The Best of Me(91)

Only slowly did the world come into focus again.

He could taste blood as he struggled to untangle his legs from the chair and turn over. He felt a boot step down hard on the side of his face, the heel cutting sharply into his jaw as his head was pressed to the floor.

Above him, Crazy Ted Cole stood pointing a gun right at him, looking faintly amused.

“Just where do you think you’re going?”



Dawson pulled the car to the side of the road. He half-expected the figure to vanish in the shadows as he stepped out of the car, but the dark-haired man stood in place, surrounded by knee-high grass. He was perhaps fifty yards away, close enough for Dawson to notice the windbreaker rippling in the evening breeze. At a sprint, even fully clothed and running through high grass, Dawson could reach the man in less than ten seconds.

Dawson knew he wasn’t imagining the stranger. He could feel him, could sense him as plainly as the beating of his heart. Without taking his eyes from the man, Dawson stretched his arm into the car and turned off the engine, killing the headlights. Even in the darkness, Dawson could see the splash of the man’s white shirt, framed by the open windbreaker. His face, however, was too vague to make out, as always.

Dawson stepped from the road, onto the narrow gravel median beside it.

The stranger didn’t move.

Dawson ventured farther into the meadow grass, and still the figure remained, unmoving.

Dawson kept his eyes trained on him as he slowly began to close the distance. Five steps. Ten. Fifteen. Had it been daylight, he knew he would have seen the man plainly. He would have been able to make out the distinct features of his face; but in the darkness, those details remained obscured.

Closer now. Dawson moved deliberately, feeling a wave of disbelief wash over him. He was as close as he’d ever been to the ghostlike figure, near enough to reach him in a single burst.

He continued to watch, debating when to break into his run. But the stranger seemed to read Dawson’s mind. He took a step backward.

Dawson paused. The figure paused as well.

Dawson took another step; he watched as another step backward was taken. He took two quick steps, his movement mirrored precisely by the dark-haired man.

Throwing caution to the wind, Dawson broke into a run. The dark-haired man turned then and began to run as well. Dawson sped up, but the distance between them stayed eerily constant, the windbreaker flapping as if trying to taunt him.

Dawson accelerated and the stranger veered, changing direction. No longer running away from the road, he began to run parallel to it, and Dawson followed suit. They were heading toward Oriental, toward the blocky squat building at the head of the curve.

The curve…

Dawson wasn’t gaining, but the dark-haired man wasn’t pulling farther ahead, either. He’d stopped changing directions, and for the first time Dawson had the sense that the man had some distinct purpose in mind as he led him forward. There was something disconcerting about that, but lost in the chase, Dawson had no time to consider it.



Ted’s boot pressed down hard on the side of Alan’s face. Alan felt his ears being crushed from both directions and could feel the heel of the boot cutting painfully into his jaw. The gun pointed at his head appeared huge, crowding everything else from his vision, and his bowels suddenly went watery. I’m going to die, he suddenly thought.

“I know you seen this,” Ted said wiggling the gun but still keeping it aimed. “If I let you up, you ain’t gonna try to run, are you?”

Alan tried to swallow, but his throat wasn’t working. “No,” he croaked out.

Ted shifted even more weight onto the boot. The pain was intense and Alan screamed. Both his ears were on fire and felt like they’d been flattened into paper-thin disks. Squinting up at Ted as he babbled for mercy, he noted that Ted’s other arm was in some sort of cast and that his face was black and purple. Dimly, Alan found himself wondering what had happened to him.

Ted stepped back. “Get up,” he said.

Alan struggled to untangle his leg from the chair and slowly got up, almost buckling as a sharp bolt shot through his knee. The open doorway was only a few feet away.

“Don’t even think it,” Ted snarled. He motioned to the bar. “Git.”

Alan limped back toward the bar. Abee was still at the office door, cursing and hurling himself at it. Finally, Abee turned toward them.

Abee cocked his head to one side, staring, looking deranged. Alan’s bowels went watery again.

“I’ve got your boyfriend out here!” he shouted.

“He’s not my boyfriend!” Candy screamed back, but the sound was muffled. “I’m calling the police!”

By then, Abee was already walking toward him, around the bar. Ted kept the gun trained on Alan.