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head and her face changed—the skin looking like it was turning inside out, her white hair turning black as it grew shorter—and an instant later it was not Nancy that was staring back at me but myself.
    “Get up, David,” this other me said.
    My legs and hand found purpose again and I scrambled to my feet. I pushed myself against the cold cinderblock wall and just stared back at my sudden doppelganger.
    “Run!” the thing shouted.
    I ran.

 
     
     
    20
     
    Up the stairs, through the door, I came out into the kitchen and headed for the back door which we’d used to enter this place when something caught my eye and I stopped.
    The shotgun that I’d leveled on Cashman while we were driving, the thing I had given him and which he had used to knock me unconscious, lay on one of the prep tables. The ejected shells were conveniently lined up beside it.
    I hurried over and inspected the shotgun. It had been easy ejecting the shells; loading them would be another story.
    Fooling with it, I kept glancing at the basement door, expecting Nancy or what had become of Nancy to make an appearance.
    My hands were shaking. Blood pounded in my ears.
    Finally I managed to insert one of the shells, lock it into place, then added three more.
    Before I left I glanced back, expecting the door to open, expecting for some reason my parents do be there staring back at me, dead.
    A second passed and nothing happened.
    I went outside.
    The day had worn on, the sun almost gone from the sky. I glanced at my wrist instinctively but I wasn’t wearing a watch.
    The shotgun in my hands, I made my way down the alleyway toward the main street. I could see a few cars already passing by. Heavy bass thumped from one of them.
    I came around the building to find the parking lot deserted. Maybe this was a speakeasy and maybe it wasn’t. Whatever the case, at least Cashman’s truck wasn’t here.
    I stepped out on the street, looking back and forth for any traffic. That heavy bass had faded and now there was that constant and palpable silence that inhabits most cities.
    Right then an engine growled down the street. Headlights appeared.
    I started walking in that direction, trying to keep the shotgun concealed behind my back. The last thing I wanted to do now was spook a potential Good Samaritan and wished I’d left the weapon back inside.
    With my free hand—my right hand, the one without the silver ring—I waved to the oncoming vehicle.
    I stood there for maybe five seconds, waving frantically, until the shape of the vehicle became distinct.
    An old red Ford pickup truck.
    Cashman’s pickup truck.
    Without thinking I brought the shotgun around and aimed it at the oncoming headlights, the engine now a ferocious roar, and fired.
    The shotgun exploded and the windshield splintered but the truck didn’t slow.
    It was coming for me, swerving right in my direction—fifty feet away, forty feet—and though the silver ring made me invincible I wasn’t going to take the chance.
    I dove out of the way at the last second.
    Hitting the ground hard, rolling, jumping back to my feet, I turned just as Cashman slammed on the brakes and spun the truck around to face me again.
    We were less than fifty feet apart now.
    Cashman was hunched over the wheel, glaring back at me. He kept revving the engine.
    I lifted the shotgun, ejected the spent shell, and aimed it straight back at him.
    A moment passed.
    Another moment.
    Then Cashman placed the truck back into gear and the tires squealed and it was racing toward me, coming closer, closer, closer, and I waited another second and then pulled the trigger, ejected the spent shell, pulled the trigger, ejected the spent shell, pulled the trigger, all in one fluid motion, like I was a natural, and I stepped out of the way just as the truck moved past me, the windshield completely shattered, glass raining down everywhere, Cashman slumped dead over the wheel.
    The truck kept going though; Cashman must have still had his foot on