Page 8 of The Midnight Knock

GAS—FOOD—WARM BEDS

HIKE SCENIC MT APACHE

5 MI THIS WAY

Past the sign, in the distance, the shape of a tall black mountain came into view.

It was like the sight was too much for the truck. The engine seized up. There wasn’t enough fuel left in the tank to overcome the loss of pressure from the broken line, and all of it choked and stalled. Kicked once. Twice. Died.

Ethan was just able to steer the truck onto the shoulder. They rolled to a stop right at the foot of the motel’s sign.

“?‘Gas. Food. Warm beds,’?” Hunter read aloud, slowly. He’d never been the best reader. Ethan sometimes wondered just what sort of education the man had received as a child. What sort of childhood the man had endured, period.

Hunter added, “I’ll take all three.”

He grinned at Ethan, probably expecting Ethan to grin back, but Ethan was too busy telling himself he wasn’t afraid.

Nine empty rooms. Twelve cold beds.

Already the desert’s chill was creeping into the cab.The night falls fast out there.

“Ethan?”

Something strange happened in that moment. Light passed over the sky, a bright silver flash like the glare off an enormous mirror. The light was brilliant, unnerving, unlike anything Ethan had ever seen. It only lasted a second, maybe two, but its afterglow shimmered for ages at the edges of his vision.

The light almost hurt his eyes, but it seemed to jolt Ethan out of a daze. His body felt like his own again. He glanced at his watch. It was four o’clock. Time was moving.

Hunter stifled a nasty cough. He rubbed his head like he was fighting off a headache. “I’ll carry the duffel bag. You get the gas can. Hold on to the Python while you’re at it.”

Ethan said, “What about the cops?”

“I don’t think the cops are our problem.”

“What do you mean? The waitress must have seen us take this road. Where else would they go to look for us?”

“If they were coming, they would have caught up to us by now.” Hunter hesitated, clearly more to say, but a cold wind struck the truck, moaning its way through the door seal. The temperature in the cab had already fallen five degrees.

“We need to worry about sunset,” Hunter said. “If we get stuck out here after dark, we’ll freeze to death before dawn.”

Ethan said, “I wouldn’t want to be alone out there when the dark rolls in,” and realized he’d heard those exact same words before.

KYLA

Up the road, a girl named Kyla Hewitt walked the silver streets of a dead city.

The city had once been grand. Long buildings rose with curved limestone walls. The walls had no seams, no grout, no cracks, just an endless pattern of whorling grooves that made Kyla think of an ocean’s waves. Quiet plazas were studded with dead fountains. Vast gardens had taken centuries to go to seed. In the distance, tall spires of white stone reached toward a permanent night that had never known a star.

There was no one here. No one left. Just a labyrinth of looping silver streets, streets that spiraled in and in and in, inward to the city’s waiting heart.

Kyla was going deeper. Kyla must go deeper.

The air thrummed with energy. A tingle of heat singed her nostrils. She smelled hot ozone. It was like she’d stepped near a fallen power line, like the whole city was dangerously unstable. Too much more of that power and even the grooved stone walls might ignite in flames.

Kyla couldn’t stay here for long.

But still she went deeper. She must go deeper.

She was awaited.