Chapter 6: Last

Em twisted around in her seat, looking out through the back window.

"I don't think they're following us."

Alex noticed that Em's dress was torn down the front.

He checked the mirror; he didn't see anything that looked like a cookie truck back there. He slowed down to a semi-legal speed.

"What the hell were those things?!" he shouted.

"I don't know," Em said, sitting back down. She was still breathing hard. "We have to call 9-1-1."

Em was right -- there was an apartment building on fire.

"Hold on," he said. He jammed the brakes; Em's hands hit the dashboard as she was thrown forward, then tossed sideways against Alex as he yanked the wheel hard right, then bounced to the ceiling as they bumped up into a gas station, then back to the dashboard as the car hauled itself to a stop.

"Sorry," Alex said before jumping out of the car.

He was in luck -- the payphone worked. He looked back in the direction they'd come as he waited for an answer.

"9-1-1, please state the nature of the Emergency."
"There's an apartment building on fire! On International, north of, um, um, 19th! We just drove past it!"
"Okay sir, can I--"

Alex dropped the phone.
A stubby delivery truck was bounding down the street.
He ran back to the car.

Em was miffed. "You know, you could have warned--"
"Buckle up," Alex said as he did so himself. He jammed the car into reverse; the tires hopped as they lurched the car around. Alex left it pointed diagonally, right at the gas station's price sign.
"What the hell is..." Em started, then trailed off when she saw the truck. She scrambled for her seat belt. "Go, go go!" she shouted as she yanked the belt, so hard it locked halfway out. "Just go!"

"Wait." There was an entrance on either side of the sign. Once the truck committed to either the main entrance or the side street, they could squirt out the other way. Unless the truck went kamikaze...

The truck reached the intersection and veered suddenly to the right. It was heading right for them! Then the mechanical pachyderm veered again, tires chattering and engine bellowing through a fast right turn onto the side street, thundering off into the darkness.

Alex remembered to breathe.

"Whew!" Em sighed. "That was close."
Alex turned the car toward the main drag.
Em asked, "Where are we going?"
"Away from here," he said.

Alex put them on the freeway at the next on-ramp. The pit-tap pit-tap pit-tap of the expansion joints was calming.

Alex looked at Em. If he was freaked out, he could only imagine what she was going through. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah." She just stared off into space.
Alex shrugged off his coat. "Here." It took her a moment to realize what he was doing. She reached over and pulled it out from under him, but it was a long coat and it took her three tries to get it free. She drew her feet up on the seat and draped the coat over herself like a blanket.

"They knew where I lived," Em said softly. "They were gonna kill me. If you hadn't come back..."
Alex reached out and found Em's hand. "You're safe now."
"I know." She squeezed his hand appreciatively.

He wanted to ask her about her attackers -- he couldn't get their faceless stares out of his head -- but he didn't know if she'd seen them, and right now he didn't want to do anything to make things worse for her. He figured they could just drive for a while. Driving helped him think, helped him figure things out.

They'd gone almost ten miles when Em spoke.

"Elves."

Did Alex hear that right? "What?"

"Elves," Em repeated. "Daddy wasn't feeling guilty, he was trying to warn me." She started digging through Alex's coat. "Where's your phone?"
"I never got it back from you after the accident."
"I need to call Granddad. I need to warn him."
"I'll get off at the next exit; I think there's a Denny's -- they should have a payphone."
"Okay."
"So ... how did your dad warn you?"
"He sent me a text message the day before Uncle Nick's funeral. L-V-S. I thought he was saying he loves me -- he leaves me messages when he's feeling guilty about sleeping with a woman. But it wasn't 'loves, ' it was 'elves.' He probably didn't even mean to send it to me, it was probably supposed to go to Granddad or Uncle Nick, but that's what it was."

"You knew about those things?"
"No, of course not! I mean, I remember now, Granddad's stories, they sometimes had these elves. Little men made of ... little men with gray skin and no faces. They were always trying to steal things..." Em shuddered. "I had a nightmare once; Grams made Granddad tell me they weren't real. But they are real."

"Maybe they're just masks. Maybe it's makeup." But Alex didn't believe that; he'd tried to rip one's face off; the memory made him shake his hand violently and wipe it on his pants.

"Whatever it is, Grams will know what to do."

Alex had found the Denny's; Em wiggled into Alex's coat as they pulled up. Alex looked around -- he didn't see any cookie trucks. But that didn't exactly make him feel safe. "What else did your grandfather tell you stories about?"
"I don't really remember."
"I don't think I'd want to."