

“I don’t know – yet. But I’m going to find out.” Dan reached on over to touch Sally’s face…

“Here look at this…” He handed her the note he had gotten. “Megan gave me this right after you left…”

Sally jumped as if she had been jolted with a bolt of lightning.

“MEGAN???”

“Megan gave you THIS?”

She read the note and sat silent.

“What are you going to do Dan? She’s crazy! What are WE going to do???”

Dan felt empty and hollow at first - but then, a rush of confidence begin to wash over him as an idea began to form in his brain. He even smiled a little at Sally and he didn’t really know the details. But he DID have a plan – and ANY plan is better than NO plan at all…

“Oh, I think we’ll think of something… Here's an idea..."

To be continued
 
Damn freaking women always screwing sh!t up, now I am all kinds of upset from a story....oh well. Girls are stupid and play stupid games and are in general...pretty freakin stupid. It is 3:30am and got back from the track little less than an hour ago and was happy to see the 10th story on here, I thank you so much. Now I am going to dream about pulling Megan out of her car and telling her to get the hell out of here since she is a drama queen, who like most girls are only trying to cause problems. And of course I am going to jack her car and make her work since I want that mofo. Oh yea, I have had some to drink so that just feeds my rage against women and their games, some women are good...but not many of them. Goodnight all, thanks for the story, lookin forward to #11.

Brian
 
Could there please be some more lesbo action in the next please, I am kinda missing that. I would probably take the car and the passenger and leave Megan alone in the windy rain and lightning so she is up for grabs for you guys, damn her.

Brian
 
And the suspense builds and builds.....

Master of the kill stories, barr none

No one else from any of the other auto websites can compare to what turbobuick has. I'm surprised that an auto mag publisher hasn't approached you for some of your stories.
 
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