abstract
| - I woke up in a hospital this morning but I can still feel him watching. The doctors say I was found one hundred miles outside of Las Vegas. They had to toss my clothes because they were drenched in blood. They tell me an officer will be in to ask me a couple of questions some time soon, but I don't want to talk to the police. I can still feel him watching me, and if he's watching me here then there's no place I can go to escape. I was hitch-hiking; trying to get to Bakersfield. I wasn't getting any rides on the interstate so I got off into one of those old routes, I think it was 66 but can't be sure (they don't keep the signs anymore). I had sixteen bottles of water in my sack and tried to conserve them as best as I could, but after the first four hours they'd gone drier than the desert I was walking on. By the time the sun had gone down, I'd walked maybe twenty or thirty miles and had passed by only six cars. I eventually fell down on the side of the road and watched as the utter darkness of the desert surrounded me; my mouth was dry, my skin was blazing, my thoughts clouded. That's when he pulled up, driving a black BMW, he rolled the window down and a big old cloud of smoke poured out (it wasn't cigar smoke either). "Do you need assistance, my friend?" asked the man in the black BMW, to which I could barely croak a yes. He crawled out of the car, his limbs awkwardly jerking in either direction as he did. He was tall, my god was he tall, I stand six foot three inches and he somehow managed to tower over me. Despite the utter blackness of the desert, his eyes were covered by dark shades, "Where are you going?" He asked me, his voice thick with some accent I didn't recognize, he offered me a lanky hand and helped me off my feet. "California." I barely muttered as I gained my balance. "Long way; where is your car?" I debated over telling him my car had broken down the road and blown a tire or something, but instead told him "Don't have one. Trying to get home, lost all my money in Vegas." He simply smiled and cracked open the passenger side door before drifting back towards the driver's seat. Something didn't feel right, something about him was off but I was in the middle of the desert, it was getting cold, and he was the only car I'd seen in a couple of hours. As soon as we started driving, a single question popped into my head "How had he seen me?" I knew it was pitch black outside but driving at any speed, he should've sped off right passed me. But he didn't, he pulled up right beside me. "Did you enjoy Vegas, my friend?" he asked, tilting his head slightly towards me as he spoke, "I cannot stand the place, personally. It is a very disturbing city." "Vegas was okay, I guess. Lost all my money, so not the best vacation." He nodded again and was silent for a long time. My eyes wandered around his car. It was spotless except for a small dark stain on the driverside dash; granted the only reason the stain was visible was the contrast between the dash's lights. I noticed another strange thing about the driver; at first I thought it was the fact that he was wearing all black, and that my mind was shot from the heat, but the skin that clung loosely, very loosely, to the man's frame appeared to be glowing white. Not the horrible bright white light of an fluorescent light bulb, but the dim dull light of a HD TV left on, tuned into nothing. Just then my eyes caught to speedometer; the BMW was red lining. We were going at a speed of hundred and twenty five miles down this road. "I need to make a quick stop, my friend." I couldn't agrue, as he was the driver. He pulled off to the side of the road, down a dirt path and out into the desert, the speedometer still red lined. I watched out the window as surface faded into and out of existence between the headlight beams. I nearly slammed my head into the dash when he stopped on a dime. He flung open his door and set out into the desert. Leaving me there, alone in the midst of nothingness for what felt like an eternity. I flicked on the cabin lights and investigated the car further. It was almost completely spotless, save for two or three more stains that marked the back seat and the center console. I opened the center console to find it empty. I checked the glove box, the drivers manual was still wrapped in the plastic bag but other wise the glove box was empty. After several moments of sitting there, I decided to pop the trunk. I crawled out of the BMW. The heat of the day was completely gone now, I shivered as I walked towards the trunk. I could tell that the trunk wasn't empty, a big black bag sat within. Some part of my brain screamed to leave the bag, screamed to get back to the highway and get away from this man and his car. But of course, I didn't. It can't be that bad, it's never really that bad, is it? You always read about the stories of serial killers or some scary ghost story. But none of them are ever true. They always happen to a friend of a friend of a friend. They never actually happen to anybody you know. So I reached my hand out to touch the bag, to fumble around for a zipper, to open the bag and seem what this man could possibly have inside of his trunk. And it jerked. Something inside the bag jerked towards me, accompanied by the tortured scream of something clearly not human. It screeched and screeched. Whatever limb it possessed thrust at the bag over and over again. My heart stopped. My brain began screaming for my legs to move AWAY from the bag, but my legs had some other idea, as did my hands. I found myself clawing at the bag, tears pouring down my cheeks, I found myself ripping at the fabric of this bag. The inhuman scream deafened me more and more with each second. When my nails finally scrapped a hole inside of the fabric, my eyes peered upon some black oasis of fear from within the hole. A shining black oasis that could only be the eye of whatever creature lay within in bag. And that's when I found myself flung away from the trunk, the hatch being slammed shut and the return of the Glowing Driver. He clutched in his hand a writhing mass of bleeding human. He'd removed his shades, and I now peered upon a shining, black, oasis of rage. His form took on a less human looking one; his nostrils flared, but not outwards—they seemed to recede into his skull. He was baring row after row of shark-looking teeth. And he moved towards me with the speed of a bullet. His hands—no, not hands, claws—found their way to my neck; his finger tips, like talons, dug into my neck. I could feel the warm drip of my own blood pouring down my skin and drenching my shirt. His mouth moved, as though speaking, but I was still deafened by the Trunk Thing. His eyes shimmered at me—light seemed to flush out of his and into mine. His look sent my whole body into panic, my heart began to pound faster and faster, I squirmed at his grasp and kicked at his literal rock hard body. My God, I can still feel those eyes. The last thing I can remember, was the movement of his lips. He's coming back for me, I know it. I can't talk to this officer. I need out of this place now! I need to get out! The sun is setting outside. I know he's coming for me now...
|