![]() Some of them are covered with solid-brown fur, some are dappled with spots and some are covered with something else. Their necks are twisting lower and lower to the ground as if being twisted by gravity. As my headlights and I make eye contact with every successive creature, I can’t help but notice they’re starting to look different. I twist and turn, praying that there won’t be an incoming vehicle as I try my best to not paint the front of my car with roadkill. I continue, but I can feel its gaze bored into my eyelids - but I can’t blink for a single second as more deer creep out. The ghosts’ questions still rattling around in my skull, I swerve to avoid the animal’s petrified, staring self. As soon as I pass a yellow diamond sign warning me, a deer jumps out of the forest. ![]() Branches are rustling and breaking as I try not to steal glances at what I know is moving through the trees. I don’t have time to dwell on it before I’m passing through the woods. The cornfields are back, twitching harder than they did before. Thus, they keep begging for my attention until they turn to banshee cries, screaming questions that I can’t answer until I’ve left their hellish hovel.īut now I’m back in the open country. But not only do I not owe a thing to what no longer exists, I don’t have anything they could value - nothing that would keep me alive and well. As these purulent shades continue to flood the road, I try to shut out what they say - but their words snake their way through my AC vents and the radio, possessing my ears to pay attention. The voices split as they grow in volume, the wind carrying a dozen different declarations of remembrance towards me. My mirrors almost blind me with the bleakness they beam back at me. White figures pour out of the town’s orifices like pus, combining their murmurs into a whisper I can barely make out over my muffled engine accelerating my car to the max. With a deafening thud, every door slams open at once. There are apartments and ranch homes and even a small mansion the mayor used to live in. They’re the artifacts of Americana: red-white-and-blue barbershop poles no longer spinning, gas station price boards still displaying impossible rates, mom-and-pop shops where the clinks of the register still echo, family-owned restaurants where empty plates sit at empty chairs at empty tables, the local church that stands as a house abandoned by God. I see shades of white in their windows, apparitions peering at me through the blinds. The route takes me right through the center of town, where all its once-thriving businesses crack and peel to spill over their detritus into the streets. My only solace would be the stars, if I could even see them in the smoky sky.īefore I enter the village, I see the cornfield shuddering. ![]() It’s the land of quaint Midwestern towns, sprawling roadside forests and rolling cornfields - and I am terrified of what they hold. ![]() It’s too remote for any cops to care, so I don’t think anyone does. Brights are required to see properly, although no one turns them off when seeing another car - it’s just blinding oncoming traffic and hoping for the best in these parts. The route takes me along country highways, 55 mph designated zones that most take as a suggestion as they travel 10, 15, 20 over. I keep sneaking furtive looks at the ETA, hoping it will magically spring closer between the time of dusk and the dark. The sun is gone now, and I glance down at my cupholder where my Google Maps-running phone sits (I know I really should get one of those phone mounts, but I only ever think to do so when I’m driving, and it’s not like I can pull out my phone and order one while driving). The sun was already starting to set - pinks and purples and oranges blending together in the sky in a haze of light refraction and ever-present pollution - but in my idiocy, I thought it might pose no issue.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |