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top of stairs, listening for sounds below. The silence was deathly.
    She descended the wide staircase. The creak of the old wooden steps beneath her feet sounded deafeningly loud in the quiet house.
    She checked the kitchen, the dining room and the living room. Nothing.
    Opening the front door as quietly as she could, she went outside. Despite the impending dawn, it was still dark. Surely Tyler hadn’t gone for a walk? Would he have gone to the lake?
    A chill ran along her spine as she looked toward the garage. The door was open and even though the interior was dark, she see that the car was gone. She hurried along the cold stone path that led to the garage and she went inside. The smell of oil and paint hung in the dark air. Kirsty checked the shelf. The carburettor was gone. Tyler had put it into the car and driven away.
    She left the garage and stood confused, looking along the tree-lined the driveway that led away from Darkmere House.
    Where had he gone?
    * * *
    Tyler gunned the Cherry’s engine, racing along to the lake road. He had gone a mile down the main road before turning down the dirt road that wound along he cliff by Dark Lake. The car responded perfectly to his touch, taking corners with ease and accelerating with a speed that pressed Tyler back into his seat. Despite its performance, he could hear taps and squeals of metal on metal in the engine. The car had been sitting in a garage for fifteen years; it was bound to have developed faults. It didn’t matter. It only needed to get him a little farther; after that nothing else mattered.
    The trees sped past the windows. The steering wheel vibrated in Tyler’s hand. He noticed thin tendrils of oily smoke trailing behind the car. ‘Come on,’ he said to the dying machine, ‘just a little farther.’
    Ahead of him he noticed a small fence erected across the road with a sign that read ‘Danger: Treacherous Road Ahead’ hanging from its wooden crosspieces. Tyler couldn’t afford to stop; he didn’t know if the car would last much longer and he needed it to reach its final destination. He pressed down on the accelerator and ripped through the fence, instinctively bringing an arm up to shield his face as the wood splintered and skittered along the top of the car. It left a spidery crack in the windshield and popped one of the wing mirrors but that didn’t matter now. Tyler continued on up the cliff road.
    The lake appeared on his left as the Cherry climbed steadily up the road. Ahead was the bend where the police had found Dwayne’s cigarette butts and empty bottles of beer and whiskey. What his brother had been doing up there was a mystery to Tyler and he admitted to himself now that it would remain a mystery forever.
    The road ahead bent sharply to the right. Despite the fact that Dwayne had died here, a safety barrier had never been built. No one saw any point to that; the road led nowhere. Further up the mountain, it simply ceased to exist, giving way to rocks and a hiking path.
    The bend got closer.
    Tyler didn’t slow down. He kept the accelerator pressed to the floor.
    The blood red Cherry ate the road despite the smoke curling from the engine which obscured Tyler’s vision, and the squeals of protest coming from under the hood.
    As the car hit the bend, Tyler wrenched open the driver’s door and leapt out.
    For a moment, he felt like he had jumped into an abyss and he wondered if he had bailed too late and gone over the cliff with the car. Then he felt gravel hit him hard and the breath blew out of his lungs in a painful explosion and he knew he was on the road. His momentum carried him forward, rolling and sliding him toward the cliff edge. The car left the road and for a moment hung suspended in mid air. Dawn broke and the new day’s sunlight reflected on the car’s red paint job and glittered over the lake below. The front of the car dipped slightly and Tyler’s forward momentum halted in time for him to see the vehicle plummet like a lead