“Turn that radio off, will you? Listening to it cut in and out like that is giving me a headache.”
I sighed and flicked it off. “How much further do you think it is?”
“Not far. It’s just slow going.”
I glanced over at Liam, who was hunched over the steering wheel, staring out at the small patch of road dimly illuminated by the car’s headlights. It was almost 1AM, and the world beyond the car was reduced to those two small pools of light, a soft mist slipping across the beams as they pressed on through the night. I frowned, imagining his aching back and neck – we’d been driving for hours. Turning back to peer out of the passenger window, my thoughts turned to steamy hot showers, soft white pillows and tumbling into bed at last. It would be too late for food, no doubt, but hopefully there’d be a hearty breakfast in the morning.
The roads had gradually narrowed, and the traffic thinned, until it had been at least an hour since we last passed another car. It twisted and turned, lifting sharply in places then descending back into dark valleys. I wondered vaguely if we’d dipped low again, gazing at the mist surrounding us – perhaps rising from an unseen river.
“Maybe next time we choose a hotel just on the outskirts of town,” I joked, unsuccessfully stifling a yawn. “Scenic views, less driving.”
“Scenic views of the council estate, yeah” Liam replied, rubbing the back of his neck. “Can’t be far now, it’ll be worth it once we arrive. Nothing like a nice plush hotel room surrounded by miles and miles of greenery.”
I wasn’t so sure, personally feeling the same could’ve been achieved within an hour’s drive, maximum two. This six-hour endeavour would not have been my first choice, but we had found a discount code which made it a steal. Plus, the rooms did look beautiful.
Liam reached across and patted my leg. “Just think of the spa,” he grinned.
In those short seconds his concentration was diverted, a black shape flitted into view across the headlights, and with a sickly thud connected with the front bumper, the force of the impact lifting it into the air and away behind the little hatchback.
With a gasp Liam stamped hard on the brakes, bringing us to a standstill so quickly I thought I might fly through the windscreen.
“I didn’t see it,” he stammered, straining to look in the rear-view mirror.
I stared at him wordlessly, breath coming in short hitches. “I didn’t see it!” Liam repeated, almost angry in his insistence.
“I know,” I whispered. I twisted in my seat, peering into the dark behind me. “What was it?”
Only the dim red brake lights offered any illumination to the back of the car. On the very edge of their reach, a black mass lay unmoving on the tarmac. I couldn’t make much out in the gloom. In fact, it was strangely shapeless, devoid of defining features – even when the low light was accounted for. It made the back of my neck prickle.
“A deer?” suggested Liam.
“It’s not a deer, it was all black.” My eyes were wide with disbelief. “What if it was a person?”
“It wasn’t a person!” he snapped back immediately. “It couldn’t have been. What would… what would someone even have been doing out here, at this time of night? It’s the middle of nowhere!”
“We should get out and check,” I replied, with a lot more conviction than I felt.
“What if it’s a trap?”
I felt what little colour remained in my cheeks drain away.
“A trap?” My voice was hoarse.
“Yeah,” said Liam, raking his hands through his hair. It stood on end. “You hear about them all the time, you know. Gangs and that. Throw a dummy in front of a car so you think you’ve hit someone, you get out to check they’re alright and they mug you.” With each word he sounded more confident, like it was a puzzle he’d worked out.
“Out here though? Gangs, really?”
“Well maybe not gangs, but it’s an easy scam when you think about it.” He was nodding, more to himself than anything.
“But what if it’s not that and it’s a person and they’re hurt?” I asked, a touch of pleading creeping in.
“Sam, look – it’s clearly not a person,” he retorted sharply. “Not the right shape. We should get out of here–” Even as I cut him off I realised he was freaked out too.
“We need to ring someone…” Liam was already turning the key in the ignition – it had stalled after the sudden stop.
“We can do that in the morning. Let’s just get to the hotel now, yeah?” He slid the car into gear and we set off. I felt sick and I could feel my heart pounding against my ribcage. What if we really had just left a person there in the road?
~
We sped off through the darkness, the mist – thicker now – curled around the car, damp tendrils reaching out for us. “Put the sat nav back on, okay?” Liam had knocked it off earlier, annoyed by its constant reminders of speed limits and traffic alerts, and determined he knew where he was going. He’d always fancied himself as a bit of an adventurer.
I fumbled around the back of it for the switch, but a bump in the road shook my hand and the sucker attaching it to the windscreen came unstuck with a pop. It clattered on the dashboard. Shit.
Finally pressing the button, the sat nav came to life with a beep and the screen lit up with its bluish glow. I painstakingly pressed through slow, unresponsive menus on the thing’s touch screen, jabbing in the postcode for the hotel at what felt like a snail’s pace.
“Calculating…” The robotic voice told me, and with a sigh I reattached the device back to the dashboard where we could both see the screen.
“Should we–” I began to venture, but I was cut off.
“No Sam, we shouldn’t. Whatever it is, we shouldn’t. Just leave it already!” I stared at Liam. He never spoke to me that way. He was sitting rigidly, gripping the steering wheel so tightly I could see his knuckles were white, even in the dark interior of the car.
I sat in silence, watching hedges and stone walls whip by, briefly lit up and gone as quickly. He was pushing the limits of a safe speed for this road, but I didn’t say anything. I just wanted to get to where we were going.
“At the end of the road, turn left,” the cool, even voice of the sat nav chirped. We obliged.
I closed my eyes, resting my head against the window. If Liam didn’t want to talk to me, I wouldn’t make him. I tried again to picture soft fluffy towels the hotel would surely have, and thick pile carpet. All I kept coming back to was the sound of that thump, flesh on metal. I zipped up my hoodie with a shiver, my arms had broken out in goose pimples.
More hedges slid by my window as I fidgeted in my seat, my own back now starting to protest. How much further?
“What the…” Liam trailed off as quickly as he’d begun, and I felt the car slowing down. I reluctantly opened my eyes and turned to see what the problem was. A chill ran down my spine, icy water down the back of my neck.
The headlights shone weakly on a familiar motionless black figure lying in the road.
I stared, unable to look away from the scene before us. I did not understand, but my body was keenly aware something was incredibly wrong. I didn’t dare to breathe, felt every hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Blood was rushing through my ears, I only became aware that Liam was shouting when I finally managed to prise my eyes - the only part of me not paralysed in terror - away from the black - it was so black - shape to see him throw the gearstick into first and speed away again, jerking the car around the figure in a wide as berth as possible on the narrow lane.
“What the fuck, Sam? What the fuck was that? How are we back here?” he was yelling.
I tried to speak but only a funny noise came out, it was like my lips wouldn’t form around the words.
“J-just drive,” I squeaked out. I didn’t know how we ended up back in the same spot. Maybe the sat nav had looped us round and was trying to take us back the way we came? But we approached from the same direction we did the first time.
Liam’s foot was planted firmly on the gas pedal now, hedges and trees whipping by alarmingly fast. How fast he was driving scared me, but as long as he continued to put distance between us and that figure I didn’t care. I felt sure now that it was not some unsuspecting walker out for a night-time stroll, the pure dread that crept over me as I looked at that dark shape, only the merest suggestion of a human form beneath what, a black cloak?
The artificial glow of the sat nav screen illuminated Liam’s face with a sickly bluish hue. He was usually so laid back but his face was creased in distress, probably mirroring mine. He’d been white-knuckling the steering wheel before but now he clutched it so hard those bones looked fit to burst clean through his flesh, bright ivory through torn red tissue.
“At the end of the road, turn left,” the sat nav chirped once again.
“Don’t,” I said immediately. “Go the other way.” There was no argument from Liam. He took the right turn so fast the tyres skidded and I thought for a moment we’d hit the wall. We were so deep into the country now that there wasn’t even a sign at the junction.
“Recalculating route.” Even in my panicked daze, I felt as though that calm voice was chiding us for disobeying the instructions.
I hugged my knees to my chest, though it did nothing to stop the shivers. It had started to rain, softly at first but slowly becoming heavier as we wound through the dark. It made it harder to see out of the windows - I don’t know if that was a blessing or a curse.
When we rounded the bend and found ourselves facing a dark motionless shape splayed across the road for the third time, a sickening sense of inevitability washed over me. Bile rose in my throat. I couldn’t even begin to fathom the machinations that were returning us to this spot.
“Stop,” I said to Liam, who had slowed the car but seemed ready to floor it once again.
His head spun round to face me. “Are you fucking crazy?” he yelled. “What the fuck is going on? We keep going in circles and you want to stop, here of all places?”
“Just stop the car!” My yell came out half a sob. I touched my face and realised as almost an afterthought that tears were streaming down my face. “Can’t you see, we can’t just run away from this! You can drive as fast as you want and we’ll keep winding up here.” I unclipped my seatbelt and popped open the car door, the frigid air immediately seeping into the warm car interior. “I’m going- I’m going to see if I can help them.”
“Sam, no. Sam, just get back in the fucking car!” Liam called, but I paid him no attention. Though my legs shook like a new born foal, I wobbled my way towards the shape in the road, cutting through the beam of the headlights. I did not know where my new found bravery had come from, only that I was sure I would go mad if we were to return to the same spot again while we tried to escape this endless loop we had somehow fallen into. Running had not worked, it seemed obvious to me the only option left was to take a different action.
I fell to my knees beside the figure, the gravelly road biting into my skin, but I paid it no mind. Hand shaking profusely, I reached out until my fingers finally made contact with a black cloak.
“Hello, can you hear me?” I whispered, slowly feeling along the rough material, trying to feel for any distinguishing features. Despite the amorphous shape, I knew innately that this thing was intelligent.
I continued to feel, hoping to find skin, or something, to check for a pulse… just anything recognisable. “You were knocked down. I mean, we… I’m sorry, he didn’t see you. We should have stopped,” I sobbed. “We were just so afraid.”
In one motion so fluid it was unnatural, the figure stood. It towered over me, and I dragged my eyes up. From within its dark hood, no features were visible, apart from two glowing orbs I could only assume were eyes. They shone with an unearthly green light, bright but casting no light onto any other features. They bored into me, and I could only sit transfixed, convinced it was judging my worth in some inhuman way.
Abruptly it turned away from me and I sagged into the ground. There was a noise like water rushing in my ears and the edges of my vision dimmed. In the distance I could hear voices, voices I couldn’t make out. It sounded a little like screaming. Then a terrible ripping sound which seemed to go on and on, finally followed by wet gurgling. I felt my grip on consciousness slipping away and I knew I couldn’t hold onto it any more than I could carry water in a sieve. I let the darkness overtake me.
~
“Miss? Miss? Can you hear me?”
I was vaguely aware that someone was talking to me. It seemed very far away, and I wasn’t particularly interested in striking up a conversation.
“You need to wake up, miss.” An insistent hand was shaking my shoulder now too. It made it more difficult to ignore and continue my slumber.
Reluctantly, I forced one eye open, though it seemed to take an age. Reality came flooding back in. I was laid in the road, my clothes plastered to my body by the cold rain. I twitched my fingers, they were so frozen and stiff they barely moved. With some effort I focused on the source of the commotion. A man, with a kindly face and a flat cap, peered at me. He offered a hand and gently helped me into a sitting position, then wrapped a thick blanket around my shoulders. Another man stood close by, watching me intently, the red cherry of a cigarette floating in front of his face in the low light.
“Do you think you can stand?” he asked. I shook my head numbly. “Just rest here a moment then, and we’ll get you on your feet when you’re ready.” I clutched the blanket round my shoulders, shivers beginning to set in.
“Just what were you doing out here all alone anyway?” he asked.
The memories came rushing back in and my head spun around so fast I was at risk of breaking my neck. I searched for the car, for Liam, with wide eyes. There was only the two men helping me, and their Land Rover parked by the side of the road.
“I wasn’t,” I started, my teeth chattering. “I was with my boyfriend, he was driving when we hit- he hit… something. I don’t know.”
The two men exchanged a glance.
“I think you might have hit your head when you fell down, love. It’s just you out here, we would have seen another car and we haven’t passed anyone since we left the village,” said the man with the kind face.
“Come on, let’s go get you checked out at the hospital,” chimed in the man with the cigarette, throwing it down and squashing it beneath his boot.
Together they helped me stand and manoeuvred me into the Land Rover.
It was only when they slammed the door shut and I peered out through the window that I saw, just beyond the stone wall, a pair of glowing green orbs floating in the dark.