Loss, a paranormal thriller by Glen Krisch Page A

control her breathing. 
    She knew why her body was reacting in such a way to the simple act of driving.  This very action, carried out by her own hand, had killed Paul.  And now, acknowledging her own trepidation, even to herself, the emotions resurfaced. 
    "I killed Paul.  I killed my soul mate."  Her voice sounded reedy in the enclosed passenger compartment, unhinged.
    She was met by the hum of the Accord's engine and nothing more.  Her admission hung in the air.  There was no one else to blame but herself.  The Accord slowed again, and she watched the road through a blurred veil of tears.
    When she turned down the road that would lead her to downtown Grand View and Chandler's Salvage and Restoration, her heart galloped in her chest, feeling like it would burst as it pummeled her sternum.
    "This is it.  The street..." she whispered.  "Oh no, Ang.  You stupid idiot."
    Time slid into slow motion.
    The street, with its gnarled oaks and poplars crowding the lanes, Chase's Pitstop with its blaring OPEN sign stood just north of the road.
    Flashes from the night of the accident burst into her vision:
    Paul, drunk and nearly passed out, muttering, "Angel... love my Angel..."
    The falling snow deepening across the road, the fluffy white nearly blinding in its intensity...
    And the deer ( no, it had been a man, a man dressed in black ) stood in the road.
    Angie had a nearly uncontrollable impulse to yank the steering wheel hard to the right in order to avoid the deer ( manmanman, stupid cunting man ) in the road.
    But the road was clear.  The snow had melted after a succession of warm days.
    "It was a man, not a deer," she admitted.  Speaking those words solidified her memory.  She could remember him standing in the road, moving to center himself with the Pilot's grill even after Angie attempted evasive action.
    Her mouth tasted suddenly sour, and then it watered, craving the sweetness of wine.  Her chest continued to tighten, compressing her rollicking heart in its panic-stricken grip.  Her heartbeat echoed in her ears as glittering sparks shot across the darkening backdrop of her vision.
    Nearly blind, she eased the car to the shoulder and put the car in park.  Angie grasped her arms across her chest and rocked herself, focusing on nothing more than that simple motion.  Nothing else mattered, nothing else existed, just the soothing movement, the slight pressure of her own arms across her chest.
    Her heartbeat eased.  She opened her eyes and her vision had cleared.  When she took in her surroundings, she saw tire marks gouged into the gravel skirting the road, and the marks trailing away, leaving deep treads plowed through the winter-gray grass.  The treads cleaved a path clear to the edge of the woods.  And there, at the wall of trees, broken saplings marked the Pilot's journey into the woods; broken teeth in a wounded mouth.
    Of all the places in the world for her to have a panic attack, it had to be here.  The last place in the world she ever wanted to visit again.
    She tilted her head back against the head rest and closed her eyes.
    The image of the man in the road resolved in fine focus behind her eyelids.  The man dressed in all black... his face a jumble of familiar curves and sharp angles, a brown beard growing wild across his chin... and the way he touched her when the fog of wine and Vicodin descended over her... the way her body responded... full of wanton lust and loneliness...
    "No!" she screamed, shaking her head to clear it.  "Fucking, no!  That didn't happen.  This isn't happening."
    She opened her eyes and took in her surroundings (ignoring the tunnel into the woods forged by the Pilot), seeing everything, the salt-stained asphalt, the mournful winter trees and dead grass, the occasional mailbox near the road, everything and anything, just so that whatever she saw was real and would root her to both the real world and the now , and push away the knowing, the full-blown understanding of