Available Darkness Season 1

lurched backward before her foot found the break, then stopped with a sharp shudder, throwing her like a rag doll against the cracked leather seat.
    Her eyes flitted across the windshield nervously as she tried to determine if she had gathered attention, but the parking lot was empty of people at the moment. She slowly backed up before sliding the car into “Drive” and the car jerked towards the busy four lane road.
    The street was surprisingly busy, and the cars seemed to be driving so fast. She waited for a lull in traffic, praying nobody would drive up behind her in the parking lot, or worse, that a cop would drive past.
    She spotted a break in traffic, just enough to get out quickly and make a sharp right.
    Turning the wheel rapidly in her hands, she misjudged her speed and the car veered violently onto the rood, sweeping into oncoming traffic.
    Abigail looked up just in time to see a red truck barreling towards her in the same lane.
    She was helpless, spinning the steering wheel faster until the car corrected, then over corrected and bounced up on the sidewalk and then back to the road again with a thud. A horn blasted as the red truck jerked left and into the far lane, missing her by barely the breath bottled in her throat.
    Once in the correct lane, Abigail slowed the car to a crawl. Adrenaline tinged her tongue as her stomach churned. The shopping center she was told to leave the car in was barely a block away, nothing between it and her other than a gas station. She would turn right, park the car, and run back to the motel as fast as her legs would carry her.
    Just as she passed the gas station, she heard the unmistakable sound of a siren, looked up and saw the flash of the cop car’s light bar.
    She froze, her foot still on the pedal, driving slowly, and hoping the cop was only wanting her to move out of the way so he could chase somebody else.
    The cop’s siren blurted in a hiccup, followed by a man’s voice crackling gravel through a speaker.
    “Pull over.”

    * * * *

CHAPTER 9 — John

    John raced around the room, tossing their few belongings into the two suitcases they’d stolen from the house. They would leave the second the sun’s light was extinguished from the horizon. They’d have to find a new car, of course. How they’d do that, John had no idea. He may not have known who he was, but he was fairly certain his latent memories didn’t include the ability to hotwire cars.
    They would also need to swap license plates from another car and whatever one they stole. He hoped that would keep them off the radar until he could figure out how to get another vehicle. John scanned the room, hoping to see a knife or something he could use as a screwdriver to remove the plates.
    Finding nothing, he collapsed on the bed, acutely aware that his looming fate now rested in the tiny hands of a little girl.
    Abigail had agreed to moving the car without blinking, though John knew she had zero driving experience. Still, he figured, it wasn’t too hard to drive a few thousand feet. One of the things he could remember was how to drive, though not of what kind of car he drove, if any. Driving seemed easy enough that a kid could do it. Parking, on the other hand, could present a bit of a problem. He imagined her crashing the car and inviting the attention of nearby police.
    Part of him believed she’d be better off in the custody of the cops, anyway. They would be able to help her; find her a proper home; keep her away from the walking death he obviously was.
    He wasn’t sure what Abigail was expecting of him, but he couldn’t imagine taking care of her longterm. Especially considering his condition. Even if his life were completely normal, though, how could he just take in a child he didn’t even know? Certainly there had to be rules and such one had to follow, such as adoption. And what agency in the world would hand a child over to a murderous fugitive with no name?
    John started to circle the same question he’d been asking himself since their flight from the house that morning. Why hadn’t he just left the girl to be found by police? At the time, he’d not thought it through. Abigail was in need and he was too. He couldn’t trust that he wouldn’t pass out again, and she might have been able to get them to a motel, or at least out of sunlight in an emergency.
    At the time, he thought he was helping her. But now he wondered if he wasn’t being selfish to drag her into the unknown horrors