The road was silent. Dead. Chuck couldn’t stop the word from entering his conscience. As he gazed out from his cracked windscreen and onto the barren landscape ahead of him, he couldn’t escape the sensations of that dreadful word.
Lifeless. Still. Dead.
He wasn’t wrong, he knew that much. There wasn’t much to see in the California desert, and if there was, the summer heat deterred you from wanting to see it anyway. So he drove on, in an eerie silence that had begun to eat away at the dangling shreds of sanity he was barely managing to hold onto.
His car radio had been stolen a week earlier, who the fuck breaks into a Geo Metro? He’d thought in utter disbelief at the time; but now, while suffocating in the dreary silence of the Californian desert, the answer came to him and settled quite uneasily in his tired brain: a desperate person, that’s who.
Chuck knew the power of desperation, and having been caught in the jaws of the merciless beast for quite some time now, could only hope that his radio thief found some solace in their crime.
Chuck couldn’t be certain of whether he was running to or from something, all he could be certain of was that he was running, and had been for quite some time. His back ached and his gas tank was running precariously low. He’d stop at the next rest stop he decided.
It was midday, he assumed, he hadn’t a watch or anybody to ask. And so his assumption was all he had. The sun had risen to its peak and its rays had begun to pierce through his windshield and burn his amber eyes with such ferocity it felt as though God himself were out to blind him. I need to stop.
Sweat dripped from his brow, the occasional droplet finding its way into his already stinging eyes, forcing him to bring his pale shaking hands from the steering wheel to wipe them away frantically to set his focus back upon the road. He needn’t have worried, however, for there wasn’t a single soul out there. He was alone, utterly so.
The rest stop wasn’t for hours, yet somehow, his car miraculously persevered. It finally appeared about a mile after he realized how badly his legs needed stretching. They had begun to tense in a manner that shouted a warning instead of the usual prodding suggestion. When he’d escaped the still air of his car and stepped out into the screaming humid heat of the desert, he breathed a small huff of contempt, he couldn’t tell which of the two spaces was more detestable. It was nearing sunset at the time, however, and Chuck felt himself begin to calm as an evening breeze passed, granting him temporary relief from the despicable heat. The surrounding area appeared strangely familiar to Chuck, and he couldn’t shake the warning tremor that began to rise in his chest as he gazed about the rundown structure.
His legs having stretched, however, he recalled the thing that had forced him to embark on his execrable journey. The nagging familiarity of the gas station now forgotten, he walked to the boot of his car with weary legs and popped it open. In it lay the corpse of a woman whose name he could no longer recall, something with an “s”, he mused and ran a hand through his greying hair.
He’d met her at a rest stop much like the one he was currently stationed at, it had been a terribly humid day much like any other day in a desert in summer. He had been irritated and tired, much like he always was. In fact, it was a day no different from any other day of his life since he began this journey. Anything before lay forgotten in some miserable jumble of fast-fading memories left to rot in the corner of his mind.
She had smiled at him from behind the counter, and something in that smile had been knowingly accusatory. As if she knew what he had done. He couldn’t have that, and though guilt coursed through his veins like molten lead as he reached out to grab her, he told himself it was because it was necessary. It needed to be done. Something in his mind, however, something cruel, vicious, callous, and worst of all: knowing, told him it was a lie. He did it because he wanted to. Few things warranted death, and a smile most certainly wasn’t among them.
His fingers slid around her throat with suspicious ease, the sort that came only through experience. She had not attempted to fight him as he dragged her over the counter, her frail frame was easy to lift and caused him little strain as he threw her to the floor. She lay beneath him unmoving and still, as though already dead, and made little sounds as he set upon her with his fists.
The second blow had been the one to do it, he knew because he heard the unmistakable crack of her neck as it snapped. The rise and fall of her frail chest had ceased shortly thereafter, and he had watched as the soft glint of life fled from her soft brown eyes. However, he couldn’t resist the temptation of delivering one more blow, and so he had, striking her in the center of her face and relishing in the satisfaction that came from eyeing the crimson liquid that gushed forth from her face.
He had then carried her to the boot of his car in silence just as the sun had begun to set, and driven off into the stillness of the dusk. He had struggled to keep himself awake; the adrenaline coursing through his veins had thoroughly dried up, and he was left exhausted. His fingers repeatedly slipped from the wheel as slumber slowly wrapped its arms around him, daring him to drift away. He soldiered on, nevertheless, certain that soon someone would discover that the cashier had gone missing and perhaps stumble upon the puddle of her blood Chuck had not bothered to wipe away.
As he drove, a thick fog descended upon the dimly lit road, obscuring his headlights from reaching anything beyond a meter from the car. An uncanny chill began to set upon the air, and before long, Chuck could feel it sinking into his bones, biting at his tendons and nibling into his joints.
Sleep began to pull at him more forcefully now, and all logical thought seemed to fade away as the fog began to descend upon him too, eating away at his essence.
In the distance, through his watering eyes, Chuck caught sight of a figure standing in the middle of the road. A tall, slender, unsightly thing that only seemed to grow in height as Chuck neared it. It wasn’t human, as much as he tried to convince himself, Chuck knew it couldn’t be. Humans didn’t have horns.
It had turned to face him when he had stood just meters away, and Chuck caught a glimpse of glowing red orbs that tantalized every atom of his being. He could not bring himself to look away. With every second that he gazed on, however, a burning terror leaked into his soul.
His skin felt as if it were aflame, and though he desperately willed his body to move, he remained glued to the front seat of his car as his flesh rippled and seared. The creature ahead hadn’t any visible features apart from those dreadful, soulless, red orbs yet Chuck swore he could hear it speak.
“Come to me,” the thing had whispered, and though Chuck had tried to resist, had tried desperately to stop any part of his being from moving closer to whatever unholy creature it was that called to him, his body had seemingly ceased to belong to him.
His foot had pressed down on the gas pedal and had delivered him right to the foot of the dreadful beast. Upon closer inspection, Chuck could see that the beast’s flesh appeared red and charred, it came pealing off its skeletal frame in small flakes that seared the gravel of the road and tarnished the air with the bitter smell of tarmac.
The beast had walked to his car window on two cloven hooves, the soft click-clack sound of its feet moving rang through the air with a certain heaviness that only made Chuck’s heart beat faster in his chest.
When the creature had crouched to once again capture Chuck in its burning stare, the boundary between him and unconsciousness had begun to grow dangerously thin. He could feel the heated breath of the beast on his skin coming from two slits carved cruelly into its charred face, it smelt of putrid rot- the unmistakable odor of death.
The beast had then lifted a skeletal hand and reached through the open driver seat window, Chuck had ceased to breathe by then, his fear had culminated into a lump that had lodged itself so firmly in his chest that he felt as if he were suffocating. The beast had then tenderly laid a charred, smoking finger upon Chuck’s forehead, and at that, Chuck had screamed. It was a gut-wrenching, mangled sound that had risen from the very depths of his soul, for it felt as if the core of his being was on fire.
He had screamed and screamed, and screamed. Until his body could no longer hold out from the pain, or the exhaustion, and succumbed to the allure of unconsciousness.
Chuck had awoken to find himself driving just as the sun had begun to rise, and the first rays of daylight raced across the desert. All memories of the night before had gone from his mind. Save for the memory of his crime, and even that had lain in a blurry hue.
He continued to drive on, the road silent and still, until he arrived at the rest stop where he stood now, gazing at the corpse in his trunk. With a grunt, he slammed his trunk shut, unsure of what he was to do now. Get gas, he concluded.
With that, he walked into the convenience store, and to his utter horror there stood a woman behind a counter. She stood small and frail with mousy brown hair, with soft brown eyes that glinted softly in the evening light of the sun, a silver name tag swung loosely on her shirt, “Samantha” it read; and before he had the chance to offer a greeting, she had smiled at him.
A knowingly accusatory smile, as if she knew what he had done.