Rubbernecking

The traffic jam started a few miles earlier than usual. I was used to things clogging up near the downtown exit, but after a few minutes of slowly crawling forward I tuned into the traffic report. There was an accident a few miles down, but they were cleaning it up so I decided to power through it on the highway and just deal with all the rubbernecking.

After ten minutes I could see lights around the curve of the road. People were starting to get antsy, honking and swerving into the shoulder lane to see what was going on. I just turned up my music and tried to tune it all out. I hate traffic, but I especially hate traffic jams that happen just because people can’t mind their own damn business. They’ll slow to a crawl for just a hint of drama, or twisted metal, or even gore.

I’ve never had a strong stomach, and ever since seeing a bloody car wreck as a kid, I can’t stand looking at anything with flashing lights for too long. As I slowly pulled closer to the red and blue glare, I looked to the trees. I just happened to be on a nice stretch of highway that bordered the wilderness, and since it’s spring, the trees were just starting to bloom. There were trees with little white flowers mixed in with the pine, dotting the patches of woods like snow. The sun was setting, giving all of the grasses and houses beyond a golden tint that was only just reached by the glaringly bright police lights.

I was almost parallel with the wreck, so of course everyone slowed down even more. I just kept alternating with keeping my eyes on the road and looking at the shoulder. Someone honked and I instinctively looked over, catching a quick glimpse of two cop cars and a truck with a completely smashed front end across the divide. I quickly looked back over the the shoulder, my eyes washed out a little from all the lights. That’s when I saw a figure.

It was on all fours, and I blinked rapidly, trying to clear my vision. My first thought was ‘dog’ but the proportions were all wrong. Traffic pulled me closer to it and I started to wish I had just looked to the lights like everyone else.

It resembled a human only in the most shallow of ways. It was grey and the setting sun made it almost blend into the background. Its arms were just as long as its legs, like they had been stretched out to allow it to walk on all fours. The creature was panting heavily, its frame was almost that of a person, with relatively thick limbs, but distended ribs showed on its torso. Hinting at a completely alien anatomy. For some reason I felt oddly calm, my brain wasn’t sure how to process this, so it was simply freezing up.

I looked around, certain that someone else was seeing this, but then it hit me. Everyone else was too busy looking at the lights. Like moths buzzing around a flame, drawn in by the colorful display. I looked back and screamed. I had pulled forward a few feet, but the creature was yards closer to me than it had been. Standing still yet panting heavily.

Its arms were bent the wrong way, going out at the elbows like a horse, and its head was facing me, perched atop an unnaturally long neck. But its face was the worst part of all, the mouth and nose could loosely be called human but its eyes were just sunken pits in a skull. Black and devoid of anything that should be able to see, but I swear I could feel it looking at me.

Suddenly the car behind me honked. The road was starting to clear and I was holding everyone up. I sped away, keeping my eyes on the creature just enough to see it turn its head to follow the path of my car.

I started to feel safer the closer I got to home, only daring to glance back once I was sure I was out of sight. On the rest of the drive I felt some long forgotten memories from my childhood starting to swim their way to the surface.

I remembered a game I used to play as a kid on road trips. I would stare out the window and imagine a creature was running along the car, trying to keep up. In my mind it was a friendly centaur who would have to jump and climb and do all sorts of stunts in order to keep up with us. It was always a comforting thing, an imaginary creature to play with during the hours I didn’t feel like reading or listening to anything. I tried not to dwell on what that might mean as I crawled into bed.

The next day I read about the accident in the local news. The truck had struck an animal, presumably a deer, and veered into the median. The driver was killed on impact with no other casualties. They never found the deer.