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PROLOGUE

Blockbuster Video
Bangor, Maine
Tuesday, August 1, 2006
8:57 PM

Carla Brown browsed the aisles of the dimly-lit Blockbuster video, trying to pick out the perfect movie for her and her two friends, Alex White and Emily Munroe, to watch on the last night before parting ways for college. It had to be something good, something that wasn't scary or sentimental—she didn't want them screaming in surprise or crying their eyes out—nor stupid and boring. It had to have just a twist of comedy, drama, and maybe even some high school hijinks to get them all to thankfully remember the life they were about to leave behind.

By this time tomorrow, Carla would be on her way to University of Pennsylvania on an athletic scholarship, moving herself into a dorm most likely full of other jocks. Though she wanted to stay close to home for college—mainly because she couldn't bear to part with her two best friends since kindergarten—it was the only school that had given her a full ride. With her mom barely making minimum wage at the Red Robin and her dad out of work after that accident he had been in involving his now-totaled car and a big rig, her parents could hardly afford to send her to the city college in town. U of P had been gracious enough to not only allow her a free four years, but room and board as well, making it her first and only choice for an education.

Unfortunately, she was the only one heading that far west for higher learning. Alex White, whose father owned a fishing company, was going to the University of Maine, while Emily Munroe was doomed to the fate of Beal College in Bangor—having barely passed their senior year. For them, the separation wasn't that far, maybe a twenty minute drive, but for Carla, the six hundred miles between her and her friends was about to feel like a world apart.

Which was why she had organized the final, act-like-we're-five slumber party in recognition of their meeting and dividing. The three had convened at the fifth birthday of one of their kindergarten classmates and had been inseparable since. Hopefully rekindling the day they had first shared Barbie clothes would keep their solid friendship alive between Christmas and summer breaks.

Smiling sadly, Carla felt her shoulders slump as she thought about the hole slowly eating away at her heart. She had heard stories about friends splitting apart during the college years, seen television shows that said as much, but had never really given it much thought until she had woken up that morning. From nearly eight o'clock until now, she had been trying to push away the idea of Alex and Emily finding someone to replace her while she was off in Pennsylvania earning her Bachelor's Degree. She already felt so far removed from them, even though she was only on the other side of the video store, and could tell her friends were picking up on it, too. Before she had separated from them, Alex had given her shoulder a small squeeze before letting Carla peruse the Drama section alone.

"Hey!" a chipper voice said behind her, causing Carla to whip around suddenly to see Emily standing at the mouth of the aisle with a blue and white box clutched in her small hands. "I think I found exactly what we need to commemorate this major event!"

Kicking away the unhappiness washing over her, Carla pushed her blonde hair behind her ears and smiled. "Yeah? What?"

"High School Musical!" Emily laughed, heading toward her friend and thrusting the DVD box forward. Checking to make sure her friend hadn't been playing some kind of joke, Carla read the label on the side of the case and rolled her eyes. At this, Emily frowned and wiped a tuft of brown hair off of her face. "C'mon. It can't be that bad."

"It will totally be that bad," Carla laughed, tossing the movie back. "But it's better than nothing. I've probably seen everything in here at least a thousand times. Remember when my dad used to take you and me to rent movies after school in junior high?"

"Yeah! And we always rented the same horror movies?" Emily grinned. "I think I've seen Friday the 13thenough for a lifetime."

"God. Or My Bloody Valentine," Carla said with a slow shake of her head. "I'm pretty sure '80s slasher films made a huge amount of money off of us in those years. Probably still would if I wasn't…"

Carla trailed off and frowned at the denim-blue carpet underneath her mesh sandals.

"Aw," Emily pouted, reaching around to drape her arm over her friend's shoulder. "It's not like you're dying, Car. We'll still see you like, all the time. There are these things called computers now, you know? It's not like we won't be able to talk every day. It'll be like you never left!"

"I guess you're right."

Letting her arm fall to her side, Emily used the index finger of her free hand to poke Carla in the belly. "Of course I'm right. Now come on. Let's find Alex before she drives off without us. This place is getting ready to close."

Exchanging a smile, the two girls headed out of the aisle and toward the front of the store where Alex stood browsing the sale items. As they passed each section on their way toward check-out, Carla couldn't help but notice how empty the place was. It seemed as if the only people there were the three of them and the twenty-something girl behind the tall, blue and yellow counter sorting through boxes of returned DVDs.

Turning her attention away from the girl, Carla watched as Alex pushed back the row of used movies she was perusing and pivoted to face them, black hair whipping her face. "So? What'd you find?" Emily held up the box for Alex to see, which earned her a deep scowl. "Seriously?"

"That's what I said!" Carla grinned.

"Well, whatever," Alex laughed, taking the movie from Emily and rounding the magazine rack separating the rest of the store from the check-out counter. "Store's closing soon, anyway. Not like we have time to argue."

Following her friend, Carla eased her way through the narrow gap between the shelving and headed toward the short red-head. At the notice of the two girls standing before her, the clerk pushed aside her work, and hit a button on the computer keyboard to her left. "Hi. Find everything okay?"

"I guess you can say that," Alex joked, shooting Carla a sly glare and handing over High School Musical. The girl eyed the box for a moment before grinning to herself as she removed the security device on the outside to reveal an empty container.

"Hang on a minute," she said, jumping down from a stool she had apparently been sitting on. "I think this one's in the back. It keeps disappearing for some reason."

Carla smiled as the redhead slipped into the back room. In the few minutes she was gone, Alex reached into the messenger bag draped over her shoulder to pull out her wallet—a small two-by-four inch picture falling out as she flipped it open. Bending down to pick it up, Carla saw that the photograph was from their sixth grade cheer squad.

"What's this?" she asked, though she already knew the answer, attempting to hold back a toothy grin. "Why're you dragging this around with you everywhere?"

"No reason," Alex replied quickly as the redhead reemerged from the door in the back, trying to place a silver disc into its holder.

"Alright," the girl said, typing something into the computer. "That'll be five dollars with your Blockbuster card."

Handing both card and money over to the redhead, Carla and Alex waited while she rung them up. When she was done, Alex took both movie and change and threw them into her purse. On their way out, Emily joined them, a broad smile on her face.

"What?" Alex asked, pulling her keys from her pocket.

"Nothing."

By the time the three had returned to Carla's parent's house, the front porch light had been turned off to let the girls know the adults had gone to bed. It was a signal her mom had set up a long time ago to inform her that any loud noises wouldn't be tolerated, and that still held true regardless of the fact that Carla was now over eighteen and one day away from college.

Opening the front door as quietly as possible, the three snuck into the large, blue, Colonial-style home that had sat at the end of the Rosebud Lane for as long as she could remember. Tiptoeing through the hallway, Carla began to feel the now-familiar sadness begin to creep up on her as she thought about how she would only be seeing the house and the people inside it in six month intervals.

Pushing the melancholy away just as she pushed the door to her bedroom open, Carla flipped on the light and closed off the room as silently as possible. Boxes upon boxes lined the walls, along with suitcases and cardboard rolls holding posters inside, giving the space a strange, empty feeling. The three of them stood near the closet for a moment to soak in the state of the once-crowded-with-stuff bedroom before Alex cleared her throat and shook her head. "So, movie now? Or are we sneaking into the kitchen for snacks first?"

"Movie first, snacks later," Emily replied, snatching the Blockbuster box from her friend's hand and heading over to the TV/DVD combination set sitting on the otherwise cleared dresser that had held the thing at eye-level for years.

While Emily messed with the controls, Carla and Alex found a comfortable spot among the pile of pillows and blankets tossed at the head of Carla's queen-sized bed. She hadn't had time to sort through which ones she wanted before the doorbell rang earlier, and decided they could just figure out who wanted what once they were ready to go to sleep.

Stepping back from the set, Emily grabbed the remote off the edge of the dresser and waited for the FBI warning screen to pass before letting the menu load. However, the image that appeared on screen wasn't what Carla had expected. Black shapes flickered across the twenty-inch frame, one male and one female, chasing each other. After a few moments, the two silhouettes came together to make one large form: that of a semi-truck.

"This doesn't look like a Disney movie…" Carla frowned.

No one said anything as the rest of the film played out.

The black shadow of a semi-truck soon became the image of a real one, though blurry and a little too bright. The headlights flashed twice before the engine picked up and headed toward the screen. For a moment, Carla was sure the vehicle was going to burst through the glass, and even flinched, but was soon comforted otherwise as the frame changed to a long highway. The truck drove along at a barreling speed, a small Honda that looked eerily familiar heading in the direction opposite it.

"I think…"

But Carla didn't get to finish her sentence. As the movie continued to play, she stopped as the two vehicles collided with one another, grill-on-grill, before the front of the semi enveloped the entirety of the Honda.

"What the hell is this?" Alex snapped, sitting up and sliding off the bed.

"Horror flick?" Emily frowned, seemingly unaffected.

"Turn it off," Alex demanded, reaching for the blue and white box to make sure they had gotten the right movie. "The label still says High School Musical."

"Maybe she got them mixed up?"

"No… I don't…"

Shooting a look at Alex, Carla furrowed her brows and sat up straighter against the headboard. It wasn't often that her friend was at a loss for words, but something about what they had just seen on television seemed to have bothered Alex more than she could describe. "What is it?"

"It's… it's nothing," Alex lied, popping out the DVD to look at the disc. The top of the DVD was blank, as was the bottom, and Carla could see as she flipped it over in her hand that it looked more like a home movie disc than one put out for mass production. "We need to get this back to the store and get the real movie before they close for the night."

"They already are closed," Emily said, glancing at the clock on her cell phone. "They close at nine and it's almost half past that."

"We have to try."

"Wait, why? What's going on?" Carla asked, jumping to her feet before Alex could head for the door and wake her parents. "Please, just tell us what's going on, alright?"

Taking a deep breath, Alex's shoulders slumped as she headed back to the bed and lowered herself onto the corner of the mattress. "I can't explain it."

"Well, try," Carla said, taking a seat next to her friend and squeezing her hand encouragingly. "It's not like we're going to make fun of you."

"That's not it," Alex frowned. "It's just… remember the night of your dad's accident? The one that was pretty much like the one we just saw in that movie?"

"Yeah," Carla frowned, thinking back on the aftermath of the accident. Her dad's silver Nissan had been totaled, with nothing but the trunk of the car being left as it was. The rest of the vehicle looked like a twisted accordion, and by some miracle, her father had survived. The police officer had attributed the fact that her dad only needed the jaws of life and a tourniquet to the fact that the Nissan had extraordinary airbags, but Carla had always thought it was because the semi-truck had slammed on the brakes at the last moment, dulling the impact. "But what does that have to do with anything?"

"After you told me about it, I had nightmares—bad nightmares—about it happening to my dad. It became, like, my biggest fear," Alex stopped as Carla took in a sharp breath. Now she understood where she recognized the Honda in the video. "I guess seeing it played out shook me up."

"No kidding," Carla sighed. Getting to her feet, she picked up the discarded DVD case from where it had fallen on the floor during the conversation and tapped her fingers against the face. "Alright. We'll go return this. You coming, Em?"

"Yeah, I'll go," Emily said softly, reaching out and helping Alex to her feet before linking arms and leading the way quietly out of the house.

As the trio rounded the front walk and ducked into the car, with Emily taking the movie from her before getting in as if to lay the blame on herself, Carla suddenly had a bad feeling. A shiver ran down her spine as Alex shoved the keys into the ignition and backed out of the driveway with haste, not even giving her friends enough time to slam their doors shut.

A few minutes passed before they were back on the road toward the video store, with nothing on the street except for the odd car. Carla watched listlessly as they passed under the mile-apart street lights and houses with large front yards, her mind no longer on the subject of leaving for school but on the accident her father had been involved in on I-95.

It hadn't been more than a year since, but the memory was still somewhat fresh: Getting the call from the police department, her mom being certain that her father was dead, and rushing down to the scene to see her dad being carted away from his busted vehicle in a stretcher soaked with blood. Her mom had gone with them in the ambulance, giving Carla the keys and telling her to follow behind. At the hospital, police had asked her questions about whether her dad had terrible driving habits and whether he had an alcohol problem, and seemed dissatisfied with her answer when she told them no to both. In the end, the doctor said he would pull through, but would be paralyzed from the waist down. Everything in that moment seemed to stop, and she had turned to the only person she could think of: Alex. However, she didn't know her real-life terror would turn into her friend's reoccurring nightmare. If she had known that, she probably would have talked to Emily first.

Taking a deep breath, Carla turned her attention away from the trees flying by to look out the front windshield. The inside of the car was silent with inverted thoughts, most likely about the video they had seen back at her house, with only road noise to break up the uneasy quiet. Alex seemed to be driving on autopilot, with her eyes focused intently on the road before her. As a pair of headlights passed, she seemed unfazed by their brightness as she kept driving, her mind elsewhere.

Unfortunately, the quite didn't last for long. A moment later, a pair of much brighter headlights appeared down the road, a wider set than before. The sound of a heavy diesel engine followed the blinding beams, snapping Alex out of her thoughts and causing her to hit the brakes. Carla yelped in surprise as the car skidded to a stop.

Peering through the lights, she could make out the dense shape of a semi-truck, gasping at its eerie similarity to the one they had seen in the video. It stalled for a long moment while she took in its chrome grill, black front, and white cargo before rumbling threateningly.

"Guys…"

She didn't need to warn them to know that they understood. That truck was about to head straight for them, and they had to turn around and head back into town before it could catch up.

Making a broken U-turn, Alex sped the car in the opposite direction, but it was only a few seconds before the semi was at their bumper. Turning onto the street leading toward a twenty-four hour pharmacy, Alex pushed the pedal to the floor and the car quickened its pace. Carla gripped onto the handle of the door, getting ready to jump out as soon as they were in the parking lot of the store, but that moment never came.

As soon as Alex's green Mazda was within a few feet of the Rite-Aid, the truck appeared again, half a mile in front of them, its body barreling toward them. In a heartbeat, the two vehicles collided in a sick twist of metal and growling engines, and soon everything went black.