Left To The Night

The last car visible to him through the oncoming evening was a stylish classic car, he estimated it had been purchasable sometime in the sixties. His mind was filled by images of scarves idling in the wind and opiate filled passengers riding carefree through the roads of a misremembered past.

As the car ahead turned off and left him the sole occupant of this stretch of road his mind turned to his bed. He fantasied over what food he might be able to eat free from guilt, as all after travel meals felt to him, before allowing sleep to embrace him as it had failed to do during the week-long visit to his parents. He had cut the visit short by a night as the predictable tensions between his father and himself reached a level he could no longer bear.

Night-time encroached without fear in the countryside and less light pollution to act as a bulwark against its advances. Quicker than he, or anyone who resides mostly within urban conurbations, could have anticipated the landscape was plunged into an impenetrable darkness and his headlights became his only ally against the surrounding force. Childhood fears of demon dogs cursing travellers on country lanes and monsters waiting to drag him into the long grass ensured he never felt the compulsion to stop and enjoy the serenity of the evening, which to him was only overflowing with unseen dangers.

A lonely soul on a road that was only illuminated by the headlights pathetic attempts at scraping back the thick night. He had been turned around on himself time after time by diversion after diversion that felt like it had been constructed by a Satyr playing a wicked trick on him personally. Emerging at the same T-junction as he had set off from an hour before, he noticed a tree at the centre of the junction that he had been barely cognisant of during the haze of late afternoon. Now the gnarled bark leered toward him, seeming to warn him against treading the same path he just had.

This time the green light flashing onto his face indicated his decision was to take the left turn. A repeated attempt of his previous route felt as if it led to another lap around a seemingly obsolete traffic rerouting and leading him nowhere nearer his destination. Along this new route he hoped he would find a petrol station or motorway sign, both of which had brewed a sense of foreboding inside him through their absence during the last hour of misadventure.

Usually, a fan of listening to music whilst he drove, in this moment only the sound of the cars progress along the country lanes could be heard. He didn’t know exactly where he was on a map, which by daylight would have excited a desire to explore within him, but by night he was anxious, and every unseen fear existed just beyond the boundary of the light.

The countryside was a horribly dark place at night he thought to himself, with little view over the fields and the curtain of darkness making it almost impossible for him to form the frames of reference that kept him calm in the daytime. Eyes sharply focused on the small speck of light immediately ahead, tiredness creeping into the very sinew of the mind. His hands were becoming clammy, and the disorientation was making him agitated. Paranoia was setting in as he hadn’t even spied a house let alone any sign of something as small as a village.

Field after field belying no signs whatsoever of life and he felt followed by menacing thickets that seemed to taunt him from the darkness. It had been ambitious to set off so late and hope to make it home during the waning daylight. Although he blamed the mishap with the diversion, he knew deep down it had been the uncomfortable atmosphere at his parents’ house that had sent him onto the road so late in the day for a long southward drive.

Upcoming reflector lights on the rear of a truck injected calm into him as he felt a sense of normality return as the tension in his body began to dissipate. For the briefest moment the darkness around felt less as if it was setting its sights on a lost boy as scared as he was in childhood when his nightlight had flickered and burnt out right in front of him.

Gliding past the HGV in pitch black his senses felt heightened, and a general sense of unease still occupied his mind. Attempting in vain to release the resurgent pressure building again in his stomach he locked the doors of his car. He drove onwards for ten minutes or so and then with little time to react he managed to swerve to attempt to avoid impact with a silhouetted figure which had come into view late and seemed to be stood directly in the middle of the road.

The ankles of the bushes were all that was being illuminated by the blinkering of the lights now. His hazard lights were pulsating and illuminating the scene with the efficacity of strobe lighting. The engine had stalled and refused to reengage; the front wheels of the car were firmly entrenched in a ditch. Hesitant whimpers could be heard emanating from the back of the car.

The bang his head took when he swerved had drawn a hazy veil across his vision. Through the scattered thoughts he felt immense worry, had he hit them?

Two slow taps were firmly put upon the window and a jerky head movement left his eyes gazing into a void. Fighting the splitting pain in his head he was able to make out the shape of a person and fear began to set in as he felt his gaze being met by the maw of a beast in front of his face. Then banging on his passenger side window, then in unison with a scraping noise from the rear window surrounding him in his metal box.

Two purposeful taps focused him back on the menacing presence separated from him but an ever thin seeming sheet of glass. As a third source of noise was coming from behind him the leader of the robbery revealed their demands, and they were far from the horrors he had been concerned about. Although the formless face of his conversation partner still left him frozen with fear, it was now for the actions of man and not the supernatural.

‘We saw you a few hours back, we know you’ve got one of them fancy watches so just throw it out and we won’t have to hurt you’

‘It’s with my things in the boot’ he motioned to his wrist to show it bare.

‘How about you unlock that for us then pal, and we can forget any of this ever happened?’

He depressed the boot-release with a heavy heart, feeling there was little point in resisting the demands at this point. It was hard for him to reconcile that he had been run off the road all for a watch. He heard the boot open and without as much as moments pause the sound of screams pierced his eardrums. Although he couldn’t see to confirm, he realised this meant that his dog had been loose back there and attacked the first thing it didn’t recognise.

Acting quickly, he was armed with all he had a full metal flask of water, holding it from the top to create a makeshift baton, he moved with purpose out of the car door and struck the figure who had made the demands. Even with his survival instincts in full swing, it took him by surprise how hard he had hit and how instantaneously the consciousness had left his would be assailant as his body crumpled under its own weight.

A handgun had spilled out from what now become apparent was a hoody, the face of the void was simply a mask, that was now taking on a crimson hue from the blood pooling inside. They were just people, scared now for their own safety after a failed heist. A thought flitted through his mind that now he had become their reckoning.

With little hesitation he was now holding the gun at the two people crowding over the body on the floor, a body that was flailing and grasping at a space where his throat had been. His dog was nowhere to be seen and he assumed it had run off in the ensuing attempts to pull him from their friend.

‘Get up and stand with your hands where I can see them’

One of the two men retorted, ‘he’s dying you have to let us help…’

‘Do not make me repeat myself’ the firmness allayed any further worry of protestation.

Now two were staring down the barrel, to him hey clearly couldn’t have also been armed or they would have drawn it by now. Are they blanks in the gun he wondered? Headlights on the horizon their position impossible to reconcile with the road driven in darkness and a wave of relief was over him as this was soon to be over if he could hold his nerve he thought. The return of his dog from the shadows reassured him as it came close to him and busied itself through constant growls and snarls toward the would-be-thieves.

He motioned with the gun like a mad man and the look of fear in their eyes through the flickering light made him sure he was holding a real loaded firearm. This had become a game of poker as he couldn’t even be sure he had it off the safety, he knew nothing about guns and less about firing them. He hadn’t seen the lights re-emerge yet, but he was sure they must be close and with his silent prisoners growing ever more tense huddled by the body of their friend who had ceased to fit against his asphyxiation on his own blood and now lay still on the tarmac.

His eyes had fully adjusted and for the briefest moment concern shot across the bows of his mind, the bend they had run him off was blind. The next driver would get the briefest moment to react as although blind at this time of night the road didn’t require much speed reduction. He decided he would try to move his attackers so that none of them were at risk of a collision and whatever judgement he wished to pass before his rescue would not be interrupted. His final thoughts were of contemplation, an unceremonious execution seemed to on hand until fate careered through the bend in the same of a heavy goods vehicle.

It tore through the car and people alike, the screams of twisting metal penetrating through the darkness of the night. Lifeless bodies were flung into the fields surrounding and the trees and hedges that flanked the road were thrown further. A wall of force had come passing judgment on innocent and guilty with an indiscriminate apathy. The last anyone would know of this affair was in the following days news reports:

‘Your 6am traffic briefing, a collision between a lorry and an SUV on the country lanes in causing delays on the old road, it’s being advised to use the new road which had its work completed yesterday and by 8am the diversion sighs will have been removed and traffic should be flowing smoothly. It appears that the HGV jack-knifed and hit a car on the bend, investigation is underway however the severity of the damage is making progress slow. ‘

Our top story at dinnertime, Police have confirmed no survivors after last night’s incident, it’s been chalked up to an accident and without further evidence being brought forward the investigation will have to be closed. The police spokesperson reiterated calls to take greater care while driving at night.