Chapter 29

The next morning Evie woke up. She turned to face Drake in the driver's seat, but she was alone. She woke up very suddenly, looking into the back seat. "Drake?"

No response.

She looked around, rocking the car, which tripped the garage light sensor. She looked out the rear window, behind her. Drake was lying on the driveway face down, motionless. The garage door closed on his back, leaving a small sliver of light through.

Her heart raced into panic mode. She banged on the window and turned on the engine to wind down the window. "Drake?" She yelled again. He did not move.

She gritted her teeth. He was behind the car. If she reversed very carefully, she might be able to pull him in through the boot. She leaped into the driver's seat and very slowly and carefully drove backwards towards the garage door. She stopped when his body disappeared completely into the blind spot, afraid of running him over.

Quickly she jumped through the seats, scraping her thighs, threw down the seats and opened the back of the car. He was nearly within reach. She wrapped her legs into the seatbelt to stop herself falling out and started to edge out. She braced herself to be forced back by the curse and pushed forward with all her might to grab Drake's leg.

She flopped forwards and fell out the back, face first onto the concrete. There was no resistance. She did a push up, quickly to get off the ground, blood running down her face. "Drake?"

No movement from him. Still holding onto the seatbelt with her feet, she shuffled forwards across the garage a few feet, grabbed his ankle and pulled him back to the car. The garage door managed to shut with him out of the way.

He was either heavier than she thought, or her muscles had weakened, but it took great effort to pull him back into the car. Remembering first aid training, she checked his breathing and pulse. It was fine, He was alive. Still panicking, She shook him for a few moments until he began coughing and spluttering. His eyes opened, his face pale, he spun around and vomited out of the back of the car.

"Are you alright?"

Drake groaned and nodded. "What happened?"

"You got out of the car! You can't do that." She screamed, adrenaline still running through her.

"Was going to the toilet."

"Don't do that!"

Drake opened his eyes, closed them again and seemed to go back to sleep.

She rolled him into the recovery position and sat over him until her heart rate started dropping. Drake had begun to snore, but seemed alright.

She left him alone and sat back in the passenger seat and stole one of his cigarettes. She lit it and looked at her face in the mirror. Her right eye was bleeding quite badly and filled with grit. She dabbed the cuts with a medical wipe, cleaning it off, then held a whole pack of paper towels over it to stop the bleeding.

Closing the mirror again, she sat back, smoking. Her hands still trembling.

She looked in the wing mirror to see the door fully closed again. She had questions now.

Drake woke up again an hour later. There was color in his cheeks. Evie spun around.

"What happened to you?" He asked, looking at the gash on her face.

"I fell on my face trying to drag you back into the car?"

"Did I leave?"

She nodded. "Tried to go to the toilet. I thought you died."

Drake coughed a little. "Damn. Sorry. Think tiredness caught up with me. Do you mean you left the car too?"

"I had to. A bit." She paused. "You were under the garage door."

"Did it come down on my back?"

She nodded.

"Yeah, it does feel like it." He paused. "So I managed to get a few meters away from here without noticing?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I don't know how."

"And you could leave too. Right?"

She shrugged. "I didn't notice anything, but I was too worried for you."

He sat up, grimacing from the pain a little and opened the door to stand up.

"Don't you dare." She tried to block him with her hand.

He pushed her arm away and stood up, in the garage, stretching his legs and back.

Evie stared at him. "Don't tell me you were lying about feeling the curse."

Drake shook his head and opened the door for Evie. "Come on, take my hand."

She shook her head. "No, don't."

He shrugged and passed her the garage remote. "Fine. Just press the button to open the garage. Press it again to close it again."

"Why?"

Drake grabbed her hand with the remote and squeezed. The garage door started to raise up again. Drake stood still, counting something on his fingers until almost instantly at the count of three he dropped to the floor, landing roughly on his knees and falling face down.

Evie quickly pressed the button to reverse the door. Once it shut, Drake groaned. "Okay. I did not want to do that again."

"What the fuck, Drake?" She yelped.

He slowly pushed himself back up, his trousers torn at the knees, with angry looking grazes on his legs. "I'm fine."

He returned to the car and sat next to her. "So. I think the curse can't get into the garage."

"Really?"

He nodded. "It explains what just happened, right? We thought we were trapped in the car. But evidently it doesn't matter what we're trapped in, so long as we don't try to leave."

Evie stared at him, saying nothing.

Drake's pocket beeped. He pulled out his phone. "Oh God. Ten AM. I should have started work two hours ago!."

"Seriously?" Evie exclaimed.

He didn't answer, just pulled out his laptop, put on his headset and made a call.