☆Creepypasta Stories☆

~Roadwork~

This is a follow-up to the creepypasta "Exit".

When Conner arrived at the gas station, he exited the car with a speed that surprised even him. He took a few quick steps, almost at a run, before turning back towards the car. Under the garish sodium lights of the service station, the little blue sedan looked a sickly greenish gray. It looked squat and malign in its stillness. The little throbbing headache at the base of his skull seemed to diminish with every step and he began to catch his breath.

He took the phone from his pocket and raised it high into the night sky, waving it from side to side like a signal flag. Nothing. The signal meter defied him by remaining empty. Not even a flashing roaming message. Conner scowled at the little phone and thrust it back into his pocket.

He glanced around at the station, two solitary pumps and a closed convenience market. An isolated island of pale yellow light in the dark of the North Carolina forest, the silhouettes of the trees bit sharply into the starry night sky, surrounding him like a ring of teeth. The grating hum of electricity mingled with the crackling of insects from the woods beyond, drifting in the warm summer night air.

Jutting from the side of the shuttered market was a scraped and listing pay phone, its metal stalk visibly bent from some long ago impact. Conner approached it, digging a quarter from his pocket, and gripping the scarred plastic handset. For a moment, nothing happened, and the sense of isolation deepened, like the ground being pulled out from under him, and the panic returned. A series of quick clicks bit into his ear and the dial tone chimed. His fingers felt numb as he dialed.

Even at a few hours past midnight, Reynolds answered on the first ring.

"Yes?" Reynolds' rolling baritone was silky, and unmarred by the late hour. "Who is this?"

"S'me. Conner." He was unable to keep the quaver out of his voice, and he had a sudden urge to look back towards the car, suddenly afraid that it might have moved, or left him there all together.

"This isn't the phone I gave you." Reynolds liquid voice darkened, almost imperceptibly.

"It's a payphone. Ain't got signal out here. Middle of fucking nowhere. Listen Ren, I-"

"Is something the matter, Conner?" Conner bristled at the mild, calculated condescension in the older man's tone, and inhaled slowly, measuring his next words with caution.

"Well... Shit. I don't rightly know, Ren, but I got a real bad feeling about this."

"Where are you?"

"Service station. Just got off the freeway. Bout to head south through Natahala."

"And what is the matter, Conner?"

"Like I said, there's something fucked up about this one. Didn't like the guy I picked the car up from, don't like whatever it is that's in the fucking trunk. I know this sounds fucking stupid, but it's giving me a headache. I feel like I can smell it, but I know I can't. Something just feels rotten about it. I mean rotten, rotten."
There was a long silence on the other end, and Conner knew that Reynolds was unmoved. Even as Conner said the words, he knew how stupid it sounded.

"Conner," the old man said at last, "We've worked together for a long time. I like you. But you've never given a shit about what you deliver. What's the strangest thing I've had you carry?"

"The heart." Conner answers without hesitation, seeing the white styrofoam cooler steaming with ice, strapped in the front seat like a babies car seat.

"Yes. You also once delivered several pounds of heroin. Did you know that at the time?"

"Not 'till after the fact."