Chapter 16

I pushed the truck as fast as I dared without looking too suspicious, until I turned a bend in the road. Once the petrol station was out of sight in my rear view mirror, I floored the accelerator. As I reached the A5, beams of light searched the night sky behind me. The traffic patrol was on to me. I could see their headlights in the rear distance but I knew they wouldn’t be able to see the truck until they reached the straighter sections of road on the A5. I turned off the lights, accelerated and turned left off the main road onto the Blaenau Ffestiniog road. The road was a narrow single track with grass growing in a green stripe along the centre. Spiny fingers of hawthorn grabbed at the sides of the truck sounding like the fingernails of a giant scratching to gain access. Two minutes later, I rounded a sharp bend and the road descended at a steep gradient. There were no streetlights for miles and my visibility was zero. I eased off the accelerator and slowed the truck down to a crawl. If the traffic police realised that I’d turned off, then I couldn’t outrun them anyway. Wrapping myself around an oak tree didn’t seem an attractive alternative to jail. I crawled along the track for a few hundred yards, my eyes straining against the blackness until it became obvious that the police had gone the wrong way. Probably south on the A5 looking for a fugitive who told the petrol station attendant that he was heading for London.

I took a deep breath before turning on the headlights. A hundred yards ahead of me, green orbs of light seemed to float above the crumbling tarmac. My nerves were on edge as I locked my gaze with the animal, instinctively accelerating towards it. It held its position and stayed in the centre of the road. There was no stoop in its posture, no fear in its eyes. It didn’t try to skulk away nor did it look frozen in terror. It stared defiantly as the Navara hurtled towards it. I couldn’t decide if it was a big cat or small badger and if I’m honest, I didn’t care. Did I think it was a servant of Satan, or the eyes of Jennifer Booth searching for me? Who knows what insane thoughts ran through my mind at that time? As the truck neared, it seemed to grow in size as its fur stood on end. I felt more in fear of it than it did of me but as its head exploded against the front bumper, realisation gripped me. There were no evil spirits tailing me, transmitting telepathic images of me to Jennifer and her master. There were no animals taking sides in the war of good against evil. There was only flesh and blood, life or death. The niners I had encountered so far had no magical powers to protect them. They breathed the same air as I did and their bodies were as fragile as mine. Under the force of a heavy blow, their bones would splinter and snap. Their skin could be penetrated by a sharp object and their organs could be ruptured without much effort. They would bleed and die as easily as the animal beneath the truck had. That’s what I thought until I saw the rear lights of the truck reflected in its eyes. The rear view mirror reflected two orbs of piercing red. I braked hard and looked again. The animal was gone.

“Bollocks!” I put my foot down and told myself that the pressure was getting to me but my hands began to shake nonetheless.