Free Vanish by Tom Pawlik Page B

about you?”
    The guy bit the inside of his cheek for a moment. “Mitch,” he said finally.
    “Mitch.” Conner nodded again. “Good… good. Uh… look, Mitch, would you mind just pointing that thing down or something? I’ll stay right here; I’m just a little nervous with you aiming that gun at me.”
    Mitch hesitated a moment, then lowered the gun.
    Conner breathed a sigh. “Good. That’s good.”
    Mitch removed his glasses. His face was solemn. “We’re not alone.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Mitch looked up and down the empty highway. “I mean, someone’s been watching me. Maybe following me. I don’t know. I don’t think they’re… human.”
    Conner nodded slowly. “I think I ran across a couple of them a few minutes ago.”
    “I never got a good look at them.”
    “Neither did I,” Conner said. “I think they’re using some kind of… camouflage or something. Did they come after you?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Did they try to chase you?”
    “No.” Mitch shook his head. “No, they just seemed to be watching me. But I got the distinct feeling they weren’t friendly.”
    Conner gestured toward the dent in his fender. “Well, one of them stepped out in front of my car.”
    “Where?”
    “We saw some of them in the…” Conner paused, wondering whether he should tell this stranger that he had just come from a cemetery because he’d been hallucinating.
    “
We
?” Mitch’s expression turned dark. “I thought you said you were alone?”
    Conner bit his lip. “Uh… yeah, I was.” He hesitated, then opened the driver-side door and motioned to the boy. “Until I found him.”
    Mitch raised the gun again. “Who’s that?”
    “Take it easy,” Conner said. “I don’t know who he is. I just came across him a little while ago. But he seemed to know that those things were after us.”
    Mitch’s brow remained furrowed. “What do you mean you ‘just came across him’?”
    “Well,” Conner said, “I guess it’d be more accurate to say he found me.”
    “How do you know he’s not one of them?”
    Conner glanced at the boy. The kid was leaning across the seat, staring at both of them. His brown eyes wide and haunting. Conner turned back to Mitch and shrugged. “I guess I don’t.”
    “Maybe they’re after
him
.”
    Conner shook his head. “Maybe. But I don’t think he speaks any English. At least he doesn’t seem to understand. And I couldn’t get him to speak at all.”
    “Where’d you find him?”
    Conner drummed his fingers on the roof of the car. This guy was pretty sharp for a biker. “In the, uhhh… in the cemetery.”
    “The cemetery?”
    “Yeah.” Conner wasn’t quite sure how to explain why he had gone there. He didn’t want to appear unstable. “I had… a sort of hallucination or something and…”
    Mitch seemed to perk up. “Have you seen things too? People you… used to know?”
    Conner raised his eyebrows. “Uh… yeah.”
    Mitch lowered his gun and stared off down the road. “I saw my mother. I stopped by their house and…” He turned back to Conner. “She’s been dead for ten years.”
    Conner frowned. This guy’s dead mother. Conner’s dead son. There must be some connection. At length he said, “I saw my son. He, uh… he drowned five years ago.”
    “He’s dead too?”
    Conner nodded. “So I stopped by the cemetery to see… you know, if his grave was still there.” Then he looked up. “Did you have any… pain or convulsions?”
    Mitch shook his head. “No, nothing like that. But it was so real. I mean, I could
hear
her breathing. She was right there, just as real as you are now.”
    Conner rubbed his neck. “I had this… this pain. Twice now. It was so intense, I thought I was going to pass out. It was like a pressure inside my chest. I can’t explain it. I never felt anything like it before.”
    “And then what happened?”
    Conner shrugged. “It just stopped. I was dizzy, lying on the floor. And then I saw Matthew.