Sara Mason Mysteries Collection

Chapter 3

Sara drove cautiously as she made her way home. When fog blanketed the I-5 in the Central Valley, it could easily cause a multi-car pileup. She strained to see through the windshield and slowed thinking she had found the turn-off. She quickly realized she could have driven into a ditch, and her pulse rose.

“The reflectors,” she said, mumbling in frustration. “Where are those…?”

The fog separated momentarily. The faint outline of tombstones in the older, mostly abandoned, Franklin Cemetery came into view in the fading evening light. She breathed easier knowing she had turned onto the correct road.

Several small lights ahead was being cast in different directions as she continued her crawl toward home. Three people with flashlights walked the road, laughing and jumping around on the pavement, inviting havoc into their lives should a speeder come upon them. She stopped to avoid hitting them as they cavorted in her headlights. She could tell they were teens by the way they playfully banged on the hood and peered into her passenger window, yelling like Halloween ghouls. The red flame from one of their cigarettes dragged across the side window. She swerved and accelerated to get past them.

Something vague appeared up ahead.

“Look out!” she said, yelling and stomping on the brakes as a man stepped onto the road a couple feet in front of her. She gave the horn a good long blast. Her SUV spun around, and she felt the front tires drop off the pavement.

An old man"s face popped out of the shadows of the fog and headlights and then disappeared again into the gloom. Then a face popped up at the driver"s side window, made ghoulish by the haze, with a wide-eyed, open-mouthed, penetrating stare. Sara screamed. Her knee banged the steering wheel when she nearly jumped out of the seat. The face leaned closer.

From out of the darkness, a young male voice yelled, “Hey! Get outta there!”

The old man darted away carrying something with a handle, maybe a hoe or a shovel, as the fog swirled in and erased every trace of him.

Sara remembered the sound of the tires kicking up gravel on the shoulder. “Great! Just great. Now which direction was I headed?”

Someone pounded on the back window. She jumped again. A flashlight beam shone around. It was those teens. One appeared at the driver"s side window and knocked. “Hey, you okay?” the boy called out. When she opened the window a c***k, he said, “C"mon, we"ll get you back on the road.” His m*******a breath floated in.

She sighed with relief as the other teens flashed lights and stood along the right shoulder of the pavement. Carefully, the first teen told her how far to back up and then banged on the rear window to tell her to stop, then to pull forward.

When the tires told her that she was back on the pavement, she yelled out the window, “Thank you. I"m grateful.”

“Hey,” the boy said. His face was a lot less threatening as he came close again. “That"s Crazy Ike. He gets off on digging in graveyards.”

“And running people off the road,” Sara said. “He digs in graveyards?”

“Yeah, he"s pretty bizarre,” the boy said. The other teens came to stand behind him. “This graveyard"s not used much anymore.”

“He has a mean dog,” the girl said. “A little mangy mutt.”

“Oh, yeah,” the other boy said as they all leaned in close. “If Crazy Ike sics him on ya, you"re supposed to call the cops.”

“People go missing out here,” the girl said. She shook her head doubtfully. “Never hear from "em again.”

“Nah,” the first boy said with a wave of his hand. “That"s BS.” They stepped away.

“Thanks again,” Sara said. She closed the window, waved, and started off, cautiously. Her chest heaved with a long sigh of relief. Perhaps she should have offered the teens a ride, but they were out there, evidently because they wanted to be. She didn"t need to be picking up strangers, least of all, any who smoked dope. She continued to strain to see through the fog. “Perfect cover for a serial killer, if you ask me!” she said, realizing her fright was partially caused by the elusive madman newscasts.

The fog came steadily without much clearing between one blanketing haze and the next. Sara had not wanted to be on the roads at dusk at a time like this. She had no experience driving in a fog other than being a passenger in her parent"s car. Maneuvering through the blinding white that reflected back the headlights" beams was a frightening experience.

She finally made it onto the narrow winding levee and crept along. She opened the window listening should her tires leave the pavement. She didn"t wish to follow her family into the river.