She took three uncoordinated, spastic strides toward the traffic lane, her right hand clawing at the lapels of her jacket, her left arm hanging limp, her fingers convulsing.
She didn’t wave for help.
She looked directly into my windshield as my Honda approached at fifty-five miles per hour.
Her eyes were not the eyes of a panicked victim.
They were two unblinking, slate-gray discs of terrifying, predatory intelligence—staring straight through my glass, through my pupils, through the cheap tie around my neck, as if she were reading the serial numbers off my soul.
Then her knees dissolved.
She hit the crushed granite of the shoulder with a sickening, heavy *thud*, her forehead striking the steel guardrail pylon, her breath exploding from her chest in a thin, whistling, red-tinted plume of fine aerosolized spray.
