BLACK EYE

Lonely Girl

     ¨You ever drive down Kearney Road late at night?¨  Steve, a former coworker of mine, once asked out of the blue.

     ¨Yeah, it's scary as hell.¨  I answered without having to give it much thought.

      ¨You like that scary stuff, right?¨

      ¨Yeah, I was hoping one day to collect all the stories together and put them online.¨

     ¨Well, I got a story about that particular road.¨

     ¨Ok, you got my attention.¨

     That damn road is creepy as hell especially around 3:00 in the morning and that's when we were driving down it.  Maybe because it's some of the last bit of darkness before the light starts to come.  We, being me and Val, had taken this road despite my wanting to take another.  Val, who had spent most of his life in and out of prison, wasn't deeply concerned about a haunted road if it could be used as a short cut.  Stories about ghosts and otherworldly creatures didn't mean too much to him.  All that matter was getting home and thinking about his freedom.

     That road has nothing on it except miles of fields everywhere in every direction.  No moon and a few distant stars had been out.  It's the kind of road where space aliens could abduct you, plant a device up your ass, and no one would be the wiser.  This kind of stuff seems to never happen on a Black Friday with everybody around.  Deserted roads, dark mountains, isolated castles, and old, creepy mansions with too many rooms are always hot spots for the paranormal.  This way had just gave me the kind of bad feeling that tickles your warning senses.

     We must have drove for about a half hour of darkness and nothing.  That's when we saw her or I guess ¨her¨ is the best description.  A pale woman with long, dark, black hair walking down that lonely road.  After pulling over immediately, I had noticed that she continued to walk forward.  Her car had broke down and she was probably fearful that we were two potential abductors I had thought.  Both us wanted to help her, but decided we should be gentle in our approach.  So Val said he would get out of the car and at least offer up his cell phone if she didn't want to go with us.  Which, by the way was completely understandable since we were out in the middle of nowhere.  We had known that we couldn't do nothing.

     Val volunteered to go after her and ask which she preferred.  The night went dead almost as soon as he had gotten out of the car.  No owls, no wind, no crickets, and no coyotes.  There was none of the typical lonely highway noises that I knew about.  Something about that night just was wrong.  It had been like someone turned off the volume and turned up the darkness.   When Val had stepped outside, it was like he walked into an icebox.  It must have dropped thirty degrees since we started and I had remembered it being around sixty when we left.

     Slowly he had walked towards her, cautiously, as to not alarm her, but she still kept walking.  He called out to her and looked back at me in bewilderment.  When he had finally gotten in front of her, his face became washed in instant fear.  Stumbling back, Val caught himself before being dropped flat on his back.  For a moment, it was as if he had forgotten how to walk, he struggle so hard to stand.  The dust from the side of the road flew everywhere around him and the edge of my windows developed ice along with the hood of my car.   That cold visible, frost of air came out of my mouth as the heater did all it could do.  Val ran, fell, crawled, and ran towards me some more.  The fear on his face had made my heart pound and my mind search for explanations. 

     She simply stood their with her head slightly tilted down, as if she had been contemplating her next move.  Thoughts race through my head like lightning.  What could be so horrifying to Val?  The paranormal is bullshit, this can't be happening!  What the hell is it and what's it going to do?  Anything can happen in the middle of nowhere?!

     ¨Get the Fuck out of here!!¨  Val yelled as he jumped into the passenger side.  

     My foot slammed onto the gas pedal and the air had taken up the smell of burnt rubber.  I didn't get a good look at her as we passed and Val had almost pushed himself into my lap in the process.  When I had looked in my rear view mirror, I could see her running after us in the middle of the road.  For a moment (just for a moment) I had thought she was going to catch us, but I never let off the pedal until we were miles away.  Her face was never something I had gotten to see.  When she had pursued us briefly, it was while running backwards.  By my car's tail lights, I could see her running just as fast as you and me, but backwards.  So, all I ever got to see of her was the sickly, pale, white skin, long white dress, and jet black hair.

     ¨She had no damn face, man!¨  Val had said all the way home.

     Once home and after a few beers, he shared the details with me.  He had said that their was nothing, no features, nothing.  All that he had seen was a dark hole where a face should be and he had felt paralyzed momentarily.  Time seemed to stop around them and the air had become so cold that he felt he would freeze on the spot.  He claimed perspectives appeared alter because my car had looked a mile away.

      ¨Reality made no sense until I got back into the car.¨  He had sworn.

      We both slept in his living room that night with the television and the lights on.  In the morning I went home and I didn't here from Val in three weeks.  He didn't answer his phone or his door.  His sister told me he had been very sick and didn't want to see anyone for awhile.  His doctor said he had shown signs of what appeared to be related to a type of food poisoning, but they were still running tests and we ate the same stuff that night.  A month later, I ran into him at Wal-Mart, but he didn't want to talk about the incident.  He had told me that they stuffed him full of antibiotics, but he felt like his body was shutting down.  That was the last I ever seen of Val and I think the world is filled with this stuff, but everyone just wants to forget except guys like you.  Some people actually seek this out.

     ¨Some people.¨  I had told Steve.

end.