Red Car

Do you ever notice when you mention a car color, it starts to become the only car color you see? If you’ve ever played the game “yellow car” with your siblings then you are aware of the dull ache after they spot that pesky beetle before you and you get a nice solid punch to the soft tissue in your arm. Who doesn’t love a little of violence in the name of an innocent game?  

That is why when I started to notice the increasing number of red cars in my school’s parking lot, I thought it would be fun to get my revenge. My knuckles tingled with anticipation as we pulled into that parking lot late one night. The first time we had been together after school in months. The air in the car was cold due to the failing heater that kept desperately sputtering every few seconds. Piercing black only being illuminated by my dirty headlights and the few buzzing street lamps that hung over the cars. As we turned in, my excitement vanished when I only noticed one small red car sitting alone in the middle of the parking lot. The rest of the cars speckled with glints of black, yellow, white, and green. My plans were foiled before they even began, a knot in my stomach beginning to form and was threatening to take over. 

Not willing to accept defeat, I park and look at my siblings mumbling under my breath, 

“Let’s play Red Car, anytime a red car pulls into the parking lot, the first person to spot it gets punching privileges.” I mutter to my siblings with hope. 

“Yeah, sure, whatever man,” my oldest brother says as they relax into the seat. 

My brother who is slightly older than me relaxes into the seat and reaches into his pocket to retrieve what I can only assume is something my mother does not approve of. 

I turn and relax into the remnants of warmth left in my seat as I hear the slight flicker of a lighter behind me.The only way I can get them to hang out with me is if I accept their illegal activities without much question. They don’t like me much other than that.  The slight smell of a skunk starts to fill the car and I get nauseous. Not wanting to indulge myself in the foul smell anymore I instinctively shiver before I accept my fate and roll down his window. The dashboard hums as I turn off the dying heater knowing it’s not doing much of anything. 

The only sound left in the car is my brother’s occasional coughing fits and the slight classical rock playing from the cassette player my dad got me for my birthday. It almost seems oddly peaceful but I couldn’t stop fidgeting, anxious energy alive in my bones.  

A car resembling a ladybug pulls into the parking lot and I feel the car creak with the shift in weight as I fling my body towards my oldest brother. I fall onto him as I bring my fist back and connect to his arm with a satisfying thump. Satisfaction warms my chest and I have the biggest grin on my face as I know I have just achieved victory. My brother throws me off of him as the other one laughs like a seagull in the backseat. 

The car parks a couple rows away from us and there is a distant beep as they lock their car and start the long trek inside of the building. Their headlights briefly illuminate the rows of trees with a yellow pigment.  As soon as they are out of sight, there is a breeze that erupts from the earth and it envelops the car, the cold from outside already inching its way in from the open window. I pull my jacket closer and curse. My body feels like it’s not my own as my bones clang against each other.  

I turn to my brother and tell him to put his dead leaves away so I can try to calm the ache in my bones from the bitter bite of the cold. 

He huffs as he closes his small red box and places it back in the pocket of his blue denim jacket. I turn the music louder, feeling the vibration of the stereo system shake the seat below me. Whether or not that shaking is from me, or the car, no one knows. 

The darkness seems to create a life of its own. Embodying itself as a small creature that increases its power as it nears my car, becoming larger and more full of life as it tiptoes its way around us. The skin on my back started to feel like a tiny hand was lightly skimming as it crawled slowly upwards. My instincts told me to look behind me but all that I saw in the dirty back window was the red car. Sitting there. I swore I saw a small head peer out of the black exterior of the car and stare at me. There was nothing, but I felt the darkened eyeballs. I know something was watching. Suddenly, the parking lot didn’t feel empty anymore. It felt full of the black paint of the night.  

My brothers must have noticed the slight change of the atmosphere because my oldest brother started to breathe a little slower as he slowly started to sit up straighter, moving to roll up my window. His eyes, not moving from the car behind us, were awestruck. Almost like he is in a trance with a coiled up black snake. Afraid if he moves too fast, it will strike him. 

I follow his movements, slow and steady, reaching to turn the car key to fully power on the car. Our welcome in this parking lot felt like it was ending. I did not want to stick around and face whatever was waiting for us in the belly of the darkness, still slowly making its way to my car. The hand that was inching its way up my back had now reached my neck and I could feel the grip tightening around my throat. Now swallowing felt like pebbles in my throat. Dusty. Dirty. Rough. 

A loud knock snaps my brother and I’s attention to the front of the car. The sound slicing through the quiet of the darkness with a brutal snap, like a branch cracking after a burst of lightning splinters the night sky. My eyes took a second to adjust to the black object in front of my dim headlights. 

In front of us stands a man in a black coat with several buttons along the side. His shallow smile pulled too far to the edges of his face. They did not match the look of blank expression in his eyes. He leaned over and the smile pulled itself even farther across his cheeks as he lifted his hand and gave me a small wave. The street lights behind us didn’t exist anymore. All the light seemed to envelop this man in a blue hue. Like he is surrounded by the air coming out of my mouth. His wrist barely moved , as if his hand was as still as a pendulum’s clock. My lungs felt empty as he stared at me and that hand crept its way fully around my throat. Pulling me further into the seat. 

My brother was the one who reacted. 

My car roared to life almost like a lioness protecting her cubs and my first instinct was to throw the car into reverse and hit the gas pedal. Everything seemed to move faster then. The dark lights of the parking lot now seared into my skull. The smell of the skunk from the back seat was suffocating me. My hands trembled as I gripped the steering wheel. The man didn’t stir, he just stared. Another man with a black shirt and blue jeans emerged from the trees, staring at me with the same dead expression. His smile was like a skull's, dead but full of feeling. 

My gray Camry sputtered as I flew down the street, keeping my eyes peeled on the back window. The red car now a distant speck in the middle of the parking lot where I had left it.  

Then, cutting through the darkness, the sick yellow headlights come alive with a blaze. The black figure now manifested itself as a demon surrounding the car, and it was coming closer. 

I could feel the tires scraping the pavement, the rocks tumbling as I pressed the gas pedal to the floor. Images whooshing around me, indecipherable. The only image I can make out is the increasingly closer car behind me.

“You’re doing great, just keep going forward.” My oldest brother was trying to encourage me from the passenger seat, but I could see it. He was whiter than the snow outside, he didn’t believe in me as much as he was saying. But, my determination grew stronger to get out of this alive. 

Surely this guy would crash or run out of gas? He couldn’t chase us all night, could he? 

In front of us, the light illuminating the empty street turned a blinding yellow. My chance to escape started to close. The finish line became terrifyingly sharp, the breath in my lungs turned to razors. 

There was no way out. 

How far behind was the car now? 10 feet? 5? 

I was too afraid to check. 

The timer on the road started to count down. 10…9…8… 

My brother’s yell from the backseat sounded like a banshee. 

“HELP!” He pleaded for the gods who weren’t listening, worried about someone else who needed them more. 

There was a moment of clarity. I couldn’t stop at this light, my mother couldn’t lose three of her children. 

I pressed on the gas as the timer reached 3…2..1… 

The red light shined as a neon stop sign. Telling me to stop, telling me to think. I didn’t listen as the sick smell of fuel reached my nose before I crossed the intersection with the blinding lights. It seemed like the darkness disappeared, we were blessed with the light. The car came back to life, the darkness behind us, gone. Free.