7 Steps to Midnight Read Online Free PDF

surge of fury. If he saw the bastard again, he’d run him down.
    He shook his head spasmodically. No, he mustn’t think like that. Reality was not that easily manipulated and something very real was happening; he needed time to find its meaning.
    He glanced up at the rearview mirror. No sign of another car yet. They’d be coming soon though. He pressed down on the gas pedal, the speedometer needle jumping up to ninety, ninety-two; the Pontiac shot along the highway. Chris shivered uncontrollably. He’d never driven so fast in his life; what if he lost control?
    No help for it. He wouldn’t let that man catch up to him. His back and arm still ached.
You son of a bitch
, he thought.
    He never passed Veering. Had someone else picked him up? It seemed likely. Who the hell was Veering anyway? Did he have anything at all to do with what he’d just gone through? It was demented to believe that. Still, it had all begun to happen minutes after he’d made that stupid wager. Chris drew in a trembling breath.
    Had he already lost the wager?

5
    He had to stop and get some rest; he was too exhausted to drive to Tucson. It was better he got off the highway anyway. By now, they’d have phoned ahead. There could be a roadblock waiting. He wondered if he should dump the car and try to get to Tucson some other way. How? Hitchhike?
Sure
, he thought.
Veering and I can ride together in someone else’s car.
Veering could present him as an example of the inadvisability of accepting wagers on reality.
    His head jerked up, eyes flaring open. Jesus Christ, he’d almost gone to sleep. Now. He had to stop now.
    Up ahead, he saw a side road and, slowing down, made a left turn onto it. He drove along it very slowly, partly because of the ruts, mostly to avoid raising a telltale cloud of dust. He was heading northward now. To his right, the glow of sunrise was increasing.
    Approximately twenty minutes later, he saw a grove of trees and turned into them, hoping it would keep the car out of sight. He braked beside one of them and turned off the engine, pushed in the headlight knob.
    Immediately, he slumped back with a groan. Dear God, he was sleepy.
    He was amazed that he didn’t fall unconscious right away. His brain would not give up its hold though. It turned over slowly in his head, revolving in sluggish circles.
    Trying to understand.
    Was there a moment when things had begun to go wrong? A single instant he could recapture?
    The moment he had picked up Veering seemed to be the one. Still, there had been one before that.
    The moment he’d discovered that his car was gone.
    Clearly, the man in his house had taken it. But why? And how in God’s name had he gotten into the fenced lot and driven it past the guard? Had he used the rear gate? If so, where had he gotten a key for its lock? Or who had let him in, then out?
    He looked down at his identity badge and groaned. For Christ’s sake, why hadn’t he pointed it out to the man and woman in the house, the man in the black suit? But they must have seen it. Probably regarded it as no more authentic than his driver’s license.
    He made a sound of pained amusement as he visualized Scotty Tensdale waiting for his car to be returned. It was damned unlikely now.
    His mind went back to the old man in the baseball cap. He tried to re-create their conversation in his mind. Had it really been as meaningless and stupid as he’d thought? Or was it actually the cause of—
    “Come
on
,” he muttered irritably. Shifting across the seat, he lay on his right side, raising his legs and bending them onto the seat. Sleep, he thought. For Christ’s sake,
sleep
.
    His brain kept turning like a machine in slow motion.
    Could it be because of his work? Had he stumbled onto something?
“There are some things man was not meant to tamper with,” intoned a Van Dyke-bearded scientist in a sci-fi movie
. Oh, come on. He twisted irritably on the seat. Life wasn’t some damn sci-fi movie. There were spies, yes,