The man had been slumped in the passenger side of the truck, dozing. All of a sudden he jerked upright, his sunglasses almost flying off.
The truck driver jumped.
"Hey, Eric, you okay?" he asked.
For a moment, the man didn't say anything, so unnerved by his vision that he forgot the name he'd given the driver.
"Uh, yeah," he said finally. "Nah. I'm fine. Just started to slip into a bad dream was all."
"Bad dreams are a bitch, ain't they," said the truckie, Les. "I don't have many myself, guess I'm just lucky."
Les pulled a small cylinder from the dashboard. Driving with one hand, he popped its lid open and shook two pills out into his mouth, dry-swallowed them.
"Shit, it's true!" said Eric.
"What's that, mate?" asked Les, glancing at him.
"Drugs," said Eric. "You guys really do take drugs to keep going."
"Drugs? Mate, these are fuckin Nurofen. I got a whingeing bitch of a headache."
"Oh," said Eric. "How long until we hit Casino?"
"Another six, seven hours. You wanna doze, you got plenty of time. Unless, of course, you're scared of those bad dreams coming back." He grinned, not unkindly.
"It's not the dreams I'm scared of," said Eric. "It's the reality."
"Yeah, reality's pretty fucked up."
Eric sat and stared out the window, tapping his fingers on his knee. Still so far to Casino. All along, he'd been two steps behind the Shadoweaters, always barely in time to stop them. This time he meant to stop them completely. Or die trying.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE