Prey (6 page)

“Hello,” she whispered.

A voice on the other end of the line replies, “Jade, it’s me, Shana. I need a big favor.”

Recognizing the voice, Jade partially opens her sleepy eyes and rolls over on her back. “Hey, Shana, what’s up? What’s wrong?”

“My car broke down a couple of blocks away from the mall. I’m not sure what the name of this street is, but it’s that long stretch of road with trees on both sides. The one I normally take home as a shortcut. You know which one I’m talking about?”

Jade sits up and turns on the lamp. “The one we took that time you asked me to take you home?”

“Yeah, that’s the one,” the voice readily answered.

Jade glances over at her alarm clock for the time. “Shana, it’s past midnight. What were you still doing out there this late? The shop closed hours ago. It couldn’t have been that much merchandise left over.”

“No, it wasn’t anything like that. I was at home about to go to sleep when I remembered I didn’t activate the alarm. Normally I wouldn’t have cared, but Mr. Sloan opens tomorrow and you how quick he is to try and fire somebody. So I got up and went back up there to set it. I know it’s late, but I don’t have anybody else I can call, Jade. Can you please come get me?”

Jade sighs. She definitely isn’t dying to drive out in this storm, but she knows her friend needs her help. After a short hesitation, she tells Shana, “Sure, girl. No problem. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

“Thank you so much, Jade,” Shana appreciatively told her. “You’re a life saver. I owe you big time.”

Jade gazes out the window and takes notice to the bright flashes of lightning and the heavy rainfall. “You sure do. See you in a little while.” Jade puts her phone down and reluctantly gets out of bed. She grabs the easiest clothes to put on and snatches up the only jacket she owns that has a hood.

She leaves her apartment and walks through narrow corridors, keeping a steady hold on the drawstrings to her hood until she’s out of the rain and sitting in her car. Jade starts the engine, turns on the headlights, flicks the windshield wipers on, and shifts into drive. As she rounds the corners of the parking lot, her headlamps briefly shine on the hooded stranger just as she drives out of the complex. Although she caught a quick glimpse of the mysterious individual, she never gives him a second thought.

The harsh weather is making it hard for Jade to see clearly, leaving her with no other alternative but to drive much slower than normal. This minor setback means the relatively short trip will take a lot longer than she originally anticipated. But be that as it may, Jade sticks to her word and proceeds through the stormy conditions to help out her pal.

Following miles of driving, Jade ultimately arrives at the long stint of road Shana described. Jade begins the search for Shana’s car. The mixture of high winds and heavy rain is reduced visibility to mere feet. Jade digs into her jacket pocket and pulls out her cell phone. She’s just about to call Shana when she spots a vehicle’s hazard lights off to the side of the road, no more than a block or so away.

Jade puts her phone back in her pocket and pulls up behind the parked vehicle, leaving only a tiny space between the two. She honks to get Shana’s attention but nothing happens. Jade spots movement inside the car, but with the rain still pouring and the desolate road being so dark, she can’t make anything out for sure. Jade pulls her phone out again and highlights Shana’s name. Jade is just about to place the call when the driver’s door to the parked vehicle suddenly opens. Jade pulls her hood over her head and exits her car.

“Shana, it’s me!” Jade shouted over the pounding rain. “What happened? You have a blowout or something?!” Jade doesn’t receive an answer. She continues to near the parked car.

Maybe something’s wrong. Maybe she needs help.

“Shana?!” Jade nervously called out. An immense lightning strike temporarily sheds light on the isolated road and Jade instantly realizes that the car she’s approaching isn’t Shana’s. She’s literally frozen in place. The car belongs to a man who stays in her apartment complex—a man who’s also a roommate of the three men who attacked Drake.

During the brief illumination, Jade notices another three men accompanying the driver, undoubtedly the same three men that attacked Drake. Jade instinctively inches back to her car.

As Jade back steps, the other doors to the parked vehicle open and the three remaining passengers step out. Another flash of lightening reveals that each of the men is in possession of some kind of object. One man is holding an aluminum baseball bat, while two others, Jack included, are holding foot-long pipes, and the fourth man is in possession of a tire iron. She can tell what their intentions are by their malevolent gapes.

Not wanting to find out if her suspicious are true, Jade makes a dash for her car. The men waste no time in charging after her. She manages to make it to her car and urgently locks the doors once inside. She fiddles with her keys desperately searching for the one needed to turn the ignition.

One of the men shatters the driver’s door window. Undergoing a level of fear that she’s never known, Jade can only think to scream, kick, and put up as much of a fight as she can as two of her attackers pull her through the window. Once she’s been removed, the two men let her drop to the wet pavement. Jade’s entire body goes limp as it collides into the unforgiving surface.

When Jade regains her composure she swiftly tries to think of another way out of her predicament, however, any other way out is virtually non-existent. The men gather around her, blocking off any possible escape route. She scoots away from the men until her back is up against her car door. One of the men attempts to kick Jade in the head, but narrowly misses after she manages to slip clear of the punt. The man’s heavy boot slams into the car door, creating a basketball-sized dent.

The four men permit Jade to crawl around to the front of her car before cutting off her path yet again. A feeling of hopelessness settles on Jade. She stops crawling and leans back against the bumper. The man carrying the ball bat steps directly in front of Jade and clenches the object firmly with both hands. Jade is well aware of what’s about to happen next. Her heart is pounding through her chest, but being the strong-minded person she is, she refuses to concede to the men. The steady rain flow conceals her tears. Jade turns her sights away from the man as he raises the bat above his head, preparing to strike. She doesn’t want the man and his bat to be the last image she sees.

Jade is surprised when she hears what sounds like metal clinging against the pavement. She cautiously faces forward to investigate and is shocked to see that the man wielding the bat has completely vanished, the sound of him screaming drifting off into the surrounding darkness. A second or two later the screaming returns, drawing near at a rapid rate. The screaming is brought to an abrupt end when the man’s body crash lands onto the roof of his car.

Jade and the three remaining men surrounding her are perplexed by the baffling occurrence.

“What the hell happened to CJ?” one of the men asked.

Limited only to the visibility provided by Jade’s headlights, the three men search aimlessly for whatever it was that ambushed their friend.

“Did anybody see what happened?!” one man yelled out. “Who the hell’s out there?!”

Jade is at a loss. This would’ve been an ideal time for her to run away, only she can’t. She’s frightened stiff.

The edginess of the three men continues to accumulate. Their anxiety builds with every passing second as they impatiently wait for something else to happen. A series of lightning strikes light up the area. The momentary light unveils a man standing motionless in the middle of the street, no more than fifty feet away from where they’re standing. The violent weather continues to hinder their visibility, but there’s no doubt that someone is out there. The illumination created by the lightning strikes dissipates, returning the atmosphere to its pitch-black state.

“Jake, did you see that?!” one of the men frantically hollered. “There’s somebody out there, man!”

“Where?!” Jake asked, panicked, tightly gripping the piece of pipe.

“Straight ahead! He was standing in the middle of the street!”

Another series of lightning flashes occur, again revealing the person in the center of the road, only this time the person is about twenty feet away—a big distance jump for such a short timeframe. It’s also become obvious that the person closing in on them is the same trench coat-wearing, hooded individual that has been following Jade all day. The lightning flashes fade out, sending the entire area back into darkness.

The three men realize that whoever or whatever it is that’s out there is definitely stalking them. The worried men ready their weapons and prepare to attack. The men plot. Their plan is to attack when the next round of lightning illuminates the area. The moment they spot their target, they’ll strike.

Within a matter of seconds, they get their signal. Lightning flashes light up the night yet again, but oddly, the elusive stranger isn’t anywhere in sight. Darkness begins to prevail once more before another chain of lightning strikes occur. Although the three men are absolutely clueless as to where the hooded stranger went, the flickering lights reveal that the mysterious stranger has gone from being fifty feet in front of them to now standing directly behind them.

As soon as the light dies out, the sounds of screaming begin. Jade can faintly see the altercation unfold thanks to her headlights, but her view is extremely poor.

The hooded individual grabs a hold of one of the men’s shirts from behind and tosses him effortlessly over his shoulder with the use of one hand. Jade is astonished by the brute power the stranger exhibits. The other two men, Jake being one, turn around and proceed to swing their weapons wildly at the hooded stranger. The enigmatic being catches Jake’s pipe in one hand and snatches his friend’s weapon away with the other.

Jade watches on as the hooded individual tosses both weapons aside and throws a single punch into Jake’s chest, knocking him clear out of view. The last remaining goon is utterly terrified. He and the mystifying stranger stare at one another through the heavy rainfall for a number of seconds before the cowardly thug makes a run for it. The man in the hood blurs out of sight, running after the spineless goon at a phenomenal speed.

The extraordinary being easily catches up to the goon, hoisting the sniveling punk in the air by the collars of his jacket. In a calm tone, the hooded stranger issues a subtle, yet imposing threat.

“If any of you ever come near her again, you’ll have to deal with me, and I promise you I won’t be as nice a second time around. And trust me…You don’t wanna see me when I’m pissed off. You understand me?” The petrified hooligan nods. The hooded stranger then tosses him aside like a ragdoll.

After getting rid of all the assailants, the unknown stranger checks on Jade, who is still sitting on the wet concrete in front of her car, confused and scared out of her mind. She’s so befuddled, she feels like she’s having a bad dream.

With the hooded individual standing directly over her, she lifts up to catch a glimpse of him, but the falling rain only blurs her vision even further. Jade is hanging on to consciousness by a very thin thread. Worried about her condition, the man removes his hood and kneels down beside her.

With the stranger now at her side, Jade gets an up-close view of his face. It’s a gorgeous face that signifies the epitome of innocence and radiates an exceptionally trusting vibe. It’s a face that Jade knows very well.

“Alex?” asked Jade, a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

The man stares deeply into Jade’s eyes and smiles. “Yeah, Jade. It’s me.”

“No…It can’t be you,” she said, her eyes wide and dazed. “You died two years ago.”

“I came back, Jade,” he told her with an endearing smile. “I came back for you.”

Jade fixes her mouth to speak, but passes out before she can say another word.

CHAPTER 9

In the early morning hours of the next day, Jade is sleeping peacefully in her bed. The sun shines through the thin opening of her window where the curtains fail to meet and beams down on her face. The incoming light slowly awakens her. Without warning, she leaps out of her restful state and immediately goes on high alert. It takes a while for her to understand that she’s back in her apartment and no longer out on the isolated roadside, where danger surrounded her on every side.

Jade recalls the details of the previous night quite vividly. She remembers being attacked by four men and she also remembers the stranger who came to her rescue. She remembers that her rescuer exhibited a freakish strength and speed that allowed him to easily outmatch the four goons. She even remembered her knight in shining armor sharing an uncanny resemblance to her deceased boyfriend, Alex Henley.

But what she can’t recall is what happened afterward. She doesn’t even know how she got back home.

She almost writes the horrifying night off as an awful dream, but the realism of what happened and the freshness it has in her memory prevents her from doing so. She gets out of the bed and looks out her window. The clear skies have allowed the blazing sun to erase nearly all signs that would’ve been left behind by last night’s storm, which only persuades Jade to further believe that her dream concept might not be so farfetched. She walks over to her closet and spots the raincoat and other items of clothing she allegedly wore out last night neatly hanging on the rack in her closet. Jade is all but ready to rule out the terrifying experience as realistic nightmare.