James was sleeping in the chair beside Jennifer's bed having a restless nightmare. He was running from a shadowy figure, but he seemed to be moving in slow motion. He could not escape, could not even cry out for help. The evil shadow kept drawing closer and closer. It was not moving impossibly fast, just at a measured and consistent pace. Due to his own lack of ability to move with any speed at all, this was enough to allow it keep closing the ground between the two of them. He ran as hard and fast as he could, but it was just not enough. There was no escape and no hope.
Suddenly a house appeared in front of him. The shadow was close, but not close enough to stop him from gaining entrance. He found the door unlocked and stepped inside. He locked it right when the shadowy figure reached the door and started to bang up against it. James knew that it would come through. It would never stop coming until it killed him. He backed away from the door and moved into the interior of the house, looking for anything to use as a weapon. He went from room to room without finding anything. He stepped into one room and heard a voice that sent a chill right through him.
"I have been waiting for you."
James turned the light on to see where the voice had come from. He was in a bathroom and there was nobody else there. Then he realized that was not entirely true. There was a man in the mirror pointing a gun at him. It was Wraith and he was smiling the smile of victory. James tried to back out of the room, but there was no longer a doorway to escape from. He backed into a wall as blank and smooth as all the rest.
"No escape. This is the end of the road." Wraith said from the mirror and began to climb out of it. James was in pure terror. He tried to reach out and hit Wraith, but he was too slow and weak. Wraith simply laughed and blocked the feeble attempt. Then he raised the barrel of the gun and pointed it directly between James' eyes. The muzzle flashed and James felt his head jerk backward.
James jolted out of his nightmare in a cold sweat. It took him several seconds to realize that it had only been a dream. In spite of the unrealistic slowness he had been moving at and the fact that his surroundings had changed randomly, the dream had seemed so real. He admitted to himself that the most realistic aspect of the dream was that there had been no escape. Wraith was coming. There was nothing anybody seemed to be able to do about it. He was able to slip in and out of places and kill at will. Now he had his sights set on James and there was nothing to stop him from winning.
The phone rang in the hospital room and brought James out of his dreary thoughts about his dream and what it meant. He looked at Jennifer, but she did not stir at all at the sound of the phone. That was good, she needed to rest. As he reached out for the phone to see who was calling, he noticed the time on the clock. It was nine minutes after three in the morning. He did not know why, but that seemed to be significant. James raised the phone to his ear and went stiff. He began to wonder if he had indeed come out of the nightmare after all.
"No escape. This is the end of the road." Wraith said, on the other end of the line. James tried to speak, but he could not find any words.
"This is how everything is going to play out." Wraith continued, as if he knew James was struggling to put a reply together. "You are going to run. You are going to take Jennifer because you know if you leave her behind I will kill her on my way to you. You will try to escape from me, but I will find you anyway. I will kill both of you and I will move on with my life. You have already taken up too much of my time."
"You won't get away with this." James finally managed to rasp into the phone. It came out barely above a whisper.
"Don't be stupid." Wraith laughed into the phone. "There is nobody that can stop me. Don't you get it? I have already won. I won before you and I ever met. God is chaos and I am his agent. Think of me as a divine angel of darkness. There is nothing you or anybody else can do to keep me from fulfilling my purpose."
"Why are you doing this?" James asked in a voice that made him feel very weak.
"Tick tock." Wraith answered. "Time is not on your side. You can sit there asking me questions, or you can run. Either way I am coming for you."
That was all the motivation James needed for action. He placed the receiver down and gently shook Jennifer. She opened her eyes slowly and looked up at him with a glazed expression. Once she saw the urgency in his face, she brought herself to a more alert state.
"What is it?" She asked.
"We need to go." He said.
"Now?" Jennifer was confused. She thought that they were not leaving until the morning.
"Right now." James answered. "Wraith is coming."
"He is?" Jennifer sat bolt upright in her bed and swung her legs over the side. She was wide awake now. Apparently her recent encounter with Wraith's friend had gone a long way in convincing her of how dangerous the man could be. James helped her into her clothes and they left the hospital room in a matter of minutes. They tried not to show the absolute horror and panic that both of them felt as they moved along the hallway. Jennifer kept her head down to avoid recognition as they walked. The last thing they needed was for somebody to stop and ask them what they were doing or why she was out of bed.
Jennifer couldn't help but feel a shiver of terror run through her. She could still feel the absolute horror and helplessness she had felt at the hands of that sadistic woman. From the sounds of it, this man Wraith was even worse. If he was able to catch them, what sort of demonic torture did he have in mind? The only comfort came from the fact that James was at her side. If it had not been for him, she would not be alive. He had showed up in the nick of time and saved her life. The fact that he had been able to kill somebody so easily was something she could find a way to overlook. After all, he had only done so in order to save her.
Now she took comfort in his previously unknown ability to act violently. It might be the only thing that could save both of their lives. She had always known that he was strong. He was very muscular and he worked out a lot. But he had always seemed like a total pacifist. She used to joke around with her friends that in spite of his excellent physique, a ten year old girl would be able to mug him in a dark alley. This new side she was seeing was a little scary, but it was also reassuring. Jennifer had the upmost confidence now that he would do whatever it took to keep her safe. She supposed that she had always felt this way, but now she really knew it.
On the other hand, she was still not sure that it would be enough. She had fortunately not had any dealings with the man herself, but everything she had gathered about Wraith was that he was incredibly dangerous and used to violence. Just because James was able to act effectively against a violent woman did not mean that he could protect either of them from the man that hunted them. Wraith had a man's strength, and an unfathomable ability to kill anybody he wanted to. As much as she wished she could trust Detective Sweeny to stop the monster, neither he nor the rest of the police force seemed to be very effective at tracking him down. If they could not stop the man, how could James?
She was still trying to let her feelings of confidence outweigh her overwhelming urge to panic when they got into the rental car and left the hospital parking lot. James told her that they needed to go by the apartment briefly in order to pack lightly, and then they would head out of town. Even this one stop frightened her. She was not sure that there was any place they could go where he would not track them down, but he was certain to start at their home when he realized that they had left the hospital. Jennifer just hoped they were able to get out of there before it was too late.
Both she and James were so wrapped in thought that neither of them noticed the bald man that was staring intently at them as they drove past his parked car. They also did not notice that he started his car and began to follow them from a distance. He was far enough back to remain as inconspicuous as possible, yet close enough to follow their every move. He almost grinned at how easy they were to track. Like innocent prey blissfully unaware of the lion that stalked them through the brush.
It was only a short drive before they reached the apartment complex and ascended the stairs to their place. It did not feel like home, however. It felt like a trap. Like some place to find a monster lying in wait. For a brief second, James feared trying to turn on the lights and having them not respond. This was how many of his childhood nightmares had started. The lights turned on readily and he was forced to admit to himself that he was not in a scary dream that he could wake up from. He was in a real nightmare where the monster did not reside under the bed, but rather in the shadows. A dangerous monster with an uncanny resemblance to him. A monster that would have frightened off anything he had dreamed up as a kid.
James quickly threw some belongings into a small pack that he kept in the closet. Jennifer was rushing but taking longer. For some reason, women always seemed to think that the bare necessities entailed a lot more than what men would find acceptable. Normally this would have been something for him to laugh at, but with a killer on their trail, James could not help but feel anxious over the time she was taking to get the essentials. He had quit smoking a long time ago, but he still had a pack stowed away. With the serious need for stress relief, he stepped outside to light up for the first time in a long time.
James had barely taken his first drag when he saw a bald man moving through the shadows and toward the stairs that led to Jennifer's apartment. The cigarette dropped out of his mouth as he gazed at the figure. Every fiber of his being told him that this lumbering, almost limping man was Wraith coming to get him and Jennifer. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion for him. He turned to flee back inside the apartment. In spite of his feelings of moving while under water, the cigarette had not yet reached the ground before James was back at the door grasping desperately at the knob.