God, it’s cold. Where are you, you stupid deer?
Chapter THIRTY-ONE
The Cyclops
The map app’s voice was saying to keep to the right to take Exit 33 in one mile when Jon noticed a big flash of light bouncing off the dashboard of the car. He looked around, confused. Emily didn’t seem to notice it. Then, it flashed again. Brighter now. Jon looked into the side-view mirror that somehow survived the explosion and saw headlights beaming right at them. It looked like a Jeep based on the lines of the grill and the way the circular headlights sat on either side. His chest started to hurt and sweat began to form over his face again.
“Emily! There’s somebody behind us!” he said.
Emily went to look into the rearview mirror, forgetting that it had been destroyed from the windshield blasting off. She kept her foot on the gas and turned her head around to look out the back window. Bright lights shined into her eyes from the vehicle as it approached the Nissan, evading the obstacles of debris just as Emily did.
“I’m gonna pull over and let them pass,” she said. “We don’t want any trouble.”
Emily slowed the Nissan down and pulled it off to the right side of the road, onto a strip of grass before the line of trees. A red Dodge Challenger lay sideways just behind them. Neither Emily nor Jon checked to see if anybody lay inside as they waited for the Jeep to pass them. They sat with their breaths heavy and hearts pounding. They looked over their headrests, out the back window, beyond the flipped Challenger at the oncoming car.
The rain was a tinkle now.
As the Jeep got closer, the headlights remained locked on them. Not the road. They both realized that the Jeep was driving straight toward their direction and not looking to go around. Emily said she didn’t want any trouble, but that’s what she got.
It was lucky that Emily pulled in front of the flipped Challenger as it made a nice buffer when the Jeep SLAMMED into the back of it. Emily and Jon squeezed their eyes shut and held their heads against the headrests. Glass blasted from the rear window as the Challenger shoved into the back of Emily’s Nissan. SMASH. Metal collided with metal, rocking the car like a boat out at sea. The grill of the Challenger dented the back of the Nissan’s trunk, causing it to open, blocking Emily and Jon’s view.
“Emily!” Jon shouted without moving his head. “Emily! We have to get out of here! You have to drive!”
The Jeep was smoking with its engine still humming. It reversed from the collision and the plastic taillight pieces crackled underneath its tires as it pulled back from the grass to the concrete road. Jon could hear the tires moving and adjusting, trying to place itself so the Nissan was right in line for the second ramming.
“Emily!” Jon cried.
Emily twisted and turned herself. She SLAMMED her foot on the gas pedal as hard as she could. The Nissan shook and skidded as bits of wet grass and mud flung from underneath the tires before it shot forward towards the exit ramp, which was now only half a mile away. A clear shot if they stayed in the grass strip. But neither of them could get a look at where the Jeep was since the trunk covered up the entire back window. Shit! The side-view mirror was of no use now as it could only see the Challenger fade off into the distance.
A light streamed onto Emily’s left side and up the side of the driver's door.
“Emily! It’s coming up on your side!”
“Fuck! Fuck!” she screamed and tried to put her head out the window to see. The Jeep, now with only one headlight on the right side, was speeding its way up the concrete lane. The streaming light became brighter and illuminated Emily’s side of the car. The hood of the car came into view and the smoking, dark Jeep was parallel with the Nissan. With its tinted windows, there was no way to see who was behind the wheel. It kept its pace with Emily and Jon before speeding up ahead and turning right in front of the Nissan.
“Fuck! AHHH! Fuck!” Emily shouted as she jerked the wheel to the right and SLAMMED both of her feet onto the brake pedal. The Nissan spun with the Jeep. Swirling. Skidding. A tornado of metal and rubber dancing through the darkness.
Jon shut his eyes and braced for death.
Chapter THIRTY-TWO
Face to Face
Both Big Jon and Little Jon inhaled when they saw it. A young buck with white fur on its underside and tail pranced out of the woods across the field toward their direction. Here I am it seemed to answer. It stopped only a few feet from where it appeared from the trees, looking around to find the source of the breeding call.
“Look at that, son. He’s only got one antler there,” Big Jon whispered, handing over the binoculars.
Little Jon held them up to his face. The deer’s right antler was just a boney stump on its head. Cracked off it seemed. The left was intact but appeared to be short and chipped like he was in some back-alley brawl in the woods and only one antler made it out alive. It moved closer to them now but not enough to get the shot in.
Stillness.
Big Jon patted Little Jon on the knee and pointed at the Hardwood Grunter.
“Just one more little one,” Big Jon mouthed.
Little Jon placed the wooden top back to his lips and cupped his hand on the bottom of the giant straw. He blew as gently as he could and made the toad sound, but only for a half a second. The deer’s eyes shot up. It came closer and stopped. Its eyes were wide, ears pointed up. Its nose pointed toward them. Cold, late-autumn air puffed from it.
Big Jon leaned to the side so Little Jon could grab onto the trigger. The deer stared ahead, frozen. Little Jon took a hold of the rifle and squinted his right eye with his other looking through the scope at the creature. The statue.
His little finger wrapped around the front of the trigger. The crosshairs aligned right on the deer’s left shoulder. All he had to do was squeeze and it would all be over.
“Go on, son. Pull,” Big Jon whispered in his son’s ear.
Little Jon couldn’t hear his father as the thumping of his heart pounded in his ears. There were no thoughts, no shots fired. Just a twelve-year-old boy and a young buck staring at one another. Motionless. Both statues sitting in the freezing November morning. The frozen stillness.
“If you’re gonna do it, you gotta do it now,” Big Jon whispered.
Little Jon pulled the trigger.
Chapter THIRTY-THREE
A Walk in the Woods
Jon woke up with his face mashed into the top of his backpack that acted as an airbag. His glasses were broken right down the middle with the lenses cracked like cobwebs. Both sides separated and fell to the floor as he went to adjust them. His head was aching, and he felt a dizziness like no other. He wanted to vomit.
With blurred vision, he blinked, rubbed his eyes, then blinked again, trying to bring any bit of focus. In front of him was the light-blue hood of the Nissan beneath the morning light. It was wrapped around a tree, which looked like a brown blob. He rubbed his eyes again and felt his face. Dried blood was under both of his nostrils. On his bottom lip too. He could taste it.
The only sounds were the chirps of early birds. No more rain or thunder.
“E-E-Emily?” He barely got it out. “Ar-ar-are…” He coughed and tasted blood. He choked on his own words. “You…alright?”
He turned his head toward the driver's side and saw what he could make out of Emily’s tie-dyed shirt and the long messy black hair. She was in the corner between the steering wheel and the door. Jon leaned toward her and touched her back. No movement. No sound. Beyond her was the grey and black, out of focus Jeep that looked to be slammed into a tree.
“Em-Emily?” Jon said, breathing quicker now as the present time started to become clearer. He nudged her back but still got no response.
“EMILY!” he cried out. “EMILY!” But there was nothing. Jon was shouting at a dead girl.
Jon felt around his backpack, flipped it around and began unzipping compartments. Old bits of his glasses slid off from it. Zip. Zip. Zip. His heart was beating in his ears and sweat caked his fa
ce.
He opened the bottom pouch on the front of the backpack and felt around pencils, pens, and folded papers until his fingers found a plastic case. He pulled it out and flipped it open to reveal a pair of silver, square-wired glasses. His backup pair.
The glasses were dirty and small for his face. Jon hadn’t worn them in God knew how long since he’d always taken great care of his black-framed ones. He hated these backup glasses. He wished he’d never have to wear them again. Now, he wished he couldn’t see at all as the sight of Emily’s lifeless body slumped in the corner of the driver's side of the Nissan burned through his retinas and sent a striking pain to his stomach.
“EMILY!” he shouted again, voice cracking at the now in-focus horror.
The dashboard and the tan wrap of the steering wheel were dyed in a dark, bloodied stain. Trying to be as careful as possible, Jon pulled on her shoulders. Her head made a slight peeling sound as it separated from the side of the dashboard where more of the blackened blood spotted. Jon leaned her body back into the seat.
A large gash from her left eyebrow up to Emily’s hairline seeped with dark-red and scabbing flesh. Her face bloodied and beaten with a blackened left eye bulging. The nose ring was ripped off, with skin from her nostril taken along with it. The colors on her tie-dyed shirt now featured her own blood. The once cute girl with the black hair and blue stripe down the side was now ugly and ravaged by death. Pure, unmerciful death.
Jesus Christ. Jesus FUCKING Christ!
Jon covered his mouth. His face was wet with sweat like the condensation on a glass of Coke at a diner. He grabbed his backpack and pushed himself out of the Nissan. Throwing his backpack on the ground beside him, he bent over with his hands on his jeans. His eyes squeezed shut. He gagged and heaved underneath the warmth of the morning rays that dried the damp grass. The stench of blood, metal, and rubber filled his nostrils, causing strong nausea. But no puke came. He sat and spat up bitter saliva onto the grass that stained his knees with a moist brown and green.
The weight of the world felt unbearable on him. Things were getting worse by the moment and Jon felt like giving up just then. If he couldn’t even stay the course on the turnpike, just what in the hell was he going to do on-foot?
I need some water. Something to drink. Anything.
He tried to distract his mind from Emily, but when he gave her lifeless body another glance, his body seemed to implode on itself. He felt such utter sickness, despair like nothing he had ever felt before. Jon hadn’t known the girl well, but his heart yearned to have her back. He needed her. He needed someone to help him. The college boy was alone and pressing on by himself seemed so useless.
The waves of nausea crushed him, but Jon stayed steady on his feet, forcing his puke to stay down.
He walked back to his backpack, trying to keep his eyes away from Emily and keep his sickness at bay. Zip. He looked through the top, biggest pouch and found the flattened box of granola bars sitting atop the books and supplies from his dorm room. He tore off one of the green wrappers to reveal the bar had been smashed into crumbs. Jon shoved them into his mouth, moving them around his tongue, trying to scrape the granola onto his taste buds to remove the bile flavor in his mouth. It almost did the trick, but he needed liquid to wash it all down.
No luck in his backpack as he spilled all of his textbooks and the laptop from it. Nothing in Emily’s car except for an empty Starbucks paper cup that was rolling around in the back seat. Not even a drop of coffee left. The taste of granola and unspewed vomit was getting sickening as it marinated in Jon’s mouth. Anything. Then, he glanced over at the crashed grey Jeep against the tree.
The windshield was shattered, and the hood looked like an accordion. From what he could see with his hands pressed up against the tinted passenger side window, there was a man’s head lying on the wheel.
He noticed an arm behind the driver seat, so he moved to the left and pressed his hands and face up to the rear passenger side window. It looked to be two people lying against each other. Half on the seats and half on the floor, tangled up by their arms and legs. Long hair was everywhere. Two sisters maybe? A father and his daughters? Jon tried the handle. Locked. So thirsty. He stepped back and looked around and saw no movement around him. No cars. No sounds. No life. What the fuck am I supposed to do now? His head was pounding his skull like a drum.
He coughed up more mixture of sickening spit and granola. Birds chirped from above the trees and Jon turned his head, trying to find them, squinting his eyes as the sun beat down. Everything hurt.
The woods. I can’t be far from Huntington. With that thought, he quick-stepped back to the Nissan, eyes looking away from the driver side. He still couldn’t look at Emily. How could he? How would it help him?
He rounded the car and picked up his backpack, placing it over his shoulders. Then, he closed his eyes and reached around the passenger side for his phone. The smell of death was teasing at his nose, begging him to vomit at once but Jon resisted and pulled out his phone from under the dashboard. He wiped pieces of the windshield from it and noticed a prominent crack going along the side of the screen. It still turned on.
7:58 A.M.
The battery icon displayed 59%.
Jon opened the maps app and saw that he would be in Huntington in just over a mile after getting off the exit. The woods, Jon thought again. The woods have to pop out somewhere by Huntington. There was no way Jon could walk the turnpike, not after the shit show last night. Look at Emily. Just one more time. But he couldn’t. Emily was dead and there was nothing else he could do about it. Put a blanket over her face or something. But what blanket? There were no blankets or covers available. It’s the right thing to do, cover her up. He decided one of his wrinkled shirts from his backpack would have to do for now.
Jon placed a Pulp Fiction shirt over Emily’s face as she lay slumped back in the seat of her Nissan. Jon’s chest ached as he looked at her for the final time. A poor, troubled girl whose life had been cut short. Not from rebelling against her abusive father, but from freaks with an unknown motive for destruction.
He wasn’t sure if he should pray or say anything. A part of him wanted to make the promise of returning after he found his parents or someone to help him. He wondered if it would matter or if he’d even be alive long enough to return to this spot. The thought of her body being forgotten and left here for the rest of time, haunted him.
For now, he could only cry.
***
Jon walked through the woods. He called his family again. No answer. What else did Jon expect at this point? How much time has passed since the night everything went to hell? Then, he started to call all the numbers in his phone. Old friends. Relatives. Everything went to voice mail. 911 went to the automated machine as it did before. Useless. Everything’s useless. God, I’m thirsty.
Twigs snapped and leaves crunched underneath Jon’s sneakers as he made his way through the woods beside the turnpike. Although he moved at a sluggish pace, Jon made his way as the phone went from 1.1 miles left to 1.0. Progress.
But Jon already felt exhausted. He hadn’t slept well or ate anything of substance in a long time. Thoughts of passing out and dehydration played in his mind. Maybe that’s how I’ll go. Right here in the woods. Alone. Ugh, my head. I should’ve died in that crash. I’m sorry, Emily. Emily, please forgive me. I should’ve gotten my car. You could still be alive right now. I’m so sorry.
The sound of a car driving by pulled Jon from his thoughts and he ran to his left. The woods were now above the turnpike and tall, metal barriers separated the nature from the gravel. Jon looked all around but couldn’t see a moving vehicle, only the same debris and wreckage as he’s always seen. Was it all in my head? But he swore he heard it. A car driving, maybe even listening to loud music. Perhaps it was really flying up the road. He stood still at the top of the hill, looking down at the roadway. Nothing came or went. He decided he would walk at the edge of the wooded hill until he got to Huntington.
> Granola and vomit swirled in the back of his throat. His face convulsed. He gagged. He never saw or heard any other cars go by.
Jon’s mind bounced all around as he thought about Emily, his parents, and what happened at college. Everything. What started it all? What happened? Is there something in the air? The water? Is the food poisoned? Why? Who did this? Kevin. Mark. They tried to kill us. Everyone tried to kill us. But it all happened overnight. Nighttime. Why the night? Why not the day? Why were they sleeping in the day and up at night, trying to tear us apart? He couldn’t come up with a theory of any substance. Only more questions. It was too much to handle. The questions in Jon’s brain got him distracted enough from his ailments. Before he knew it, he was coming up to Huntington as the phone’s voice said:
KEEP RIGHT AND IN A QUARTER MILE, YOUR DESTINATION WILL BE ON YOUR LEFT.
The woods sloped down, which helped as Jon approached the tolls. They were clear, except for a car or two. Jon had to stay to the right as the lady on the phone said. Beyond it, if he went straight, the overpass curved to the left and went to who knows where on Interstate 83.
His legs were weak, and his body ached. Especially his head. A pounding ring wrapped around his skull. He turned the maps app off to conserve battery power. 47% now. If Huntington still had power, which at this point seemed doubtful, he could get it all the way back to 100% if he could find an outlet. His body needed a recharge as well.
Sniff, sniff. There was an odor of char in the air. A burnt stench that made Jon’s nostrils rise, cracking the dried blood beneath them. He coughed granola up.
As Jon finished the slope, the trees began to dwindle from his right side as he walked over the patchy grass. He was walking along the guide rail outside of the exit ramp from the turnpike that curved to the right and he could see dead traffic lights above where the concrete turned into the asphalt road up ahead. The stench became stronger as he walked alongside the curving rail and the last of the trees until he saw it.
When the Sky Goes Dark Page 16
