Darkfall

reclaim the pavement only minutes after the plows had scraped it clean.
    Jack had expected to make a fast trip to the Jamisons’ apartment building. The streets held little or no traffic to get in his way. Furthermore, although his car was unmarked, it had a siren. And he had clamped the detachable red emergency beacon to the metal heading at the edge of the roof, thereby insuring right-of-way over what other traffic there was. He had expected to be holding Penny and Davey in his arms in ten minutes. Now, clearly, the trip was going to take twice that long.
    Every time he tried to put on a little speed, the car started to slide, in spite of the snow chains on the tires.
    “We could walk faster than this!” Jack said ferociously.
    “We’ll get there in time,” Rebecca said.
    “What if Lavelle is already there?”
    “He’s not. Of course he’s not.”
    And then a terrible thought rocked him, and he didn’t want to put it into words, but he couldn’t stop himself: “What if he called from the Jamisons?”
    “He didn’t,” she said.
    But Jack was abruptly obsessed with that horrendous possibility, and he could not control the morbid compulsion to say it aloud, even though the words brought hideous images to him.
    “What if he killed all of them-”
    (Mangled bodies.)
    “-killed Penny and Davey-”
    (Eyeballs torn from sockets.)
    “-killed Faye and Keith-”
    (Throats chewed open.)
    “-and then called from right there-”
    (Fingertips bitten off.)
    “-called me from right there in the apartment, for Christ’s sake-”
    (Lips torn, ears hanging loose.)
    “-while he was standing over their bodies!”
    She had been trying to interrupt him. Now she shouted at him: “Stop torturing yourself, Jack! We’ll make it in time.”
    “How the hell do you know we’ll make it in time?” he demanded angrily, not sure why he was angry with her, just striking out at her because she was a convenient target, because he couldn’t strike out at Lavelle or at the weather that was hindering him, and because he had to strike out at someone, something, or go absolutely crazy from the tension that was building in him like excess current flowing into an already overcharged battery. “You can’t know!”
    “I know,” she insisted calmly. “Just drive.”
    “Goddamnit, stop patronizing me!”
    “Jack-”
    “He’s got my kids!”
    He accelerated too abruptly, and the car immediately began to slide toward the right-hand curb.
    He tried to correct their course by pulling on the steering wheel, instead of going along with the slide and turning into the direction of it, and even as he realized his mistake the car started to spin, and for a moment they were traveling sideways-and Jack had the gutwrenching feeling that they were going to slam into the curb at high speed, tip, and roll over-but even as they continued to slide they also continued to swing around on their axis until they were completely reversed from where they had been, a full one hundred and eighty degrees, half the circumference of a circle, now sliding backwards along the street, looking out the icy windshield at where they had been instead of at where they were going, and still they turned, turned like a carousel, until at last the car stopped just short of one entire revolution.
    With a shudder engendered by a mental image of what might have happened to them, but aware that he couldn’t waste time dwelling on their close escape, Jack started up again. He handled the wheel with even greater caution than before, and he pressed his foot lightly and slowly down on the accelerator.
    Neither he nor Rebecca spoke during the wild spin, not even to cry out in surprise or fear, and neither of them spoke for the next block, either.
    Then he said, “I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t be.”
    “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”
    “I understand. You were crazy with worry.”
    “Still am. No excuse. That was stupid of me. I won’t be able to help the kids if I kill us before we ever get to Faye’s place.”
    “I understand what you’re going through,” she said again, softer than before. “It’s all right. And everything’ll be all right, too.”
    He knew that she did understand all the complex thoughts and emotions that were churning through him and nearly tearing him apart. She understood him better than just a friend could have understood, better than just a lover. They were more than merely compatible; in their thoughts and perceptions and