Incident On and Off a Mountain Road

by Joe R. Lansdale

  Incident On and Off a Mountain Road

  A Short Story

  By Joe R. Lansdale

  For Jo Foshee

  INCIDENT ON AND OFF A MOUNTAIN ROAD is one of my more popular, better known stories. This was true early on, upon its first appearance, and it was in Best of the Year anthologies, but the thing that made it special for a lot of people, what made it better known, is the Showtime television series, MASTERS OF HORROR. It was directed by Don Coscarelli, who directed BUBBA HOTEP, another of my stories, and starred the talented Bree Turner. I thought the adaptation was a terrific one, and was glad it introduced my work to even more readers. I felt sure they would shy away from a number of the stories darker elements, and though one or two aspects were washed over, and a piece was added with a drill bit that was kind of interesting, as well as a new character that helped explain some things hinted at in the story, it was pretty much what I wrote, the darker elements of it well retained.

  Joe R. Lansdale

  WHEN ELLEN CAME to the moonlit mountain curve, her thoughts, which had been adrift with her problems, grounded, and she was suddenly aware that she was driving much too fast. The sign said CURVE: 30 MPH, and she was doing fifty.

  She knew too that slamming on the brakes was the wrong move, so she optioned to keep her speed and fight the curve and make it, and she thought she could.

  The moonlight was strong, so visibility was high, and she knew her Chevy was in good shape, easy to handle, and she was a good driver.

  But as she negotiated the curve a blue Buick seemed to grow out of the ground in front of her. It was parked on the shoulder of the road, at the peak of the curve, its nose sticking out a foot too far, its rear end against the moon-wet, silver railing that separated the curve from a mountainous plunge.

  Had she been going an appropriate speed, missing the Buick wouldn’t have been a problem, but at her speed she was swinging too far right, directly in line with it, and was forced, after all, to use her brakes. When she did, the back wheels slid and the brakes groaned and the front of the Chevy hit the Buick and there was a sound like an explosion and then for a dizzy instant she felt as if she were in the tumblers of a dryer.

  Through the windshield came: Moonlight. Blackness. Moonlight.

  One high bounce and a tight roll and the Chevy came to rest upright with the engine dead, the right side flush against the railing. Another inch of jump or greater impact against the rail, and the Chevy would have gone over.

  Ellen felt a sharp pain in her leg and reached down to discover that during the tumble she had banged it against something, probably the gear shift, and had ripped her stocking and her flesh. Blood was trickling into her shoe. Probing her leg cautiously, with the tips of her fingers, she determined the wound wasn’t bad and that all other body parts were operative.

  She unfastened her seat belt, and as a matter of habit, located her purse and slipped its strap over her shoulder. She got out of the Chevy reeling wobbly, eased around front of it and saw the hood and bumper and roof were crumpled. A wisp of radiator steam hissed from beneath the wadded hood, rose into the moonlight and dissolved.

  She turned her attention to the Buick. Its tail end was now turned to her, and as she edged alongside it, she saw the front left side had been badly damaged. Fearful of what she might see, she glanced inside.

  The moonlight shone through the rear windshield bright as a spotlight and revealed no one, but the backseat was slick with something dark and wet and there was plenty of it. A foul scent seeped out of a partially-rolled-down back window. It was a hot coppery smell that gnawed at her nostrils and ached her stomach.

  God, someone had been hurt. Maybe thrown free of the car, or perhaps they had gotten out and crawled off. But when? She and the Chevy had been airborne for only a moment, and she had gotten out of the vehicle instants after it ceased to roll. Surely she would have seen someone get out of the Buick, and if they had been thrown free by the collision, wouldn’t at least one of the Buick’s doors be open? If it had whipped back and closed, it seemed unlikely that it would be locked, and all the doors of the Buick were locked; and all the glass was intact, and only on her side was it rolled down, and only a crack. Enough for the smell of the blood to escape, not enough for a person to slip through unless they were thin and flexible as a feather.

  On the other side of the Buick, on the ground, between the back door and the railing, there were drag marks and a thick swath of blood, and another swath on the top of the railing; it glowed there in the moonlight as if it were molasses laced with radioactivity.

  Ellen moved cautiously to the railing and peered over.

  No one lay mangled and bleeding and oozing their guts. The ground was not as precarious there as she expected it. It was pebbly and sloped out gradually and there was a trail going down it. The trail twisted slightly and as it deepened the foliage grew dense on either side of it. Finally it curlicued its way into the dark thicket of a forest below, and from the forest, hot on the wind, came the strong turpentine tang of pines and something less fresh and not as easily identifiable.

  Now she saw someone moving down there, floating up from the forest like an apparition; a white face split by silver—braces perhaps. She could tell from the way this someone moved that it was a man. She watched as he climbed the trail and came within examination range. He seemed to be surveying her as carefully as she was surveying him.

  Could this be the driver of the Buick?

  As he came nearer Ellen discovered she could not identify the expression he wore. It was neither joy nor anger nor fear nor exhaustion nor pain. It was somehow all and none of these.

  When he was ten feet away, still looking up, that same odd expression on his face, she could hear him breathing. He was breathing with exertion, but not to the extent she thought him tired or injured. It was the sound of someone who had been about busy work.

  She yelled down, “Are you injured?”

  He turned his head quizzically, like a dog trying to make sense of a command, and it occurred to Ellen that he might be knocked about in the head enough to be disoriented.

  “I’m the one who ran into your car,” she said. “Are you all right?”

  His expression changed then, and it was most certainly identifiable this time. He was surprised and angry. He came up the trail quickly, took hold of the top railing, his fingers going into the blood there, and vaulted over and onto the gravel.

  Ellen stepped back out of his way and watched him from a distance. The guy made her nervous. He looked like some kind of spook.

  He eyed her briefly, glanced at the Chevy, turned to look at the Buick.

  “It was my fault,” Ellen said.

  He didn’t reply, but turned his attention to her and continued to cock his head in that curious dog sort of way.

  Ellen noticed that one of his shirtsleeves was stained with blood, and that there was blood on the knees of his pants, but he didn’t act as if he were hurt in any way. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out something and made a move with his wrist. Out flicked a lock-blade knife. The thin edge of it sucked up the moonlight and spat it out in a silver spray that fanned wide when he held it before him and jiggled it like a man working a stubborn key into a lock. He advanced toward her, and as he came, his lips split apart and pulled back at the corners, exposing, not braces, but metal-capped teeth that matched the sparkle of his blade.

  It occurred to her that she could bolt for the Chevy, but in the same mental flash of lightning, it occurred to her she wouldn’t make it.

  Ellen threw herself over the railing, and as she leapt, she saw out of the corner of her eye the knife slashing the place she had occupied, catching moonbea
ms and throwing them away. Then the blade was out of her view and she hit on her stomach and skidded onto the narrow trail and slid downward, feet first. The gravel and roots tore at the front of her dress and ripped through her nylons and gouged her flesh. She cried out in pain and her sliding gained speed. Lifting her chin, she saw that the man was climbing over the railing and coming after her at a stumbling run, the knife held before him like a wand.

  Her sliding stopped, and she pushed off with her hands to make it start again, not knowing if this was the thing to do or not, since the trail inclined sharply on her right side, and should she skid only slightly in that direction, she could hurtle off into blackness. But somehow she kept slithering along the trail and even spun around a corner and stopped with her head facing downward, her purse practically in her teeth.

  She got up then, without looking back, and began to run into the woods, the purse beating at her side. She moved as far away from the trail as she could, fighting limbs that conspired to hit her across the face or hold her, vines and bushes that tried to tie her feet or trip her.

  Behind her, she could hear the man coming after her, breathing heavily now, not really winded, but hurrying. For the first time in months, she was grateful to Bruce and his survivalist insanity. His passion to be in shape and for her to be in shape with him was paying off. All that jogging had given her the lungs of an ox and strengthened her legs and ankles. A line from one of Bruce’s survivalist books came to her. Do the unexpected.

  She found a trail amongst the pines, and followed it, then abruptly broke from it and went back into the thicket. It was harder going, but she assumed her pursuer would expect her to follow a trail.

  The pines became so thick she got down on her hands and knees and began to crawl. It was easier to get through that way. After a moment, she stopped scuttling and eased her back against one of the pines and sat and listened. She felt reasonably well hidden, as the boughs of the pines grew low and drooped to the ground. She took several deep breaths, holding each for a long moment. Gradually, she began breathing normally. Above her, from the direction of the trail, she could hear the man running, coming nearer. She held her breath.

  The running paused a couple of times, and she could imagine the man, his strange, pale face turning from side to side as he tried to determine what had happened to her. The sound of running started again and the man moved on down the trail.

  Ellen considered easing out and starting back up the trail, making her way to her car and driving off. Damaged as it was, she felt it would still run, but she was reluctant to leave her hiding place and step into the moonlight. Still, it seemed a better plan than waiting. If she didn’t do something, the man could always go back topside himself and wait for her. The woods, covering acres and acres of land below and beyond, would take her days to get through, and without food and water and knowledge of the geography, she might never make it, could end up going in circles for days.

  Bruce and his survivalist credos came back to her. She remembered something he had said to one of his self-defense classes, a bunch of rednecks hoping and praying for a commie takeover so they could show their stuff. He had told them: “Utilize what’s at hand. Size up what you have with you and how it can be put to use.”

  All right, she thought. All right, Brucey, you sonofabitch. I’ll see what’s at hand.

  One thing she knew she had for sure was a little flashlight. It wasn’t much, but it would serve for her to check out the contents of her purse. She located it easily, and without withdrawing it from her purse, turned it on and held the open purse close to her face to see what was inside. Before she actually found it, she thought of her nail file kit. Besides the little bottle of nail polish remover, there was an emery board and two metal files. The files were the ticket. They might serve as weapons; they weren’t much, but they were something.

  She also carried a very small pair of nail scissors, independent of the kit, the points of the scissors being less than a quarter inch. That wouldn’t be worth much, but she took note of it and mentally catalogued it.

  She found the nail kit, turned off the flashlight and removed one of the files and returned the rest of the kit to her purse. She held the file tightly, made a little jabbing motion with it. It seemed so light and thin and insignificant.

  She had been absently carrying her purse on one shoulder, and now to make sure she didn’t lose it, she placed the strap over her neck and slid her arm through.

  Clenching the nail file, she moved on hands and knees beneath the pine boughs and poked her head out into the clearing of the trail. She glanced down it first, and there, not ten yards from her, looking up the trail, holding his knife by his side, was the man. The moonlight lay cold on his face and the shadows of the wind-blown boughs fell across him and wavered. It seemed as if she were leaning over a pool and staring down into the water and seeing him at the bottom of it, or perhaps his reflection on the face of the pool.

  She realized instantly that he had gone down the trail a ways, became suspicious of her ability to disappear so quickly, and had turned to judge where she might have gone. And, as if in answer to the question, she had poked her head into view.

  They remained frozen for a moment, then the man took a step up the trail, and just as he began to run, Ellen went backwards into the pines on her hands and knees.

  She had gone less than ten feet when she ran up against a thick limb that lay close to the ground and was preventing her passage. She got down on her belly and squirmed beneath it, and as she was pulling her head under, she saw Moon Face crawling into the thicket, making good time; time made better when he lunged suddenly and covered half the space between them, the knife missing her by fractions.

  Ellen jerked back and felt her feet falling away from her. She let go of the file and grabbed out for the limb and it bent way back and down with her weight. It lowered her enough for her feet to touch ground. Relieved, she realized she had fallen into a wash made by erosion, not off the edge of the mountain.

  Above her, gathered in shadows and stray strands of moonlight that showed through the pine boughs, was the man. His metal-tipped teeth caught a moonbeam and twinkled. He placed a hand on the limb she held, as if to lower himself, and she let go of it.

  The limb whispered away from her and hit him full in the face and knocked him back.

  Ellen didn’t bother to scrutinize the damage. Turning, she saw that the wash ended in a slope and that the slope was thick with trees growing out like great, feathered spears thrown into the side of the mountain.

  She started down, letting the slant carry her, grasping limbs and tree trunks to slow her descent and keep her balance. She could hear the man climbing down and pursuing her, but she didn’t bother to turn and look. Below she could see the incline was becoming steeper, and if she continued, it would be almost straight up and down with nothing but the trees for support, and to move from one to the other, she would have to drop, chimpanzee-like, from limb to limb. Not a pleasant thought.

  Her only consolation was that the trees to her right, veering back up the mountain, were thick as cancer cells. She took off in that direction, going wide, and began plodding upwards again, trying to regain the concealment of the forest.

  She chanced a look behind her before entering the pines, and saw that the man, who she had come to think of as Moon Face, was some distance away.

  Weaving through a mass of trees, she integrated herself into the forest, and as she went the limbs began to grow closer to the ground and the trees became so thick they twisted together like pipe cleaners. She got down on her hands and knees and crawled between limbs and around tree trunks and tried to lose herself among them.

  To follow her, Moon Face had to do the same thing, and at first she heard him behind her, but after a while, there were only the sounds she was making.

  She paused and listened.

  Nothing.

  Glancing the way she had come, she saw the intertwining limbs she had crawled under mixed with pe
netrating moonbeams, heard the short bursts of her breath and the beating of her heart, but detected no evidence of Moon Face. She decided the head start she had, all the weaving she had done, the cover of the pines, had confused him, at least temporarily.

  It occurred to her that if she had stopped to listen, he might have done the same, and she wondered if he could hear the pounding of her heart. She took a deep breath and held it and let it out slowly through her nose, did it again. She was breathing more normally now, and her heart, though still hammering furiously, felt as if it were back inside her chest where it belonged.

  Easing her back against a tree trunk, she sat and listened, watching for that strange face, fearing it might abruptly burst through the limbs and brush, grinning its horrible teeth, or worse, that he might come up behind her, reach around the tree trunk with his knife and finish her in a bloody instant.

  She checked and saw that she still had her purse. She opened it and got hold of the file kit by feel and removed the last file, determined to make better use of it than the first. She had no qualms about using it, knew she would, but what good would it do? The man was obviously stronger than she, and crazy as the pattern in a scrap quilt.

  Once again, she thought of Bruce. What would he have done in this situation? He would certainly have been the man for the job. He would have relished it. Would probably have challenged old Moon Face to a one-on-one at the edge of the mountain, and even with a nail file, would have been confident that he could take him.

  Ellen thought about how much she hated Bruce, and even now, shed of him, that hatred burned bright. How had she gotten mixed up with that dumb, macho bastard in the first place? He had seemed enticing at first. So powerful. Confident. Capable. The survivalist stuff had always seemed a little nutty, but at first no more nutty than an obsession with golf or a strong belief in astrology. Perhaps had she known how serious he was about it, she wouldn’t have been attracted to him in the first place.