1 PROLOGUE
It is difficult to believe in the possibility or rationality or logic, of knowing that a thing has happened when it is yet to happen.
...However, on the day Seem dies, I know that he is dead long before he dies.
I swerve around the corner of the narrow street with the faulty brakes under my feet, yelling with horror and frustration and desperation. Horror at the ferociousness and power of my pursuers; frustration at the rickety-rattling-clanging-smoking slowness of my stepfather's truck which I drive now, desperarion to elude my pursuers under any circumstance. I know I'd never get away this way. In fact, I know I'd do much better on my own than in this truck, but I can not do anything about it because of the passenger in the narrow, battered seat beside me. Chained by the seatbelt she is screaming too, and thrashing with every metallic rattle, and for a second the thought flashes across my mind that she might open the door and leap out for fright. That would be disastrous and perhaps she senses it too, because she does not open the door or leap.
As we meet another turning, the road ahead falls steeply without warning and the akready bottled-up sense of abrupt danger makes my heart jerk painfully with a thud, in my ribcage.
"Hold on tight!" I yell a warning.
"My God!! My Gooood!"
The truck practically flies off the ground and across the air for a quarter of a whole minute, within which my hands leave the stirring and we both lean back in our seats with our eyes and mouths wide ajar and our breaths drawn, too terrifiedbto even scream... Oh, so much for a James Bonde endeavour. The breath is knocked back into us when we smash to the pot-hole-riddled tarmac again with a loud rattle and a tackle and slide of engines and tyres
"They're getting close!" she declares frightfully.
"I know!" I reply through my teeth, gripping the wheel hard and thinking how foolish it'd be to die this way when I could stand a chance.
I could stand a chance because of what I am.... I only don't want anybody- including my passenger -to know what I am.
"God!" I mutter as I loose control of the stirring for a split second. Things're getting out of control. Behind us the first of them closes in, striking the tray of the truck with a violent thud that throws our heads back. I glance into the side view just in time to catch a glimpse of it flapping it's monstrous wings in a rapid spin, it's eyes beady and murderous and grim.
...I'm not asking you hurt anybody, Lenu. But sometimes you have to do things which you ordinarily wouldn't; to protect yourself and others.
I widen my eyes in subconscious anticipation of the next attack; the next strike.
... anything can happen in a single moment.
The neighbourhood has come into view now, sparesly-spaced houses darting past us in a blur and with a prolonged windy growl. I feel a tiny twig of hope sprouting somewhere in the terrified corner of my mind as I notice this. I try to remember the last time I was here... Yes, it was sme tine nor too long ago, somewhere close by, just a little beyond Henry's. We could be really that close. I recall the sound of an old pop song buzzing and beating on the motorbike and Henry's voice singing along that day, blowing away in the wind while the breeze forced it's way underneath my spectacles and blinded me, making water run out of my eyes and to the sides of my face, close to the ears. I remember having noticed th headlamp of the motorcycle flashing in the light of the afternoon sun. Yes, that was around this same place. And now we are back. And things are very much different from what they used to be.
... anything can happen in a single moment.
"We are close," I say now, gritting my teeth and focusing on the treacherous road while trying very hard to remain calm and composed. I haven't had the time yet to wonder if she really knows, or how she could know. I only think about the knife with me, pressed close to my chest under the shirt's fabric. I just might have to use it now. I just might have to expose myself and what I am to her. And..when you've told one person what you are, you've as well told the whole world.
I am so deeply engrossed now that I don't see it coming... Or maybe that's because it is so fast.
"Look!!" the girl in the passenger seat screams. But it is too late... anything can happen in a single moment.
The monster lets me draw in my breath sharply at the sudden glimpse of it's vast dark shadow before it crashes into the windscreen of the truck and shards of glass burst into our faces with a roar and a spray.
Then all is calm. I don't see anything anymore.
