Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page B

the upstairs hall this morning; she knew what they had been people like her—but not what they were now.
    “Go, Godiva, go!”
    Even without the flap of reins to signal the need for greater speed, the mare increased the length of her stride, as if she shared a psychic link with Chrissie.
    Then they were past the house, tearing flat-out across a grassy fields, paralleling the macadam driveway, whizzing toward the county road less than half a mile to the east. The nimble-footed mare worked her great haunch muscles, and her powerful stride was so lullingly rhythmic and exhilarating that Chrissie soon was hardly aware of the rocking-jolting aspect of the ride; it seemed as if they were skimming across the earth, nearly flying.
    She looked over her shoulder and did not see the two loping figures, although they were no doubt still pursuing her through the multilayered shadows. With the muddy-red candescence along the western horizon fading to deep purple, with the lights of the house rapidly dwindling, and with a crescent moon beginning to thrust one silver-bright point above the line of hills in the east, visibility was poor.
    Though she could not see those pursuers who were on foot, she had no difficulty spotting the headlights of Tucker’s blue Honda. In front of the house, a couple of hundred yards behind her now, Tucker swung the car around in the driveway and joined the chase.
    Chrissie was fairly confident that Godiva could outrun any man or beast other than a better horse, but she knew that the mare was no match for a car. Tucker would catch them in seconds. The man’s face was clear in her memory the bony brow, sharp-ridged nose, deeply set eyes like a pair of hard, black marbles. He’d had about him that aura of unnatural vitality that Chrissie sometimes had seen in her parents—abundant nervous energy coupled with a queer look of hunger. She knew he would do anything to stop her, that he might even attempt to ram Godiva with the Honda.
    He could not, of course, use the car to follow Godiva overland. Reluctantly Chrissie employed her knees and the mane in her right hand to turn the mare away from the driveway and the county road, where they were most likely to reach help quickly. Godiva responded without hesitation, and they headed toward the woods that lay at the far side of the meadow, five hundred yards to the south.
    Chrissie could see the forest only as a black, bristly mass vaguely silhouetted against the marginally less dark sky. The details of the terrain she must cross appeared to her more in memory than in reality. She prayed that the horse’s night vision was keener than hers.
    “That’s my girl, go, go, you good old girl, go!” she shouted encouragingly to the mare.
    They made their own wind in the crisp, still air. Chrissie was aware of Godiva’s hot breath streaming past her in crystallized plumes, and her own breath smoked from her open mouth. Her heart pounded in time with the frantic thumping of hooves, and she felt almost as if she and Godiva were not rider and horse but one being, sharing the same heart and blood and breath.
    Though fleeing for her life, she was as pleasantly thrilled as she was terrified, and that realization startled her. Facing death or in this case something perhaps worse than death—was peculiarly exciting, darkly attractive in a way and to an extent that she could never have imagined. She was almost as frightened of the unexpected thrill as of the people who were chasing her.
    She clung tightly to the dapple-gray, sometimes bouncing on the horse’s bare back, lifting dangerously high, but holding fast, flexing and contracting her own muscles in sympathy with those of the horse. With every ground-pummeling stride, Chrissie grew more confident that they would escape. The mare had heart and endurance. When they had traversed three-quarters of the field, with the woods looming, Chrissie decided to turn east again when they reached the trees, not straight toward the county