At long last, Jacobus moved to the desert.
It was a move planned for many months after a single visit to a small desert town convinced him it was time to move. There, on a dark summer night he discovered what he had heard of, but never seen: a night sky filled with stars and constellations and galaxies spinning far above that had been invisible to him in the city.
He was mesmerized by the pale wisps of stars that blew silently across the sky, glowing dimly in the persistent summer heat. He heard coyotes howl surprisingly nearby as they saluted the night sky and each other. He felt the desert breeze upon his cheek as it scurried by the nearby silhouettes of saguaros looming in the nearby darkness. Thousands of flowers of the night, peeking
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“They’re not coming. I’ve been a fool.” The demon nodded in agreement and smiled a self-satisfied, red smile before it retreated back into the darkness, never to return.
He had lost. The Visitor was still alive. He would have to move, to leave the corner, or even the town itself or die himself. The Visitor was still alive.
Then, something was different.
On the street, where all had been quiet for more than an hour, where any vehicle that did pass did so in a hurry on its way up the hill, a vehicle passed at very low speed.
It oozed past his bedroom, its lights briefly igniting the curtains into a brilliant white glow they passed. The throb of the car’s powerful engine was felt as much as hear as it crept by maybe five miles per hour. He thought he even heard the sound of hushed voices seeping into the night air out of a half-cracked window. The vehicle passed and darkness returned, save for the ever present yellow glow of the damnable streetlight.
Philip lay in bed, riveted. Was this it? he wondered. Now? After all hope had gone?
He dare not get out of bed, but listened.
The car stopped, not quite at the corner, he thought, though its engine continued to thrum as it idled, waiting for a new command from its