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L
iving in her car sucked
, but Miranda Swanson knew it was better than being out on the street completely, so she was relieved to be able to sleep in the backseat after a long shift at the diner. As she locked the back doors of the diner where she worked, she noticed how the yellow light hanging from the corner of the building somehow made things look darker, wetter, and dirtier than they already were. With a sigh, she put away the spare keys, and that was that. She was done.

Until tomorrow. The 6:00 a.m. shift was going to be murder. Doing a midnight close had been bad enough.

She groaned. Her feet were killing her as she shuffled out of the light and across the parking lot.

It was warm enough this time of year that being homeless wasn't totally bad. The backseat was clean, and her car battery was charged up enough that she could use her phone and tablet whenever she wanted to surf the Internet, so it wasn't so bad as long as no one she worked with found out where she was sleeping every night. Lois already suspected, and that was bad enough.

Her Internet connection was something she could hardly afford, even though she got the sweetest deal, but she wasn't about to live without it. It helped her feel normal when she curled up in her car at night. The phone was definitely something there would be no negotiating with either. She needed it to pick up extra shifts at the diner and grocery store, so she couldn't turn it off even if she wanted to.

Also, she was waiting to hear back on any of the résumé she'd sent out. A third part-time job would help tremendously. Or maybe that job as a secretary in the dental office she'd applied to. The pay there would equal the amount she made in the diner and the grocery store for less time. A full-time job there, plus a part-time job somewhere else, and she'd be set.

Maybe.

"Car, sweet car," she sighed, spotting her old Nissan Sentra parked in the absolute back of the lot. It wasn't as if it was hidden, but so far she hadn't had a cop knocking on her window asking what she was doing, so it was pretty unnoticeable back there during the night.

A cold wind rushed behind her. Miranda shivered as she whipped around to glance behind her. Nothing there, just the diner and the yellow light that was pointed at the door. The other stores in the mini mall had emergency lights and cameras as well, but suddenly it wasn't enough. Whatever slim protection they offered, it couldn't keep her safe. That realization made the uncomfortable cold in her bones worse. More chilling.

A strange sensation made Miranda reach up to rub the back of her neck. Another shiver ran down her spine. Like a hand touching her skin, brushing away the tiny hairs that had escaped from her bun.

But there was no one there. It was quiet.

"Just the wind."

Turning back in the direction of her car, she walked a little faster.

"Long day. Too damned long." She really needed to kick off her shoes and let her body unwind. She was still buzzing from all those customers and all the coffee it had taken to keep her awake. That was why her skin was jittery. Financially, the twelve-hour shift had been worth it. Her pockets were heavy with tip money, and the hours would definitely help her check, but now that she was freaking out, she honestly debated if the money was worth risking her safety.

The chefs closed up the kitchen and went home long before the wait staff did, and two sick calls meant she was entirely alone.

She needed that secretary job in the city. Then maybe she could get back into her apartment with Lois, and she could stop spending her nights out here all by herself.

They still weren't speaking to each other. To be fair, Lois had called and texted a couple of times, but Miranda wasn't answering or picking up. Miranda wasn't so desperate that she was willing to come clean about living in her car, regardless of whether or not Lois suspected it. The problem was that Miranda owed Lois another four months' worth of back rent, and she couldn't look her friend in the eyes until it was paid.

She couldn't think about that. It was too depressing, and Miranda had to get some food and sleep before her shift tomorrow.

Her thoughts wandered to where she would park for the night. She needed to find someplace different. This parking lot was creeping her out and she was sick of being here so often.

She had gas money now, so a trip to the truck stop, a visit to the ladies' room to shower, and a bite to eat were in order. The rest of the money would go to where it was needed. Every penny of it.

Besides, a gas station would be brighter, and a clerk would be behind the counter, so she wouldn't be alone anymore. Just the idea of that made her feel better.

Where the hell were her keys? Stupid purse. It was huge, but it had to be. She kept a lot of her worldly goods in it lately. Finally, she found the Batgirl Lego figure attached to her key ring and yanked her keys out, but her fingers fumbled and she dropped them onto the wet black pavement.

As she bent to pick them up, she froze and shiver racked her body. A hand—no, a fingertip, a few of them, slid across the arch of her spine over her teal uniform. She'd
felt
that. Someone had
touched
her. It was real this time, had to be.

Miranda jerked to a standing position. Her gaze stayed locked on to the asphalt below her, her breath coming out in harsh gasps as she swallowed, terrified to look behind her in case she really was right. She reminded herself she was a woman and not a girl, so she spun around.

No one. There was no one there, just the warm night under the yellow glow of the parking lot lamps.

She twisted around in a circle, scanning the area in all directions, no less creeped out just because she didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

"What the fuck?" she gasped. "What the hell was that supposed to be?" She'd felt it. It was real. Fingers had slid across her back. The uniform she wore wasn't exactly thick, so it wasn't hard to mistake what had happened. She felt that same feeling whenever a pervert customer pinched her ass or looked at her tits too long. Revulsion.

Only, she was alone this time. There wasn't a diner full of people to witness and provide her with a bubble of protection. Her only companions were the darkness and whatever it was she'd felt.

The thought of ghosts flitted through her head, even though that was stupid and impossible.

"Hello?"

Her voice echoed. The black outline of the trees on the edge of the parking lot swayed with the sudden gust of wind through their branches.

She shivered again as goose bumps prickled the hairs on her arms. She thought about all those true crime shows where a lone woman walking home from work gets accosted by a gang of thugs. She was usually raped and killed before being tossed into a ditch. Miranda didn't want to be like those women. She didn't want to get killed.

Ten feet. She was ten feet away from her car. She could jump in and lock the doors, and that would be the end of it.

After she checked to make sure no one was hiding in the backseat like some horror movie cliché, of course.

Just because it was clichéd and stupid didn't mean it couldn't kill her. She could totally get killed from a horror movie cliché. Her thoughts were running ten thousand miles a minute.

The idea of getting near those trees, where she couldn't see anything, bothered her. Her feet were frozen on the asphalt, keys clutched in her white-knuckled fist.

The mall was closed, and so was the diner. She'd closed up and was the last one out. She couldn't run back inside because she'd tossed the spare keys through the mail slot in the door for the owner to collect tomorrow. There was no help and nowhere for her to go other than her car.

"Fuck my life."

Miranda ran for her car, ignoring each flare of pain through her old shoes. Stupid, twelve-hour workday!

"Don't kill me. Don't kill me. Don't kill me."

She made it to her car, pressed the button to unlock the doors, and then jumped inside like a real action heroine before slamming the door shut and hitting the locks.

She threw her head back, panting for breath, before she recalled the threat of the backseat. Twisting around, she scanned the back and turned on the overhead light so she could see better.

No one was there, just her blanket and lumpy pillow, looking as boring and welcome as ever.

And suddenly, the fact that she'd been so scared of nothing seemed funny. Laughter erupted from her as she realized she'd behaved just as she had as a little girl, running across the carpeted floor of her room and jumping onto her bed, and yanking the covers over her head before a monstrous arm could reach out and grab her by the legs.

It was a foolish thing to be scared of back then, just as her overactive imagination tonight was foolish. Miranda clutched her fast-beating heart and shook her head.

She stuck her key into the ignition, but stopped as a red glow caught her attention from the corner of her eyes.

At first, she thought it was another car in the distance, but there were only woods full of trees and thick shrubs in that direction, no roads.

It was coming from only a short distance away. It took her a second to realize the darkness around those red lights weren't the trees, though it looked bushy enough. Fur?

No, no animal was that big, or had eyes like that. What was that thing if it wasn't an animal?

Miranda leaned to the side, squinting through her window. What the hell was that? It moved closer. It was alive. And it couldn't have been more than twenty feet away.

More appeared, lifting themselves up, as if they'd been lying down, hiding where she couldn't see as she'd been walking toward her car. They looked black and shaggy in the night, but with those red slits for eyes. And they
were
eyes. They were
staring
at her.

Another chill rushed through her body, but it didn't stop. She continued to shiver, to tremble and shake as she stared back at them.

And they were so close to her window…

No. Not eyes. Not animals, not anything that was normal. That made no sense and she was getting out of here.

She sat straight in the driver seat and reached for her seat belt, only then seeing the heavy, shadowed form that stood right beside her driver-side window, blocking that yellow light from the diner.

The slow sound of her breath as she exhaled was accompanied by the heavier, harsher noise of gruff panting, as if it was coming from something as big as a bear.

Miranda turned to get a better look, and then wished she hadn't. Its face pressed against the glass, with its animal nose scrunched and red eyes wide as its breath fogged the window, revealing long, curved teeth through curled, black lips.

Miranda shrieked her tonsils bloody when the window shattered and an enormous clawed hand, at least three times larger than her own with thick fingers reached in and yanked her out, quick and easy like she was a doll made of cotton and her car had been made of popsicle sticks.

Then there was darkness and wind in her hair. Branches slapped and scratched her body as she felt herself being carried off into the woods, where her wild, animalistic shrieks for help wouldn't be heard.