Author's Note: This is a Non-TG Story.

One minute I was driving along Highway 20, just outside La Porte, Indiana, when—in the next instant—all existence seemed to blink out and then I was sitting on the shoulder of an unpaved road, engine running and transmission in neutral. Dense forest was all around me, a stark contrast to the rolling, sparsely wooded hills of Indiana. I touched my forehead, feeling a bit disoriented, when—again, suddenly—everything seemed to snap into place. I was now in the northern section of Michigan’s lower peninsula. To be more specific, I was now on an unimproved dirt road in the western corner of Custer Township in Mason County. Don’t ask how I knew where I was. I just knew, it was as simple as that. That talent has always been with me.

I put the car in gear and glanced in the side mirror to be sure there wasn’t any traffic barreling up behind me. Wait a minute. I frowned and turned off the car’s ignition.

Someone had hitched a U-Haul trailer to the back of my car.

I got out of the car and took a look at it. The trailer was one of the old-style ones, painted with that dull, lusterless silver paint and had the age-faded orange stripe. I hadn’t seen a trailer like that in years. Where had I picked this one up? I looked up and down the road but no explanation came to me. Obviously, I must have rented it from someone—Right? But when or how…? As far as I knew, no one on this planet made a hitch for my limited-production sports car. I knelt between the trailer and the rear bumper. The hitch assembly was neatly welded to the car’s frame. Pretty slick. Professionally done. I shook my head. Why on Earth would I want to hitch a trailer to this car? Had they gotten so close that I hadn’t had time to find the proper vehicle for towing the trailer?

I stood and brushed the dirt from my jeans. This didn’t feel right. But I remembered that I was late. I had an appointment to keep…somewhere. I climbed back into my car and reached up to grab the handhold and closed the forward-hinged, vertically opening door. I reached over the center console and opened the glove compartment. I riffled through the papers but found nothing new. Just license, registration and insurance papers. I had hoped that I would have found a trailer invoice or something.

I restarted the engine and checked the gauges on the instrument panel. The car was prone to overheating and electrical problems. Over the years I have managed to fix most of the car’s design flaws but the electrical stuff still gives me troubles. Electronic Technology is not one of my fortes—my talents lie in other areas—but I have always considered myself as a sort of “patron saint” of the technologies. I’ve promoted their advances again and again, time out of mind. I pulled out onto the dirt road and accelerated carefully—mindful of the trailer behind me, of course.

Five miles and I reached paved highway. The notion I was running late had grown to a conviction, so I turned northwest, shifted through the gears and pegged the speedometer needle. Scenery sped by in a blur. It was very rural; dense forests and some cleared areas which were all deserted. Nobody much seemed to be out and about. In fact, no one at all. The houses I passed all seemed to be abandoned and in various stages of disrepair. Then, up ahead, some buildings appeared. In front of the buildings, at the edge of the roadway, was an old, faded and rust-streaked service station sign with a faded green dinosaur painted on it. I felt an immediate sense of recognition.

This place was my destination.

I slowed the car and pulled in. Three buildings, grouped together. I parked the car next to the concrete island with rusted pumps. I shut off the engine and got out of the car. The glass faces of all the gas pumps had been broken out a long time ago. No one was here to greet me. I looked toward the other two buildings to the left of the station. Concrete block, commercial structures with large front windows. The first was an abandoned grocery. The second had been some sort of implement store--farm or hardware, I wasn’t sure. A summer’s worth of grass had grown up around all of the buildings and grew from every crack in the asphalt around me. The air was hot and still. I didn’t like it. Sweat was forming on my face, arms, and forehead. The dust, which had been stirred up when I’d pulled in, settled on my skin like a gritty talc. I felt an angry irritation begin to flow through me.

I hate the heat. I hate sweat and the accompanying feeling of being dirty and grubby. Bad memories of the days of being a crippled shepherd boy and only being able to bathe monthly, if at all. I shook off the memories and headed toward the implement store to look around. The door had been removed long ago and some sort of plywood substitute had been clumsily put in to take its place. It was damp and rotted, so I just sort of kicked it out of the way with my good foot, which felt good. It took some of the edge off. And it was cooler inside. Well, maybe not, but at least I was out of the sun. I let my eyes adjust to the darkness—the absence of the sun’s glare—and looked around.

No one.

Strange. I was certain someone was going to be waiting here. Waiting for me. Someone I knew. Well, no matter. I headed toward the open back door of the building. I had thought, when I first assessed the building’s interior, that the back door had been propped open somehow, long ago. But as I got closer, I could see that the door and hinges had been removed entirely. And recently. Had it been removed as a sort of invitation, I asked myself. Removed in the hope that I would just walk through it and become at that moment outside, an exposed target? Dazzled and blinded momentarily by the bright sunlight? These were cynical, distrustful and foreboding thoughts—ones to which I am usually unaccustomed to thinking. I’m normally an easy-going, trusting, laidback kind of guy. Ask anyone. I looked outside and found that I needn’t have bothered. No one was out there. It was just as deserted as the rest of the place had been.

I turned and walked back to the front of the building and found that she was waiting for me outside, next to the car.

Instead of going out, I stayed inside the building and watched her. I knew her, or rather, I have known her, since a time long before. I studied her carefully. She was different, somehow. Taller, I thought. I watched as she opened the car’s semi-gull wing door. She’d been with me when I had purchased it, so many ages ago. Her hair was different, too. It was still long and flowing and wild and red—but the texture and look of it was different.

A confused wave of emotions rose inside me and, for a moment, almost overwhelmed me. It was difficult to sort them all out, but a part of me was pleased to see her again—we owed each other so much—while a different part of me was alarmed, while and a third and fourth part put forth equal amounts of distrust and misgiving. I chewed my lip and wondered how to proceed. I was going to have to be very careful and my instincts weren’t giving me much in the way of guidance.

She was wearing everyday clothes. She had her back to me and I took a moment to admire the curve of her back, hips, and thighs. Since she wasn’t facing me, I couldn’t see her eyes, but I remembered that they were an odd shade of blue. They were changeable, like the weather. One moment they could be a dark and unfathomable blue, and then her mood or the light would change and they would be green, the color of the sea before a storm.

I scanned the parking lot but my car was still the only one there. Had she walked to our meeting place? Maybe. From where? I didn’t know. I did know that she hadn’t been here when I had arrived because I would have sensed her presence. I remembered my moment of unease inside the implement building. Perhaps that was when she had arrived.

I stepped from the doorway and she whirled to face me. The movement was fluid and lithe, like a ballerina, and there was a flash of light as a knife appeared in her left hand. Then she recognized me and the knife seemed to fold in upon itself and it disappeared. There was a story from way back that she’d been born with it. It was the reason for the redness of her hair. An omen. Like the rose which wept bloody tears for the lover whose heart she had cut.

“Hello, Jake,” she said and smiled. “I was beginning to worry that something had happened to you.”

“And I, you,” I replied. “It’s been a long time.”

She nodded. “Several lifetimes.” She looked me up and down. “How’s the leg?”

I resisted the urge to look down at it. “The same as ever.”

“Things never change, I guess, much as we would like.” She glanced at the car. “You kept the car.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s quick and it’s fast. There was no reason to throw it away.”

She nodded again. I knew that she was just talking this way to give herself time to study me—as I had studied her. She looked behind me. “Have you checked all the buildings?”

“Of course,” I replied. "They’re clear, but someone’s been in one of them recently.”

“Good. It’s nice you’re showing caution for a change. You weren’t always that way.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Some people have the ability to change.”

“Yes,” she said. “And others don’t.” But she didn’t give me a chance to react to that. After saying it, she immediately turned and motioned toward the car. “Shall we be going? It’s not wise to remain in one place too long.”

“Okay.” I pulled the keys from my hip pocket and tossed them to her. “You drive.”

She nodded as she deftly plucked the keys from the air and we climbed into the car. She started the engine and spun the tires as we pulled onto the roadway. There was a sharp rattle of protest as gravel from the tires ricocheted off the metal panels of the trailer and she laughed at my sudden curse to be careful.

“Cars are just tools, Jake,” she said, shaking her head so that her hair seemed to crackle around her. “They’re made to be used and then thrown away.”

I said nothing. I knew better than to challenge her opinion when she was on edge. She was like me that way. It reminded me of a story I used to tell, of a strongman who thought he was so strong that he challenged the rule of the gods. The gods, being the jealous types that they are, had reacted quickly. They sent one of their own, disguised in the form of a crippled, young boy—a goatherd, dirty with long, ragged, uncut hair, with a longhaired red dog who was always at his side. The boy challenged the strongman to a fight and they fought for two days and two nights. Then—on the third day—the boy broke the strongman’s back and left him to die in a field. It’s said that where the strongman’s blood fell, the grass withered and never grew there again, to mark the spot where the arrogant folly of the challenge of man suffered swift retribution from on high.

Or so they say. But...well, that’s not the way it actually happened.

Her name is Fiona, by the way. It’s a Celtic name, old—older than my own—meaning white, or fair of skin. Pity it doesn’t mention her red hair. That is her best feature. Much more attractive than her flawless skin.

A change in the engine note brought me out of my reverie. Ahead, maybe two miles, on the other side of a small rift in the landscape, were a pair of vehicles. They were parked on either side of the roadway, facing our direction.

I glanced at Fiona and said, “Trouble?”

She nodded her head, her red hair crackling.

I stared at the cars through the windshield. Nothing around them appeared to be moving as a shimmering haze began to fill the air ahead of us. I glanced out of the corner of my eye at Fiona. Her face was intent, her concentration on the road in front of us an almost physical thing.

“Which way, Jake?” she asked. She looked at me. Her eyes had turned an intense shade of blue. “Right or left?”

I looked at the car’s speedometer. Almost fifty miles an hour. She would have to slow down if we were to make a ninety-degree turn. I looked ahead. A half-mile to the bottom of the hill. The two cars ahead of us now moved, their shapes distorting as they left the road’s shoulder and entered the haze which was now thickening to obscure the roadway. They accelerated toward us.

“Come on!” Fiona’s voice acquired an almost animal-like snarl. “Which way? Right or left?!”

I took a deep breath and everything seemed to slow down. Ahead, a crossroad seemed to appear, chewing through the landscape. Its edges were illuminated by sparkling lines of intense blue light. I sighed. Every pathway has a choice. Right or Left. Life or Death. Always a knife’s edge of choice between the two. I felt very tired.

“Left,” I said. My voice seemed to come to me from someplace far away.

Fiona didn’t hesitate. She spun the steering wheel and the sports car’s low-profile tires howled in savage protest. There was a lot of loose dirt and gravel on the pavement where the crossroad had cut across the roadway. The front wheels of the car slid a little as they hit it, then chirped as they bit into the asphalt and regained traction. Then the rear wheels hit the gravel and we fishtailed before they, too, regained their grip on the blue-limned asphalt. I half-turned in my seat to see if the trailer was going to make it with us, or flip over and snap the hitch.

We were lucky. The trailer slipped sideways, off the pavement and onto the dirt shoulder of the road without overturning. I looked forward again as Fiona downshifted and we accelerated. The car jumped and a wave of distortion flowed through us as we drove through the wall of blue light and followed the crossroad away from the main roadway. I turned back again to look. The wall of light was collapsing upon itself as the two black cars appeared behind us.

“They made it through,” I commented.

“What?!” Fiona snarled the question like it was an expletive.

“They managed to follow us through the portal,” I replied.

I settled into my seat and continued to watch the cars behind us through the passenger door’s side mirror. We were in Michigan no longer. Where—exactly—we were now, I couldn’t say. It was extremely hilly. The crossroad’s asphalt was cracked and broken as it followed the contours of the landscape. It clung to the sides of the hills and then dropped down their sides in steep, sweeping descents.

The two black cars started closing on us. Fiona increased our speed and the tires howled as we took every decreasing radius turn, but it wasn’t enough. The shocks began bottoming on every dip, scraping the undercarriage. The flat six engine was also howling as Fiona overrevved the engine to coax a little more speed from the car, but the cars of our pursuers were faster. Bigger engines, perhaps, or maybe it was because of the deadweight of the trailer we were pulling. Either way, if we didn’t do something, they would catch us within the next mile.

“Well?” Fiona asked.

I looked at her hands. Her knuckles were white and I could see the muscles working in her arms as she tried to keep control of the car. We couldn’t force another crossroad. There are just some rules you have to obey. But we needed something. We needed an edge.

Luck? I thought. I turned slightly in my seat to face her. “Turn onto the next dirt road,” I instructed.

She looked back into my eyes and grinned. She’d guessed what I was thinking. “Dirt would be an advantage,” she replied, her voice edged with excitement. “We would kick up a hell of a lot of dust and unless our pursuers have x-ray vision, they will have to slow down."

“Be ready,” I said. “If it happens, it will happen fast!”

“I’ll have to slow down,” Fiona pointed out.

“Whatever,” I replied. “I don’t think they’ll ram us.”

“And once in the dirt—off this stinking asphalt—we’ll be home free. We’ll either outrun them, or we’ll reverse direction and catch them in an ambush.” She nodded her head in satisfaction.

We crested the next hill and there it was, right in front of us. We didn’t have time to think. Just react. Fiona slammed on the brakes and the tires screamed as the trailer’s weight caused the trailer hitch to act as a fulcrum and push the rear of the car sideways. I grabbed the edges of my seat as Fiona spun the steering wheel to the left in an effort to keep the car and trailer from jackknifing. I closed my eyes. This wasn’t going to work. I could hear the car’s chassis protest as she pumped the brakes hard, locking the wheels and then releasing them, in an effort to spin us out of our sideways stance. It didn’t work. We continued our skid and I knew it was only a matter of seconds before a tire blew, a strut snapped, or a shock tower collapsed. Then we hit the ditch and came to an abrupt stop.

I was thrown against the seat belt and shoulder harness and then bounced back against the seat. We both reacted instinctively, unsnapping our seat belts and shoulder harnesses.

“Go!” I said as I reached across her and pulled her door release. Her blade appeared in her hand as I turned and opened my own door, using the power in my arms to lever myself up and out of the car.

There were six of them, three from each of the black cars. My boot twisted on my crippled foot as I got out of the car and I went down. I heard Fiona’s cry of attack as I rolled to a half-standing, half-kneeling position. They had divided themselves into two groups. Two men were attacking Fiona while the rest came to attack me.

One of the men circling Fiona was already dripping blood from a deep gash on his forearm. I dodged a kick toward my bad leg and gave that man the honor of being first. I came up with a rush and caught him with an uppercut which lifted him from the ground. Power flowed through my limbs, sweeping away the centuries of civilization and replacing them with something more savage, immediate, and primal. I didn’t have time to savor the feeling though, because two of the man’s compatriots grabbed my arms from either side.

I shook them off and then I spun, kicking backward with the reinforced boot of my crippled leg and caught one of them in the stomach. The blow knocked the wind from him, cracking his ribs and folding him in two. I was attacked again as I stood with my leg at full extension and I was knocked down. I struggled, losing one of my boots. I backhanded someone, breaking his nose, and rolled to my feet. I was badly off-balance without the thickened, reinforced sole under me, and someone threw something at me—a rock, perhaps. It missed my head as I lurched forward, but it struck me in the shoulder, hard.

The pain set free the rage coursing inside me and completed the transformation to the older, more original, me.

I grabbed the man’s wrist and snapped it as I jerked him toward me. I roared as I felt the bones grind together and heard the man scream. He tried to get away but I wasn’t done with him yet. I took a deep breath, grabbed a leg and a shoulder, and raised him above my head. Then I turned and slammed him against the side of the trailer. I felt the anger flowing through me like a living thing. I picked the man up and threw him against the trailer again. And again. And again. Then someone grabbed my arm and I swung around, furious.

I stopped my fist just inches from Fiona’s face.

“Stop,” she said, putting both of her hands over my clenched fist. “Enough. Stop it now.”

We stood like that for several minutes, until my breathing slowed, the anger bled away, and I could finally unclench my fingers.

“Okay,” I said and she let go of my hand. “Let’s take the car and get out of here.”

She nodded and the keys appeared magically in her hand. “How long before they find us again?”

“Not long,” I replied. “Maybe days. Maybe a couple of years—if I haven’t spent all our luck.” I looked at the bodies strewn upon the ground. “I don’t recognize any of them,” I said. “Not a one.”

“They’re the new gods,” she replied. “The old ones you once knew have all gone away.”

I looked at her. “So why haven’t they given up?” I asked. “All I asked for was three things. The last was for them to leave me alone and in peace.”

“But you didn’t stop doing what you do.”

“If they had left me alone, I would have!” I snapped.

“But you didn’t and war and destruction have followed you wherever you go.”

I waved my hand, dismissing her argument. “It’s their meddling which caused it all in the beginning.”

“Gods have huge, massive egos, Jake. They don’t like to be crossed.” She shot me a look of cold amusement. “You should know that.” She cocked her head to one side. “Did you really think that stupid story about the crippled shepherd boy upholding their power was going to assuage their anger at what you did?”

I ground my teeth, feeling the anger start again. “It was a good story! But they reneged on the deal.”

“Which part?” she asked, studying me carefully.

“The part about letting me stay a god.”

“But they did let you stay a god,” she said and laughed in my face. “You’re the god whom the other gods have pledged to destroy—until the end of time.”

“Words!" I gave her a sour look and wiped at the blood which was still flowing from the cut from where the rock had hit me. Then I muttered a sullen, "oh...whatever!" and then, "Let's go."

I drew a sign in blood on the trailer—for luck—and then Fiona and I got into the car. She started the engine and we jumped…someplace…other than here.