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“I’d be honored to join you,” I said.
Ember climbed somewhat unsteadily to her feet and headed for the bathroom. “Don’t keep me waiting!”
Geraint and I both laughed and followed.
Ember
Since returning from Nightmare, I hadn’t been off the property except to explore the woods. Leaving the sanctuary of my childhood home and the summer camp, not to mention the miles of wilderness, felt surreal. I stared out the window of our van while Robby drove. Geraint and Nic sat in the back.
The woods gave way to farmland, then we hit the first small town. For a while, I felt like we were on our horseback journey through the boundary lands between Nightmare and Dream. The silver-hooved, white horses that had carried us had been remarkable. Then I remembered Nic mentioning that the nothingness storms had gotten worse. Were the horses all right? The wolves that had carried us? I even had a passing worry about the frightening clouds that had chased us.
Not to mention the land itself. If we could stop the destruction, would we be able to repair what was erased, or was it gone for good?
The first town we reached was a small farm town that many of the locals went to for groceries and a handful of restaurants. It also catered to the antiquing and flea market crowd and a fair bit of traffic from the larger city nearby wandered the streets looking for relatively ancient treasures. At least by local standards.
I window shopped as we crawled through downtown. Old rusty wagon wheels, wooden carts that had seen better days but looked great as decoration, sewing machines, creepy dolls, a mirror I tried to peer into even though we were at the wrong angle and in a car on the road, all sorts of interesting things to check out.
My gaze strayed back to one window when movement caught my attention. Hadn’t that doll been facing the other way?
I shivered.
We had to stop at the one traffic light in town while a pair of older men hobbled across the street. One of them stopped in front of our van and stared.
“Did his eyes just flash?” I sank down in my seat.
Robby’s knuckles went white on the steering wheel. “Not sure,” he muttered.
We both relaxed marginally when the street cleared, and we could continue. As soon as we cleared the one busy section of main street, we picked up the pace again and were soon out of town.
“Should we be paranoid?” I twisted my hands together, hating the curl of fear that trickled from my sternum to my stomach and sent cold chills to my extremities.
“Yes,” Robby replied, his voice devoid of his usual jovial sarcasm.
“Shit,” I replied.
Nic, sitting behind me, reached forward and squeezed my shoulder. “Nightmare may be turning against us, but we’re not without our own power and resources.”
“Words I never needed to hear,” Robby muttered. “Nightmare turning against us. The place is creepy and dangerous enough without it being intentionally hostile.”
“You’re just filling me with warm fuzzies,” I replied.
“We’re on the interstate now,” Robby said. “It’ll be all right.” He flipped on the radio to an upbeat pop rock station and softly hummed along with the music.
I looked out the window for a while, tension rolling through my muscles and knotting my back. Exhausted, I finally shut my eyes and used my knuckles to rub them.
“Ember, we’ll be okay,” Geraint said.
I crossed my arms and sank down into my seat, not sure if I was sulking or hiding. After another thirty minutes, Robby slowed and took an exit. We were nearing the city and traffic had picked up, but we were still very much in the country when we exited. Cleared farmland broken by the occasional thick stand of trees dominated our view. I had to force myself to keep from staring into the depths of the shadows, looking for lurking nightmares.
The trees gave way to vast cornfields. I stared at them. Something was strange about the fields, but I couldn’t place what it was.
Robby slowed as we approached a side road. He turned the van and hesitated before driving between the towering corn on either side of the road.
“That’s it! Why the hell is the corn so tall? It’s supposed to be ‘knee high by the fourth of July.’” I shivered as the radio crackled, losing reception.
Robby hit the brakes before taking a breath and accelerating again. “Better just to get through it. Perhaps a pocket of Nightmare? Maybe something else.”
Nothing happened as we passed through the abnormally tall corn, though I swear the sky darkened. Some of the stalks swayed as if in the wind. Maybe it was from the car’s movement?
