Demonic, page 14
“I’m not one hundred percent sure,” I admitted. “The mask is really bright, so I’d remember it, but it might have gotten lost in all the devil masks I saw. I may have caught just a glimpse of it. Sorry.”
“I guess that’s good enough.”
“Are you going to ram him off the road?” I asked, hoping the answer was no.
“Not unless he comes at me first.”
I glanced at the rearview mirror, then adjusted it.
“Is there a demon behind us?” Quinn asked.
“Ummmm...their windshield is really dirty, so it’s hard to say, but...uh, yeah. Actually, there are two demons in that one. And I recognize them—it’s the lady in the black leather jacket, and the one with the golden mask.” I supposed it wasn’t completely impossible that they acquired vehicles and followed us using the normal laws of time and space, but that’s not the assumption I was making.
“Let’s stay calm,” said Quinn. “For now we’ll just drive. There’s not much we can do.”
“I could try to shoot their tires out.”
“Do you have ammo left?”
“A couple more bullets, yeah.”
“No, let’s not start shooting tires out quite yet. If there are two cars following us, there could be a whole line of them.” Quinn took each of her hands off the steering wheel in turn to wipe the perspiration off on her pants. “Be calm. Just stay calm.”
“I’m staying calm.”
“I was talking to myself.”
“Maybe they’ll get pulled over,” I said. “The cops will be looking for people in devil masks.”
Quinn shrugged. “I don’t think the solution to our problem is that the authorities will pull over all of the demons who are pursuing us, but I guess it’s not out of the question.”
“I’m not saying that we should relax and let the authorities handle it. But, they are wearing devil masks, and drivers who have been paying attention to the news will call 911 if they see people in devil masks. They’d probably be better off with the blurry face thing.”
I checked the rearview mirror again. The car behind us was still there. Not tailgating. Not being aggressive. Just following at our speed.
A green truck pulled up next to us, on Quinn’s side. The windows were tinted. But when they rolled down, somebody in the passenger side waved the devil mask they were holding at us. Their face was blurred and melty.
“All right,” said Quinn. “I’m going to have to take evasive action.”
“What kind of evasive action?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to try not to kill us. But we can’t just let demons surround our car on all sides.”
“I agree. I totally agree.”
“Should I go for a race or a crash? Floor the gas pedal, or try to knock one off the road and hope it has a domino effect?”
“I’d rather you not try to knock one off the road,” I said.
“So floor the gas pedal?”
“Yeah. I mean, I’m not sure I like that idea, either. How good of a driver are you?”
“You’ve ridden with me a lot.”
“Yes, but to restaurants during our lunch break. How good do you think you’d be at a high-speed car chase?”
“Not super. But we don’t seem to have much of a choice. It’s either we try to outrun them, or we try to smash them all off the highway. I’m letting you choose.”
I took a deep breath and then slowly exhaled. “How about you do a quick test? Swerve to the right. Not a lot. Don’t actually hit the red car. Just get close enough to scare him.”
Quinn swerved to the right. The sports car didn’t budge. Quinn swerved back into our lane.
“Maybe try the other way,” I said.
Quinn swerved toward the green truck. It also didn’t budge.
“I don’t get this,” I said. “Why aren’t they scared? I get that they can’t be killed. But why would anybody be okay with being in a fiery car crash? Body parts could get ripped off or crushed or completely mangled. It’s not like Vic was impervious to pain. I don’t understand why they don’t seem to give much of a shit.”
“They’re doing it for a higher cause,” said Quinn.
“Yeah, but still. I guess maybe I’d have to join the Satanic cult to understand. To me, knowing how much pain and blood is involved, I wouldn’t want my car to crash.”
“You’d probably get rejected by the cult, then.”
A car sped past the green truck, swerved into our lane, and then slowed down. There were three people in it. The one in the back seat turned around, revealing that, yes, he or she was wearing a devil mask. This person didn’t wave. They just stared.
“We’re, uh, kind of boxed in,” I said.
“I noticed that.”
“It’s kind of like we have an escort.”
“I also noticed that. I’m not sure if they’re just trying to scare us, or if they’re going to force us to drive where they want us to go.”
“So...is it time to start smashing into their cars?”
Quinn shrugged. “We don’t have Vic anymore. So they aren’t going to protect one of their own. But we still have the advantage that they want us to endure a lot of agony. If one of them flips over on the highway, it’s no big deal, but if we do, we’ll be splattered all over the road. What I’m saying is that if we get aggressive, I don’t think they’ll be quite as aggressive back. I wouldn’t want to be the demon who gave us an instant, painless death.”
“You’re right.”
“I’m going to smash into one of the cars.”
“Okay. Are you sure you’re up for it? Do you want me to drive?”
“No, I’m not sure I’m up for it,” said Quinn. “But I’m pretty sure we can’t trade drivers right now.”
“We might be able to...but, no, you’re right. Have you ever smashed into a car before? I don’t mean on purpose, obviously. I mean accidentally, at sixty-five miles per hour.”
“Nope.”
“Me either. I’m not entirely sure what to expect. How big of a jolt is it going to be?”
“We’ll find out.”
I grabbed the handle on the ceiling, which was informally called the “Oh, shit!” handle, to be grabbed when you briefly lost faith in the driver’s skills. “Okay. I’m ready. Let’s do it.”
“I’m going to slam on the brakes first to see what happens.”
I nodded.
Quinn slammed on the brakes. The car behind rear-ended us. It was a more violent jolt than I would’ve expected—far more intense than a similar jolt would’ve been in a big-budget action movie. I flew forward, though were both wearing our seatbelts, so I didn’t break my nose against the dashboard. Quinn floored the gas pedal again. The car remained right behind us.
She spun the steering wheel. The red sports car had pulled ahead of us after she braked, so Quinn swerved into the empty spot it had left behind. Then the sports car stole our tactic, slamming on its brakes. We bashed into the back of it. I wasn’t a car aficionado, so I didn’t care about the damage to such a fine automobile.
Quinn swerved us back into our original lane. The car behind us had picked up speed, and we clipped its front corner. The car wobbled, and for a glorious moment I thought it was going to go completely out of control, but all it did was wobble.
“You might as well try to shoot out some tires,” Quinn told me.
I rolled down the window and took out my gun. If I was lucky, the mere sight of the gun would cause the drivers to back off, and I wouldn’t have to use up my last couple of bullets.
I pointed the gun at the sports car. It really sucked that they were all wearing masks, because I couldn’t tell if the driver was shocked or if he had a great big smirk on his face. Either way, the sports car didn’t swerve out of the way.
I took careful aim. Well, as careful aim as I could while leaning out the window of a fast-moving car.
Squeezed the trigger.
I was aiming for the front left tire. I didn’t come anywhere close. But I did fire a shot right through the windshield, which struck the driver right in the middle of his mask, causing him to lose control of the vehicle and bash into the cement wall on his right side.
There were lots and lots of sparks.
But instead of flipping over and squishing the driver, the car just kind of lost speed until we went around a corner, leaving it behind. I assumed the driver wasn’t dead, though I hoped he wouldn’t be rejoining our car chase.
Quinn swerved to the left, smashing us into the green truck. Both vehicles kept moving. She smashed into it again, this time shattering her window. The green truck swerved one more lane to the left.
“I think you scared them away!” I said.
Quinn shook her head. “They just don’t want us to crash.”
“Okay, well, that’s just as good. Maybe if you drive like a complete raging psychopath, they’ll steer clear!”
Quinn opened her mouth, and I think she wanted to harshly criticize that suggestion, but then—and I’m basing this entirely on her shifting facial expression—she seemed to realize that there was wisdom to my words.
She swerved into the next lane. The green truck didn’t have another lane to its left, but it slowed down quite a bit.
One big problem was that we were in Toledo, Ohio, and not a small town on a lightly traveled highway. So there were plenty of other cars around, and we needed to get the demons off our ass without killing innocent people. Fortunately, cars whacking into each other did have the effect of making cautious drivers move away from the action, so any cars that weren’t practicing the art of defensive driving were most likely being steered by demons.
I still had one shot left. I wasn’t sure if I should save it or try to get another one of these cars away from us. I turned around in my seat and aimed behind me. The car with three demons was now behind us, and it was too close for me to get a clear shot, but as soon as Quinn swerved again, I’d be able to shoot the driver.
Quinn swerved again.
I took careful aim.
I’d assumed that she was paying attention to what I was doing and would give me the necessary time to fire. Instead, she did another sharp swerve just as I squeezed the trigger, so my shot went wild.
The bullet struck the front hood of a silver car behind us. Its tires screeched as it braked to a sudden stop.
I pulled my arm back inside the car and tried not to throw up. I didn’t know who was driving the silver car. Maybe it was a demon. Maybe it wasn’t. Either way, if my wild shot had gone a little higher, or their car had gone out of control as a result of me shooting it, I could’ve killed an innocent person. Or a whole car full of innocent people. How did I know there hadn’t been a baby in that car?
“You all right?” asked Quinn.
I nodded. My crisis of conscience could wait. I’d just add this one to the list.
“Do you have any spare ammo in your bag?”
“Nah,” I said. “I guess I could fling the gun at one of them.”
“I’d save it.”
“Yeah.”
Quinn swerved into the right lane, then back into the center lane, then into the left. My theory, so far, seemed to be correct—driving like a madwoman was keeping the other demons away. They wanted to intimidate us but not start a four-car pileup.
Of course, the non-demons on the highway had probably called 911. It was unlikely that the entire Toledo police force was rushing to the site of the massacre at Quinn’s house, so it was very possible that we’d have inconvenient law enforcement issues soon.
“I need to figure out how to get behind them,” said Quinn. “If I do that, then I can take a sudden exit, and maybe lose them.”
“See what happens if you slow down.”
Quinn applied the brake. The green truck slowed down to keep pace.
“Slow way down,” I said. “Slow down enough that we know anybody going the same speed as you is a demon. The regular drivers will pass us.”
“That’s a good idea,” Quinn told me. She sounded totally sincere. Maybe this was a breakthrough for us.
She slowed down even further. A few cars passed us. Other cars did not. After about a minute of going thirty miles per hour, I noticed that we seemed to be leading a caravan of about eight vehicles. I couldn’t say for sure that they were all demons, but it was a reasonable guess.
I didn’t know if the demons were able to communicate with each other. However, two vehicles on each side simultaneously pulled up alongside us, boxing us in again.
“Hold on,” Quinn said.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to floor the gas pedal, get everybody up to about eighty or ninety miles per hour, then I’m going to slam on the brake and hope that all of them pass us. There’s an exit coming up in half a mile, so I’ll brake right before that.”
I grabbed the “Oh, shit!” bar again.
Quinn floored the gas pedal.
All the cars around us burst into flames.
Chapter Eighteen
“What the fucking shit from hell?” I cried out, as we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by flaming vehicles.
I should clarify what I meant, in case you interpreted this as all of the demon cars exploding. That would’ve been nice. The demon cars could’ve all exploded into balls of fire, leaving Quinn and I to casually take the next exit and proceed to our destination.
Alas, no. I meant that the cars burst into flames but continued to drive like they weren’t on fire. I’d stopped being a skeptic much earlier that morning, when Vic didn’t die from having his throat hacked apart, but if I had been a skeptic, the fact that these cars all simultaneously caught on fire would’ve been a very rude awakening.
Quinn screamed.
I spent about five seconds joining her, because it was exactly the kind of situation where we should just scream for a bit.
Then I tried to calm down—which did not happen instantly—and figure this shit out. I peered at the flaming car next to us. Okay, it wasn’t that the entire car was engulfed by flames; it was just the outside. Granted, it was the entire outside, all the way down to the tires, but I could see—just barely—that the demon inside wasn’t on fire.
I wasn’t sure what to do with this information. But I guess knowing that the people inside the vehicles were not cheerfully on fire made it seem a bit less like we were literally driving through Hell.
And yet, I had this very clear mental image, where the pavement in front of us suddenly swooped downward like the first drop of a roller coaster. We’d fall hundreds, thousands, millions of feet, eventually plunging into a river of lava that wasn’t burning our flesh away but certainly felt like it was. Then demons—not these devil-mask wearing lunatics, but actual red, scaly-skinned, fanged, winged, prehensile tail-waving demons—would tear us apart, scattering our remains into the air, only to repeat the process again and again and again...
Yes, I was prone to thinking inappropriate thoughts. But the sheer vividness of this image made me think it wasn’t just me imagining Hell at a time when eight vehicles had suddenly burst into hellfire.
“Did you...” I started to ask Quinn. Then I decided against it, because I didn’t want her to think that I’d gone insane. Then I remembered everything that had happened today and realized that a vision of Hell was rather minor, all things considered. “Did you see Hell?” I asked.
“No, I saw a bunch of flaming cars.”
“But not a vision of us actually plummeting into Hell?”
“No.”
“Okay, good.”
The cars around us were all still very much on fire. This was terrifying, but also oddly convenient, because it was now extremely clear which ones were being driven by demons and which ones were civilians. All of the cars around us were demon-driven, and if any civilian automobiles had been nearby, they were sure as hell keeping their distance now.
I really hoped there were satellite photos being taken of us right now, or maybe a news helicopter was broadcasting live footage. At the moment, my primary concern was to avoid dying a horrible death; however, we did still have to explain all of this if we survived, and the more evidence of the supernatural, the better.
The flames were touching both sides of our car. I’d read that cars didn’t really explode the way they did in movies, but that was really more about exploding after going over a cliff, and not so much about exploding after extended contact with fire. But we were still boxed in. Were they trying to cook us?
Quinn slammed on the brakes.
The car behind us smashed into our car, shattering the rear windshield. It immediately got a lot hotter inside.
Quinn floored the gas pedal, then slammed on the brakes once more. The car struck us again. We began to wobble out of control. She jerked the steering wheel, and we smashed into the flaming car directly to our right, shattering both of the passenger-side windows. I brushed safety glass off my shirt and leaned toward Quinn, so as not to catch my clothing on fire.
The impression I got, and I saw no need to ask about her motives, was that Quinn had decided that the best tactic was to simply go berserk and turn this into a demolition derby. She was working under the continued theory that the demons weren’t actually trying to murder us yet. I’d been on board with that theory, but the Hell vision made me wonder if it was also perfectly fine for us to die, and suffer our misery in the afterlife.
Quinn bashed the car to the right again. It careened into the cement wall, spun around, and was suddenly driving in the wrong direction. I watched in the side mirror as it kept going. A civilian car swerved out of the way, seemingly missing by inches (though I was watching this in a mirror—it probably wasn’t that close), and then I lost track of where the car went. Hopefully it would smash into the wall again and stop moving.
Quinn swerved to the left. The car next to us also swerved to the left, trying to avoid us, and in the process plowed into another flaming car, knocking it into the median. The car lifted up onto its side and then was airborne, leaving a trail of flames in its wake. It smashed onto the pavement, sending two flaming tires into the air, and then struck the median again. If it had been a normal car with normal passengers, I would’ve said quite definitively that everybody inside was dead.
