After a few hours with Richard at the solar farm, I headed into the Southwest Harbor in the Omni. It was mid-morning, and more cars were on the road. I needed a secluded place where I could face the shades, and Richard had suggested I drive the roads down by Bass Harbor Lighthouse.

  Richard didn’t think the shades would arrive until midafternoon, and even then, they were most likely to attack after the sun had set. That gave me most of the day to experiment with the new features, new abilities, and new vehicles I had access to at level 13.

  My license page included a “Physical Evolution” section listing specific details about how my strength and speed would change as I level up. At level 13, I was on Tier 2. A tiny picture of my body was labeled “Peak Human.” According to the app, a rookie Endr was Tier 1, something called “Conditioned Human.” That was probably how I’d managed to beat my instructor when we’d raced. The tiers appeared to change every ten license levels, and now that I was Tier 2, I could supposedly compete against the world's strongest and fastest humans. Good to know.

  Two map filters or overlays could be applied to provide helpful information. The first, “Soul Density,” showed me every living person in the area, each color-coded by their status. Green meant they were unmarked, or that the Bureau had no current interest in their soul. Purple souls were marked for transfer to another realm. Red meant that they were marked for death, and blue meant that they were protected in some way.

  The second filter, the “Termina Signature,” was even more interesting–and had obvious application to battling shades. This filter indicated the presence of a termina residue from either an employee (an Endr or Reaper), a pure soul (such as a shade), or a doorway into Terminus itself. Employees appeared as a cloudy figure. Souls and doorways would both appear bright white. Pinching to zoom in, I spotted the three bright white shades as they entered Mt. Desert Island.

  The extra time had done me some good. Between what Richard had told me and the time I’d had to browse the app over an overpriced sandwich and coffee, I was feeling decently prepared. I’d parked at the southernmost point of the island, one that received far less traffic than any road I had been on since arriving, and sat idling on Harbor Road in front of the Ship Harbor Trailhead.

  I still had an hour before sunset, and couldn’t help but smile as I reviewed my options, then selected the level 13 Ford Ranger. I had always liked how much more in control I felt in a truck because of the higher vantage point on the road, but this was my first time in the Ranger. This particular early model was red and from the early 2000s, thankfully, rather than one of the extra-bulky modern Rangers that seemed a tad insecure.

  Of the new upgrades that seemed most helpful at the moment, I activated the extra loud horn, Molotov launcher, blinding high-beams, shotgun turret, retractable side blades, and flamethrower. The Molotov launcher was on the roof. The turret grew out of the bed of the truck, and the flamethrower appeared to be embedded in the front grill.

  It wasn’t just the ride that was tricked out. I’d dug through the car for anything that might give me an edge in close-quarters combat, retrieving not only the Bowie knife from the glovebox, but also numerous guns found in a compartment in the truck’s bed. I had selected the Walther PPK and the trusty Bond Arms Derringer that had saved my ass in the last fight.

  Both guns were fully loaded, which I assumed happened with some underworldly power each time I placed them back in the trunk or summoned my vehicle. I would have two shots with the Derringer and seven with the Walther. I was ready as I was going to get, a good thing given the light was rapidly fading.

  When I flipped open the app again, I found that only two of the shades were coming for me. Where was the third? Was it possible these things had their own abilities and could hide themselves in the app somehow? I shuddered at the thought. As it was, I had barely survived the last fight. Then again…I’d gone up ten levels since then.

  I shoved the phone in my pocket. I didn’t need it anymore, given I could see the creatures' silhouettes hovering over the trees, backlit by a purple dusk gradient. I was parked with my back to the trailhead and ocean beyond it.

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  A Volvo with California plates drove by, slowing as it passed so that all four occupants could get a good look at the truck in all of its weaponized glory. I simply nodded as they passed, trying not to laugh as the driver suddenly floored it and sped away.

  The ground rumbled, reality seeming to bend as the space between my truck and the treeline buckled and waved. A low hum rattled the bones in my ribcage, and a deep dread consumed me. My heart pounded, and my breath came faster. The two shades were moving again, somehow managing to cover half the distance to me in the blink of an eye. One angled straight for me, and the other, to my utter terror, peeled off toward the family in the Volvo.

  “Oh no, you don’t, fucker!” I yelled, slamming my foot on the gas. The truck lunged forward with the gratifying sound of squealing tires and the smell of burnt rubber. I flipped on the blinding high beams, burning a path to the shade headed straight at me. Unfortunately, they also melted the frozen field of grasses and shrubs as soon as the light touched them. The shade shrieked and dropped to the ground, where it sizzled, its body smoking as I ran it over with a thump.

  I briefly glanced in the rearview mirror to see if the dark figure would rise and follow, but for the moment, it appeared to be unmoving. That was good enough for me. I was already in pursuit of the second shade, heading east on Harbor Road at a dangerous 75 miles per hour, given the tight, twisting roads. As I whipped around curves, the taillights of the tourist vehicle and the soaring shade popped in and out of my line of sight.

  I was nearing the transition of Harbor into Seawall Road, an area I’d picked because it was both infrequently traveled and on a mostly straight road. But the stretch would turn north in just over a mile, and I knew, from the map, my pursuit would enter a more populated area. I needed to get moving.

  The knots in my stomach increased, and the world warped again. I found myself easing off the gas. What the hell was I doing? My hands shook at the thought of following the shades. But I’d had all day to prepare for what I’d known was coming, so why was I suddenly so freaked out? I focused on breathing deeply and keeping my speed steady, realizing that the shades must have some sort of fear spell ability.

  At the realization, I managed to fight off some of the effects and began pressing the pedal down again. The shade was almost on the car of the unsuspecting family when I rounded a turn and began to gain on them, the Ranger engine roaring. I didn’t know if they could see the shade, but the man driving obviously saw my vehicle, given that he began accelerating away. The distance between his car and the shade increased. That was good.

  The shade gave a frustrated growl, turning just in time to see me engage the flamethrower on the grill. Two torrents of flame burst from the front of my car and struck the shade. It slowed and then stopped, hovering in the middle of the road. I would hit it unless I took some evasive maneuvers. I spared a second to consider my options.

  Option one was to blast it with either the Molotov launcher or the shotgun turret, but both risked hitting the Volvo as it sped away. That was out. I quickly enacted option two, swerving across the center line and into the other lane, while engaging the retractable side blades. There was a sickening rip, followed by an explosion of black blood that splattered the right side of my truck. A chorus of muffled screams came from the Volvo as it accelerated still further and whipped out of sight.

  I tapped the brakes, easing the truck to the side of the road before backing up to where the mangled shade lay cut in two black, smoking hunks that had already begun to evaporate.

  “Get Trucked, bitch!” I said, my voice loud in the eerie quiet of the Maine woods, as I cracked the driver’s side door open. My celebration was cut short as I was tackled with the force of a Mack truck.

  The missing third shade had come out of nowhere and hit me so hard that the door of the Ford Ranger broke off the hinges and ricocheted into the road, my hand still on the handle. I heard, then felt, the snap of my collarbone and multiple ribs as I landed hard in front of the Ranger.

  When I staggered to my feet, I found the shade hovering next to the truck, its ten talons extended. They were even longer than those of the first shade I had faced in Charlestown and seemed to continue to grow until each claw rivaled a full-sized sword. With a shriek, it shot toward me.

  This time, I didn’t wait to be skewered. As soon as the shade was in range, I picked up the door of the truck off the road, swinging it like a Major League batter and knocking the thing back toward the car, before I twisted it in my arms to create a makeshift shield for myself and mentally activated the shotgun turret.

  - - -

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