by Mike Miller
3VIL
volume 3
by MIKE MILLER
Cover and Illustrations also by Mike Miller
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All Text and Images ©MMXV Mike Miller
All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
1 The Phantom
2 Dark Heart
3 Abandon
About the Author
Also by the Author
I can’t see a thing. No matter where I look across the vast horizon of the desert terrain, it is completely black. There could be a gigantic wall looming right by my side, ready to crush me. But more likely is an infinity of flat dirt, a whole lot of nothing. Not even the car’s headlights can provide any imagery other than black asphalt and a few feet of dust to the side of the road.
When I look up at the sky above, the world is also completely dark. I oddly cannot spot a single twinkle from any star when there should be an ocean of galaxies in the heavens. That seems wrong.
I look over to my sleeping wife and wonder if I ought to wake her. Would she groggily wake up and be delighted by the magnificence of the empty landscape on a barren desert night? Or would she be pissed to be bothered, and start another argument which only ends in an angry standoff and simmering silence?
Would she be as puzzled as I that the vast sea of lights that splatters the uncivilized night had somehow all vanished? I must’ve driven under some dense cloud formation since the only brightness now is from my headlights bouncing off the long, straight road ahead.
I yawn deeply, shutting my eyes for the briefest of seconds. When I reopen them, I see a light far off in the distance.
Low on the horizon, it burns a hot white though tinged with a cool lavender. It hovers so low that it looks to be on the ground, a single burning orb of fire. Perhaps a distress flare or somebody’s flashy headlamps?
I again look over at my girl, deep in slumber. I long for some conversation and company on this lonely drive. My mental ramblings are making me half mad, let alone the rigors of the fatigue. We’re still married, so I think I’m allowed to bother her. If this is a legitimate safety issue, then she should be glad to discuss the peculiarity.
Instead, I turn down the radio to aid my concentration on the mysterious glow. Maybe I will hear something of note to clue me to its identity.
The strange fire is definitely on the ground. And the heavens above remain pitch black. I flip through the myriad possibilities of what it could be:
A service station, though the last sign indicated it’d be another hundred miles or so before we’d encounter the next one.
Another traveler, custom high beams blazing in the darkness, though the object appears to be unmoving. Someone could conceivably park but have their brights on for some odd reason.
The strange purple tinge of color definitely unnerves me as something otherworldly and inhuman. I have never quite seen that exact shade or tint before.
As I approach closer, I see that the light is isolated, with no other signs of civilization or electricity around it. The mysterious thing is just sitting there, perched atop some rock formation off to the side the highway.
I near the mysterious light in my car, and am only a few hundred feet away. At a good 25 miles over the speed limit, I’m approaching fast.
The thing suddenly darts across the road before me with an inhuman quickness.
It forces me to slam on the brakes in shock.
My tires scream in protest as the car violently snakes to a stop on the asphalt.
My oblivious wife is plunged into the seatbelt. The expression of her bulging eyes and gaping mouth is priceless.
Now fully stopped on the road, I watch the oddity abruptly vanish over a ridge. The object moved so quickly that I never had a chance to see its true shape. The world is dark again.
“What’s going on?!” My wife shouts with the hot-tempered anger that is typical of when she suddenly awakes from a deep sleep. But now it’s exacerbated by the violence and suddenness of my driving. She rises to fight.
After frantically surveying around her for any trouble, she lowers her rage onto me. The motor whirs calmly while my breath pants frantically.
“Sorry,” I apologize. I am angry that I instinctively felt any remorse in this faultless situation. “Nothing. I’m sorry.”
“Trying to kill me?” she snarls.
“No.” I think carefully about my next words, though nothing appropriate comes to mind. I want to confide the truth in her, but I know how she’ll react and don’t want to ignite a fight.
She grumbles something cruel as she kicks her bare feet back up on the dashboard in a return to her cramped resting position. “Could you be more careful please?”
I watch for any other signs of the mysterious light, but the world remains hidden in shadow. The border between land and sky is invisible, shrouded in blackness.
“Okay,” I say.
I resume the drive. The car seems fine despite the recent punishment.
After a moment, a light snort informs me the wife is back asleep.
Then I notice a light in the sky. Across the entire vista, it is as if someone pricked a hole in the black fabric with a needle. Then a few more appear. The stars return one by one, eventually filling the void of night.
While driving methodically forward down the road, I watch to see if any of them would decide to leap to life, fall to earth, and suck the others from the night. Would a star prowl upon a rock then race away in haste?
The sky is alive again. Even in a moonless night, some of them burn so brilliantly that they collectively cast a cool glow on the earth below now. Now small details like rocks and shrubs become faint silhouettes in the scenery from the starlight. The strange spectacle makes my mind drift. The land is both haunting and beautiful.
With a rote counting of the stars, I dream both pleasantly and nightmarishly about the drive - the desolate landscape, the magical sky, my beautiful wife, my disintegrating marriage. The twisted game is the only one I can invent to occupy me.
I reach over and caress her forearm. At first, she flinches. But then she softly relents, all without ever waking.
Then I see a hole in the sky. Amongst the swirling blanket of stars, there is a large empty void, a patch where no stars tread. The hole is a perfect circle.
I sit up in stiff attention. The fright reinvigorates me.
The sight is eerie, but not as odd as when the neighboring lights begin to vanish too. I watch the growing hole consume the rest of the night, removing one star at a time from the rest. Soon all the stars die. The world dissolves into nothing.
Behind us comes a light in the distance. I adjust the rearview mirror to frame the new light in its exact center. Another light like the one before, bright white with a slight purple sheen. But instead of being sedentary, it now rushes madly at us. At its speed it will reach me in seconds.
My muscles tense in uncertain terror. I accelerate hard, my foot crushing the pedal into the floor.
But the light draws steadily nearer and nearer, brighter and brighter. It even moves faster and faster by the moment.
“Honey, wake up!” I plead, shaking her violently.
“What is it?” she responds with annoyance.
The pursuing ball of light is huge now, but I cannot see its source. The powerful spotlight basks us both in blinding whiteness.
“Something’s coming,” I tell her in a panic. “It’s right behind us.”
She sits up with wide-awake fear. “Oh, my God, you’re going over 120, you maniac. Slow the hell down!”
“I can’t,” I whimper in fright. The living luminescence moves into position, ri
ght behind our tail. It feels like a thousand headlights on bright. It is like the eyes of God have come to see through me and judge me.
With a revving vroom, the light moves into the opposite lane traveling parallel to us. A swarthy motorcycle rider pulls up beside our vehicle. His monstrous hog now makes a deafening roar as he turns to look over at us with a maniacal grin. Beneath his goggles, his eyes are wild and unfocused, lost off drugs or booze.
“This guy?” my wife asks.
Bracing the handlebars with one hand, the man reaches into his jeans and pulls a gun from his pocket.
My wife gasps and clutches my arm.
He fires it into the sky with several thunderous booms, then laughingly races ahead of us.
I slow back down.
“Damn maniac,” my wife grumbles, though still cowering in concern until he fades away in front of us. “Was he causing problems earlier too?”
“No,” I reply. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you going even crazier than usual out here?”
“No.” I am angry at the correct accusations, and reach over to pat her hand in conciliation.
She does not pat back.
“Listen to me. I’m saying I am sorry.” My voice rises in volume.
“Your problem is you imagine problems that aren’t even there.”
I wish she would shut up. I can’t believe I woke her just to deal with this nonsense. If only we could go back to the way we were, whether that was just two minutes ago or two years. A possibly tender moment of care and affection between us evaporates as quickly as the mad biker.
But then I notice a change in her expression. Her furrowed brow and stern lips melt from hard to soft. Her slender eyebrows bend backwards and upside-down as her gaze drifts away from me and onto something right beside me. Her face is not of love, but one filled with horror.
“Oh, my God,” she gasps quietly with a hand to her mouth.
Before I even look, I can feel the object of her fear. I realize that in this darkened space our car moves through, there is the violet glow of something unnatural coming from our side. I turn to behold it.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” Fear bubbles from her rasping voice in rapid whispers.
Beside our car moves a large creature. Hunched over on all fours, it powerfully and methodically gallops parallel to us in the unpaved desert. Its massive claws effortlessly devour the rugged terrain of the dusty earth, leaving a wide trail of floating dirt in its wake. It has powerful haunches atop its legs, with musculature and form akin to a gigantic lion. Its wild hair and long tail dangle in the air behind its racing body.
The monster has virtually no neck as its mighty shoulders merge into a disfigured head. Massive jaws and a gnarled snout expose tall fangs from a severe underbite. It has no ears, yet appears to have four burning-red eyeballs. Each one is asymmetric and wide-set like a lizard’s, but all are locked on the path ahead of its charge. The monster is pure white and luminescent. A pale purple aura radiates about it.
The unreal thing turns to look at us. My wife clamps herself to my right arm. Its strange gaze pierces us while we all ruthlessly charge forward together at this insane speed.
The beast then silently dashes off ahead of us by accelerating to a freakish new level of velocity.
“What was that?” my wife whispers.
“I don’t know.” We watch the hellish creature slowly vanish into the dark horizon before us.
“Is that what you wanted to tell me about earlier?” her irritated tone returning. “This thing trying to kill us?”
“Yes,” I confess weakly, realizing that I am now foolishly chasing the monstrosity.
“Great, another lie. You’re such a shitty liar.” She settles back into her seat, though her body remains rigid and readied for any threat.
“Look, we don’t even know if it’s dangerous,” I try to rationalize, not even fooling myself for a second.
In the distance come the distinct explosions of a gun being fired to silence us both.
The creature’s light remains burning on the horizon.
We keep approaching.
“Stop, turn around,” my wife stammers. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Maybe that motorcycle guy killed it,” I suggest.
As we approach, I accelerate faster than ever.
“What are you doing?”
“Are we not going to go where we want to go?” I ask tersely. “We have to keep going. We’ll zip right past. And it didn’t hurt us.”
“Yet,” she says tearfully.
At a blazing velocity, we rapidly approach the glow for a better view. At this speed we are only afforded a quick glimpse, but it is more than enough.
Just to the side of the road, the massive monster towers over the biker’s carcass. His bike lays on its side farther off in the brush. The blood on the beast’s jaws casts a sickly crimson light like an old Christmas bulb. The monster does not bother to look at our stunned expressions whizzing by.
“Go!” my wife screams.
We watch the creature’s light remain far behind, growing smaller and smaller until it almost disappears.
Almost.
And then it stops disappearing.
Then it begins to grow bigger. In our mirrors, the tiny white dot begins to swell in size.
“Oh, my God, it’s coming,” says my wife tearfully. “It’s coming!”
The fear has us both paralyzed, making it impossible to look away.
My hands are bolted to the wheel. At this ludicrous acceleration, I feel like the slightest twitch will send our car careening down the road. The needle on the speedometer twitches as it climbs to unknown highs.
The undefined features of the oncoming brightness sharpen into the creature’s head, mane and body rushing full speed at us. The car cannot go any faster, but the monster steadily closes ground on us.
Soon I can only see part of its vicious head in my mirror when it flies to within reach of our car.
Suddenly, it stops. Dead in its tracks, the creature rears up on its back legs like a horse, rising to a height over a dozen feet in the air. Our speeding car easily shrinks the creature into the background.
“What happened?” I muse aloud.
“I don’t know.” Her fidgety nervousness suspected the worst.
When I return my vision to the advancing road, I realize that a well-lit service station is off the next exit. It appears closed with its darkened interior. Yet its friendly neon signpost and bright parking-lot lights still welcome us to its home.
With screeching tires, we pull into the first filling aisle. We immediately bolt from the car to the stand. I scan the black horizon for any sign of the creature’s glow, but see none.
My wife and I both scream wildly, praying that someone will answer our calls. We bang on the shuttered metal shield of the garage, pound on the glass of the shop window, clamor and shriek with all our might for help.
A merciful light flickers on within the dark station to answer our prayers. My wife nearly faints in relief, but I continue my encouraging yelling. “Help! Hurry, please!” I cry.
An old man in a night robe wanders into view. “What the heck is it?”
“Let us in! Please! There’s something after us!” I beg through the shop’s window.
The old man warily peers past us into the surroundings, looking for any signs of trouble or distress.
My wife pleads, “Please let us in!”
The old man studies us up and down and sees our sweat-drenched clothes and panicked expressions.
Then he disappears from view.
“No, please, come back!” We scream with shrill desperation.
He mercifully unlatches the locks on the front door and beckons us in. “Okay, okay,” he grumbles.
We both race through the portal. In my haste, I knock the kind old stranger backwards with my shoulder. I slam the door behind us and feverishly flip all the locks securely back into place.
My wife fal
ls against the man, kissing him on the cheek and saying over and over, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
The old man smiles momentarily with happiness, but then quickly gets back to business. “Now what the heck’s going on here?”
I fight to slow my feverish panting. I try to assemble the right words, but trust that I will still sound absolutely bonkers. “There’s this thing out there. A monster, like a huge mutant wolf. It glows white and runs faster than we can drive.”
“Oh,” the old man chuckles heartily. “You must be new to these parts.” He chuckles some more. “The phantom’s little and harmless. I ain’t seen her in years. She won’t bug you unless you bug her.”
My wife and I exchange looks of disbelief. She explains, “We saw it kill a man. It was eating him.”
“What?” The perplexed old man scratches his head at the thought. “Impossible. Why, she couldn’t be more than two feet tall. Just wanders around the desert like a little, I dunno, ghost kitten.”
I jump back in. “No, no. This thing is maybe fifteen feet long like a car. And just as tall.”
The old man rubs the white stubble of his nascent beard. “Hmmm. Well, it’s been awhile. Things must’ve gone bad since the way things were.”
“They did!” my wife screams, still infusing the alarmed comment with her trademark bitter sarcasm.
“Even so,” the old man concedes, “she would never hurt a soul.”
A piercing screech silences us all. It is an unearthly trill which sinks into a grating and guttural growl.
The service station goes dark as the electricity dies.
The distant howl of the monster screeches evenly and continuously before ending as abruptly as it started.
“Oh, my God,” my wife whispers with fear rising in her throat.
“Do you have any weapons?” I ask the man.
“Sure,” he says. “But this is just a power outage. Which also is not unusual for these parts.”
The creature crashes through the wall, sending snacks and cigarettes flying around the room. In one swift and clean motion, the monster snatches the old man up by his torso in its grizzly jaws. As I race back to the front door, I drag my shellshocked wife along behind me by the wrist.
