Year's End: 14 Tales of Holiday Horror by J. Alan Hartman Page B

pushed on the gas, bent rims be damned, trying to propel them away from the gash. A squealing noise and stench of burning rubber surrounded them, but the car didn’t move. “Jack,” she gasped, “We have to get out of the car and run. Run straight.” There was no time for anything more detailed than that. Jack grabbed for his seatbelt buckle, and the belt snapped back. As his hand closed over the handle, the ground quaked beneath and the car was upended, slamming them back into their seats. Jack lost his hold on Wobbles, and the dog went shrieking across the roof and slammed into the back window. Lynn could see a fine web of cracks spread beneath his body. She had an impression of Wobbles’ upturned white eye before the car was thrown forward, balancing briefly on the front bumper before slamming upside down into the pavement. Darkness.
    Lynn’s hand brushed back against her forehead, pushing back tangles of wet hair. She hung upside down in her seatbelt, with the airbag pressed against head. “Jack?” she whispered. He lay on the roof of the car, Wobbles lying under him, eyes open and still. Fluid ran steadily across the glass. “Jack?”
    She knew he couldn’t answer her. She reached out desperately for his face, but couldn’t reach, struggling in her seatbelt. Her hands were too slippery to grab the latch. Dizzily she tried to push away from the airbag. She had to get out, get Jack out. Maybe he was only unconscious. Maybe, maybe…
    The ground shook. She clawed at the belt, and then froze. The car slid backwards, metal screeching across the pavement, then still again. Those whispers again, the same as those from the wall, hissing and cajoling. Hanging tangled in the belt, she sat helpless, listening. Her breath caught in her throat.
    The lights in the dash were gone, and there was no way to see what was jiggling the door handle and peeling at the broken glass. The car shivered under the assault. Part of her wanted light, even the clock, to see what was coming . It must be midnight . It was the last coherent thought she had.

Contract Fulfillment
    Jeremy Tyler
    Rob Carlisle was feeling pretty good, watching the never-ending and never-dull parade of partiers walk past him. On any given night, the old Tampa neighborhood of Ybor City was a great place for nightclubbing. The hottest clubs were all on 7 th Avenue, with lines forming for blocks out on the street. But even without going inside, there were plenty of open air bars and patio clubs where you could sit back, listen to the overlapping sounds of the live music, and just feel the excitement in the air.
    Yes, Ybor was always a great place to be. But on New Year’s Eve, it was an absolute riot.
    And Rob was in an especially celebratory mood. He had gotten word, not four days ago, that his life was actually his again. After three years of living with varying forms of chemotherapy, radiation treatments, and enough half-crazy experimental procedures to qualify as a decent sci-fi thriller, Rob’s doctors had given him the terrifying, but expected, final diagnosis. His cancer was terminal, and he had an estimated year to live.
    Yeah, not exactly the kind of news that generally inspires a party. But, that wasn’t the part he was celebrating. It was the unbelievable, and clinically impossible, fact that his incurable, inoperable, and unrecoverable cancer had gone into full remission. Rob was cancer-free, and open to a life full of possibility.
    That was something worth making a fuss over.
    So, tonight he was out at the biggest New Year’s Eve party in the state, covering all of Ybor City. Tonight, he didn’t have a care in the world.
    Those, he would tend to tomorrow. Or the day after, depending on how bad a hangover he was nursing.
    There were considerations, of course. Rob had planned on living a short but full life for what time he had left, so he had quickly burned through his savings, indulging in a full range of once-in-a-lifetime activities. When he ran out