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spookyspaghettisundae · 1 year

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And All the King’s Menace

SLAM.

Keys locked the door shut behind her. A low buzz of electricity hummed from the tube of fluorescent light overhead. Another short buzzing sound sliced through the air—an alert. Doors behind doors opened and footfalls heralded the arrival of men.

Upon a silver chair, bolted to the floor, she sat alone. Her seat was mirrored by another, empty chair, on the other side of a tall pane of glass, which evenly divided the room into two identical halves. The window reached from wall to wall and from floor to ceiling. It allowed her to glimpse her own sad reflection in the glass—the disheveled crop of short red hair, and the crumpled suit on her body.

Another buzzing noise. Keys click-clacked and the door on the opposite side of the glass opened. A guard armed with a shotgun stepped inside, avoiding eye contact with her as he maintained his stony-faced expression, taking up a disciplined position to flank the entrance.

A man in a bright red prison jumpsuit followed him inside. Freddy Fletcher. Chains linked his ankles and wrists together in a small metal web, shortening the serial killer’s every step towards the bolted chair on the other side of the glass.

His eyes went wide upon recognizing his visitor. FBI Agent Parker.

The woman who had put him here.

His hands trembled as they glided along the shiny frame of his chair’s back, guiding him until he blindly took his seat, transfixed on the woman sitting opposite of him in the divided room.

One of the guards nodded at Parker, then pointed to the wall behind her.

“Press that button when you’re done.”

“Understood.”

She nodded, but kept her eyes glued to Freddy’s gaze.

Burning into one another. She read fascination there. Married to a distant sense of dread. With his mouth agape, he broke free from initial wonder, and scanned her face up and down. He scanned her entire frame, and wiped a hand over his chin. Disbelieving.

Starstruck.

His expression confused her.

He wants what you have.

The guards exited the room and the door on Freddy’s side slammed shut. Keys click-clacked, locking him inside with her.

He cannot have what you have.

She ignored the Whispers.

Muffled through the glass pane, his voice travelled through tiny breathing holes in the window.

“Agent… Parker. I did not expect to ever see you again.”

You have me.

She sighed and crossed her legs. Folded her hands on her lap, bit her lip and collected herself. Another deep breath, and the Whispers fell silent again.

“I didn’t expect to see you again, either. Especially not now, with—”

“Yeah,” he interrupted. “I’m scheduled for the chair. But I suspect you knew that already.”

“Only learned of it just now. I hadn’t been following your fate at all since the arrest and the trial.”

“Tactful as ever, I see,” he scoffed, with the faintest semblance of a tired smirk.

She narrowed her eyes as her chin crinkled in disgust.

“It’s not my job to flatter you with tact. You killed people without remorse—you ritually peeled off their skin—and you would have taken far more if I hadn’t managed to stop you. Or your entire cult.”

He shook his head. His mien turned sad, with a distant glimmer of regret swimming to the surface, and his gaze fell to the floor.

The moment he replied, he betrayed his true sentiments. They sent a chill down her spine before he even spoke up again.

“I was at the peak of human perfection, Agent Parker.” Once he locked eyes with her again, she averted her gaze. Unsettled by that electric sense of confidence. “Look at me. Look at what you locked away from the world. I am fit, handsome, well-educated, wealthy—well, I was wealthy—and I was going to change the world. You robbed the world of me. You robbed the world of what I could have accomplished for it.”

She shook her head.

Said nothing.

Do not indulge him.

He continued, “You know it’s true. You know what you took away from the world when you got me locked up. What you took away from me.”

The chains jingled as he leaned forward in his chair, creeping closer towards the glass pane between them, without ever getting up from his seat.

Her skin crawled in his presence, just like the first time she met, masquerading as a sheriff department deputy to catch him red-handed.

He hissed, “That book… Agent. Are you… are you at least making good use of it? Have you found a way to continue my legacy?”

Freddy Fletched studied her with burning intent. His gaze simmered with the madness of murder—not a yearning to end her life, but reflections of all the lives he had snuffed out with his hands and his hunting knife.

A knife he had almost plunged into her neck.

She swallowed the lump of nothingness in her throat. Taking another deep breath, she focused on her training. Her education. And her instincts.

Listen…

Another deep breath to snuff out the Whispers in her head.

Breathe. One, two, release. Breathe.

Her own voice in her head—no longer the alien entity, speaking to her from the fringes of her consciousness.

Breathe. One, two, release. Breathe.

She nodded. First with a painful slowness, then with more fervor.

“Yes,” she finally said with resolve, clenching her jaw to brace for the rest. “I am, in fact, going to finish what you started. I now understand a bit more about… your work.”

The chains jingled again as Freddy leaned back in his chair, mouth agape again.

Confused over this reply.

The gears were grinding behind his forehead, parsing her reply for any lies.

She seized the initiative again and added, “I need you now. I need to learn more about the jade book. The Thaum of Thritain.”

His eyes went wider with every syllable of that accursed name, dancing off her lips. As if he had never heard anybody else speak it aloud.

“How,” she asked. “How did you learn how to use it? How to wield magick?”

The shock and curiosity wiped itself from his visage and a clipped chuckle escaped him. He stared a hole through her forehead, seeking eye contact which she refused to reciprocate.

Listen to us. Do not listen to him.

Freddy licked his lips. Bit them before they widened into a seductive smile.

“Tell you what, Agent Parker. You find a way to get me off death row, and I will tell you all you need to know. I will teach you. I know you have it in you. I sense a… darkness. A Shadow.”

Leave. Leave him and never return. Leave him to die.

She shuddered and stifled a sharp sigh.

“Please,” he added in another sharp hiss. “You destroyed my life. The least you can do is indulge me. At least make an effort. I won’t have any chance of sharing all I know if I’m dead soon. But in a nice cell? Locked up for life? I’ll have time. I’ll give you… lessons… during visiting hours. Answer every question. Meet your every need.”

Her skin crawled again. Under other circumstances, there might have been some strange charm to his words and presence.

Now, Freddy Fletcher’s speech only felt like the drivel coming out of all the other psychopathic serial killers she had interviewed in the past.

Pleading for his life, pitiful in his delusions of grandeur, and all tied up in a neat little bow, spun from the very fabric of devious manipulation.

Listen… to me. Leave. He is walking disease. A filth of the soul that can infect your mind if you sample it.

Do not let him in.

She clicked her tongue and finally responded to Freddy. “I don’t think so. I don’t think you really knew what you were doing, but I had to ask. I had to do my due diligence and ask. Unless you convince me otherwise, I’m going to assume you have no grasp of the occult. You may have known your fancy three-piece suits, how to make a killing on the stock market, and how to get away with murder, but you were toying with things you didn’t understand.”

This struck a nerve.

Left him speechless.

She continued to twist the verbal knife. “See, I did my homework, Mister Fletcher. I always do my homework. In digging around in your personal life, I found no connection whatsoever to the occult. So I have no reason to believe you have any inkling of what you were doing. Even your associate, Philip Byrne—he too, appeared to be clueless. You… I feel like you’re just… s-stringing me along, hoping to convince me to spare you a gruesome end on the electric chair. But I’m not willing to buy you that time unless I get something concrete. Something real. I’m trying, Mister Fletcher. I’m really trying; I truly am. But I can’t work with fantasies and vague theories.”

Slack jawed, he still offered no response to her words. She had twisted each sentence to cut and drill deeper than the last.

Then softened her tone entirely.

“Please. Work with me. I can walk right back out of here emptyhanded, but I don’t want that. If you’re willing to give me what I need, then I will do all I can to keep you off the chair.”

Chains jingled anew. He leaned forward, but every first word failed him before it could emerge. He rolled his jaw, and any replies jumbled around in his head, percolating until he found it in him to finally spill the truth. His expression switched from grimace to smile and back until it all evened out.

His nostrils flared and he finally nodded.

Finally replied in earnest.

“Okay. I admit it. You’re right, I didn’t know—no, I don’t know the first thing about the occult. I don’t know anything about ancient Mayan blood sacrifices to evoke divine magic, or Voodoo, or Wicca, or any such bunk. As far as I know, it’s all nonsense.”

Ignore him. His words are not just disease, they are venom. They are ruin.

She leaned forward, creeping closer to the glass divider between them. Intent on hearing him out.

Freddy continued, “But that thing… that book. The Thaum, it was real. It held something real. You know it—you’ve seen it with your own two eyes, haven’t you?”

Her spine tingled. Hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

He asked, “Did you… touch it? Did you hold it in your hands? Did you feel it?”

Feeling dizzy, she breathed, “Yes.”

Do not indulge him.

“Yes, yes, I know you did. I knew it before you said it. I can feel it on you. I can see,” the words died in his throat. He shook his head. His words spilled out more hectically. “Listen, please, listen. The truth is, from the moment I looked at that book, and I studied its pages, and the glyphs, and the alien drawings, I understood things.”

He raised his cuffed hands, then pointed at his own temple.

“It feels like a sharp pain at first. Like a knife in your skull, and the sight of bubbling tar pits, and the sickening sweet smell of rotting fruit.”

The images flashed before her eyes. Images she had never seen before. The words flowed together in a dark pool, where her consciousness coalesced, and a shadowy silhouette with her own shape began to emerge from the viscous depths.

“I… I looked at those designs, those awful designs, and I knew. We all knew, even if we all disagreed on what exactly we saw in them. Different, conflicting theories. It didn’t really matter. We all sensed the same thing; that it was leading us to the same place, and the truth was probably somewhere in the middle of all our theories. No need to study any occult bullshit from bygone eras, no need to gather any occult paraphernalia. I just… knew. I knew I needed their skin. I knew I needed to wear a suit made of their skin, which would shield me from the… from the SUBSTANCE. From the stuff on the other side of the door. I knew it would help me open the door, and walk through it to the other side.”

Parker had sensed no such thing from the Thaum of Thritain.

In its place, in her memory, only a dark void swirled like an ominous vortex. Like an event horizon of her own thoughts.

Hungry. Devouring all imagination.

When she next opened her eyes, she glimpsed Freddy’s eyes to have reddened. With desperation, with yearning. His palm turned white where he pressed it flat against the window between them. Confused, she met it, placing her hand against the glass.

Cold to the touch.

“Please, Agent Parker, I’m begging you,” Freddy said with trembling voice. “Don’t let me die here in this wretched pit. Please, I know you can hear it. Please—whatever you are, behind her—I know you’re there. I know you’re listening, watching. I heard you then. I have dreamt of you ever since—”

Shudders shook her spine again and she jolted back away from the glass.

Ignore him.

Freddy relentlessly begged, “I heard you! Whispers! Shadow! Please, speak to me again! I’ve dreamt of you all this time, I’ve dreamt of hearing you again in my mind! You… you are from the other side. The other side of the door—”

Dread gripped Parker’s heart like a vice. Froze her solid.

Whispers? The Whispers snarled. The Whispers became Growls.

Silence him.

“Someone opened the door. Someone slammed the door shut. I dreamt it. But it was open long enough for you to slip inside. Or was it you, Agent Parker? Please, I’m begging you—either of you—speak to me. Tell me the truth. I’ll do anything you want!”

She jolted back again, shocked up into standing by the metal chair—shocked again as Freddy Fletcher slapped his palm against the window, overlapping with the fingerprints she had left on its polished surface.

Parker fought back the tears before any could well up in the corners of her eyes.

Corners in which the shadows teemed with strange life.

Insignificance made flesh. He will die in obscurity.

Leave this insect behind.

The Growls no longer sounded like they came from inside her mind. No longer even resembling her own voice. They felt like they came from an invisible mouth right behind her. Like a Shadow on the wall, growing, looming, towering over her.

Freddy no longer stared at her. He stared at something above her.

Behind her.

Leave.

She refused to follow the order of the Whispers—the Growling—but every fiber in her being was screaming at her to leave.

Yes, Qip. Leave.

We have work to do, you and I.

Freddy Fletcher had risen to full height. Even with the shackles and chains, rendered vulnerable in his bright red jumpsuit, he stood taller than her on the other side of the glass. Wet sparkles glittered with unmasked madness in his eyes.

He slapped the window again as he begged, “Please.”

She backed another step away from the window.

Leave.

Tremors wracked her voice as she gathered herself. She spoke with flaring nostrils, mustering every ounce of courage to ignore the Growls and talk down Freddy Fletcher.

“I-I don’t know what you envision to happen, Mister Fletcher,” she said, “But everything I do is something I do to protect humanity. I am going to keep that door sealed shut, and I’m keeping that book far away from you. This… this was a mistake.”

“No! Please!”

Parker blindly pawed at the button by the door until her fingertips connected to cold plastic, and a loud buzzing resounded from behind the door.

The Growls dropped back down to Whispers.

Yes, Qip. Now you’re speaking my language. I want the same as you. We’re going to preserve your kind for the future.

“No-no-no-no,” Freddy pleaded. Then his desperate face contorted into something hideous and furious. Something feral and violent. He banged his fist against the dividing glass and it shook with every repeated blow. “Do not leave me here! Do not let me die! I can help you! Both of you! You motherfuckers!”

Parker turned her back on Freddy Fletcher.

The sooner she could put the memory of him behind her again, the better.

Agreed. This was a mistake. And you know what, Qip? It may have been for the better, after all. Something very interesting is about to happen.

She bristled at the Whispers’ choice of words. On it using her old nickname from Quantico. But now she focused on them, using them like a blanket to drape over Freddy Fletcher’s growing shouts and threats, to muffle and suffocate them.

Buzzing, click-clack; doors unlocked.

Her mind not only muffled Fletcher’s words, it also muffled the sounds of guards bludgeoning him to stop his assault on the dividing window. And another guard escorted Parker outside the secure visiting cell.

Maybe this was for the best. Sometimes, we just stumble into the right place, at the right time.

You listen, and we’ll guide you into the light, Qip.

The haze lifted. The minutes had melted away. Her fingers, squeezing a cigarette between them, quaked. She sucked in greedy drags of cancer and the little burning stick in her grip burnt down quickly.

The cold of the brick wall behind her seeped through the meager fabric of her black suit jacket.

Somehow, she had even blotted out the Whispers for the past few minutes. Time had melted into meaninglessness. Fragments of the words she exchanged with the prison personnel only reached her with delay, through a haze like a distant dream, dissipating into oblivion.

Freddy’s despair and panic still sliced through the fog. Visions of his face, twisted with dread as he pleaded. The crack of a baton as a guard struck his leg, and he crumpled onto the floor like a bag of rocks, and they wrestled him outside.

The Whispers cut through the fog the same way. With clarity. With precision.

And a hint of something sinister.

He’s here, Qip. Closer than we could have ever dreamt of. Guess that’s synchronicity for ya, huh?

She screwed her eyes shut and stamped the cigarette out. The fresh air outside the supermax prison cut across her exposed skin where a cool breeze swept by.

Listen.

“You need to come back tomorrow, sir. Inmate number 1048467 is, uh, experiencing an episode. Psychotic break. Once he’s medicated and stable, I’m sure the acting physician will admit him to another visit,” said the guard behind the reception desk.

Look.

A man in a black duster stood by the reception desk. Neatly combed dark hair, slicked back on his head. Imposing stature. She hadn’t even notice him enter the prison lobby.

He nodded in response and massaged his left palm with a thumb. When he spoke up, the words cascaded out of his lips with an eerie and hypnotic calm.

“That’s a shame, but I’ll take what I can get. That story isn’t running away from me.”

Unmistakable. Undoubtable.

It was his voice.

The Whispers growled again.

Listen.

And Parker listened.

“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Nine o’ clock sharp.”

She recognized his voice.

A man she had never seen in person, and she recognized his voice. Smooth and resolute.

Deceptively calm, hiding something powerful behind his folksy words.

A voice from the Gravedigger’s lips, that angry ghost inhabiting a walking corpse, now dead. That demonic presence channeling his summoner while Parker taped his very voice on her recorder.

She almost wanted to root around in her pocket, to produce the recorder and play it back and confirm the match, but she knew, in her heart of hearts, that she would only hear the exact same voice.

The necromancer.

Michael tapped the counter twice. The crooked smile he flashed the uniformed receptionist bore an attractive glow—and the same seductive energy as the serial killer Parker had just spoken to.

Michael.

Michael, hissed the Growls.

Michael, who had sent the Gravedigger after them.

The Way King’s servant. The Oracle of New York.

Don’t just stand there, Qip. You don’t get opportunities like this every day.

Michael had swiveled and sauntered over to the entrance outside of which she stood—rooted to the ground, paralyzed with indecision and surprise.

Michael’s eyes widened, much like Fletcher’s before. Then his lips curled slowly into a smile. He tilted his head and showed perfect white teeth as his smile widened.

Shaking his head, he said, “My, my, my—now this is a surprise even I hadn’t foreseen. Special Agent Quinn Isabelle Parker, in the flesh.” He performed a fluid mock bow that belonged on a theater stage, never breaking eye contact or ceasing to smile. Then he muttered, “Oh, this is rich. This is so, so rich.”

“Michael?” she asked, croaking his name out like a toad.

“Yes ma’am, and I am honored. This is providence. A blessing. I am thrilled to finally make your acquaintance. I’ve been looking for you for so long, but the stars have aligned in unexpected ways, it would seem.”

Kill him.

The Growls scratched with shadowy claws at primal instincts, loosening a knot in her stomach. They teased something out from the darker bowels of her being.

Killer instincts.

Kill him already. You don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Qip.

And her instinct was—

To sling out her gun and aim it in his face. Demand his surrender with excessive force.

Maybe even pull the trigger, knowing all he had done. All the people he may have killed. A killer like Freddy Fletcher—maybe even worse. Maybe far, far worse—

And yet, she dithered. Those icy talons wrapped around her heart, turning into barbed wire where they twisted and churned, paralyzing her with bleeding indecision.

“Where’d you leave your friends?”

KILL. HIM. NOW.

The Growls had turned into the Roars. Snarling, violent, and bloodthirsty.

Michael’s smile faded. His eyes glistened, damp with anticipation. He looked like he was about to burst into tears of joy.

“It’s… you’re hearing it, aren’t you? Those Whispers.”

Parker wanted to scream.

DON’T WASTE YOUR BREATH ON THAT. JUST RAM THE GUN INTO HIS TEETH, AND REVEL IN THE SOUND OF THEM CRACKING, AND THE THUNDERCLAP TO MATCH THE THUNDER IN YOUR HEART AS YOU SQUEEZE THE TRIGGER AND FINALLY—

“No,” she lied.

No longer able to hold back the tears, her vision blurred. She wiped at her eyes with her sleeve.

Michael stepped up to her. His breath shuddered, warm where it caressed the skin of her forehead. He extended a hand, bringing it near her face with caution—waiting for her to stop him—

BLOW HIS BRAINS OUT, QIP. YOU’RE GONNA REGRET IT IF YOU DON’T. WE… ARE GONNA REGRET IT.

And she did not stop Michael. Her hand burned to grab her service pistol.

Shivers ran down her spine again as he cupped her cheek with an eerily soft touch. Callused skin grazed her face, like a long lost lover’s timid touch of reunion.

Michael’s lips parted. No longer smiling.

Starstruck.

Close to her, he whispered, “I don’t believe you. I saw it through my vision. I… no, I heard it. I heard those Whispers. What are they? Did they… are they from the other world?”

Parker clenched her jaw, frowning, fighting every instinct, trying to suffocate the Roars in her mind like she had squelched Freddy Fletcher’s desperate pleading, then blinked more tears away.

Then she slung out her gun. Michael flinched from the pain of her jamming its muzzle into his crotch.

After wincing, his only reaction was an arched brow and a nervous smirk, but his palm still gingerly caressed her cheek. Either too careful to make any sudden movements, or eager to stay where they were until she told him to do otherwise.

Her skin still crawled.

And her training kicked back in. Muting everything and everybody. A welcome darkness. A more natural one than the alien voices in her mind.

Breathe. One, two, release. Breathe.

She hissed at him through gritted teeth. “Only reason I’m not sticking this in your face is because I don’t want to make a scene, because I don’t want to have to cut my way through a whole ocean of red tape before I get any straight answers out of you. You are going to come with me, and you have a lot to answer for.”

“Yes,” he whispered back. The smirk faded. “I’ll follow your lead. I just… please, whatever you do, don’t… don’t listen to those Whispers.”

The Roars had fallen silent.

A new and unexpected fear now crept up through Parker’s insides.

Her trigger finger itched. Twitched around the trigger. Like something was trying to override her own will. Like she was fighting herself. Like something was fighting her from the inside out.

She felt like throwing up on the spot.

Instead, she swallowed down bitter bile and jutted her chin out in defiance. She tapped Michael’s crotch twice with her gun.

“I assure you, I’m not listening to… it. Whatever it is. If I was listening to it, I would have just blown your brains out, right here and right now, and to hell with any consequences.”

Michael bit his lip and the smirk returned.

He said nothing. He removed his hand from her cheek, raised with splayed fingers to join the other in mirrored gesture, performing the universal sign of his surrender.

You’re on your own, whispered the Growls. I’ll be back, Qip. But for now, you are on your own.

“I’m all yours,” Michael cooed in stark contrast.

Parker no longer knew what she found more menacing.

The Whispers, the Growls, and the Roars, all snarling at her to indulge in murder, then refusing to stick around and help when she refused their violent urgings.

Or the unexpected seductiveness of Michael, which she should have seen coming. That he indulged her deepest instincts to deny those Whispers of what they wanted.

No cult without earnest promises. No flies caught without honey.

The occult cabal of the Way King was making more and more sense to her now.

She tapped her pistol against his crotch again.

“Let’s go.”

He nodded slowly and turned his back on her.

With a nervous glance over her shoulder, Parker holstered the gun in her jacket again. The receptionist sitting behind the counter shot her an uninterested glance and returned to reading a magazine.

“Tell me where to go, and I’ll do as you say,” Michael said. Then he sang the rest playfully as he added, “For now.”

Parker balled her hands into fists until her nails dug into her palms. Tensed up every muscle in her body to match.

Breathe. One, two, release. Breathe.

She had been looking for a lead, some way to reach the elusive Way King, and now such a lead was just within reach.

And even if the Whispers had decided to stay away—and she prayed against all odds they would—she was not alone. She kept telling herself she was not alone. Derek and Aria awaited her return. They may have already been on their way from the diner, given how long she had been taking.

And with their help, they’d figure something out.

Breathe. One, two, release. Breathe.

Michael cast a sidelong glance over his shoulder. Smirking again.

Parker shoved him.

“Walk,” she said. “That rusty old Buick over there.”

Michael chuckled as he spotted the vehicle she mentioned. “Jericho’s car. Oh, well, only the foolish would speak of coincidence in a world such as ours, wouldn’t they?”

He started walking towards the beaten-up old rust bucket. Parker followed. His question hung in the air, carried on the cold breeze, unanswered.

She shuddered again and rolled her jaw before speaking up, “What do you mean, in a world such as—no, scratch that. Tell me something else. Tell me what you wanted here. From him.”

Michael chuckled again.

“You answered your own question.”

Their footsteps echoed across the desolate parking lot. In the grim shadow of the penitentiary’s castle-like building, most of its spaces stood vacant, only with the scant scattered car parked about, and the old Buick resting at the far end of it.

“Don’t play coy with me,” she said.

“Yes, I came to visit Freddy Fletcher. Because he once held that jade book in his hands. Just like you.”

Either the cold breeze or the words caught her by surprise, a minor shock she should have been inundated to by now. Still, she shuddered.

The unsettling sensation repeated itself when Michael glanced back at her over his shoulder.

He continued, “C’mon, Parker. I know you know where it is, even if you don’t know. I know you must know more about it, even if you don’t realize it, and sense what it does. You must know we’re all after it, all for our own little reasons. You’re holding all the cards, so why… don’t you just… share with the class?”

Parker squinted. Swallowed a glib remark, refraining from answering him with any sass. Something she had schooled herself to stop doing, long ago.

Some part of her expected a reaction from the Whispers to take the place of such instincts, but the Whispers stayed silent.

Breathe. One, two, release. Breathe.

“I might,” she said. “I just might. If I’m properly convinced… if I’m convinced it’s the best course of action to protect every innocent person on Earth, I might.”

“Oh, my heart bleeds for you. I think we’ll get along just nicely. And you’re going to love the Way King.”

The cold breeze turned into a violent gust of wind, enveloping them both with such force that they stumbled and stood still to weather the airy blast. It caught the ends of Parker’s jacket and made the fabric flutter and flap.

Michael cocked his head back, smiling.

Loudly, against the howling winds, he addressed the heavens.

“He sees things just like you. Way King! Way King… I found her. Why not bring us home to your heart?”

The clouds swirled with unnatural shape and direction, forming a spiraling vortex in the sky. The gloomy daylight darkened, and blue horizon shifted in tone until a deep crimson saturated it, seeping upwards like earth bleeding into heavens. Distances melted and the skies of different places clashed like different liquids admixing in a glass.

In shock, Parker had drawn her pistol. She swiveled, helplessly surveying her changing surroundings.

Darkness had swallowed the Kentucky State Penitentiary building behind her. The trees around them had turned into abominable hybrids of firs and cacti.

The winds carried dust and desert heat upon them, yet they smelled like the dying winter’s final snow.

And streetlights from another state flared up, one by one, a chain of light cast down a long, paved path; illuminating first the rusty Buick, then the lonesome road before them.

THE HIGHWAY.

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