"What the hell..." he mumbled to himself and blinked his eyes a few times to clear his vision. The adrenaline rushed through his body making his heart pound in his chest as he realized that he had just been about to fall asleep at the wheel. It was 2:00 in the morning on this dusty two lane highway, whose lanes were just a bit too small, and he hadn't seen a set of oncoming headlights since before midnight.

What in the hell was that back there, he thought to himself again as he remembered the flicker of movement he had caught out of the corner of his eye, the same movement that had brought him abruptly awake on this sleepy road. A faded 'Speed Limit Sixty-Five' sign flashed by and he quickly glanced down at the speedometer. "Oh, shit," he gasped and eased up somewhat on the gas. The pickup started to slow and he watched the speedometer leave its previous post of ninety and creep down toward seventy-five. "That's more like it," he said and began to make adjustments for the cramp beginning in his right ankle. He hated to hit the cruise control button for fear that the inactivity might coax him back to sleep, something that he definitely did not want to happen in this dark part of South Carolina. As he thought about it, he slowed even more until his speedometer hit sixty-five. The last thing he needed was for some bored state trooper to chase him for a lousy ten miles over the limit, this way he was nice and legal. Besides, he only had another forty or so miles to go before he got to Bryan's beach house.

"How did I let him talk me into this four hour drive late on a Saturday night?" He asked himself and still could not find the answer.

Whoa! He yanked the wheel hard as another flicker of movement seemed to fly.

right in front of his headlights. "What in the hell is this shit!" he actually said it out loud this time and he could feel the skin on the back of his neck begin to crawl. That one actually looked like it could have been a person but it was just a flash of black against the painted lines of the highway.

Johnny Boardman caught his breath and tried to open his eyes just that much wider so he wouldn't miss anything from this point on. He saw a curve up ahead and his headlights began to hit the trees as he swung into it.

"There's another one!" he shouted and slammed on the brakes. The truck skidded through the turn and he guided it to rest on the right lane shoulder, which was mostly grass. That was probably a very stupid thing to do, he thought and began to laugh, but the damn thing was right there in front of his headlights amidst the trees. He fumbled for his flashlight in the glove compartment, grabbed it, hit the switch and it flickered to life. The batteries were not in good shape and the light barely lit the inside of the cab. But it was better than the complete darkness of this moonless night.

He grabbed the handle to open the door and froze. Something had just flashed past his passenger side door, too fast to make it out but it looked... dark...

Johnny caught his breath again and released the door handle. Instead he leaned over and locked the passenger side door. He checked his own door's lock but it was all the way down. He let out a deep breath and turned off the dismal flashlight to let his eyes adjust to the utter blackness outside his windows.

What was it that guy at the gas station had told him a few hours back. Searching his memory, he remembered thinking that the guy was nuts or something, but he had been telling him something about this road. He was an older man, dressed in jeans and a stained button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. He had a gray beard and some thick glasses. Just another crazy old man working the night shift at this gas station out in the sticks, or so he had thought at the time as he handed over a twenty dollar bill for about sixty-five cents change.

The old guy had asked him if he were traveling this road far. He replied that he had another two hours or so to go. The man looked down at him over his glasses and told him that he shouldn't stop or get out of his truck for any reason on this dark road tonight. Just get to where you're going in one straight trip, he'd said. It was too dangerous to be out and about on this night, with it being so dark and no moon at all, he'd told him.

Johnny slowly looked around and saw nothing but darkness. This was too Goddamn spooky he thought, slipped the truck back into drive and began rolling on the grassy shoulder. He turned to look back for approaching traffic out of force of habit. His eyes stopped facing forward for less than a second when he heard the loud thump and felt his right front wheel go over something. Slamming on the brakes again, the truck skidded to a stop on the grass and skewed a little sideways on the shoulder.

His heart was pounding, he was breathing hard and he stared forward at the grass and blacktop in front of his headlights. Nothing was there. Nothing but more darkness. "What in the hell could I have hit on the shoulder?" he laughed to himself and shook his head to try and shake his fear. That Goddamn old man had filled his head with all kinds of nonsense about not stopping or getting out of his truck. That stupid old man! He grabbed the flashlight again and turned it on, still dim. He shook it around a little, trying for a better battery connection, but the light remained at the same dismal level. "Oh well," he said and began to reach for the door handle.

"There it goes again!" he shouted and tried to find the fleeting image with his flashlight. The dim light did nothing but glare back at him from the back window. He quickly shut off the flashlight and tossed it back in the glove compartment. The red glow of his brake lights did not do much for his vision, he couldn't see much past the bed of the pickup. He faced forward again and hit the brights.

Nothing... just grass and blacktop.

"Jesus Christ," he mumbled. "I must be going crazy or something." He flicked off the brights and began to put the truck back into drive when he felt the back of the truck go down a little like someone had climbed on. He looked back quickly but it was too dark to see. "Shit," he said and finished putting the truck into drive.

Before he could hit the gas pedal, his door handle began to go in and out as if someone was trying to open the door from outside. Johnny hit the gas and the truck sped off on to the road, spitting bits of gravel and grass and dirt as the wheels tore into the roadway. He thought he heard the sound of something falling off the back of his truck but he wasn't about to turn around. His fists gripped the wheel tightly, and his heart felt like it was pounding in his throat instead of his chest.

He'd turned quickly to look out of his driver's side window the split-second before hitting the gas and could swear there had been somebody there, or something. It was dark, very dark, but it looked like the shape of a head. The bile started crawling up his throat and he felt nauseous. He was about to throw up, but he was not about to stop right then. He was going to kill Bryan when he got to Hilton Head Island, this trip was quickly becoming a pain in the ass.

Looking down at the speedometer, he cursed himself and began to ease off the gas again. Once again, he had been close to ninety-five and did not feel like paying any tickets right now. A raise in his insurance rates would not be welcome either, he could hardly afford it now as it was.

Where were all the cops anyway? Usually you would pass one or two patrol cars tucked neatly into the brush along the side of the road as you drove down these lonely country roads. But not tonight -- he hadn't seen any, not one. As a matter of fact, he had not seen another car for what seemed like hours. This was all very strange, he thought, very strange...

"Jesus!" he screamed and swerved the truck into the oncoming lane to avoid hitting the... what was it? A dark figure, in the road... it was something dark, it almost looked human but he couldn't be sure. He hadn't felt a thump this time so was pretty sure he had missed it, whatever the hell it was. Maybe an alligator, he heard they lived near some of these roads and would come out at night... he laughed, that was no alligator. He was kidding himself if he thought he knew what in the hell it was but it was not a Goddamn alligator, of that he was sure.

Johnny couldn't remember ever being so scared on a long drive like this. He knew he was psyching himself out, letting the old man's words get to him. But dammit, there had been something out there and something did try to open his door a ways back. Just what could be going on? He thought about it and tried to remember the dark figure he had seen just before taking off in terror. It sure looked like a head and shoulders but he couldn't be sure. Damn, he was so rattled he couldn't be sure of anything at this point.

"What's this..." he mumbled as he spotted a pair of tail lights far up ahead. Finally, he thought, somebody else on this road. Another living breathing person to share the road with. Then he realized that he was gaining too fast and that the other vehicle must be stopped on the side of the road.

The tail lights flickered as he saw something black sprint across the roadway and disappear into the trees to the right. Johnny's eyes were wide open now, trying to let in as much light as this dark night would allow. He saw something, he knew he did, something dark against the larger growing shape of the vehicle. Then he saw it again. Slower this time, creeping around the small car to the passenger side. Something smooth, something sleek, not human but walking upright on two legs. He started to slow as he got closer to the small car. The headlights were on and facing forward barely touching the trees to the right off the shoulder. The car itself was barely off the road, the two driver's side wheels were in the lane by at least three feet.

Then he heard the scream... the horrifying, blood curdling scream which raised every hair on his body on end! It seemed to come from somewhere deep into the trees but he couldn't be sure. It had to be damn loud, though, since his windows were all the way up. The coolness of the night allowed him to get air into the car through nothing but the open vents, the A/C was not necessary. Besides, an open window would have let in all sorts of nasty bugs... and God knew what else...

Johnny suddenly realized that he was stopped about twenty feet from the small car and he was in the oncoming lane but he could have cared less. His heart hadn't stopped racing since this had first begun some time ago and he still hadn't caught his breath back. He studied the small car but could not see inside. The car itself was dark in color which did not help him in his efforts to see it better. Slowly, he backed his truck up a few feet and turned the wheel so that his headlights could shine on the small car. As his headlights first hit the vehicle he saw another shape dart past the car and disappear into the trees. It was definitely a person, or something that looked like a person. Either way, it blended into the night perfectly. There were no clothes that he could see on the thing, just a jet-black blur that raced swiftly beyond his field of view. "Oh shit, oh shit," he repeated over and over before he was cut off by another hair raising scream from somewhere in the trees.

"Jesus Christ, what in the hell is this..." he said and allowed his truck to roll forward a few more feet. As his headlights left the car and began to shine on the trees, he could see more of the fast dark shapes scramble for the woods. His eyes caught sight of a pair of feet, wearing some sort of white sneakers, being dragged into the trees along the ground. Johnny gasped as he saw that the feet were moving, trying desperately to fend off their abductors.

It was then he realized that the very darkness around him was moving. It seemed that dozens of shapes, dark humanoid shapes, were moving toward him. Slowly at first but growing quicker. He could barely make out the shapes against the darkness of the surrounding trees and roadway but they were there.

It was all happening way too fast, although these last few seconds seemed to last much too long, but in no time at all they seemed to be surrounding his truck. Johnny could not remember the last time he took an actual breath, his overwhelming terror seemed to hold him frozen to this spot on this long dark lonely road.

That was when one of them stepped directly into the path of his headlights, just a dark form standing upright and moving toward him. There were no facial features that he could make out, no hair or clothes, no identifying marks whatsoever on the creature as it continued to approach his truck. They crowded in, from all sides, too many to count. Dark, they were so dark, as black as the night and almost darker than that if such a thing were possible. Johnny Boardman was frozen in fear and began to think that he might just die on this road tonight, at the mercy of these horrible things.

It was then that another agonizing scream tore through the night, this one closer than the last, probably from the person whose shoes he had seen disappear into the trees. That one long piercing scream, a scream of such anguish that Johnny did not think possible, seemed to break him from his trance. He realized that the only thing keeping him there was his foot on the brake pedal. In the very same instant that Johnny's muscles responded to his screaming brain, the figure in his headlights turned to him from its position, mere feet away. That horrible scream had registered with it too. Johnny knew this because, as his foot slammed down on the gas and he tore through that horrific crowd of dark things, the one in front of his truck opened its eyes, its horrible ghost-white eyes... and looked directly into John Boardman's very soul. For a split second, that terrible dark thing held him, his very essence, in its hands... held him at its mercy. He was powerless...

Then his truck tore into the night, tore into the mob of creatures with a series of sickening thuds and roared off down the road. Johnny Boardman did not ease off the pedal when his speedometer reached ninety-five and then passed a hundred, he did not remember breathing for several minutes afterwards and, most of all, he did not look back...

Copyright © 2003 by Shawn P. Madison