Wildwood Road by Christopher Golden Read Free Book Online Page A

was slow in putting them together. Then, in an instant, the connection was made. The stiffness. The feel of the seat beneath her, and at her back. The cold. And that tapping . . . tapping on the window of the car.
    Jillian opened her eyes. Late October sunshine made her squint, but she could see the blue uniform clearly enough. She was lying on the backseat of the car, peering up at a gruffly handsome young police officer who stared in through the glass at her with a disdain in his eyes that she had never felt directed at her before, and hoped never to feel again. An autumn leaf struck the window, blew across the glass in front of his face, then disappeared. Their eyes had made a connection, and that leaf had severed it.
    “Oh, Christ. Michael!” she cried, sitting up too quickly, heedless of her hangover headache.
    With a hiss she pressed the heel of her right hand against her temple and squinted against the pain. All of this was foreign to her. Jillian had been drunk enough to have a hangover perhaps three times in her life, and never one as bad as this. Certainly never one with which she had awoken in the backseat of a car. Her own or anyone else's.
    The cop was tapping on the window again, motioning for her to get out of the car. Didn't the guy know she had the mother of all headaches? Her Elizabethan gown was stiff and unyielding, wrinkled and pleated in places where no pleats ought to be. She squinted her eyes even more tightly and then forced herself to open them again, to swing her legs beneath her and sit up all the way in the backseat so that she could lean forward and look into the front, where Michael lay huddled much the way she had been only moments before. Even the rapping of the policeman's nightstick on the window had not roused him.
    “Ma'am?” the cop called, his voice muffled by the glass. “Please step out of the car. Now.”
    This last was said calmly, but with such an air of command that it could not be debated. There was a second police officer, she noticed at last. He was on the other side of the car, the passenger's side, and he was trying to get a look at Michael in his torn, wrinkled D'Artagnan costume, a grave expression on his face. For the first time, Jillian wondered why her husband wasn't waking up.
    “Oh, no,” she said, in a tiny little voice that did not sound like her, even to her own ears. She reached into the front seat and grabbed his shoulder, shaking him with all the strength her hangover would allow. “Michael! Michael, wake up!”
    “Ma'am!” the cop shouted.
    Jillian had been numbed by sleep and her hangover, but with this snap from the policeman, her heart leaped into a sprint. Her face felt flushed and she raised both hands to signify that she was surrendering to his demand. As she moved toward the door, Michael began to stir in the front seat. She felt a mixture of relief and fury. He was alive, that was good. But what the hell were they doing there on the side of the road in the first place?
    Michael, what the fuck have you done?
she thought as she unlocked her door and eased it open.
    The wind rushed in, whipping a cascade of chestnut hair across her face. She ran her fingers through it, pushing it away from her eyes, and hated how it felt, unwashed. Michael had begun to sit up in the front seat. There was a dark bruise on his face, covering most of his left cheek. She had no idea where he'd come by it, or the tear in his costume. But now wasn't the time to ask.
    She had heard the hum of engines as she was waking up, but only now that she was out of the car could she see other vehicles passing by. Even now a gold minivan that looked vaguely familiar passed, and she prayed no one would go by who might recognize her, standing there in her costume. What would she say, then? Just thinking about it made her headache worsen.
    “Ma'am?” the policeman said, and his voice was stern. “I don't suppose you've got some ID in that outfit?”
    Jillian's cheeks blossomed with