A Long, Dark Road

A light breeze flowed through my open window, rustling my hair and breathing life into the dying ember of the joint between my fingertips. I know, I know. I shouldn’t be getting high when I still need to drive home. But it was so beautiful tonight. Peaceful. Perfect. It was pitch black, save for the shining silver moon and her glimmering stars above me. Yawning fields rolled out before me like a green carpet, gently sloping here and there. Dotting the serene landscape were small, wooded areas and wetlands. Places for animals of all kinds to hide, live, and hunt for food.   

Everything in me yearned to stretch out on the hood of my car, ankles crossed, laying back on the windshield to soak in Selene’s light the way I did when I was in high school and I snuck out to smoke in the cow field behind our house. Of course, that field is a new housing development now, with its very own devil-worshipping HOA. Ok, they probably don’t worship the devil.   

I was swiftly reminded that I was no longer the lanky, too-skinny kid when the hood of the car buckled under my weight with a loud pop that sounded like a gunshot in the open field. I had climbed back into the driver’s seat, content for the most part, though I favored the knee that had twisted funny when I hopped down. Yep, thirty-five was my year.  

I couldn’t help the bitter tone in the subconscious voice that narrated my everyday thoughts. How had I gotten here? I took another drag from the joint, holding the smoke in my lungs for a few seconds before exhaling. I sighed at the sensation, letting it lull and soothe my rough edges. After a few minutes, my eyes flicked quickly down to the digital clock on the dash. It was a little after one in the morning.  

Another sigh, this one irritated. I just wanted to sit and relax for a while longer. If I go home late enough, hopefully, everyone will be asleep. The thought of going home and seeing my brother and sister-in-law right now was enough to cause my chest to tighten with the impending anxiety attack.  

When I let my brother and his wife live with me after he lost his job, I never imagined it would be like this. The yelling, the screaming baby, neither respected the fact that I worked two jobs and needed my sleep to properly function so I could keep a roof over our heads. Why were they even married when they constantly fought? James couldn’t possibly be dumb enough to have believed her when she said a baby would bring them closer. I didn’t live with them before the baby, but this can’t be better.  

I don’t know what this fight is about. Hell, I didn’t even make it to the front door of my house before I heard the commotion. After a double shift standing over a hot stove, an even hotter oven at my back, and leaving with only $8 in tips, I just wanted some peace and quiet.  

I suppose I can’t stay out here all night, I thought as I crushed the end of the joint in the ashtray. Another breeze rolled through, and I paused to enjoy it, listening to the sound of animals moving around outside. I heard rustling just past the driver's side of my car, and I wondered what it was. Probably a wild cat looking for mice. Too open for deer and rabbits. Too much human contact. I chuckled, thinking they had it right. Run away when you see one of the hairless animals walking by.  

Curiosity got the better of me and I turned the key to start the battery. The soft folk music crooned from the speakers, and I quickly turned it down, hoping I hadn’t scared the animal away. It was actually coming closer.  

I flicked on the headlights, hoping to see the pretty kitty going about its business. But there was nothing. Not a single blade of grass moved in the sudden stillness. For a moment, I was disappointed. I loved seeing wild animals. But, off to one side of the road and just out of the reach of the headlights, I saw the movement again.  

It was much bigger than a cat. I would have thought it was one of the deer, but it stood on two legs, its lanky arms impossibly thin. It was staring at me. I couldn’t see it clearly enough to know for certain, but I knew.   

Something cold wrapped itself around my spine and I felt my heart rate skyrocket. Was...that a person? There was something not right about them. How they stood motionless as if waiting for me to make the first move.  

The faintest sound of growling drifted through the window. Was I shaking? I couldn’t tell. But my hand spoke volumes when I raised it, pinched the key in the ignition between my fingers, and turned, the engine rumbled to life. And the thing. Ran. At. Me!  

Long legs carried the person quickly over the uneven field, the spindly arms held up and out to the sides for balance. I cried out when I saw the impossibly pale flesh, hairless head, and wide, dark mouth. A low, long, shrieking cry came from its lipless maw as it ran.  

Panting in terror, I threw my car into gear and sped away. I punched the button to put the window back up, wanting as much as possible between me and...the thing.  

The road narrowed to a single lane as I drove through the first grove of trees. I hadn’t meant to go further into the fields and wetlands, but my only thought was to get as far away as fast as possible. I didn’t stop to turn around, I didn’t even want to look in the rearview mirror to see if I was being followed. With my eyes fixed on the road ahead of me, I soon let out the breath I’d been holding once I’d broken through the trees.   

Selene once again flooded the cab of my car with her bright light. There were more wetlands and woods ahead of me and I lifted my foot off of the gas to look around. I don’t typically go this deep into the back roads, and now that I’m here, I’m not sure which way to go. I found myself going up an incline, taking a left fork, and missing a stop sign at the four-way intersection, but there was still nothing familiar.  

I stopped at a hairpin turn and peered through my windows, hoping to spot a formation of some kind that would point me in the right direction. My hands were beginning to hurt, and I realized I’d had a death grip on my steering wheel. I peeled my fingers from around it, and the foam inside slowly rebounded into its original shape.   

Breathe, I thought, breathe. It was just a random person running around the fields in the middle of the night. They were probably on something. My hometown has become littered with hard drugs in the last few years, and it is now the norm to come across someone passed out in a park. But it was so fast!  

I shook my head and forced myself to breathe slowly, willing with all my might to slow my rapidly beating heart. But what I saw kept coming back to me. The mouth...it was huge! Or maybe it just looked like it because they were wearing black lipstick. It made sense. What about the eyes? There should have been eyes. Instead, it was as if the head hadn’t formed the space for them.  

Stop that! I shook my head harder and even pulled at the roots of my hair. It’s dark, and you’re overly tired and stressed. You’re just seeing things in the dark. I continued around the hard turn, skirting around the reaching branches of a blackberry bush growing on the corner.   

More conserved wetlands opened up before me. I groaned. Yeah, I was well and truly lost now. In my mad dash to escape, I hadn’t paid any attention to the roads and surroundings.  

I drove slower this time, keeping my eyes peeled for road signs. And hoping I wouldn’t see that thing again. At each intersection stood a metal pole that most likely held the street signs, but had been stripped bare, leaving me clueless as to which road I turned right on.  

After a few minutes, I was starting to finally relax when I noticed movement from the corner of my eye. A new wave of terror washed over me at the sight of the pale, hairless skin, the gaping hole of a mouth, and long, skinny limbs that moved at a furious speed to keep up with my car. The creature was no longer on two legs. It had dropped to all fours to run at full speed along the road I was driving on.  

I pressed my foot harder on the gas pedal, pushing my poor old car to 40, 50, and 60 miles an hour. But I couldn’t shake the creature. Its head turned to me, the hole below its slitted nose opened, and shrieked at me before it lunged.  

I thank every god there was that I kept my car in good shape as I slammed on the brakes, watching the thing sail over the hood of my car, its back feet smacked the windshield, causing spider web breaks to spread across the glass on impact.  

Immediately, I threw my car into reverse and stomped on the gas. It looked so much easier in the movies. It didn’t take me long to overcorrect and send the back end of my car into a ditch.   

I jerked in my seat at the sudden stop and barely gave myself enough time to get my bearings before shoving my door open and sprinting from my car. Terror filled me and powered my legs to move as fast as they could. I cared little for the pain in my knee or the headache blossoming from the crash. I was mindless and afraid for my life.  

Looking back, that may have been where it all went downhill. If I had been thinking clearly, I would have known I couldn’t outrun whatever the thing was. I would have realized that I couldn’t hide from it. It didn’t have eyes, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t smell and hear me as I smashed through the woods with no regard for how much noise I was making.  

In truth, there was no going back home once I drove out to the field for some peace and quiet. Whatever these things were, they knew how to hunt. Their unearthly shrieking guided me right where they wanted me. In the middle of a cold glade in the trees, two dozen of these things surround me. They were as still as death as they watched me.  

I sat on the damp ground, shaking with fear as the largest of the pale creatures stepped from the trees. Its massive horns were tangled with vines and branches, and rugged black scars covered much of its body. It looked hunched under the weight of the antlers, its long fingers on its long hands dragged on the dirt behind it.  

It came to stand before me, peering at me as though it had eyes to see with. A long, snake-like tongue came out of its hideous mouth to lap once at my face. I flinched away from the surprisingly soft muscle. It huffed at me, then reached out with one of its dirt-encrusted hands. I yelped when it gripped my entire head, the claws scraping painfully along the tender skin of my throat.  

I thrashed against the hand as I was lifted from the ground, my screams of horror muffled against the palm. Wood was pressed to my back and I tried to use it as leverage to break free. The bark of the tree gave way under my feet and hands like viscous water and surrounded my body wherever I came into contact with it.  

My captor released me and stepped away. The other creatures were nowhere to be seen. I struggled to pull myself away from the tree that slowly engulfed me, leaving only my face open to the world. I couldn’t move, I could barely breathe. I could feel the woods draining my life away. And with it, my pain. My knee, my head, and my heart all faded to nothing. I stopped struggling, too tired to continue.  

As if satisfied with my surrender, the giant creature turned and slowly loped away into the trees. Once it was gone, the sound of nature returned, and the clouds parted to show me the moon and her stars. I hung there silent, staring at the glowing spots in the sky. Even if I was able to pull in enough breath to scream, there was no one to hear me. And there was no one who could save me.  

At least it was peaceful.