Wonderland - Jags

Deeper Mysteries - Overview
64
Satisfying Notice
Notice goes up and down—it doesn’t necessarily go high and ‘stay high’
(not for people with Survival Traits, anyway) so if something follows
you home then you may be able to evade it for a while (or kill it) and
then be okay. Similarly, if you discharge your responsibility in a Drama
you may reduce the ill-effects of Notice (or even benefit by it).
Christy was in the back of the car, ranting in a high voice—she was babbling—but I knew all too well what she was saying. I
turned to Joe.
“Drive, Joe,” I told him. “She’s … she’s having an attack—it’s okay, she’ll get better—but we’d better go.” We’d just left
the Burger King restaurant and I knew we had to get to Vegas—to find the guy who could maybe help us after we’d fled the
hospital.
Joe, who’d been more and more disturbed by this was now looking positively incredulous.
“She’s really fucked up, Samantha,” he said. “She’s really messed up.” She looked it. Here eyes were closed. Her color wasn’t
good. Joe pulled out into traffic and aggressively cut across two lanes. The overpass loomed ahead. He accelerated. She was
talking:
“They’re on the highway. They’re chasing me down the highway. They’re going to get me.” Christy was saying in a warbling,
terrified voice. “They’re like a school of whales—they’re coming up and there’s more of them. Oh God, oh God, we’ve got to
run. Oh no. No. No. They’re coming. The whole school is coming.”
I turned back to the front seat. “Joe?” I asked. He looked at me from the driver’s side. “Don’t take the highway,” I told him.
“Too late,” he said. The car turned right, flowing with the traffic up the on-ramp. “If I bail now, we got cops.” It was
reasonable—but I wasn’t as worried about the cops. I looked frantically out the windows but saw nothing other than normal
traffic.
“Christy,” I asked, not sure what to do, “where are you?”
“The highway. The highway. They can smell me. They’re looking for me.” She opened her eyes and looked at me with a lostlittle-girl
look. “I’m so scared, Sam,” she said, tears in her voice. “Please come and get me. I’m so scared.”
Joe looked at me. He was, I thought, two seconds from not being able to deal. “Drive,” I said. “Drive fast. And look for
anything … unusual.”
His look told me that wasn’t making him feel any better, but he punched it and expertly swerved around a slow-moving van.
“We’re coming,” I told Christy, holding her hand. “We’re coming.” I wasn’t sure if she could hear me or not—or if it meant
anything. Then she convulsed. “Oh shit,” I said, strangely soft. I could hear her choking. “Oh shit, Joe? I think—“ then her
eyes opened and she screamed once, loudly—and, in her eyes, I could see that she saw me. She was back.
“Oh Christy,” I said. “Thank god—”
She gripped my hand but turned, twisting in the back seat, craning to look out the rear window.
“What?” I asked. Then I saw it. Behind us, about 20 car-lengths back, were a line of semi-trucks with Harvest Gardens written
on the sides. There must have been six or seven and they were threading their way between the cars, closing with us. Their
windshields were sheets of blinding glare. I couldn’t see anything human looking behind the wheel.
“They came,” she said, looking behind us, her hand trembling. “They’re here.”
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