Twighlight Pursuit

Sensitive content warning: Violence, Fear, Mental Health

Of the billions of thoughts racing through every corner of her mind that are inevitably dragged into the abyssal depths of her terror, one primal idea manages to cling for everything it is worth to the edge of that dreadful pit:

GET THE HELL OUT AND DON’T LOOK BACK.

 The fear chills her and holds her heart in a vice grip, threatening to stop it entirely and kill her unceremoniously on this secluded highway, send her husband careening into the treeline, and orphan their children thousands of miles away. She will not let the terror send her into a panic, she has endeavored very hard to overcome the fear that defined her life and refuses to give in to it at what may be its closing chapter. She focuses every remaining ounce of her energy on the road ahead, revealed by the blazing headlights of the loaned sports car, the smooth roar of its expensive engine almost deafening; a sound that only a high-end Maserati such as this can make when it is traveling very, very fast. She spares a fraction of a second glancing at her husband in the passenger seat, his eyes are filled with steely determination and his dark brow is drenched in sweat, she feels a small tug against her shoulder as he begins to rummage frantically through her ever-present purse, which has remained firmly by her side even after their narrow flight. She knows he did not see the evil thing as she had before she ran from the building, screaming for him to run, and she feels no inclination to tell him about it. The sight had chilled her to the very core of her being...  The very thought of the thing makes her already quivering hands shake even more violently, but still she keeps her eyes fixed on the road, desperately searching for anything that might suggest salvation is close at hand.

…

We shouldn’t have gotten away: The notion that had planted itself firmly in his brain ever since his wife slammed her foot on the gas and sped away into the warm night.  That demon, monster, whatever it is, he had felt its eyes bore hungrily into his back right after he’d thrown himself into the passenger seat of the Maserati, his wife’s face a mask of terror. 

The Maserati… a faint thought about the beauty of the vehicle creeps in from the back of his brain. When fleeing from an unnatural threat this is the last place he’d expect his thoughts to wander, it’s so ridiculous it makes his eye twitch, but he supposes it's only natural for the human mind to attempt to escape from what it cannot understand. When he’d first learned what they’d be driving during their trip he was filled with glee, as if he was a child again when gramps had let him take the Mustang on a joyride down their dusty New Mexican road.

 Now all he feels is dread, but he dare not show it for both their sakes. He had always had a knack for knowing when something was terribly wrong, he’s fairly sure it’s the only reason he has made it so far. This was no different, he had seen how fast that thing could move–almost faster than the eye could track– and he has more than an inkling about what it wants to do to them and just how bad it wants to do it, so the moment he felt that beast’s eyes on him–and he had felt them–he knew that in the brief seconds it had seen them before his wife’s foot dug into the pedal it could’ve ended them both, but for some reason he can’t fathom, it allowed them to escape, but for how long? 

All this coupled with the look on his wife’s face when she came flying out of the building has left him so uneasy he feels sick.  He looks at the high-voltage taser he has just pulled from his wife’s precious purse, a gift from their oldest son, and clutches it tighter, he knows it wouldn’t be enough to protect them if it came to it, but he clutches it all the same, his bruised knuckles whitening from his desperate grip. 

Suddenly the car lurches and the tires squeal as his wife strains to stay on the road, he looks up to see the Maserati ripping around a tight curve. In the driver’s seat, his wife is transfixed in a way he’s never seen her before. Her eyes are filled with complete and total focus and her trembling hands hold the wheel in a death grip, even through the anxious haze of his thoughts he can’t help but think of how privileged he was to have married her.

They make it safely around the curve and he spots a patch of lights not too far ahead, one would think the sight of their destination would fill him with hope, but instead, his already mounting dread multiplies.

…

They round the curve, and she spots several dim lights and a runway with a small plane, already prepped for takeoff. It is waiting for them. A straight shot, just a few miles down the road, and at their speed a few miles is nothing.  Her mind does not shift in the slightest, no hope blossoms in her chest, the fear does not grip her any tighter, she just stares with fervent tenacity towards their just-visible private aircraft, barely out of reach, so, so very close. But after a single minute of speeding towards their only hope, a detached observation bursts to the surface. 

We’re not getting any closer.

This shakes her from her ironclad trance, she looks over at her husband and knows he has noticed it too. Trees still rush past the windows, the yellow lines of the road still blur together as one, they are moving as fast as ever, but the airfield is still no closer than it was when they rounded the curve. It is as if they are caught in a mind-bending web, ensnared by an unseen arachnid holding them in this small stretch of highway, dangling them right in front of their prize. Impossible… Is all she can think.   The doom etched on her husband’s face is clear as day, he is no longer trying to hide it. She too knows that they will not make it, she assumed it would pursue them, but she had thought that maybe–maybe it would not be able to catch up, but now that hope is extinguished.

…

 He looks over at her and suddenly grips her hand, in his other he holds her taser tightly. It is only now she realizes they haven’t breathed a word since they threw themselves into the sports car, but they do not need to speak, in this moment, they understand each other, they always have, more or less, but it is only now that she sees all of him laid bare, and knows he sees her too, she takes comfort that at least that much is clear to her, in the end.

Suddenly the headlights surge with energy, illuminating the road for an impossible distance, the flood of light reveals a towering figure clad in a long coat standing just a few hundred feet away. The lights explode with an electric whine and a final burst of light, spraying the highway with shattered glass and plunging them into darkness. They both scream with all they can muster and brace for the impact.

But it never comes.

The car has halted without so much as a jolt. She lowers her arms from her face and sees the figure’s hand, shrouded in darkness, pressed against the hood of the vehicle. Strangely her fear is gone, and with detached logic she notes that, strangely, the chassis of the Maserati is as pristine as ever.  Craning her neck, she gazes up at the figure.

In the suffocating dark, its features are indecipherable, but its eyes… they are simultaneously terrifying and captivating, they shine blindingly bright with a color that no human could ever recognize and burn hungrily with inhuman malice powerful enough to incinerate forestry along the road’s edge. Even stranger than the eyes, however, is the powerful feeling she gets looking at it, like she has seen it many, many times before. She notes all of this within the span of a single second, though perhaps not consciously.

Before they can react it sheds the coat with unnatural grace and speed, she doesn’t even see the garment fall to the ground. In an instant two enormous pitch-black appendages unfurl from its back. The lights from the airport, already mostly concealed by the figure’s immense bulk, vanish completely as the winglike appendages envelop their view, cutting them off from the world they know, and it lets out a low, satisfied growl that resounds through her head, it stares at them with visible triumph.

The beast lets out a predatory ROAR and her head erupts with a splittingly sharp pain as an almost psychic pressure presses into her, the beast’s hand shoots back, as if winding up a punch, but instead of a closed fist the creature’s palm is open, its fingers spread apart like some wicked arcade claw, preparing to collect its prize.

In an eyeblink the hand surges forward, and it is over before the two can scream.