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“God. Please. Let me be wrong. Let him be on the road. Let him be anywhere but that bay.”

I want to believe that I am wrong, but my gut tells me I’m not.

The call sits in my head with his message. The one who locks the door behind you. That is not a guess anymore. That is a name I have been too stupid to hear.

I hit the straight and my speed climbs. Trees tear past me. Halloween lights flash in the valley and are gone. I am talking to an empty line and I can’t stop.

“Shane. If you can hear this, get out of the car. Do not look at anyone in a mask. Do not play along. I am coming. I am coming. Stay on the phone if you can. Just make a sound. Anything.”

Voicemail. Again.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

I slam the wheel with the heel of my hand. The car jerks and I catch it, just in time as it swerves into the path of an oncoming vehicle. My mouth is dry. My chest hurts.

“Please. He was only waiting. That is all he was doing. He was only waiting for me,” I say, but I don’t exactly know to who. God? The killer? Myself? This fucking car?

The phone stays dark on the seat beside me.

I call anyway. I keep calling. Every fucking second counts. And every time it dumps me into that flat work voice I curse and I beg and keep trying.

I’m almost there. I am coming down the mountain for him.

If he answers, I’ll tell him to keep driving and meet me on the road. Somewhere, anywhere, I don’t care. As long as he is safe.

If he does not, I already know what that silence is for.

Shane locks the car door behind me.

Tonight someone else wants that door open.

I do not slow down.

12

Shane Cole

Friday, October 31st. After 3:20 a.m. Halloween.

I’ve opened the door for him.

My thumb is still on the lock, and they still haven’t moved. A white face at the glass. Hood up. Grey coverall. Black gloves and soft boots I never heard walk down the row of parked cars.

I wait.

I have been waiting in this bay since twenty to three. I let Rhys’s first call die. I watched the doors. I walked to the cars and told myself he was still upstairs. Now there is a Halloween mask two feet from the glass, not knocking, not saying a word. I am waiting the same way I wait every night for him to look at me.

“Rhys,” I say against the glass. “If this is you being funny, get in the car. It is cold. I have been here, and I think you know I’ve been here.”

Nothing.

The mask only looks at me. I cannot see eyes. There is a thin dark cut where a mouth should be.

I should lock the door again and start the car. I should leave because that’s what any sensible person would do.

I don’t. I sit and wait. Just wait.

“You going to stand there all night?” I say. “You lock this door behind you every night and walk away. Now you stand on my side of the glass like you finally want in. So come in, Rhys. What are you waiting for?”