The Drive Home

George was not a paranoid man by nature. He wasn't superstitious, he never found himself scared about the worst-case scenario, and he saw himself as quite the rational person. All of that managed to change in a single night.

After working hours of overtime and tiring himself out physically and mentally, George couldn't wait to get home, curl up in his warm bed, and fall asleep. He plucked his car keys from his pocket and clambered into his car, sighing in relief that his long day was finally over. He started the engine of his 2007 Buick and pulled out of the empty parking lot, his sleepy eyes growing even heavier from the cozy darkness of the night and the warm orange glow of the occasional street lamp. Driving at night seemed to be a fear most people possessed, but not George. He found it quite relaxing. The transition from the city to the rural and woodsy area in which he lived was always mesmerizing, and was perhaps his favorite part of the drive home every night.

As he coasted down the road, he saw a strange-looking van with a hefty camera sitting on top quite ridiculously. The lights were off, and it appeared vacant. George gave a chuckle at the sight, trying to imagine a scenario that could have brought the driver to park their van in such a random location. As he passed the van, the headlights lit up and the engine roared fearsomely, like a monster waking from its slumber. He glanced into his rearview mirror, watching as the van drove down the road, and he thought about what a strange coincidence it was that the thing had come to life just as he passed it. George was not worried. That is, until the van began to follow him.

At first, George had no concerns. A Google Street View van just started up and began driving, and happened to be going in the same direction, he told himself. But as George’s long journey home stretched and continued, he became warier of its presence. After it had been following him for 15 minutes, George decided that it was not worth the risk of heading home, in case this was something out of the ordinary, and giving away his home address like that could be dangerous. So George took a right, then a left, then a left and a right, and finally George began to drive himself in a purposeful loop. The van continued to stalk him like prey, no matter where George went.

He eventually decided to pull into a police station, and let them handle the situation. George, having found himself utterly lost from his attempt at tricking the vicious animal, pulled out his phone and opened Google Maps. The second it lit up his screen, George knew something was wrong. He saw that the format of the site had changed. Instead of an overhead satellite view of the streets, George bore witness to nothing but the street view option. And the street view was nothing but an angle from behind his Buick. The van was uploading the photos as it followed.

Being sufficiently creeped out, George turned to the auditory directions to the police station. 

“Turn left onto Wimbledon Street,” the automated voice said plainly and flatly. George came to a steady stop, and cranked the wheel to the left, turning onto Wimbledon Street. Once he saw that it was a straight and unoccupied road, George floored it. He slammed his foot down on the gas harder than he ever had before in his monotonous and simple life. He rocketed down the road and felt a short thrill as he saw the van steadily shrinking in the distance. He heard the robotic voice say something to him, but he didn't register it. George felt alive. He glanced from the mirror back to the road, and the moment of joy was gone. A bright red stop sign shouted at him, and cars were shooting down the busy intersection in front of him. 

George slammed on the brakes and gripped the wheel tighter than he ever had before, yanking it all the way to the right. The tires screamed and smoke was billowing out from the burnt rubber as George and his sideways car skidded into the middle of the busy intersection. Horns blared as the bright pairs of lights of approaching cars veered left and right to avoid him, careening into the grass or smashing into cars in front of them. George squeezed his eyes shut stupidly, not thinking to throw the car in reverse and evade a pile-up. George prayed for the first time in his life. Something --or someone-- heard his words, and every vehicle narrowly avoided George and his car. There were people shouting and cars still honking, and everyone was stepping out of their vehicles, cursing up a storm. George wasn't focused on any of that. His eyes were locked on the road from whence he came. Slowly and menacingly, like a predator on the prowl, the Google Street View van pulled up to the stop sign and stared George down. Its headlights seemed to narrow like a pair of yellow eyes squinting at George. He noticed that there was a mass of cars separating himself from the van. George gritted his teeth and grabbed the gearshift, pulled his car into reverse and slammed on the gas once again. 

He shot backward and stomped the brakes, skidding to a halt. Dirt kicked up from the patch of grass he ran over, then he twisted the wheel all the way to the left, and put his car in drive, and launched forward, tearing through another bit of earth and zipping down another road. He glanced into the rearview mirror again and saw the bloodthirsty van struggling to find a way through the mess of vehicles so that it could stalk its George-flavored prey. He laughed, having finally found his freedom. 

George changed the address he was headed in his phone from the police station to his home. He continued down the dimly lit streets, his headlights carving the way through the dense murky blackness. As his phone chanted robotic commands at him, ‘turn right’ and ‘turn left’, and George followed them blindly. It wasn't until minutes later George realized his phone was taking him further from his house. 

“I know that I’m near Greendale Turnpike, it's a dead-end street, I’ll just spin around there and get home on my own,” George told himself.

“Turn right onto Greendale Turnpike,” the voice requested. George faltered, confused about his next move. Google Maps was leading him onto a dead-end street. Before he could make the choice to listen to the machine or not, someone blasted their horn behind George and shouted something incomprehensible from the car behind him. George panicked and fled onto Greendale Turnpike.

George drove slowly along the road, as the eerie darkness seemed far denser on this road than any he’d seen before, his headlights barely illuminating an inch in front of his car. His left and right were nothing but dense trees, and he drove along the single gray stretch of road bifurcating the vast and haunting forest. George rounded the last bend before the inevitable dead end where he could spin around and head home, but before he could do that, something stopped him dead in his tracks. A pair of beady yellow eyes had been waiting for him, the eyes of a big metal beast that had successfully cornered its prey. 

George stopped, then he spun the steering wheel all the way around and began to head back. But before he could make it anywhere, another van pulled up, blocking off his exit. He was stuck between the two Google Street View vans. Then, as if acting off of one brain, they both shut off their headlights at once. The doors popped open simultaneously, and George finally got a look at what had been following him as they made their way out of their ferocious steel abominations.