The Woman In The Shadows

Part Four - The Road Less Traveled

The drive to the diner was long, the drive back seeming longer as it took Jim along a single lane road covered by the canopy of the woods overhead. There were no clouds covering the night's sky, the white light of he moon and stars trickled though the breaks in the foliage above, illuminating the otherwise dark road.

As he drove, Jim fiddled with the dials of the car radio, spinning the tuner clockwise, trying to dial in a station with a strong enough signal for the music to emit from the symphony stereo system of the aging luxury wagon.

Country, rock, talk radio - at this point, Jim wasn't picky as he searched for background music to distract him from the images of what had transpired earlier that evening.

"Am I seeing things? Am I going crazy?" he asked aloud, splitting his attention between the road and the radio. After several scans, the faint sound of music began to take over the silence of the winding road.

"Well there we are" Jim mused as he turned up the volume, the weak signal forcing him to set the output to its highest setting. As he drove, the gentle sounds of fifties show tunes filled the cabin of the car as he bobbed along, snapping his fingers in a nostalgic manner.

Jim didn't mind how old the music was, predating even his father, as he traveled along the dark, rural road. Not that he was one for modern music, no - far from it. Nonsense to a recycled beat, Jim couldn't understand how Meadow could subject herself to such garbage. Even Sheila had fallen victim to the big business music agenda.

No, he'd take his Rage Against The Machine and City and Colour over Iggy whatever-the-hell-her-name-is any day - not that she was polluting the airwaves much these days, anyway.

Feeling the weight of his eyelids, Jim cracked the moon roof, the rush of cold air giving him a much needed jolt as he checked his mirrors, forcing himself to be more aware of the road as he headed home.

He fiddled with the side view mirrors, adjusting them just so as he spun the little dial on the driver's side door panel, reducing his blind spot.

After inspecting his receding hairline in the rear view mirror, feeling more and more aware of his age as the fifties show tunes continued in the background, he shifted his gaze to the back window, making minor adjustments so that he could get the best view of any cars behind him, only leaving him feeling more alone as he realized he was the only one traveling this road tonight.

In the back, something caught his eye. Squinting, he reached for the mirror again, tilting it just right so that he could see the storage compartment of the wagon - something black, huddled up in the back where it was dark, making it hard to make out just what it was.

"Dammit, girls" he muttered to himself, shaking his head in frustration "I told them - I told them both, those lazy daughters of mine, to empty everything from the back." He continued. "But do you think either of those little shits listened?"

He looked at himself in the mirror, shifting his gaze from the dark bundle in the storage compartment of the family wagon.

"Of course not. You know what they say, Jim" he started, looking deeply into his own eyes in the rear view mirror. "Want something done, do it yourself. You know what else they say?" he asked the man in the reflection, mockingly "You know, about how bat shit crazy you have to be to talk to yourself on a desolate road with a backseat full of pizza for your lazy, self-absorbed children." he laughed, rolling his eyes.

From the back, he heard it - the noise just slightly louder than the music coming from the speakers - an almost inaudible giggle.

Jim quickly turned down the music, straining his ears as he balanced watching the road with looking at the backseat through the mirror.

"Get it together." he muttered to himself after several nervous minutes, turning the volume back up. The stress of life - the move, his agent hounding him to finish his latest project, no wonder he was hallucinating.

This was his rationalization - the assuring speech he told himself just before his heart stopped, fear wrapping its cold, careless hands around his throat as the woman from the shadows peeked over the backseat from the storage compartment, her bright eyes surrounded by dark circles locking eyes with Jim in the rear view mirror.

Your children she giggled shrilly, blood running from the torn flesh running from her mouth to her ears, will be mine.

Jim slammed his foot hard on the breaks, the car skidding to a halt as he snapped around, his skin white and cold and tingling as his blood vessels dilated, his fight or flight response activated by the intruder in the shadows.

Jim opened the door and ran several feet from the car before turning around, the interior light illuminating the cabin of the car, a white fog ascending from the dual exhaust - that familiar jingle the car made when you left the keys in the ignition with the door open.

Slowly, Jim walked to the back of the car, reaching for the latch. Taking a deep breath, he opened the hatch of the car, his fist clenched, knuckles white, ready to strike at anything that might come out.

Nothing.

Jim shifted the blankets left in the back, grabbing them and throwing them on the damp asphalt, searching for what he had seen.

The compartment now empty, Jim squatted down, running his fingers through his sweat soaked hair, his head between his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

"I'm losing it," he said, surprisingly optimistically as he started to laugh at himself for being pulled off to the side of the road, looking for ghosts in the back of his family station wagon. "I'm officially the clichéd, crazy writer." He continued, standing, his arms high above his head as he stretched.

Shaking his head, he retrieved the blankets from the road, one by one, as he tossed them back in the storage compartment of the car. He closed the hatch and walked back around to the driver's side door, completely unaware of the woman watching him from the tree line.

Lowering her gaze, looking at him through her greasy, thinning hair, she watched as he drove away, the taillights disappearing over the horizon.

I will break you, her bleeding smile spreading across her cold, white skin I'll make you kill your wife, yourself - and those pretty little girls will be mine forever.