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Somewhere in the distant recesses of her alcohol-soaked mind, she recognized that if she wasn’t able to unlock the car, she probably wasn’t in a fit state to drive.
July sighed, using both hands to push her hair back from her face and managing to tangle her keychain in it in the process. She yanked it free with some effort and felt a wince of pain that did a little bit of work towards sobering her up – though not enough that she could believe for a moment it was safe for her to drive.
She sighed, turned, and started walking.
It was only a forty-minute walk home, so that was good, at least. By the time she got back she would probably have burned off enough of the alcohol that she wouldn’t be sick overnight. This had turned from one single drink with the girls into a night that was completely out of control, and July wasn’t even sure how it had happened.
She glanced over her shoulder at the car with regret, then turned to carry on walking.
God, it was dark out. July stumbled a little as she walked, feeling annoyed at herself for choosing to wear heels. She couldn’t walk in them without being in excruciating pain when she was sober, and when she was drunk, it was hard enough trying to stay upright on the earth as it rotated without adding heels into the mix. But she’d had to look pretty for a drink with the girls, hadn’t she?
She took a deep breath of the clear night air, feeling how much fresher it was out here than closer to where she worked. There wasn’t so much of the smog of everyday pollution out here. At night, in the winter with the air cool and the skies clear, it was actually kind of pleasant.
At least, it was definitely pleasant while she had enough alcohol in her to stop the cold from getting into her bones. July hadn’t even zipped up her jacket yet – mostly, if she was being honest, because she wasn’t confident she had the hand-eye coordination to do it.
She shoved her hands into the pockets instead, walking almost blindly as she concentrated on speed rather than accuracy, so glad that she knew the way home well enough to not have to do something like read a map or follow directions.
There was only one stretch of the journey that she wasn’t sure about. Most of it took her through a built-up area, past homes and stores, most of which would still be open to cater to the late-night crowd. But to get there, first, she had to walk by a long stretch of road – maybe ten minutes in total – through an industrial estate. It was dark and full of shadows, and all of the lots were either vacant or occupied by companies that shut down at night, and every time she had to walk through here, it gave her the creeps.
It was probably a good job that she was walking through it while she was still totally drunk, instead of at the end of the walk, when she would be sober enough to be way more afraid than this.
At least, that was what July thought until she saw his eyes.
She was walking by the entrance to one of the factories, the gates hanging open, and she hadn’t been aware at all that there was anyone nearby. Most of the traffic avoided this area – the bar had closed and the last patrons been thrown out at the same time as she was, and most of them had gotten in their cars and zoomed by already. A couple of taxis had gone by in the opposite direction, towards the bar, but neither of them had come back again. July had felt alone – confidently, comfortably alone – the kind of alone where you might sing to yourself or start dancing down the road because no one would ever see it.
Until she saw his eyes.
It was like he was a cat, his eyes catching the light from somewhere, maybe the moon, catching and throwing it back at her. She hadn’t seen his body, all dressed in black. She hadn’t noticed his face. But when he looked at her and blinked and that light flashed on and off for a split second, drawing her attention, she froze.
Just for a moment, she froze and looked at him.
And he stepped back into the darkness, and July forced her feet to start to go faster, stopping just short of a run.
She clutched her jacket around herself to stop it flapping as she walked, her heartbeat pounding in her ears suddenly loud enough to drown out anything else. She felt sick. She shouldn’t have had so much to drink. She was going so fast she felt like she was going to fall over, and the only way to stop herself from falling over was to keep putting one foot in front of the other even faster than before, like she was turning a constant tripping motion into a run.
She glanced over her shoulder and saw him, sliding back into the shadows at the side of the road as soon as she was facing his way.
July didn’t know who he was or what he was doing here, but she knew it was bad. She knew that she had to get away from him before she found out what he wanted. She knew that if there wasn’t a car passing by soon, she was going to have no way to get ahead of him.
He was keeping pace with her, and she was in heels and still far more drunk than she wanted to be, and he was probably just biding his time to catch up.
July looked over her shoulder again and he was there – closer –
She gave a frightened whimper and turned to run, but even as she attempted to make her feet hit the floor for those first running steps, she found them tracing a path in the air instead, coming into contact with nothing. She was being carried, hauled, and then she hit the floor again but now she was looking at the inside of a parking lot, she thought, because the building was so dark it was hard to see –
She opened her mouth and started to scream, started to call out for help – only to have something clamp down on her mouth, something cold and slightly fuzzy like a glove.
“No screaming,” he said in a half-whisper, his voice guttural and harsh, and July had never wanted to scream more badly in her life.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Laura woke with a gasp, the sheets tangled around her legs and her body soaked in sweat. She felt like she’d been the one running from a shadowy man, trying to keep her balance, but it had only been a dream.
No, not a dream. She knew what it was, now. It was a vision of the past – a past that had already happened. It was so clear, so visceral, like she was really there - almost like she was actually inside the victim’s mind – just like the last one had been.
She was starting to see a pattern here. Strong, visceral, dream visions – they seemed to take her into the past. But the vaguer, shorter, less intense visions were the future. It made sense when she thought about it: it was easier to get a firm grasp on something that had already happened. When the future was still open, someone might think a hundred different things as the moment approached – but when it was past, everything was already done and set in stone.
That was how she saw it, anyway. If the visions changed entirely and pulled the rug from under her feet again, she wouldn’t particularly be surprised. She wasn’t going to hold her breath that she had actually figured something out about the rules of how this worked until she had a lot more data to judge by.
