At the Highways of Madness

by West, David J.

  The Squid walked back to the truck and called out, “Shuarna. You figure anything out?” There was no response, so he walked around the other side of the truck and there hunched a black clad figure examining the back of the tractor trailer. It was tall and skinny with unnaturally long arms ending in obscenely long fingers which caressed the trailer bed. Dressed entirely in black flowing robes it also wore a towering miter-like hat which only made it appear taller and more menacing. It had a near featureless black face, smooth and immobile as a mask but with glaring yellow eyes that flashed like a nova when it saw The Squid spying.

  The Squid was so taken aback that he turned right around, rushing to the other side of the truck, wondering where Ogre’s gun was. Was that one of those elder things after them?

  Shuarna appeared from nowhere and took The Squid’s shaking hand. “I did not mean to frighten you.”

  “That was you!”

  She half smiled. “Yes, my natural form is jarring to your kind I suppose.”

  “I’ll say. I thought you were one of those elder things you talked about.”

  Her half smile sloped bigger. “They are much more frightening than me. I assure you.”

  “Yeah, I assure you,” said The Squid, nodding and trying to get a hold of himself. “Did you figure anything out? Maybe you can separate my truck and that whatever it is? I need to get back to my life and get some things settled. Things aren’t gonna be easy. I don’t have the answers but we can’t stay here, right?”

  “No,” agreed Shuarna. “We must keep moving. I cannot perform the separation here on this realm. We need to travel to a place where the barrier is thin, where I can work my enchantments.”

  “Uh huh. How far is that?”

  She smiled at him with a wicked grin.

  The Squid shook a finger at her. “I get the feeling you’re playing with us.”

  “I am of a sort. You humans have so much passion and emotion in everything you do. I admit I enjoy seeing how far it will go. I wanted you to carry the artifact, a Shining Trapezohedron for me.”

  The Squid frowned, “You are playing with our lives here? That’s not cool. What do we need to do to fix this, and get back to life as I know it?”

  “We must go toward the four corners, there is a place where I can unmake this cruel manifestation and free each of our prizes.”

  “What? How?”

  “Manifesting myself through thought I may gain control of the Trapezohedron. I will then manipulate time and space and I assure you I meant you no harm. I simply needed your physical selves to move the artifact.”

  Shaking his head and then a finger at Shuarna, The Squid said, “No you didn’t just show up in my truck. You were there the whole time weren’t you? I sensed or saw your shadow when Ogre was getting the forklift didn’t I?”

  She shrugged.

  “Maybe that bump we felt in the truck was you transforming from whatever the hell you are to this woman in front of me.”

  “Do you not find me attractive?”

  “Sure I do, I am as red-blooded as the next man and you are mighty fine, but I think I may have learned my lesson with pretty faces and dark hearts.”

  She gave him that lop-sided grin again. “I swear I have no heart.”

  “So basically all the trouble I’m in is your fault. Why the hell should I trust anything you say? I am in a world of hurt in the realm where I’m from and it’s all because of you!”

  Shuarna looked deep into his eyes and said, “This is important. I need your help. What is done is done. We must finish this.”

  The Squid opened his own eyes wide in a mocking glare. “Are you trying to hypnotize me? This kind of playing with people’s lives will not stand, sister.”

  “I had to try. You can’t fault me for that can you?”

  “Yeah, I can,” said The Squid, nodding. “I’m done with this.”

  Shuarna, then swept her hand thru the air between them and faint blue lights appeared showing a map in midair, of where she wished them to travel. “Here is where we must go and upon completion of this and the separation ceremony, you will be rewarded and I will set to rights all of the issues in your world.”

  “Uh huh, and just why should I trust any of this?”

  “You have no choice. Wasting time disputing this with me and things worse than the Mi-Go will come and feast upon your flesh.”

  The Squid put on his sunglasses and stood as tall as possible. “Yeah well, maybe that’s just a chance we’ll have to take then. I don’t like being played by anyone.”

  Shuarna’s coy smile vanished.

  “Ogre, let’s roll. Without the lot lizard.”

  Ogre walked up carrying a brown paper bag full of beer and chips. “Serious, Squid? She propositioned you?” he asked, dropping his shades to look over Shuarna with his left hand while barely managing to keep the bag upright in the other. “Also, bad news, the clerk in there recognized us. Pretty sure he called the cops the second I walked out the door.” He looked back and they all saw the clerk on the phone speaking excitedly, watching them.

  Shuarna snarled at them, “You won’t get far without me. The hunt for the artifact has only begun and only I can undo the merging of materia.”

  “Uh huh.”

  Popping open a beer, Ogre asked, “You sure about this Squid? She seems crazy as a road lizard but I don’t have any other answers.”

  The Squid looked at Ogre for that remark and grinned.

  Ogre put up a finger, “Don’t say it. I’ve still got opinions.”

  The Squid, opened the door on his cab and standing on the running board said, “Shuarna, if that is your real name. I don’t know that we ever got a straight legit answer from you.”

  “You need me,” she protested.

  “I don’t know that anything you have said is true, so I think we’re just gonna say our goodbyes and leave you here. So long!”

  A siren shook them from the standoff and then the red and blue flashing lights came into view seconds later.

  “Uh, Squid?” urged Ogre, tugging on The Squid’s shirtsleeve.

  “It’s all right. I figure soon as we start driving he’s gonna think we disappeared just as much as we’ll feel like he does.”

  “Not the cop I’m worried about.”

  “Shuarna ain’t gonna do anything, if she was, she wouldn’t be arguing with us.”

  She glared at them but had not moved.

  “No dude,” protested Ogre. “What the hell is that? We gotta get outta here!” He pointed opposite from the oncoming police car and toward a big patch of swirling darkness.

  What looked like black smoke was belching forth from a dumpster’s retaining wall beside the service station. While it might have been easy to assume that it was a fire, minus any perceivable light, there was an aura of dread accompanying the sight of it. A dread that needled at The Squid’s very soul and made him feel so terribly small, vulnerable and alone.

  “It is the Hounds of Tindalos! I told you there were worse things waiting!” said Shuarna. “Do not look directly at them. Let’s all get in the truck and drive away, now!”

  The Squid didn’t protest Shuarna jumping in the cab with them. He fired up the rig without waiting for the glow plugs and threw it into gear. He looked peripherally in the rear view mirror and saw long lean shapes escaping swiftly from the inky vapors. They appeared lupine, but were exaggerated and skeletally thin. At least three of them ran out and paused a brief moment, scanning each and every way as if to catch a scent.

  “The Trapezohedron is merged with your truck. It is confusing their senses. You may survive,” said Shuarna.

  Two Hound’s were not confused and tore after the retreating truck running alongside with long blueish tongues lolling. “Holy Hell! Those things are ugly! Ogre, shoot ‘em!”

  “I can’t see!”

  Not knowing what else to do, The Squid wrenched the wheel hard to the left and took one Hound under the wheels. They heard an awful yelp and felt a slight bum
p. “Did that work?”

  “It appears so,” said Shuarna.

  “Where is the other one?”

  “Cheese and rice!” cried Ogre.

  A twisted dog’s head suddenly leered from the glove box, snapping its terrible jaws at them, it’s long blue tongue slavering for their blood.

  Ogre shot his .357 into the glovebox but the dogs head was gone.

  “Where’d it go?”

  Beneath the driver’s seat, something bit at The Squid’s shoe. He screamed, poured his beer on the floor and stomped his foot down and again it disappeared. Breathing heavy he pulled over and looked. Nothing.

  “We have to keep moving or the others will find us,” shouted Shuarna.

  “One thing at a time, we have to deal with this insane dog!”

  The snapping jaws were popping from above the sun-visor and then gone again.

  “This is bull-shit!” shouted Ogre.

  Something behind ripped at Shuarna’s dark shirt, tearing it ever so slightly, before disappearing again as a hail of Ogre’s bullet’s riddled the cabin behind. She screamed, looking fearfully about.

  “Sum-bitch is playing with us,” snarled Ogre.

  “I’m going deaf with you shooting in here!”

  “Well do you want to get bit by an insane Labrador?”

  Impossibly, the Hound’s head appeared at the slot on the doors handle.

  “Open the door,” ordered Shuarna.

  The Squid opened the door, just missing a bite from the snapping Hound. Shuarna threw a ball of light outside the cab and the Hound leapt outside after it. Ogre lunged over the top of The Squid and shot the Hound twice, just as it turned with the ball in its muzzle. Its body fizzled and melted away in a haze of blueish smoke.

  “We have to get moving!” shouted Shuarna.

  The Squid, started the rig and watched in his rear view mirror as the other Hounds, covered in a greenish light, did their terrible work. They had torn both the officer and his car apart, then had turned their attentions on the clerk inside the shop. He could watch no more. He shut his eyes against the horror, trusting that the truck would remain on the straightaway for the next few seconds. “Did we make it away? Are they coming? Can I look?”

  Shuarna was breathing a sigh of relief herself before answering. “Yes, at least for a time. They will keep coming however, we must stay ahead with as swift a pace as we can manage.”

  “How did you see that Ogre?” asked The Squid, taking a deep swallow of his beer.

  “Dunno. Smoke just started pumping out of that restroom and dumpster combo. I was just about to head that way myself to drop some kids off at the pool. I thought there was a fire but there weren’t no flames. Then those damn ghost dogs came outta nowhere.”

  Shuarna answered, “The Hounds of Tindalos come from the angles of time and are among several entities which are offended at your passing.”

  Ogre shivered and downed his beer in one great gulp before belching and asking, “Where did you say they come from?”

  “They both exist and enter through angles. The corners of those walls suited their purpose very well. We stopped for too long, we must be faster. Next time they will destroy your bodies while devouring your souls.”

  The Squid raised a hand from the wheel, “So, I need an answer Shuarna. Are you with us? Or just using us? The way I see it we gotta work together on this because seems like you weren’t able to fight those things off either.”

  She looked away but admitted, “True. I need you to transport the artifact for me. I will help and try not to allow harm to come to you.”

  “Try?” he asked.

  She smiled that grin again that simultaneously made The Squid uncomfortable and turned on.

  “I’ll do the best I can.”

  The Squid looked her over. “I guess you’re still with us then. No more tricks or using your mental powers on either of us.”

  “What’d she do?” asked Ogre.

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s over.”

  Shuarna nodded. “Agreed. But we still must head southwest, to where the barrier is thin.”

  “How long will this take?”

  “Time is of no consequence here. It will take as long as your truck takes, though it is all relative to where in the realms we are.”

  “Sorry I asked. Just not my day I suppose.”

  Ogre clapped The Squid on the shoulder. “You gonna be OK, man?”

  “Yeah, you know all things considered I think I am. Something about horrible dog monsters coming out of corner pocket dimensions, intent on devouring your soul, kind of puts things into perspective. I guess I’d just say I’m glad to be alive. No thanks to Shuarna here for putting us into the middle of this existential crisis.”

  “Squid. Don’t judge,” answered Ogre. He then turned to lay down on the sleeper. “I’m getting some shut eye. I’ve had enough craziness for one day.”

  After they heard Ogre’s snores, Shuarna put a hand on The Squid’s and whispered, “Thank you. You won’t regret helping me. This is important.”

  He smiled at her, melting inside.

  8. Highwayman

  They drove up a mountain with peaks that were not familiar; tall, jagged and glinting with veins of light near the zenith. A red dawn splashed bloody color across the granite face just before shadows washed over it once again transporting them back into darkness. Colossal fir trees stood beside the highway where The Squid knew no such things grew before. Several times it seemed to him that they actually waddled beside the road like giant penguins. “I am straight tripping,” he muttered to himself.

  “Things are different in the Dreamlands,” said Shuarna.

  “Is that where we are? I thought it was Utah.”

  “It is and it isn’t. This truck has wheels in each of many realms at once. Our driving is the only thing keeping us from the claws of the Mi-Go and the tongues of the Hounds. There will be other trials but for now we are ahead of the game.”

  “A game? Is that what this is to you?”

  Shuarna wouldn’t answer.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” The Squid shifted as they slowed, heading up a steep pass. “Good to know. Any more surprises coming up?”

  Shuarna shook her head. She looked tired and ready to fall asleep.

  “You look tired. Want me to wake Ogre up so you can have the bunk?”

  “No, I am just feeling weakened at holding this together. Sometimes these crossings drain me. That and creating the light ball for the Hound took my reserves down.”

  “Ogre! Let the lady get some sleep back there. Mind games take it out of her.”

  Ogre jostled in the bunk but did not awaken.

  “Ogre! Get up and spot me!”

  Now the big man mumbled and twisted out of the sleeping cab. He rubbed his face and put his hat and shades on before saying anything.

  “I figure it’s about time I let you take over,” said The Squid.

  Shuarna looked concerned. “Shouldn’t we do this when we stop?”

  “No, we’ve done this lots of times.”

  Ogre came up behind and put his hand on the wheel to The Squid’s left. The Squid took his hands off the wheel and started to slide over with his foot still on the gas. Then in a flash he was over into the passenger seat and Ogre leapt into the driver’s seat. There was only a bare second that someone’s foot wasn’t on the gas and the rig barely hiccupped at the pressure change.

  “Now go get some sleep, Shuarna,” said The Squid.

  “Wake me before you stop.”

  “We will.”

  Getting comfortable as he could riding shotgun, The Squid lamented the events behind and those ahead. Night and day were blinking back and forth almost once every minute it seemed. The time was passing in such a way that he wondered if they would still be wanted men by the time this was over. If anything would be the same anymore. He had seen a lot of changes in his life already and what if he was now some kind of trucking Rip Van Winkle?

 
“You know Squid, I’ve been thinking.”

  “Yeah?”

  “We handled those damn roaches, the Mi-Go with some truck splatter and my .357. I’m almost out of ammo and according to Shuarna we are likely enough to meet up with some heavier dudes.”

  “So?”

  “So what I’m saying is do unto others before they do unto you.”

  “Huh?”

  “We need heavier artillery Squid. We need something with some kick, some punch, some wow!”

  “Some wow? What the hell you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about we arm ourselves with some big guns. We get something that will really put a hole in people or monsters or bugs or whatever,” said Ogre, excitedly enough that he took his hands off the wheel for emphasis. As he did the truck veered sharply to the left and while The Squid was convinced for a moment they would wreck and flip over, they found themselves on a dark stretch of highway completely different than where they had been only moments before.

  “Where the hell are we?”

  “I dunno Squid, I just took my hands off the wheel for a sec—.”

  “Don’t!” commanded The Squid, with a finger raised. “You keep hold of that wheel until we figure out where we are.”

  While the landscape was somewhat familiar, it was also different, the ground had gone from a hazy yellowed earth to a green and grey stony desert with rolling hills arching ever higher with each passing mile. Soon enough, pines were scattered about and the curves on the road belied their placement. Great mountains loomed ahead.

  “Do you see a mile marker or anything?”

  “I haven’t seen one since we left Toolly. I think this Dreamlands crap erases them, at least from our perspective. I’ve been going off familiar landscapes but this is not where we were in Utah, this is familiar though, I think we must be somewhere past all that.”

  “Squid, somehow we are way past the exit we wanted.”

  “We missed the Price turnoff?”

  “Oh no, we missed that.”

  “Green River?”

  Ogre shook his head.

  “Crescent Junction?”

  Ogre shook his head furiously. “Nope. We’re way past all that. I think we’re coming up on the Eisenhower Tunnels!”