Hell is a Highway in Missouri

“Hey, kid, are you deaf?” 

The scruffy looking boy’s head jolted up and met the eyes of a gruff, heavy-set register attendant. The man was staring at the boy with a furrowed brow, arms spread and gripping the edge of his station in an exaggerated show of annoyance. 

“Sorry, what?” Sam said, eyes wide with confusion.

“I said,” The attendant barked, his grip on the counter tightening and knuckles white. He was losing his patience, and quickly. “$15.45. You’re at a gas station. Planet Earth, if you weren’t sure. You’ve got about 10 seconds to pay me, junkie, or you’re on your ass and I’m calling the police.”

Junkie? Sam thought to himself. That was a new one. He was pretty sure he looked rough, and he felt even worse, but he didn’t think he would have made that assumption. He got the sense that this particular man had seen the city at its worst, and might be used to assuming such in people. Especially those who came wandering in at 2 AM on a Tuesday. 

“Right,” Sam said. This was all he could muster as he fished through the pockets on his faded blue jeans and got out his wallet. He pulled out his debit card and held it between his index finger and thumb out to the attendant. 

“For Christ’s sake, it’s a chip reader,” He all but shouted, thrusting one hand towards the electronic device on the counter right in front of Sam and the other hand up to his head to shake his fingers through his greasy hair. Sam couldn’t help but feel that he was being treated a bit unfairly, although it really was hard to say. He had absolutely no concept of how long he had been standing there comatose while this guy was trying to convince a brick wall that he did, in fact, need to give him money for his goods. 

He jammed the card into the reader, desperate to be done with this interaction. The machine took its time. The pile of items lay between Sam and the irate man across from him, and he had time in between PROCESSING beeps from the chip reader to think to himself that maybe “junkie” hadn’t been a bad guess. The precious goods -- a Red Bull, two 5-Hour Energy drinks, 3 chocolate bars, and a pack of cigarettes -- were about as good an indication as his physical state. Or his mental one.

After an awkward eternity, the card reader device mercifully released him from his eternal bonds to the 7-Eleven on 14th Street. He removed it, jammed it back into his pocket (not bothering to return it home to his wallet) and stuffed his new treasures into his hoodie. To his great relief, the man said nothing as he left the store into the darkness of the night. 

Preoccupied with the plastic wrap on the top of the energy drink, he didn’t notice at first that the street he had left to enter the gas station was not the same street he walked out on now. When he gave up using his fingers to pry the bottle open and instead raised it to his lips to give his teeth a try, the bottle froze in his mouth as he finally took in his surroundings. 

The light polluted downtown 14th street with its dive bars and consistent hum of winding down nightlife was no longer. In its place was a road that didn’t look all that familiar. It was a long road, the kind they warn you about when you learn the dangers of “highway hypnosis” in Drivers’ Ed. Darkness was on all sides of him, nothing around but the road, save for the same 7-Eleven - standing behind him, impossibly teleported from the Power and Light District to some highway leading into the city. 

Sam’s head began to spin. He tried desperately to sort out how this could be, and decided it must be a nightmare, like the others. The terrible dreams had been following him since the party, and he cursed himself for not medicating his mind quick enough with the stimulants from the gas station. 

That was it, it had to be. He’d fallen asleep when he left the gas station. He finally removed the 5-Hour Energy bottle from his teeth and put it back in the bag. He reached his right hand up to his opposite arm and gave it a hard pinch. Once. Twice. Three times. Not a dream.

With a turn, he turned back to the 7-Eleven which now looked like some beautiful oasis, like a crystal blue, shining stream in the middle of a scorching desert. He pulled on the doorway to Heaven, and found it locked. As if part of some grand - very dark - comedy, almost immediately all of the lights in the gas station shut off and left Sam peering at his own reflection in the black glass. 

There was a moment of cosmic laughter as he looked at the sorry state of himself. Hair disheveled, clothes mismatched and in all the wrong places. Even in the vague reflection he could see the heavy, dark circles under his eyes. He almost didn’t recognize himself - like some ghoul was looking back at him through the glass door. 

Coming back to reality, Sam turned to face the foreign highway once more. He scanned the distance for signs of familiarity in the sporadically placed light posts. 

He found one. When he saw it, he dropped the bag in his hands, and his body went numb. 

Standing underneath the light post not more than 30 feet away was a young man. Sam’s age, at the edge of his teenage years. He knew this because he knew the figure, even from a distance. Or at least, he thought he did. It was hard to tell with all of the blood. 

The boy stood there in the spotlight of the lamp post, enveloped on all sides by the pitch darkness of Missouri night. His clothes were soaked with crimson, his left hand slack at his side and dripping blood onto the highway cement. He stood mostly straight, but his right leg was clearly badly broken. It looked like it was made out of hot wax the way it melted onto the ground and caused the kid to be slightly off kilter. 

All of this was jarring enough. Plenty. But what made Sam’s heart skip what felt like six beats was the smile. His face - yes, he knew this face, disfigured as it was - looked like it had been beaten in with a tire iron, hair matted with dirt and black goo, and a wide-toothed bloody grin that made Sam think he might throw up. Actually, come to think of it, yes - he was going to throw up. 

Sam turned away from the brutalized kid and vomited on the step of the 7-Eleven. As he wiped his mouth he looked again and saw the boy still standing, like a horrible statue, and decided he couldn’t bear to look any longer. He turned around and started heading for the next light going the opposite direction into the night. 

Suddenly he heard voices, starting slow, quiet, like whispers. They emerged all around him, like the blackness surrounding him was full of creatures lying in wait. He looked around in a panic, trying to find the source, but he could see nothing. When he turned his gaze back to the road in front of him, standing in the next light, his presumed destination, was the boy - standing in the same, off-balance way and smiling the same, devilish smile. This time, a voice seemed to emanate from him, though his mouth didn’t move - and his voice wasn’t his own. 

“C’mon, one more, Sammy,” A woman’s voice came from the battered boy’s mouth, somehow, through a wicked smile and stone face. “You gonna make me do shots alone?”

This can’t be happening, Sam thought to himself as he brought both hands to his head. He tried to drown out the whispers by holding his fingers to his ears but the voices were louder now and it seemed to make no difference whether he plugged his ears or not. The highway was still dark, and he and the ghost seemed to be alone, but he felt claustrophobic now - listening as the sounds of a party came into perception all around him. Indistinct chatter, low rhythmic music, and another voice. Sam’s. 

“Hey, Ian,” Sam heard his own voice shout from Ian’s own mangled corpse. “I thought we were partying tonight, huh? Don’t be a dick.”

This was too much for Sam to bear. He squeezed shut his eyes and tried to wake himself from what he was sure was a horrible dream. He gave himself two more pinches and a hard slap to his face before opening his eyes again, and seeing that nothing had changed. 

He looked again at Ian, still and unmoving, taunting him with white and red teeth. He would have been unrecognizable to most anyone else. But Sam knew right away. He’d known his best friend for 16 years, since they were little boys, and he’d recognize his face in any condition - even tortured as it was. They were more than friends, they were like brothers - inheriting each other’s families. Sam had even stayed at Ian’s house for a whole year once, Ian’s mother standing in for his own while she was at the rehab clinic. 

Memories came flooding back to Sam and tears started to well in his eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” He choked out, his voice cracking and the words coming out much quieter than he planned. He cleared his throat and wiped tears from his eyes and tried again. “I’m sorry, Ian.”

No movement. More voices. 

“Where’s your friend?” The same woman from before said through his best friend’s body. 

Sam couldn’t listen anymore. He felt like he was going to explode. He took another 180 and started heading the opposite direction. He needed to get away. God, please, let me out of this place. 

“Probably hiding out somewhere. His girlfriend broke up with him yesterday. 3 years. Came outta nowhere. He said he wanted to party tonight, forget about her... now I think he was just saying that to humor me,” he heard his own voice speak from behind him. He tried to block it out and focus on putting his feet in front of each other. For some reason, he felt if he could make it to the next light, everything would go back to normal. 

It didn’t. When he allowed his focus on his feet to slip and looked up once more, there Ian stood, closer now, as he had almost made it to the light this time. Up close was even worse. Not that he hadn’t seen this version of his best friend before, but not in the harsh overhead of the highway lamp - and that made it so much more gruesome. 

“I’m gonna go,” Ian said. The grin was still planted on his face but being closer now Sam could make out that much more detail. The dried blood that had run down his twisted nose and poured down his lips was crusted into some of his teeth, and made Sam’s skin crawl. “I just want to go to bed. I’m just going to walk. It’s a hike but I shouldn’t be driving.”

Sam knew what came next. He braced himself. 

“I knew you were going to do this,” Sam’s voice said from the void. “You always do. Fine. Go wallow at home, and quit ruining the party, asshole.”

Sam sunk to his knees. He looked up at his best friend. His brother. The kid who had thrown a punch at Derek Freeman -  who outweighed him by at least 50 pounds - because he made fun of Sam’s mom while she was in recovery. The kid who slept on the couch for a year so Sam could have his bedroom while he stayed in his home. The kid who had his heart shattered into pieces and was made to feel like shit for not wanting to get wasted with you the next day, Sam thought, and retched. He turned to his side, and found himself vomiting again on an empty stomach, bile and acid burning his throat. 

Sam planted his hands on the ground and got to his feet. Readying himself, though he didn’t know for what. When he regained his composure, Ian still stood, but on his left was a car. Sam’s car. The driver’s side door was open and the headlights illuminated the road. Sam felt his body convulse as he looked at where the headlights led, knowing what would be there. 

Lying on the cement was Ian Davidson, choking on spurts of blood only for a moment, before his body ceased twitching and he lay in the puddle of his own ichor, lifeless. Sam became aware of himself, outside of his body, watching the scene like a dream. He saw himself stand in shock above his best friend’s body, and after an eternity, get back in the car. He watched himself drive away. Sam watched, in horror, as he didn’t look back. 

The vision melted away, and all that was left on the highway were the two boys. They were close now, less than 10 feet from each other. 

The highway was silent, no whispers, no sounds of a rowdy party around them. Suddenly a voice broke out, and Sam recognized it as Ian’s mother. 

“Hello?” Pause. “This is she.” Another long pause. “Did you say… hit and run?” A short pause, then a horrifying shriek that never seemed to cease. Bordering on inhuman, the screams were filled with such agony that it made Sam shudder, and he began to sob. 

Sam cried for a long time. By the time he gathered himself and wiped his face with his sweatshirt which was now covered in grime, sweat, and snot - he realized that the screams had stopped and it was utterly quiet once more on the deserted road. Ian was even closer now. The boys were face to face, only a few feet away from each other. 

Having no more stomach acid to bring up and no more liquid in his eyes to cry, Sam stood straight and just stared at the sheer brutality of what he had done. He let the silence coat his body like a second skin. He fought the urge to turn away. After a very long time at this standstill, his hands began to stop shaking. The warmth returned to his body. Instead of looking at the carnage on Ian’s face, he met his eyes for the first time, which were untouched by savagery and the same pools of sapphire that they had been a week ago - when Ian was alive and Sam was a different man.  

Suddenly, his head filled with clarity. He had seen this scene out to the end, and he knew what he had to do. He kept looking onto his friend’s face, no longer jarred by the grin or the gore. His heart still pounded in his chest, but he kept his resolve as he dug his cell phone out of his pocket. He dialed and pressed the phone up to his ear. As it rang, he kept his eyes on Ian’s, and wouldn’t let himself look away. Wouldn’t let himself escape. Not anymore. 

A woman picked up the phone. 

“Hi, Mrs. Davidson. It’s Sam. There’s something I need to tell you.”

It was then that Ian Davidson moved for the first time. He bowed his head, and turned. As Sam told his story, the tortured ghost walked away, and disappeared into the night.