The Light (Morpheus Road) (31 page)

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Chapter 20

"Go! Go! Get out of here!" I screamed.

"No! We've almost got him!" Sydney yelled back.

"Forget him!"

Sydney didn't know what was happening. She hadn't been attacked by Cayden's father.

"He's going to run us down!" I shouted. "Move!"

The cigarette boat charged closer.

Sydney froze. Things were happening too quickly for her to comprehend. Instead of speeding up she took her hands off the throttle. The Jet Ski lurched to a stop. Her eyes were wide and focused on the boat. I guess you'd call it a deer in the headlights. We were seconds away from being run down by a 1,000-horsepower monster. There wasn't time to convince her that we were about to be shredded. I lunged forward, my arms wrapping around either side of her, and grabbed the handlebars myself. I cranked the throttle and

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spun the Jet Ski hard to the right. We launched just as the behemoth boat cut across our stern. The surge from its wake propelled us forward.

I stood behind Sydney, leaning over her shoulder, riding the wave and pushing the craft as fast as it could go. A quick look back showed me that Reilly was making a wide turn to come around and take another shot at us. There was no way we could outrun that big boat. Our best hope was to outmaneuver it.

"Who the hell is that?" Sydney screamed.

"Turn off the light," I ordered.

"What? No, that's dangerous!" she shouted back.

I ignored her. Sydney wasn't an idiot. It only took her a second to realize what a dumb comment that was. She reached forward and killed the running light.

"We'll head toward shore," I said. "Maybe we can lose it in the shallows."

I turned the Jet Ski toward the closest shore. We were in a spot on the lake where there were no cabins or camps. The shore was dark and thick with foliage. I felt sure we could hide there, that is, if we could get there before Reilly got us.

"It's an illusion, right?" Sydney said. "Like the blood. It's not really there."

I glanced back. The speedboat was coming up fast.

"It's real," I said. "It's Cayden's father. That's the boat Cayden used to run down Cooper."

I had my chin resting on Sydney's shoulder. She made no attempt to take control of the Jet Ski.

"Why is he coming after us?" she asked, confused.

"How many people do you see on that boat?" I asked.

Sydney ducked under my arm and looked back. "Two."

Her answer actually came as a relief.

"That means you see him," I said.

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"Who?"

"Gravedigger. He's somehow possessed Reilly. Maybe he's scaring him into coming after me. Or maybe Reilly just wants to protect his son. Either way Reilly wants me dead. He tried to strangle me before."

"And you didn't tell me that because . . . ?"

"Because there was already too much to tell you."

"This can't be happening," Sydney muttered, and looked behind us again.

We were several hundred yards from the safety of the shallow water. Though we were moving fast, it wasn't fast enough to get there before the cigarette boat would catch us.

"We won't make it," Sydney said. Her cool had returned. "We gotta do something."

She put her hands back on the handlebars, but I wasn't ready to give up control.

"It's okay," she said calmly. "I got it."

"This is real, Sydney," I warned. "It's no illusion. They want to kill us."

"I get it," she said. I believed her. Sydney was Sydney again. She was cool, even though the boat from hell was gaining fast. "Let go, Marsh."

I did. Reluctantly. Sydney was back in command.

The cigarette boat was nearly on us. If we maintained our speed for only a few seconds more, the boat would hit and shatter the Jet Ski . . . along with us.

"Hang on," Sydney cautioned.

She turned hard to the right without letting up on the throttle. The Jet Ski slid into the turn, moving sideways across the water's surface. We both leaned hard to the left to counterbalance the turn. For a second I thought we might flip, but the Jet Ski kept moving. It wasn't as sharp a turn as I would have liked, but it was tighter than what the cigarette boat could do. I looked back to see Reilly make the same turn,

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but his speed forced him to make a much wider circle.

"We're going to cross the wake!" she yelled.

I knew enough to lift my butt slightly off the seat and keep my knees soft to handle the shock. It was rocky. We bounced over the small sharp waves that had been created by the speedboat, our engine whining each time we rose up out of the water. With each wave we got air, then crashed back down. It was teeth-rattling. Once we had done a three-sixty, Sydney accelerated toward shore. I looked back to see that the cigarette boat was making the same circle, though much wider. Sydney's maneuver bought us enough time to reach the shallows.

"Nice," I said.

"What do you mean Reilly's possessed?" Sydney asked. "You mean like
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
or something?"

I was impressed that Sydney knew that reference. Maybe there was a little bit more geek to her than she let on.

"No," I answered. "It's more like Gravedigger is frightening people into doing things. Like George O. committing suicide. Sheriff Vrtiak went nuts too."

"My god," Sydney whispered as she glanced quickly back over her shoulder. "We can't outrun that boat . . ."

"Go close to shore," I instructed. "Find a dark spot and kill the engine."

Sydney didn't question me. She drove us to within ten yards of the shore and brought us to a stop. We drifted under the branches of a tree that hung out over the water. Once the Jet Ski's engines were quiet, all I could hear was the roar of the cigarette boat. It was coming up fast.

"How shallow can that boat go?" she asked.

"I don't know, but he'd have to be crazy to speed that fast close to shore." As soon as I said that, I realized what a dumb comment it was. Reilly
was
crazy, thanks to whatever Grave-digger was doing to him. The guy was a jerk, but I didn't

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believe he was a killer. Not normally, anyway. But this was all about Gravedigger.

"He's still coming," Sydney whispered, as if her words might carry over the water to Reilly.

"Get ready to start up," I said. "If he sees us, we'll beach it and hit the woods."

The small stretch of rocky beach led to thick forest. I didn't know which was worse, dueling Reilly in his killer boat on the lake, or facing Gravedigger in the middle of a dark, desolate forest.

The cigarette boat was headed directly toward us.

"Does he see us?" Sydney asked.

I didn't answer. I didn't know. I wanted to wait as long as possible before abandoning ship.

The cigarette boat kept coming, but it slowed. Reilly made a course correction and turned left until he was traveling parallel to the shore.

"He's searching," Sydney whispered. "He doesn't know where we are."

The cigarette boat slowed even further. Reilly was definitely hunting for us. Alone. Gravedigger wasn't next to him.

"We'll wait a few minutes, then head back for the party boat," I whispered.

Reilly drove his boat farther away, going south toward town.

"What if he circles back?" Sydney asked.

"Then we'll--"

I stopped talking.

"Did you feel that?" I asked.

"No, what?" Sydney replied.

"I don't know. It was a wave or something."

"It's not the wake from the cigarette boat," Sydney said. "That hasn't hit yet."

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"There!" I exclaimed in a hoarse whisper. "You had to feel that."

Sydney tensed up. She felt it too. "It's like . . . like . . . something swam underneath us."

The Jet Ski rocked on the water, and it wasn't from the oncoming wake.

"There's something down there," she said in a frightened whisper. "It must be a fish."

I shook my head. "There's no fish in this lake that's big enough to do that."

The Jet Ski was bumped from underneath. Sydney yelped. I looked ahead to see the cigarette boat moving further away from us.

Where was Gravedigger?

I heard something slap the water behind us. Sydney and I both turned to look in time to see the rings of a big ripple that was growing larger.

"I don't want to know what made that," I said.

"Let's go, Marsh," Sydney whined.

I looked at the cigarette boat. It was still too close. If we started the engine, Reilly would hear it.

"It could be a turtle," I whispered. "Or . . . or . . . maybe there really is some freak big fish. Every lake has one of those, right? You know, the big old bass that everybody has stories about and--"

Sydney gasped. Not five feet from the bow of the Jet Ski, a dark, reptilian shape lifted out of the water, then sunk down and disappeared. For that brief moment the dark scales on its back glistened in the moonlight, and then it was gone. The thing was moving fast. There was no way to tell how long it was, or how wide, or what kind of creature it was, but there was no question about its size. It was big.

"That's not normal," Sydney cried.

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The water bubbled behind us. We looked toward the stern to see the scaly back rise up once more.

"Look!" Sydney shouted, pointing forward.

Another black, scaly spine broke the surface. Or maybe it was part of the same creature.

"It's circling us," I said, unbelieving.

"Is this an illusion?" Sydney whimpered.

"Who cares? Let's get the hell out of here."

Sydney didn't need convincing. She fired the engine and twisted the throttle just as the creature rose up directly in front of us. I caught a quick glimpse of a black eye the size of a tennis ball. It was sunken into a scaly reptilian head that could have been a snake or an alligator or the Loch Freakin' Ness Monster for all I cared. The head had barely broken the surface when the Jet Ski hit it and skimmed over the top. I felt the back of the Jet Ski kick up as the creature rose out of the water. For a second I thought we'd do an end-o and somersault forward, Jet Ski and all. Luckily, we had gotten too far ahead for that to happen and instead came crashing back down to the water as the head of the creature continued to rise. I looked back to see a dark, dragon like head lift out of the water and open its mouth to reveal an impossible number of sharp teeth set into alligator jaws.

My brain told me it was an illusion. There was nothing like that in Thistledown Lake. There was nothing like that anywhere. That was small consolation. We had both nearly been killed by an illusion before.

"What is it?" Sydney called back while keeping her eyes forward.

"Nothing," I lied. "It's nothing."

I watched as the giant reptile splashed back down into the water and twisted its snakelike body our way.

"But don't slow down," I added.

Looking to my right, I saw exactly what I feared. Reilly

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had heard us power up and was coming around to chase us. He was a couple hundred yards away, but the speedboat could cover that distance in seconds. We were headed toward the party boat, but it was at least a half a mile away. Behind us I saw the dark shadow of the reptile sliding through the water, right on our tail. I didn't think our situation could get any worse.

I was wrong.

Sydney was focused on the
Nellie Bell,
pushing the Jet Ski to move as fast as possible. "Do you hear that?" she asked.

I listened. It sounded like another engine.

"Maybe it's the police," I said hopefully.

I looked to our left and saw another cigarette boat closing in on us. It wasn't the police. It was an exact duplicate of Reilly's boat and we were seconds from crashing bows.

"Look out!" I shouted.

Sydney made a quick glance left and reacted instantly, throttling back. The Jet Ski slowed as the big boat crossed our bow, barely missing us. At the controls of this new threat was Gravedigger. Mystery solved. He turned and smiled at me as he flashed past.

"Go!" I shouted.

Sydney throttled up and continued our dash back to civilization.

"Where did that come from?" she screamed.

Before I could answer, I saw another flash of white headed our way. A third boat was speeding toward us from the right.

"Two o'clock!" I shouted.

"What?" Sydney shot back.

"Turn!" I commanded, grabbed the right handlebar, and yanked it.

The Jet Ski made a sharp turn to the right as the third boat flashed by on our left. This new threat was identical to