Part 1: “Gust of Putrefaction”
“IT’S REALLY COMING DOWN OUT THERE,” the DJ’s voice said from the radio, “Officials warn that any travel is not advised, and to stay indoors if—” Cate hit the power button on her car stereo. “This is fucking bullshit,” she said, white-knuckling the steering wheel of her 2002 Ford Escort. The traction-control light blinked spastically, in a vain attempt to tell her she should not be driving, but Cate had to get to work.
The pale blue aura of the moon reflected off of the blanket of snow; giving the ground a radiance that was almost green in the yellow beams of the car’s headlights. Cate speculated that a foot or more of snow had fallen throughout the night.
“No, No, fuck!” Cate screeched as the tires dug into the left, heaving her car into the adjacent lane. She kept a steady pressure on the accelerator. Cate knew that if she were to lose momentum, her car would become stuck, and there would be no telling when or how she would get it unstuck.
“Come on…” Cate begged, now leaning forward, to discern better which side of the road she was on. That was when a flashing light caught her eye, she glanced up from the sprawling, freshly fallen snow. It was a snow plow—Cate assumed—She suddenly felt better about being out on the road; risking her life for some shit job that—in all likelihood—wouldn’t even notice her absence.
The clock on the dashboard display read 4:52 am, “eight minutes” Cate remarked, “I have eight minutes to get to work”. She might not be late if she drove just a little bit faster. Her gut told her that it was a bad idea. However, aside from the plow she was the only one on the road. It was worth the risk. If Cate didn’t get to work on time, they would make her stay late. That would mean that she’d likely run into that creepy security guard. He would always come in early and stare at her chest, legs, or butt, anything he could get his pervy little eyes on. The way he would sit in the lobby, and watch her, sweat glistening on his forehead, and double—no triple—chins. A shiver ran down her spine at the thought, and it made her right foot heavy.
Cate pursed her lips, and exhaled a slow hitching breath, as the speedometer climbed to 20 miles per hour. Her car jerked and pulled with the will of the snow beneath her. She locked her elbows and pushed her back firmly into her seat—as if on cue—the plow had emerged from behind a tall snow-bank, forcing her to react and yank the wheel to the right. Cate’s car started to spin.
Cate let out a startled yelp as the car broadsided the snow. Assessing herself, she was relieved to have not been hurt. Cate then instinctively pawed for her phone on the passenger seat. It was not there. She looked over and caught a reflection of the phone screen on the floor. She reached, but her seatbelt kept her locked in place, she released it and went to grab her phone. When her fingers grazed the phone, there came two soft knocks on the driver’s side window.
Cate snapped her head to the left. There stood a man bent forward in an oil-stained chore coat with his gray, greasy hair climbing out from under a thread-bare orange watch cap. With the speed of a cat, she locked the door. She then feigned a fumble and rolled down the window a few inches.
The man began to slowly smile. The corners of his mouth were the first thing to move. Cate watched as the man’s lips spread horizontally until two little gaps formed at the far ends of his lips. His mouth made a faint squelching sound as the gaps broke the seal of his mouth. As his jaw lowered to open, the thin skin on his lips began to peel, and tear as the downward force unjoined the two sections of the orifice. Blood began to pool in the wounds. The torn bits of flesh still held onto the lip that they should have been free from. As his mouth morphed into a smile it unveiled a row of semi-rotten teeth. His bleeding lips climbed out of the way to expose his severely receded gum line.
That’s when the smell crept from his mouth, lips still tearing as they parted. Cate’s eyes began to water as she observed tendrils of clay-colored saliva tremble in the subtle breeze as they boasted their tensile strength, bridging the space between his purple—white carpeted—tongue and the roof of his mouth.
The man rocked his jaw from side-to-side to shake it of any listlessness that remained in the muscles. As he did this, Cate could see that nearly all of the man’s teeth were bored through with rot, and pea-sized holes held food debris of unknowable age.
“Well, hey there.” the man said, vowels long and rising in pitch. The wall of his breath hit Cate like a tidal wave, causing her vision to fade. It was like this was the first time the man had opened his mouth in days. Cate tried to speak, tried to slam her eyes shut and cover her face. It was too late, the man’s breath was like chloroform, and the world went dark.
Part 2: “Churning Miasma”
AS CATE’S EYES STRUGGLED TO OPEN, she felt the sensation of damp course fabric on her left cheek. There was a heavy smell of corn chips and stale urine. The lights in the room were flared and shapeless as her eyes tried to focus. With a fright, Cate awoke on a dilapidated brown and orange sofa, her whole body jerking to a sitting position. She could feel the moisture cool on her left flank and cheek. Her head spun like she’d woken up in the middle of the night to piss after a long night of heavy drinking. She tried to stand, but her legs were asleep, and the sudden reorientation of her body made her blood pressure drop, and she fell back to a sitting position.
“Well, hey there…” the voice came from her right, there was a churning sound accompanying the voice, like the stirring of macaroni. A shaft of blue moonlight came through the gap in the curtains, it showed into a tenebrous doorway on a wall at a right angle to the ajar front door. Cate could see against the contrast of the room, a figure stood facing her, the only details, stained blue jeans and unlaced winter boots. Cate let out a yelp and tried again to stand, the pins and needles throbbed in her legs as the blood rushed to her extremities. She steadied herself on the dark blistered paneling behind the couch, it bowed and creaked as her weight bared against it. “What do you want?” Cate asked, her eyes straining to make out the figure.
“Jus’try’na help’is all.” the figure replied, unmoving like a posed mannequin.
“Whatever you want you can have.” Cate felt her parka for anything she could use to bargain.
“I jus’ wann’ to help ye.” He said. Cate swallowed hard, her throat parched and stiff. She pushed herself from the wall. She took a step toward the front door, and like a mirror image, the figure in the room did the same. His face came into the shaft of moonlight, his nose and plastered smile awash with light.
That mouth… Cate thought, “It’s you from the accident!” she took another step towards the door, the man’s movement was impeccably like hers. He was standing in full moonlight now, his face locked in a rictus of friendly joy, or amusement.
“I helped ye, brought ya here, kept ya safe from harm.” the man said proudly.
“I’m fine, I need to go.” Cate sobbed, and took half a step in the direction of the door, she froze in place, and the man did the same. Cate stepped back, and the man mimicked her movements. They both stood in suspenseful stillness for a few moments before Cate lurched for the front door. The man darted from the doorway to intercept her. Cate let out a cry of anguish and started to feel tears pool in her eyes. “Please let me go.” Cate’s voice was tremulous, she felt winded from the adrenaline rushing through her.
“Wells I ain’ keepin’ ya. I was jus’ helpin’ is all.” the waves of breath wafting in Cate’s direction. She wretched and covered her nose and mouth with her forearm.
Cate slowly took steps to the door, their gaze locked on one another. The man’s movements mocked hers in an almost cartoonish fashion. Cate began to quake with fear as she stared at the man’s unsettling mouth that jerked and gyrated as if trying to free itself from his skull. Cate took another step, the two were less than four feet from one another. They were so close now that Cate could see his tacky tongue twitching amidst roiling saliva.
Cate was walking like the floor could fall out from under her at any moment. The balding, damp, and dirty carpet made soft squishing sounds with each of their slow steps. A popping groan from under her foot made Cate stiffen in fright. She had her lips drawn in, and she held her breath against the desperate—fight or flight—urge to breathe. The man leaned forward watching her with a churning smile. “If ye wan’ I could drive ye’?” the man posited.
The moment the man’s breath touched her face Cate went into full flight. She rushed through the front door, ran onto the porch, and into the front yard. The old plow truck she’d seen was parked to her left, atop a long, sloped driveway.
Cate peered over her shoulder and saw the man in pursuit, his mouth inches from the back of her neck. “Well ain’ no sense in walkin’ lemme drive ye.” he said, the waves of hot decay stuck to the hairs and skin of her neck. That’s when Cate slipped forward. She fell low as her knees buckled, catching herself. Cate began to slide, as though her shoes were skis on the icy snow. She felt frail hands groping for the pits of her arms.
“O’careful’na” the man giggled, he had stopped following her. “Lemme grabs m’coat, I’ll drive ye.” Cate half stood, turning almost fully around to see the man eagerly trudging back to the house. She lingered in a moment of pause, the man incoherently babbling in a roused tone.
She looked into the gloom of the house standing against a bruised sky, then to the driveway. Black thickets of trees blotched the sprawling fields of twinkling snow, their shadows stretched towards her. She didn’t know where this was, or where she would go. The cold night air made the breaths that Cate took thump down her throat like a hit of nicotine. She turned and began jogging down the driveway.
Part 3: “Full Circle”
BREATHING THROUGH THE DRAWN COLLAR OF HER PARKA, Cate bounded down the moonlit road. The wind of her speed stung her eyes, and she held out hope that her next stride down the ruddy frozen road wouldn’t end with a sprained ankle. She would pause for a few seconds to control her breathing, listen for traffic, and check if she was being followed. Occasionally, she would hear the droning sorrowful moan of distant semi-trucks or large vehicles.
The dirt roads were laid out in a grid, houses were sparse. Fields, barns, and feed silos began decorating the bucolic landscape. Cate ran instinctively in the direction—she perceived—the traffic was in. First, she took a right, then a left, and another right.
Her adrenaline was fading now, and she was cold. Her mouth was so dry it was hard for her to swallow. Cate’s pace slowed, and she doubled over, put her hands above her knees, and she felt a flush of sweat and she fought the urge to wretch. Each dry exhausted breath she took made that effort harder and harder. She stumbled to the side of the road and steadied herself on a sapling, knelt, and gathered a handful of snow. Cate’s hand instantly ached as the cold robbed from it what little warmth remained. She put the snow to her mouth and chewed. She ate the snow past the ice cream headache**, she knew that this was a bad idea—though she couldn’t remember why—she’d seen the survival shows back in college, but she needed water.**
A road change later, Cate was sure that she heard a vehicle race past, just beyond the hill in the road. A feeling of elation washed over her, she laughed as the feeling crescendoed in her chest. At the top of the hill, Cate saw that the road she was on terminated into a larger paved road. She let out an exclamation of relief, and trying not to run began her descent. When she was a third of the way down she heard a vehicle coming up from behind. Part of her wanted to hide, the other to stand on the shoulder of the road and do jumping jacks while screaming for help. She should have hidden.
The rusty white truck and red plow bucked and howled as it fought to reach the top of the hill. The moment Cate saw it, the truck had stalled. Cate turned and ran down the road toward the highway. Her words were incoherent squeaks and crying breaths, she lost total control of herself and hollered hysterically as she ran. The Man in the plow shouting something at her from the open window. Cate could not understand him, nor did she care. She was so close to salvation, she just needed to get off this road.
Cate was almost on the highway now and heard the plow truck behind her roar to life. Run Cate. Run faster and harder than you ever have before, she thought. She was a lightning bolt bursting with speed and vigor, nothing else mattered. Run. The truck hitched into gear and took chase, all while the man shouted over the roar of the engine through the night.
Cate got to the end of the road before the highway. Headlights, close, but still distant. She ran into the street jumping, screaming, and pleading. The blue sedan on the highway was getting close, Help me! Please! She screamed with all the air in her lungs, as she saw the car’s brake lights flash on.
In an instant, the plow truck’s tires screeched as they spun out on the ice. Like a rocket, the truck shot out onto the highway, t-boning the blue sedan. Cate put up her guard, as the man in the plow was launched through the windshield of his truck—Cate could have sworn the man was still talking—and into a thicket of trees. The plow of the truck flipped the little sedan like it was a cheap plastic toy. It landed hard on its roof, crushing in like a can of beer. The plow truck idled against the little blue car.
Cate ran to the sedan, and through the exploded driver’s side window she saw something that she thought looked like jam stuffed into a granny dress. What was left of the driver sloughed out onto the blacktop. Oh my God! Cate sobbed, looking away to hold back the vomit. She walked across the two-lane highway and looked for the stranger with that mouth.
He was on his side, facing away from her down a slight incline. His right arm seemed to absent-mindedly paw around in the air. There was blood around him, Cate knew that he was seriously injured. She cautiously approached, breathing through per parka.
“Hel… h’p y” the man murmured as Cate rounded to his front. The whites of the man’s eyes were bulging and cherry red. He was vibrating. Every muscle in his body was, with no avail, trying to pilot the broken vessel. His blood-coated tongue seemed to be grabbing for purchase on the exterior of his face, tense and pulling. It reminded Cate of an octopus tentacle, using feel to search, was it trying to—escape? Cate shook her head of the thoughts. “I’ll drive ye.” He gurgled through the blood, eyes rolling freely in their sockets. “I’ll help ye.”
She stepped closer, leaning in. Tendrils of pink saliva writhed in the snow outside of the man’s mouth, leaving blood brushed on the trodden snow. Cate began to openly cry, this was all she could take.
“Ple’selp me.” The man pleaded, through slurs of blood and saliva.
Cate grabbed the man’s right arm and attempted to drag him. His head dug into the snow, as she pulled. “No, nooo.” He cried, a gout of blood shooting from his nostrils. “Hold me’close, S’port my head. Let it res’ on yer kind ches’.”, the man smeared more blood around his mouth with his tongue. Cate stared at his mouth, and steeled herself, burying her mouth and nose into the collar of her parka. She knelt, gently lifting the man’s head from the snow, his wet greasy hair like strips of an old dishrag. She pulled to sit him up, he was frail, and his head slumped back in her hand. She could feel her lips trembling, as she tensed her legs, and began to pull him into her shoulder. The man spasmed, and let out a wincing sneeze. A pink cable of snot lashed from his mouth spinning around Cate’s exposed wrist. She let out a rasping sound of disgust and fear and dropped the man’s body back into the bloody snow.
He wailed, “Why’s ye hurtin’ me?” His cherry-red eyes started up at the bare trees above.
“I can’t!” Cate sobbed, “I’m sorry… I can’t.” stumbling back from the man.
His gibberish became muffled as his head lulled into the snow. She turned from him and walked up the snowy incline. She looked down each direction of the highway and saw no one coming, the only sound was the man’s idling truck. She slowly approached it, wondering if this was the right thing to do.
The rusty hinges creaked as Cate opened the driver’s side door. She swallowed and climbed into the truck. Shifting into reverse the truck’s plow was torn free from the little blue sedan, and Cate began sobbing. She wasn’t sure what direction she should go, but it didn’t matter. Anywhere is better than here, she thought.
With the heat on full blast, Cate drove into the sunrise. Snow began to descend again; Cate gently lifted her foot some from the gas pedal.