I used to be one of those people who loved long drives. Cruising along, watching cities turn to farmland and back again. Peering off into the horizon to see the suburbs and small towns that lay beyond the path of the roadways. It was always interesting to see how some places were being built up while others fell to pieces.
Even though I could stream music, I preferred to scan the radio. I always enjoyed getting a taste of local culture over the airwaves. It was always surprising when you heard great rock or hip hop in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes you wouldn’t hear these songs in major markets until a month or two later. When the sides of the road were lined with wheat it seemed the whole world had gone country.
Radio evangelists and political pundits were either good for a laugh or good for a shudder. If either were to be believed, the world was going to Hell in a hand basket. There was a rapid decline in the moral of fiber of our nation. Sometimes there was even talk of demons walking among us, tearing us asunder and dragging us to damnation. Their impassioned rants would either make me chuckle or feel like I was listening to a cult leader. Besides, I had a more mundane theory as to way things weren’t so great. There’s just a lot of assholes in the world.
That’s not true of everywhere and everyone though. Wherever you go you will find culture, whether it’s music, food, art, or theater. Even in the lowliest, dingiest places you will find things like joy, compassion, and friendship. I used to love cruising the roadways, seeking out new destinations to find these things. Charming small towns and unknown festivals were a surprise and a treasure. I will miss those things, but my desire to see them does not out way the terror I feel on the road now.
In early summer of last year, I was heading north towards home. The tall grass had finally settled into its summer green. It curved and bowed under the power of the wind gusts. Dusk was setting in, and the sun hung low in a dark pink sky. A few gray clouds tried to cover the intense hue of orange it donned in defiance of impending night.
Wind turbines spun on both sides of the roadway. They looked like tall shadowy monoliths winding up for battle. Two freight trains moved at a snail’s pace, their tracks running alongside the roadway. Some cars were new while others looked ancient. Most of them had the logo of some logistics company, graffiti of varying quality, or both.
The vehicles on the road were like the train cars. Some were in mint condition, fresh off the lot Others were prehistoric shit boxes held together by body filler and sheer will. Instead of logos and graffiti, they often had bumper stickers. I always found it odd that people think the rest of us care about what bands they like, who they voted for, or how many kids are on board. Once in a blue moon though, you actually see one that’s kind of clever.
I saw one that I hadn’t seen before. “If you’re going to ride” BANG. My car started to rebel before I could finish the bumper sticker. The steering went wonky, and I heard that telltale WHOMP WHOMP WHOMP. I signaled to the shoulder, slowing down and idling to a stop. Then I put on my hazards. After a few cars flew past and a semi labored by, I out stepped to see the damage. I looked down the road to make sure no one would cream me. Luckily neither of the driver side tires were flat.
When I got to the other side, I saw the rear passenger tire was damaged. Blowout? Road debris? It didn’t matter, I had a flat tire. The only thing that sucks more than a flat tire is when your car quits running and takes up smoking.
I dug the jack, the spare, and the iron out from under all the crap I brought with me on my travels. The jack left a little grease on my hands, while the spare left a greasy black residue on my shirt when I picked it up and rolled it along. For some reason I always loved the sound of a spare rolling on the gravel. The silver lining I always used to look for.
Changing a tire isn’t that hard, especially when you’ve done it as many times as I have. Nobody likes doing it in the dark though. Even though the sun was still out, half of it had disappeared beneath the horizon. That and my passenger side was facing away from it. I could still see the job ahead of me, but I would have to strain my eyes.
For a long time, no other car passed. The only sounds were the squeak of my jack as it lifted my car, and the soft breeze that was gently bending the tall grass behind me. A car drove by as I started to undo the lug nuts. Changing tires in the dark always made me think of Darren McGavin.
As I positioned the tire onto its hub, I heard a chittering sound behind me. I turned around and scanned the tall grass. Nothing, just the grass blowing and a darkening sky. When I finished tightening the lug nuts, I heard the chittering sound again. I turned around holding, the tire iron in my hand. Still nothing in the tall grass, though darkness was falling fast. The jack squeaked faster as I tried to get the car down as quick as I could.
As I got the blown tire in the jack in the car, the chittering started again. This time it was closer, like it was in the ditch. With the tire iron in my hand, I crouched down and grabbed the brick from under the tire. CHITTER CHITTER from the slope by the shoulder. I backed to the car and dropped the brick so I could open the driver side. door.
Right as I got in the car, a semi sped past me. The force of it almost gave me a heart attack. Before I could catch my breath, I could hear the chittering coming near my car. I thought I caught something out of the corner of my eye when I started the car. Instead of turning to look, I released the parking brake and gunned it. As I sped away it felt like I hit something, but I just kept on going. There was no one there to run over, so why stop?
My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my ears. My spine felt like it had cold electricity running up the entire length of it. The steering wheel almost slipped from my sweaty hands. The same cold sweat drenched my forehead. After a few minutes of panic, I decided I would pull off at the next stop.
I needed to eat a greasy cheeseburger. Piss in a filthy bathroom. Buy some cheap sunglasses and unhealthy snacks. If anything, I needed to indulge in the tacky habits of every late-night driver to remind myself of two simple truths. That I was alive, and that there was no reason to be as afraid of the dark as I felt in that moment.
The next exit was a mere thirty miles away. The signs showed me I had my choice of two gas stations and four fast food chains. After seeing this, I felt silly when I realized I still had my hazards on.
I switched them off and opened the window. The night air came rushing in. It didn’t matter that force of the air was almost oppressive. The breeze felt good on my cold forehead and hot cheeks. My fingers and palms started to dry as the breeze ran its invisible fingers through my hair. A smile began to creep across my mouth.
For five miles or so I felt senses of euphoria and salvation. There were no other cars going either way. The wind comforted me, like a parent who lets a child know, “It was only a bad dream”. I was driving with my right hand, my left arm resting on the open window. New signs let me know it was just twenty miles to my oasis.
There was a surprising lack of stars in the sky. That’s when I noticed that there were fewer lamps to light the way. Lights on a barn off in the distance looked like far away stars. The horizon was black on either side of the road. I could only see the road ahead of me by about twenty feet, my headlights the only thing cutting through this obsidian void. When the brights didn’t help, I started to feel a bit small. The wind, once a comfort, was now adding to my unrest.
Up ahead in the blackness, I saw a flashing set of hazards. Something compelled me to pull over and check out the situation. Maybe I was worried about the driver of the car. Or perhaps I just needed to talk to someone, to know I wasn’t alone here in this darkness.
Before I got out of the car I checked my phone. 78% charge, but no service. There’s never any service out in the middle of nowhere. I rolled up the window, but left the keys in the ignition. My next instinct was to turn on the brights, but no one likes being blinded. Instead I turned on my hazards and stepped out of the car.
I called out to see if anyone was there. All I heard was the sound of the wind blowing through the tall grass. I turned on the flashlight on my phone and walked towards the car. No one was inside and there was no one working the jack at the front passenger tire. In fact, there was no iron and the car wasn’t up high enough to change the tire. I heard a moaning sound down in the tall grass. I called out to them again. Another moan.
Slowly, I made my way down the slight slope next to the shoulder. There was a fence that separated the tall grass from the slope. Part of it had been broken. The tall grass beyond it had be bent or flattened. My flashlight didn’t offer more detail than that. Then there was a scream that stopped short.
I ran down the path of the flattened tall grass. My light was bouncing this way and that as I ran. There was a wet noise up ahead of me. As I ran towards it, I almost tripped on something. I looked down to see what it was. A tire iron, in a small pool of blood. I picked it up to examine it when I heard the sound of something ripping. For a moment I was frozen in place, the bloody tire iron in one hand and my phone in the other.
As I took a few steps forward I could make something out in front of me, about forty feet away. I tried to remind myself that there was no reason to be as scared of the dark as I was before. How wrong I was. Against my better judgement, I shined the light on the forms ahead of me. What I saw there, cured me of my wanderlust forever.
There were two mangled bodies lying there in the bloodied, tall grass. Strips of flesh were being pulled from the limbs. Intestines were being pulled from their middles The faces eaten away and the groins were no different. Any indicator of their identities had been gobbled up. My spine turned to ice, and I felt the urge to vomit.
As I stepped back the light went up a little bit. I could see that the flesh was being pulled up by long clawed fingers at the end of gangly arms. There were clawed feet at the bottom of thin crouching legs. The body was hunched to the point of being like a half moon. Sickening, pallid skin was baggy over some joints while taught over others. At the top of this lanky, emaciated body there was a long head.
It was long like a horse’s head, but there were long ears like a rabbit’s turned down and outward from the face. Their tips looked sharp too. The look of it kind of reminded me of a buffalo skull. The long head did not have a mouth at the end of it. Instead, the mouth ran the whole length of the head back to a jaw that hinged by its throat. When opened, it revealed a long gapping maw filled with sharp teeth and long tongue. Flesh went down its throat and fell from its mouth as it ate greedily. The horse like nose above its mouth was doused in blood.
At the other end of the face there were two large black eyes, about the size of my fist. When the light flashed on them the thing stopped and looked at me. That’s when I noticed that it wasn’t alone. There were at least four of them, pulling off flesh and lapping up blood. Something began to move in the tall grass. The thing looked at me and let out an alarm. CHITTER CHITTER.
I began to run backwards, turning after a few steps. My phone’s flashlight bobbing all over again. I could hear something coming up on me. When I swung the tire iron into the air to my back left, it connected with something. It made a large pang, and there was a thud on the ground behind me. After a few moments, whatever I had hit sounded like it had its footing again. I heard CHITTER CHITTER all around me.
The broken fence was ten feet in front of me. Something was behind me as I was hopping over the fence. I swung the tire iron again, but this time something got me. Red, hot pain erupted on my forearm.
I clamored up the slope, the sound of CHITTER CHITTER almost on me. The hazards on my car served as a beacon in the obsidian darkness. I got into my car and started the ignition, but as I did there was a loud screech at my passenger window. As I pulled away, a long face was trying to butt it’s way through my driver’s side window. Thank God I closed it.
My phone was lying on the passenger seat, flashlight still on. Next to my left leg there, was a tire iron that wasn’t even mine. For the first time I noticed a large gash on my forearm, about five inches long. A smaller one was right next to it. The wound was oozing blood all over the car and me.
There were new signs that told me the oasis was just five miles away, but I didn’t stop. Nor did I stop at the next one or the next one. I kept on driving until I made it home a hundred and fifty miles away. When I got there, I dressed my wounds immediately and passed out on the bathroom floor.
The next day I cleaned the blood out of my car as best I could. You couldn’t tell it was blood per se, but you could tell there had been some sort of mess. I threw the tire iron in the dumpster behind a convenience store. I went to the hospital and told them I had been scratched by an animal. When the doctor asked if it was I mountain lion, I laughed and told him I didn’t get a good luck. When he asked me why I didn’t get it taken care of sooner, I told him my adrenaline had been running high. He nodded and patched me up, but I’m not sure he believed me. No infections or signs of disease, so I was lucky there.
I saw my family and my friends a few days later. They asked me how my trip was. Dazed, I told them it was fine. I gave them the cheap knick knacks I always brought back as funny gifts. They wondered if everything was okay. “Sure,” I told them, “just tired from my trip”. When they asked about my arm, I told them I got a nasty gash changing a flat. “You need to be careful,” one of them said. Don’t I know it. Someone asked me “why the long face”? The expression I gave them must have spooked them, because they walked away.
A short while after that I sold my car. It’s a shame, because I really loved that car. I loved travelling too. I take the bus or the train everywhere I need to go. One time I even took a flight. I’ll never drive a car again though. I’ll never drive to where the cities turn in to farmland and back again. I may never see those charming towns or festivals again, but I’ll never see where the tall grass blows in the breeze either.
Do you still feel that wanderlust? Do you still want to travel on those roadways and risk seeing a starless, obsidian sky just to get a glimpse of a beautiful sunset.? If you do I can only offer you one bit of advice.
Drive safe.