AS THE CAR SCREECHED to a halt, Cassidy’s head snapped forward, slamming into the steering wheel. But not before she’d seen the body flying up into the air.
She didn’t lift her head. She couldn’t. Fully conscious, she was nevertheless too dazed with shock to move.
She struggled to think. She had hit something? Someone? Oh, no, no, not that. She couldn’t have.
But she had. She had felt the impact, seen the…body…
Oh, God, no.
She should get out of the car. She should go look, see how bad it was.
She lifted her head. Something warm and sticky dripped down her cheek, teased the corner of her lip. She reached out tentatively with her tongue. Salty…but not tears. Blood. From her forehead.
She should get out. She should go look.
Had she killed someone?
No, no, she couldn’t have. Couldn’t have.
But she knew she could have.
She sat very still, her hands sitting limply on the wheel. She had to do something.
But she could not get out and look at that body. She could not.
Her hand reached up and threw the car into reverse, her foot came down hard on the accelerator, and in a spin of gravel and screeching tires, she raced backward until she reached the driveway to Nightmare Hall. Spun the wheel sharply right, tore up the driveway, stopped the car, jumped out, ran to the front door and began pounding with both fists, screaming for help.
Jess Vogt was the first to reach the door. Ian Banion was right behind her. “What on earth…?” Jess cried when she saw Cassidy’s tear-streaked face and blood streaming from a cut on her forehead. “Cassidy, what happened?”
“Come, come with me,” Cassidy gasped, “in my car. Hit someone, I hit someone, on the highway, come with me, please, I can’t look, I can’t…”
Without asking any questions, Jess and Ian ran to the car with her, Jess taking the driver’s seat, urging Cassidy into the front passenger seat, Ian in the back.
No one said a word.
“There!” Cassidy cried when they reached the spot, “it was right there. He’s…he’s lying there, at the edge of the woods. Is he dead? Go see if he’s dead. Oh, God, please don’t let him be dead.”
“I’ll check,” Ian volunteered and jumped out, leaving the lights on so he could see.
The two girls sat frozen in the front seat, holding hands, as Ian’s tall, lanky figure walked into the path of the lights.
He walked up the highway several hundred feet.
Then he turned around and walked back again, clearly searching the road and the edge of the woods with his eyes.
He shrugged as he turned to go over the same ground a second time.
“Why hasn’t he found him?” Cassidy whispered. Her head was beginning to ache terribly. “He was right in front of me. I never saw a thing until it was too late.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Jess said soothingly. “I’m sure it wasn’t. And maybe he wasn’t even hurt badly, Cassidy.”
“Oh, yes, he was. He had to be. He hit my car so hard, and then he flew up into the air…just like my bicycle, that night by the state park.” Immediately she thought, I shouldn’t have said that. No one believes that ever happened. I don’t even believe it now.
Ian returned to the car, opened the door, got in, turned toward Cassidy. “I don’t know what you hit, Cassidy, but it couldn’t have been a person, or else they couldn’t have been hurt. Because I looked up and down the highway twice, and didn’t see a thing. There’s no one there. No one at all.”