Available Darkness Season 1

at the clock on the TV’s cable box — 6:42 p.m. He wasn’t certain how he knew, but he figured he probably had another 20 minutes before nightfall.
    “Can you drive?” he asked the girl.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 8 — Abigail

    Abigail tried to cloak her fear, but her hammering heart and quivering limbs gave lie to the guise as she stepped from the safety of the motel room and into the smeared tangerine sunset.
    Clad in an indigo hooded jacket, draping down nearly to her knees, she hoped to adopt the look of a wee woman on her way to the car.
    Nothing to see here, folks, no siree.
    A simple request from John, to move the car, but he may as well have asked her to initiate a space shuttle launch. Abigail had never driven before, and the last time she was a willing passenger was before her parents died, back when she was seven. Her memories of driving with her father hazy enough to make her wonder if they were of her own invention.
    Yet, when John requested she move the car, she had agreed without a flinch. What else could she say? She had to be brave for the angel who saved her from the monster’s closet. Before she left the motel room, John explained the basics of driving a car, which she committed to memory and wrote down on a piece of motel stationery — just in case.
    The parking lot was fuller than it had been when they arrived in the morning. That was probably a good thing, she figured, as she was far less likely to be recognized among others. But it also increased the odds that she’d run into someone who had seen the news of her “abduction.”
    Whatever happened, she did not want to fall into the hands of the authorities or anyone assigned to protect her interests. Their previous failures had already left her with plenty of scars that had no hopes of healing.
    How could a child drop off the radar these days? How could she be pulled from school, sold to someone, and locked in a dungeon and held prisoner for three years without anybody noticing?
    The agencies designed to protect her had failed and she would never trust them again.
    She felt safe with John. Safer than she’d felt in years, even though she knew a brush from his skin could kill her just as it had done to Randy and Stacy. She wasn’t sure why she trusted John so much. Maybe, she figured, because she had dreamed of him, or an angel that looked like him, anyway, saving her.
    Or maybe it was something else…
    Something happened when they briefly touched, something reason couldn’t explain. A bridge had connected them. Though it hardly seemed possible, she felt as if she’d known John a lifetime already. She hadn’t seen all his memories, only glimpses, but it was enough to know she could trust him. He would protect her no matter what.
    And she would do the same for him.
    As Abigail neared their vehicle, parked about 90 yards from their room, a family of four spilled from a dusty minivan.
    A boy and girl, both younger than six, first looked at her with passing glances before they locked their glances into stares. Their mother, a heavyset woman with a skittish expression, also stared at her. Then the woman rushed the kids to grab their stuff, and slid the minivan’s door closed. The mother stole a second glance at Abigail, but Abigail broke the stare, pointed her nose at the concrete, and kept walking towards the car.
    She thought the woman was still looking at her, perhaps silently wondering, “Is that her? ”
    Abigail’s heartbeat raced as she felt like it took forever to reach the stolen car. She considered passing it, suddenly certain the family recognized her as The Missing Child, and was now scrutinizing her every move. Just as she reached the car’s bumper, she turned right, opened the car door and climbed inside.
    She slid into the front seat, craned her neck, glanced in the rearview mirror, and saw that the family was not watching her after all. They were walking toward their room.
    She exhaled with a bottomless breath she hadn’t known she was holding.
    Abigail retrieved the instructions from her pocket and started to read. She reached down and pulled the seat up as far as it would go, leaned close to the wheel and stretched her bare feet down to touch a gas pedal that felt half frozen against her foot. She inserted the key into the ignition, whispered a silent prayer to a God she knew had long ago stopped listening (if He had ever lent her an ear at all) and turned the key as her heart slid to the bottom of her chest.
    The car