I shifted my Harley to a lower gear. A rough mechanical click could be heard right away as the bike eased itself down the highway. “I’ve got time to waste”, I thought, “So why not waste it well?”. I wasn’t supposed to be riding back home then. But plans had changed. So, there I was.
The night was rather still, only disturbed by the distance hum of traffic and the roar of my bike. Above, the moon, though how dim it was and covered partly by ominous clusters of clouds, blessed my night journey with much needed illumination. I could feel the cool air coming from ahead. How sweet and refreshing it was, like a soft kiss, relieving and comforting. Exactly what I needed.
Leaving the busy city behind, I couldn’t help but thinking about the future ahead. I had come there to find a job. To get out of the dull and menial flyover country, in the hope that one day, I could make a name for myself. But luck hadn’t been on my side. Alas, in my heart, still a country boy, I found myself caged and isolated in the psychotically unending struggle of urban life. I yearned for freedom. As hard as you could imagine, I had to, leave my dream behind and come back home.
But that also meant, I had failed. Being truthful to yourself is never easy. It took me some time to finally admitting that disappointing reality. And the future ahead is always uncertain. That decision might turn out be the right one or I might wither away in the smothering comfort of home and never to realize the full potential in me. Staying might also turn out to be the right decision or I might lose myself in the sea of mindless robots. I wasn’t sure. And the thought just kept on wandering in my mind.
To have a moment or two absent from such distress was a welcoming experience. Night rides are my jam. As the hum of traffic was getting lower and lower, I found myself alone but at peace. The only thing I could hear was the roar of my Harley’s engine and the gripping of rubber on the dry and dusty asphalt highway. Slowing down, the night wind, instead of hitting hard, it was gently caressing my face, like a steady massage, soothing and calming down all troublesome worries. I took in a deep breath and then exhaled. Fresh and clean, that was all I felt.
After a few kilometers, the enjoyable sensation ceased to exist. Everything was eerily quiet all of a sudden. The rhythmic pumping of the twin pistons and the sound of gripping rubber, in contrast with the silent surrounding, seemed too loud. The atmosphere had turned cold and I found myself shivering lightly from such changes. And the worst of all, something in me was screaming at me, telling me something was very wrong. Not only did I feel cold, I felt vulnerable. I was being watched.
Ahead, just 100 meters or so, hiding in the foliage of the roadside tree line, I saw a vague silhouette. It was too dark for me to make out anything. But I had a bad feeling about it. The way it was moving under the cover of vegetation irked me somehow. As a response, I sped up a little bit and got myself ready to go full throttle if need be. Also, I turned my bike to the other lane just to create some distance between me and the thing.
As I was getting closer, the mysterious thing abandoned its cover and revealed itself. Slowly, I could make out its fur, a shade of matt brown with a slight hint of orange tint under the dim moonlight. Finally, I saw what it was, a lone coyote. Nothing dangerous at all. Seeing that, I breathed a sigh of relief.
But it was not for very long. Suddenly, the coyote stood up on its hind limbs, the way a human would. As it was doing so, I couldn’t help but notice how unusually long all four of its limbs were. And something was moving under its skin. Some parts of its body disgustingly bulged up while others contused and sunk in as if everything inside was expanding and shuffling around.
Its fur, matt coyote brown, started shedding. One patch after another, as the creature was getting taller and taller, the remaining fur stretched out and flaked off like pieces of dandruff. The skin beneath was the color of sickly pale white. Its texture reminded me of those mugshots of drug addicts, of how their hideous faces were always riddled with popping scars and almost seemed hollowed out. Under the moonlight, it gave off a weird and vomit induced shade of pale blue.
It was looking at me. Its eyes were pitch black, absent of everything, yet I could feel its gaze piercing through my soul. And it began to smile, its lips stretched right up to its eyes revealing a mouth not full of canine but human teeth, too many human teeth. They were unnaturally straight and covered by a thick coat of sickly yellow gunk. The way its whole body was transforming yet its smile stayed the same gave me goosebumps.
It held out one of its hands. The fingers, though similar to a human’s, they were bent in unnatural shapes and positions. I couldn’t help but notice how long and sharp its claws were, how they hooked up at their tips and how it would feel if those things were to tear into me. Then, the creature made the hitchhiker sign, the thumbs up. As if it was toying with me, as if it knew that I was afraid.
Panicked, I shifted gear and pulled the throttle at max. My Harley sped up but not at fast as I wished it could. The tall v-twin engine just felt like it was running out of power for being revved too hard. A few seconds after I passed the creature, it took off chasing me.
Even the way its whole body moved while it was running after me was utterly bizarre. I had imagined that it would have either run like coyote or run on its hind legs like a human since it had shown that it could stand up like one. But turned out I was wrong. The way it ran was more similar to a cheetah. The fore limbs then the hind limbs then repeat. The thing was fast. It would not take very long until the creature caught up to me.
Looking at the side mirror, it seemed to have completed the transformation process by then. I could see its skin wrapped head very clearly. The skull was human but its snout was elongated out like a coyote. It had no ears. Its pitch-black eyes sunk into its skull yet I could still feel its eerie gaze. All of a sudden, the creature gave out an ear-shattering scream.
“Fuck”, I said to myself as I slightly jerked forward. My Harley, straining itself as best as it could, started shaking quite hard. I looked down on the speedometer, it said nearly 200 kilometers an hour, yet the creature chasing me did not seem to reach anywhere near its maximum potential. Without warning, it leapt forward. The whole bike gave out a loud crack as if something heavy fell on it. The impact was so severe that it broke all the electronics for the lights, I had to drive blind. I looked behind and saw that one of its clawing hands was deeply imbedded in the back seat of my Harley, dragging itself along the asphalt. And more worrisome than that, my bike was slowing down, it just couldn’t compete with the sheer strength of that monstrosity.
185, 180, 175, then 170. I tried to sway my bike side to side to shake the creature off. It didn’t work, the thing still held on tight. I thought about kicking it but I changed my mind since even my Harley could not win against the creature let alone a measly kick from an awkward angle. I was afraid, I did not dare to think about how it would kill me and probably eat me for dinner.
My hope returned when I saw something ahead. An 18-wheeler thundering down the highway with its bright lights piercing straight through the dark, straight at me. I knew what to do but I only got one chance to do it right. I shook myself up and waited for the moment. Quickly, it came. With my eyes squinted from the harsh headlights of the truck, I leapt out from my Harley to the other lane. Before I fell to the ground and knocked myself out unconscious, I heard a loud bang as my bike crashed into the 18-wheeler.
I woke up in a hospital. My whole body was aching like hell and almost all of it were covered in cast. After a while, a nurse came in and checked on me. Seeing me awake, she comforted me and explained to me about my accident. Apparently, I broke and fractured most notably both my arms and legs, at least 4 ribs, and most serious of all 6 spinal vertebrae. But I was lucky that I was not paralyzed or needed to be amputated.
Slowly regaining my memory of the so-called “accident”, I asked her about the truck driver that my bike crashed into. She seemed hesitant at first and stayed silent for a little bit until she said this: “Don’t worry, he’s fine, you did his job for him anyway. That was not a normal truck. Now, this is supposed to be a secret but since you have seen the creature already, I figure telling you the general situation is appropriate. Those monsters used to roam this area at night until we organized secret groups of specialized hunters to track them down and exterminate them. The 18-wheeler was one of them, patrolling out at night. When they brought you here, they told me that you were one hell of a brave but stupid asshat”.
Fast forward to a few years later, I fully recovered and I am now running a motorbike dealership in the countryside. I love this job. It’s where my passion is at. I guess abandoning my dazzling city dream for the flyover country was the right decision after all.
Yesterday, at around noon, one of the test riders came back screaming in panic about a strange creature he saw while speeding down the nearby highway, about how it first looked like a coyote until it turned into an unholy abomination.