"I still don't get it. I really don't," Colette watched over her shoulder where she saw Mallory singing and oscillating her upper body while glaring out of the window. "How on earth can you all act so casual after all what happened?"

"Want a Twinkie?" Caleb's meaty hand emerged from the backseat in front of Colette's eyes. "They are really tasty." he beamed.

Colette's face churned with revulsion. She shook her head.

"You?" He asked Kaitlin. Who shrugged and grabbed the Twinkie while sitting in the driver's seat.

"Are you sure you're okay back there, Mallory?" Colette glared over her shoulder, looking at the raven-haired beauty who acted like she spent time in some downtown discotheque.

Mallory nodded with a smile. "Never felt better."

"You're not experiencing a splitting headache?"

"Nope,"

"Or feelings of dizziness or the need to vomit?"

"Nope,"

"Or feeling groggy? Or sluggish? Or confused in some way?"

"Nope, nope, and…. well now that you're mentioning it," Mallory turned her head and leered at Caleb's eyes. "I do get lost for words sometimes every time I melt in those big brown twinkles of my baby-bunny."

Caleb returned the smile and the couple started smooching passionately.

Disgusted, Colette quickly averted her eyes and sank back into her seat again, sighing.

"Baby-bunny? Serious!" Kaitlin mouthed inaudibly while looking at Colette with bulged eyes. She stuck her finger in her mouth and acted like she was barfing up.

"Leave it," Kaitlin placed her hand reassuringly on Colette's leg when she saw that her friend's face was still taut like a guitar string.

"Things don't add up here, Kait. I'm telling ya! The girl should at least have some sort of brain damage after such a smack."

"Well, she hasn't. She just looks like her plain old self. Insufferable and snarky."

"And that's exactly what worries me! I've read about mood swings occurring in people after a concussion. One moment they laugh. The next, they cry. And she's awfully giddy right, don't you think?"

"She's always awfully giddy, Colette. There's nothing unusual about that. Especially not with her. And I definitely don't feel like dealing with a crying Mallory right now. Thank you very much."

"I can hear everything you guys saaaay!" Mallory sang from the backseat in glee.

Both Colette and Kaitlin blushed hard. They shifted and crawled away in their seats in vain attempts to make themselves invisible.

While driving through the night, the hair on the back of Kaitlin's neck prickled when she heard Mallory and Caleb kissing each other. It was like they did their best to be heard, as a sort of reprisal for the ill-talk a little while ago.

Kaitlin took a sneaky peek through the rearview mirror and regretted it immediately, for she was once again treated at the sight of Mallory's tight derriere wiggling on Caleb's lap. She couldn't take it anymore. It was not even an hour ago since that meteorite thing happened and this Mallory chick was already working on Kaitlin's nerves with her trampy behavior. She ensured that Colette wasn't looking her way and rummaged about in her pocket with her hand. A small and dull-looking rock rested in her palm. The same one that shone blindingly bright before Mallory had touched it. Whatever force-field was residing in that thing was gone now. The stone appeared dead. The voice she heard earlier, the one that was calling her, was also gone – or so it seemed. However, sometimes it did seem like Kaitlin was hearing its voice still, only very faint – like a cry coming from some faraway place at the horizon.

Kaitlin was the only one who had seen that Mallory's eyes were bursting with the same intensity of light for a split second the moment Mallory touched that thing. She was pretty sure that whatever was residing in that rock was now living inside Mallory's body and it definitely had something to do with Mallory's unnatural recovery after her head had hit the asphalt with pretty hard force. Even though the rock seemed death, Kaitlin took it anyway and stuffed it in her pocket, unbeknownst to the others.

"That's the wrong way!"

Kaitlin frowned when Mallory's voice spoke right after her brain had just decided to take a turn to the right when they were nearing a T-junction. She hadn't activated the turn light yet, and she wasn't using any navigation either. Kaitlin knew her way in this area. She had been here before during vacations in her childhood. The shortest route to the ferry was to turn to the right. Mallory could not know that because she had told them that she had never been here in this side of the country. But here she was, correcting Kaitlin's planned route – which she had dotted out in her head only and hadn't said out loud.

"I'm going to take a turn to the right here," Kaitlin said.

"Yes, I know. And that's the wrong way," Mallory said.

"How did you know I was going to do that?" Kaitlin looked at her friend, Colette.

Mallory did not answer the question. "Come on! Go left here, trust me!" she urged.

"You've never been here in this area, right?" Colette asked.

"No, I haven't," Mallory said.

"Well, Kaitlin knows this place like the back of her hand. So why don't you let her do the driving, huh?"

Mallory shrugged. "suit yourself." And after that, she mounted on top of Caleb again and continued kissing.

Kaitlin started to question her own decision. Mallory sounded so convinced of herself. She took a turn to the right anyway, just like she planned in the first place.

Screw that wiseass! Kaitlin thought as the tires screeched in the night.

"Things are going to take a dark turn from here," Mallory said after Kaitlin had taken the curve.

"Okay, stop it! You're starting to sound creepy now!" Colette fumed while watching over her shoulder. Mallory did not say anything back. She merely continued treating Caleb on the touch of her ass and lips.

While driving, Kaitlin kept peeking from time to time through the rearview mirror. The scenery she saw stayed the same, with Caleb and Mallory licking each other's faces – accompanied by many unsavory sounds.

The road they were driving on meandered away from a small village into a more remote area and packed with long, pointy trees on both sides. Every fifty meters or so stood a street light, illuminating the road with a faint orange hue in the dark night.

"The hell is that?" Caleb said as he gaped out of the window.

All three girls followed his stare. A car was stationed on a meadow near a forest. There was movement as they saw at least two black silhouettes strolling in the darkness.

"Drive slower. I want to see what they're up to," Caleb said as his eyes were glued against the window.

Colette groaned with frustration. "We're driving in the middle of the fucking night in the middle of freaking nowhere, so don't you think it's wiser to drive faster instead?"

"This should be fun," Mallory said as she leaned over Caleb's shoulder.

To the annoyance of Colette, Kaitlin reduced the car's speed almost to a walking pace.

"Is that a shovel he's holding in his hands?" Kaitlin squinted with her eyes.

"It looks like they are–"

"Oh my God! It's a body! They are burying a body!" Kaitlin clasped her hands against her cheeks.

"Rad. Fuckin rad," Caleb said.

"There's nothing rad about any of this!" Colette bristled. "Who knows what we stumbled upon. We should GET the hell out of here before w– uuuh, guys?"

Everyone followed Colette's finger pointing at the window on Kaitlin's side. A man was standing there with a gun in his hand.

Colette started whining, Caleb was speechless, and Mallory seemed like she had lost her mind, for the only thing she could do was chuckle uncontrollably.

The door swung open, and Kaitlin screeched as a firm hand grabbed her hair and yanked her out of the car.

"Out! All of you! You too, asshat!" the man called out, pointing his gun at Caleb. "and take that loony slut of yours with you!"

Caleb did his best to pull Mallory along with him as he got out of the car, but she just kept sitting there on the back seat – immersed in a burst of endless giggles.

The shady man lost his patience. "That's it. I'm going to end her life, right here right now." He cocked his gun and aimed it at Mallory.

"Noooooo!" Caleb screeched and stormed at the man like a raging bull. It ended in a wrestle. A shot was fired and both men stumbled and fell on the ground, rolling over each other. The man was able to grab his gun again and aimed it at Caleb's head with seething eyes. "I'm going to make you a cripple for the remaining three hours of your life and force you to watch me fuck your girlfriend fifty times in the arse before I let my pooch tear you all to pieces!" he spat, foaming at the mouth.

"No, you don't," Mallory showed up out of nowhere behind him - while she was sitting in the car just a second ago. She looked at the man dead serious. "The only thing you're going to do is becoming smaller and smaller and smaller." the man started shrinking rapidly, compelled by Mallory's words.

"Until you're small enough to fit under my boot."

CRUNCH! And the man was no more.

Two of his companions showed up, responding to all the ruckus.

"Business or play?" Mallory asked playfully at the two men who were rushing up to them.

Both men pulled out a gun.

Mallory smiled eagerly. "Nice! Play it is then."

Two shots were fired, aimed at Mallory. Both slugs dropped harmlessly to the ground after they could not penetrate Mallory's chest. Two bright red beams shot from Mallory's eyes, ending their lives, leaving behind two smoldering heaps of ash. A car engine started. Seemed like a fourth man was waiting in the car. He drove off with shrieking tires.

"Hey! I want my souvenir!" Mallory screamed. She brought her hand up, and at the same time, the car went airborne. It was pulled her way by some invisible force and shrunk down in size until it dwindled to the size of a dinky toy. Mallory smiled triumphantly when the car landed on the palm of her hand. She closed it into a fist and sauntered back into Kaitlin's car.

"You guys coming, or what?" she asked while looking around dumbfounded at her stationary friends.