The Enigma’s Anomaly

“Well don’t you look handsome?” Gerard says when I walk down the stairs.

“Shut up, you’re the one who looks good,” I say looking down at my attire. I did my best to dress up, but neither of us had a tux so this is the best I can get. Black pants and a dress shirt. At least it’s not skinny jeans and a hoodie.

“You both look fucking dashing, now would you hurry up and leave? I can’t stand all this sentimentality, it makes my ears bleed,” Mikey calls from the couch.

“You’re just jealous,” Gerard calls back.

“Mhm yes, you’ve caught me. I want Frank for myself, am I that transparent?” he says sarcastically. At least I think it’s sarcastic because he’s only really got two different vocal tones. Mikey should really sit down and work on his inflection one of these days.

“We’re leaving,” I say grabbing Gerard’s hand. He does truthfully look great, and I think he cleans up better than me anyway. The hair is kind of off-the-wall, but he still looks pretty good. Dapper. I like that word. That’s a really great word. He looks dapper.

After dragging Gerard out to the car I have trouble keeping myself still. I’m all jittery. I’ve never celebrated an anniversary before and I’ve certainly never been with someone for six months. I think my longest relationship was three weeks. Gerard is my exception. He’s the anomaly in my data. In a lot of different ways.

“Frankie, would you settle down you’re being way too cute. It can’t be healthy to be that adorable all the time,” Gerard says and I blush instinctively.

I hope it’s not too noticeable because I don’t want him to say something that’ll make me blush more. Vacantly I check my reflection in the mirror and that’s when I notice the car behind us.

I don’t recognize it, it’s sleek black and big, but the odd part is that it’s behind us at all. This road is always deserted. Sometimes you pass a car on the road, but there’s never two going one way at the same time.

I brush it off as just a weird abnormality, but it doesn’t soothe my nerves at all. I can’t help but glance back at it and see that it has gotten closer. Only by a few feet, but there’s plenty of space on this road, so there’s no reason for someone to be that close. If we’re driving to slow they could just pass us, but they don’t. The car gets closer and then even closer.

“Uh Gerard, I think that we’re, um, being followed,” I say tugging on his sleeve.

Gerard looks at me skeptically and then into the rearview mirror, “It’s just a car. That’s not exactly a strange thing to see on the road, Frank.”

“Yeah but there are never cars behind us. Or in front of us. Never. So why is there one now?”

“You know it’s not impossible,” he says, “and that can’t always be true, because we’re on this road, and this road isn’t made exclusively for us. It’s just a car so it’s not true right now. It’s fine, Frank.”

I hear him and what he says makes sense, but I do not believe it. I have a gut feeling, that something is not right. Maybe I’m paranoid but I’ve come to the conclusion that any cars with blacked out windows are not to be trusted, so I really don’t trust that car.

“Gerard, I don’t think this is just an irregularity in a set. I think they’re following us,” I say firmly.

“Frankie-”

“No Gerard. I’m not convinced that they’re just on this road behind us. Why are they so close? There’s a whole road to take up so why are they staying tight with us?”

Gerard doesn’t have an answer for that and he looks at the mirror again, so I see him get a little more wary.

“But we got away from that life. We got away from Banks. Why would there be... why? Frank, why would someone be following us? Did he find us?”

“I don’t know, Gerard,” I say, trying to keep my voice level. I’m trying not to sound scared. If Gerard thinks I’m scared then he’ll get scared too, but it’ll be so much worse because he’s driving. He also gets scared a little easier than I do.

“What do I do?” he asks, nervously.

“Speed up, try to lose them,” I say. I don’t actually know what a person is supposed to do in this situation, but I think that sounds like a start. Gerard looks nervous, but he puts his foot to the pedal and the car subtly moves forward.

“Shit, they sped up too!” I say looking in the mirror. Not only did they speed up with us, they’ve gotten closer now.

“Oh god, oh god oh god,” Gerard says and his hands on the wheel have tightened so that his fingers and knuckles are a pure bloodless white.

“Calm down, Gerard,” I say to him.

“How? We’re being followed! There’s no one else here! What the hell do I do? God, fuck,” He says glancing from me to the rearview mirror.

“I’m trying to think, okay?” I say to him. “First things first, is that you should speed up even more. We need to find civilization, but there’s nothing but trees for a long while.”

“Fuck!” Gerard says and he’s even more nervous to speed up more, “this is way above the speed limit.”

“We could really use a cop right now, so quit your complaining. Drive faster!”

“But Frank-”

“Faster!”

“I usually like hearing you say that, but this time, not so much,” Gerard says, and I have to stop myself from punching him.

“Okay, uh...” I say trying to think of what to do.

“Should we try turning around?” Gerard asks.

“No, of course not! They’ll just drive their bumper into us. You have to go as fast as you possibly can. They’re going to try to drive us off the road, or get us to pull over,” I say.

“How do you know?”

“Well that would be the most effective way to kill us.”

“They want to kill us?” Gerard says with panic.

“No they want to sit us down for a tea party,” I answer sardonically, “yes of course they want us dead.”

“Shit shit shit,” he says, “So what do we do? Do we just drive?”

“For now, yes,” I say. “Okay if they’re chasing us then that means they probably know where we live which means-”

“Mikey!” Gerard exclaims and we exchange another petrified stare.

“That’s not good. I’ll call him, hold on,” I say.

As soon as I get the words out there’s a painful lurch from behind us, sending me and Gerard forward a tick. Thank god for seat belts because that probably would’ve killed us.

“Oh god, what was that?” Gerard asks, already knowing the answer.

“I told you, they’re trying to run us off the road. Also asserting their dominance. Speed up, or they’ll do it ag-” I don’t even have time to say it this time because another jolt presses the seat belt painfully into my chest, springing a pain in my shoulder that I thought was gone.

“I have to call Mikey to warn him, he’s in danger too,” I say, grabbing my phone. My hands are shaking from an enormous variety of things including pain, fear and anxiety. Mostly fear though.

The sound of the tires on the bumpy road is loud, and makes it hard to concentrate, and the sound of the blood pumping in my ears isn’t making this much easier either. It takes me longer than it probably should to scroll through my contacts to find Mikey, because I keep sliding past his name. It’s hard to concentrate on much of anything.

I look over to Gerard as I finally find Mikey’s name and the dial tone starts. Gerard’s eyebrows are creased and his eyes are full of dread.

“Hello?”

“Mikey, thank god, listen to me,” I say thankful to hear his voice, “get out of the house. Banks has found us, get out of the house, and get as far as you can from it. Only take anything you can’t live without, okay?”

“What? Frank, are you serious?” Mikey asks.

“Yes, I’m absolutely serious, get out of there! Gerard and I are being followed and they’re not patient. Get out of there, okay?”

“Where do I go? I’m not leaving without you!” Mikey says.

“Mikey, we’re in more immediate danger, okay? I can’t guarantee that everything’s going to be okay, but get out of the house right now. Head to the convenience store that’s about ten miles away from the house. Gerard and I will meet you there if we can, okay?”

“Frank, what’s going on?” Mikey says, and he must be scared because there’s actual emotion in his voice.

“Mikey, please just listen to Frank!” Gerard says loudly and he checks the car behind us again to see that they’re still inches from our back bumper.

“Just get out of there, head to the convenience store and wait out for us. If we’re not there by tomorrow night then, well...” I don’t actually want to say the words because that would make them true. I’m afraid that we’re going to die though, and I don’t want Mikey to get looped in with us.

“What do you mean by that? You’re not going to-” he stops and I hear him breathing, “just be careful.”

“We’re going to try,” I say.

“Tell Gerard that I’ll kill him if he dies,” Mikey says, “and I’ll kill you too.”

“Got it, Mikes. I should go. We’ll see you soon.”

“You’d better.”

I hang up just in time for another hit from the back, and it’s starting to really piss me off. These guys are not very polite. I mean I understand that they’re probably assassins like me, but now they’re just doing it to piss us of. Part of me kind of hopes the car is being driven by an elderly blind woman who likes her privacy, because that would be much preferred than assassins.

“Fuck, oh god, Frank,” Gerard says looking at the mirror and my eyes widen a little bit too. The car is pulling to the side of ours so that it can drive parallel with us.

“Should I stop?” Gerard asks.

“You know, I have no idea. They’re going to shoot at us, Gerard,” I say, but he waves his hand so I think he already knew that.

“Oh god they’re getting closer,” Gerard says a moment later after I frantically bite my nails down to stubs.

“Okay, Gerard, I don’t see any ways out of this,” I say.

“Are you saying we’re going to die? This is it?” He asks.

“No of course we’re not going to die! I’m not going to let them kill you, but I don’t see our escape at the moment,” I say honestly.

“Fuck, this is just perfect. This was supposed to be our special night. Our anniversary, but we’re going to die instead!”

“We are not!” I repeat, “The only thing I’ve got is that we pull over to the trees and we run.”

“Run? But they’ve got a car!” Gerard says.

“Not on the side of the road, run into the trees!” I correct him, and my heart is starting to pound even faster as I realize how small the chances are that we’re going to live through this.

“But what about guns? They probably have guns!”

“That would be the purpose of running. We’ve got to lose them, and if we go now it’ll give us a head start. Are you okay with that?”

“Well do we have any other plans?”

“No.”

Gerard whines, “Then I guess I’m fine with that.”

“So when I tell you to I want you to swerve to your left, okay?”

“No it’s not okay!”

“Okay?” I ask sternly.

“Fucking fine!”

“Okay Gerard, you ready?” I ask leaning over to make sure his seat belt is as tight as it’ll get. He makes a strangling sound, but nods his head, and I gulp.

I look at the car behind us that’s still gaining on us, and they’ll be parallel with our car in only a moment.

“Okay, slow down very steadily, but do it quickly enough that they won’t notice you’re doing it,” I say, and Gerard does his best to lower the speed of the car.

“Don’t aim for anything, but please try not to hit a tree, keep your wits up, and stay calm. When we stop I need you not to pause, just get up, grab my hand and run,” I tell him. “Make sure we don’t split up.”

He nods again and I realize that it’s now or never.

“Okay, now!” I tell him. The car veers sharply to the left, sending us almost skidding across the tarmac.

There’s a loud crash and then things go black.