ROAD KILL

Copyright (c) 2018 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

ROAD KILL

By R. Peterson

      A cloud of smoke caused by burning tire rubber drifted up from the convenience store parking lot when the eleven-to-seven shift relief finally showed – fifteen minutes late! In stony silence, Walt Huntington handed over the store’s keys, banged out the door and hurtled towards his car. The Chevy Nova careened sideways onto the street. Walt stomped the gas pedal to the floor. Now he would have to drive like a maniac to catch the first part of Creature Feature. It came on at midnight. A fifty minute drive through the mountains would make him miss the first five minutes, but he knew a short cut. 

      Just outside of town Walt swerved his car onto an unpaved road that had once provided access for hunters. He slid a CD of Sammy Hagar belting out I can’t drive 55 and cranked up the volume as he thundered over the low foothills like a runaway roller-coaster. After two miles of kicking up dust and gravel, he roared back on the highway just before a series of switchbacks stitched the highway to the mountain. 

      He raced up behind an eighteen wheeler blowing blue smoke and straining to do sixty five on the uphill grade … he stomped the gas pedal to the floor and passed it easy.

 A stack of papers fell from the dash onto the floor when he swerved back into his lane. Normally he wouldn’t have cared, but along with the assorted junk mail was a packet of application papers for a health care maintenance job. It wouldn’t look good to apply for a position with State Hospital North with pop stains and dirt smeared all over his C.V. He grabbed for the stack just as his car rounded a corner.  

      It was a dumb thing to do … taking his eyes off the road … but if he hadn’t veered to the right at that precise instant… he would have killed her.

A young woman dressed in a black tunic that barely skirted her thighs, showed legs covered with black silk to his sweeping headlights, her blonde hair blew outward in the wind, like a sunrise halo. She sat crossed legged, smack in the middle of his side of the road, on the far side of a blind curve. Walt noticed all this, plus her tightly shut eyes as his Nova screeched past, sliding sideways in seemingly slow motion, and then speeding up as it spun off the road throwing a whirlwind of gravel into the air. He missed her by inches. 

      It took about ten seconds for the dust to clear.

She was still there. She hadn’t moved an inch. Walt remembered the Semi-truck he had passed just a minute before. He could hear the roar of the diesel engine as it began to round the curve. He missed the girl but the truck wouldn’t. It couldn’t miss with his Chevy parked on the gravel edge.

 Time slowed once more, as he bolted from his car and tackled and rolled her to the far side of the road just as the semi-tractor trailer came thundering around the corner.

      A blast of air pushed him and her against the cliffside, and a shrieking air horn let him know how close they both had been to death.

She hardly weighed anything.  He stood with her in his arms. Her eyes were closed …black lashes lay on crème colored cheeks; her platinum hair glowed in the moonlight.

 He decided that she was either an actress or a model, she looked … maybe seventeen?

“Are you ok? … You almost became road kill.” He shook her gently.

      She was still … she could have been dead … but for the faint breath fluttering against his chest. Then she began to shake her head side to side as if saying no to a bad dream.

Her eyes opened, the misty color of the sky after a summer rain, then became clear and bright for a second. “Are you an angel?” she whispered. The faintest trace of a smile formed on her lips.

“No,” Walt said “But you almost were.”

      The sudden gloom that poured over her face astonished Walt.  She sobbed a single anguished word that sent chills down his spine.

“Almost?”  She closed her eyes tightly, trembling for several seconds before she once again fell limp in his arms. He could not wake her.

      Walt carried her to his car … she must be in shock … I have to get her to a hospital … what else can I do? … No Creature Feature for me tonight … that’s for sure. He looked her over for injuries. Her shoes seemed out of place; they were black pointed things with big square silver buckles on the front. She dresses like a pilgrim. He could see no injuries; she looked perfect, almost too good to be true.

      Walt placed her body carefully on the seat next to him. He started the car and gunned it back onto the highway … this was a bad corner.  He looked in the rear view mirror as he got up to speed; he didn’t see any cars or trucks ready to run him down, but he did see something odd.

 A dark shape like a black sheet flew up from the road then fluttered off to the side. Whatever it was it … must have been lying in the road. Then two shadowy shapes flew up …one floated to the left one to the right. Someone’s black laundry spread all over the highway?

      He glanced in the mirror.  A cluster of forms rose into the air, one going left, one right and one straight up, the same dark rippling shapes. Walt concentrated on the road at the feathered edge of his headlight beams. Why don’t I see them till I’m past?

Suddenly he did see … another group rising … not behind the car this time but in front. One went left, one right and … one headed straight for his windshield. The black fabric flapped like the wings of a bird. At the last second the apparition swept downward and disappeared under the front of his car.

      Walt jammed down on his brakes and his car once again skidded sideways, the second time in one night.

His heart was thumping so loud, he was sure the girl would wake.

She just lay there … still as death.

Walt could see the slow rise of her chest … she wasn’t dead … not yet.

What was happening? Was his imagination playing tricks on him? … Too much Creature Feature?

He’d seen something in the dark shapes billowing up from the road and in the one that went under the front bumper … a scraggly hair-covered ball-shape …a hag’s face with a long twisted nose and darting black eyes.

 It was a child’s nightmare … he’d seen the face of a witch.

      The engine slowly began to wind and sputter down, the car shook and then it was silent...

Steam escaping from the overheated radiator complained you were driving too fast.

       The black shadows began to form in the road up ahead. Walt hadn’t missed Creature Feature after all.  His Friday night horror was just beginning. A thumping, scraping noise came from under the car. Whatever he had run down was still alive.

He remembered the matted ball of hair and the horrible face stuck on it … he twisted the key in the ignition switch. The starter groaned twice then was silent. Walt beat his fist on the dash.

      The shadow figures took a human form as they floated toward him. He didn’t want to look in the rear view mirror … he was afraid of what he might see.

He tried the ignition again … it turned faster this time …but the battery was almost drained.

And now he could see faces in the shrouds approaching … his hands shook so bad he dropped his keys … when he picked them up, the rotted face of death peered into his windshield.

They were all over on the highway; dark floating wraiths, clustered around the steaming Chevy. Walt glanced at the girl as she stirred and made a small sound … her eyes opened again, beautiful azure eyes … watching.

      A smile formed on her lips as she stretched a finger toward the keys shaking in his right hand.

The engine roared to life.

 Walt ground the transmission into first gear and jammed his foot on the gas pedal.

The dark shapes covering the road blasted away in every direction as he plowed through them.

When he was up to eighty five and certain the shadows were far behind, he glanced down …she was asleep, still as death … but for the wisp of breath coming from her faintly smiling lips.

      Walt was still trembling as he roared into Cloverdale and to the neon lights proclaiming Hospital Emergency Entrance

      Walt carefully lifted the girl from the passenger seat.  He didn’t look back. If he had he would have seen the dark shape clinging to the underside of his car slowly lower itself to the ground. The thing with a broken face, framed by oily matted hair like a doll pulled from a garbage dump.  It watched him carry the girl inside, then slithered out from under the car and fled into the shadows.

To be continued …