The fog on either side of the motorway was thick, almost like smoke. Oliver could just about see shapes through the fog if he really stared, but he was reluctant to take his eyes off the road for too long in these conditions. The surface of the road was dark and slick, rain pouring across the tarmac and giving it the appearance of a flowing black river. Oliver knew he wasn’t going even close to the speed limit, but given the tenuous traction of his tyres at present, he didn’t want to risk putting his foot down any more. The roads were silent anyway, of course they were, after the Event. He chided himself for even thinking that he might cause an inconvenience to anybody else on the road. Who could he be bothering?
The car swerved slightly, and Oliver immediately gripped the wheel tightly. Between the rain and the fog he could barely see a hundred feet ahead, the beams from his headlights disappearing into the gloom. The distortion on the light as it disappeared made Oliver furrow his brow in confusion. It seemed to bend, and dip, like water running off a ledge. He shook his head and regained his focus, hands firmly on the wheel at ten and two.
He wondered why there weren’t other cars on the road. There was nobody to drive them, he knew that. Not since the Event. But that would surely still leave empty vehicles strewn along the roads. Cars, lorries, vans, even bikes. He should be dodging all of them. It wouldn’t stop there either, Oliver thought. Planes should have fallen from the sky in the sudden absence of their pilots. Trains might even have jumped their tracks and caused no end of devastation. Despite the absence of any bodies or remains, there should be fires and twisted metal. But no, he hadn’t seen any such thing since it happened.
Trying to think too much about the Event made Oliver’s head hurt, a sharp pain behind his eyes that made him want to close them. It was vague in his memory, like a picture at the end of a hallway that he couldn’t get any closer to. A television playing in the next room that he could just about overhear, but one which would immediately switch off if he entered the room. Oliver remembered driving, sat in the same car on what he believed to be the same road. Except he wasn’t alone then. His wife Sheyenne was sat next to him, and their son Peter was sat in the back. Oliver had asked him to turn the volume down on his tablet several times, the music from the game repetitive and simplistic enough to become highly annoying, on what was already a long and tiring drive. He had raised his voice as he turned to ask his son one more time to turn it off, and then his son was gone. The car seat was still present, the seatbelt still fastened, but nobody was sat in it.
Panicked, Oliver had turned to his wife only to see her chair similarly unoccupied. Oliver had pulled over the car and immediately dialled the emergency services. Perhaps he’d blacked out, that was the obvious answer. Nobody answered, no matter how long he waited. How could nobody answer the emergency services line? That wasn’t possible. He called his wife’s mobile, family, friends, co-workers. Nobody answered. He’d then braved the fog to get out of the cold and yell his family’s names as loud as he could. Over and over, making himself hoarse, but there was no reply. The sound of his voice seemed to be swallowed in the fog, as if it ceased to exist the moment it entered the grey. In desperation he had got in the car and turned it around, heading back in the direction from which they’d come. Perhaps he’d find them on the side of the road waiting for him. Maybe he’d see signs of an accident. Or at the very least, come across somebody else who could help.
Oliver was no longer sure how long he’d been driving. Hours, days, perhaps even a day? The fuel gauge hadn’t shifted since the Event, and neither had the milometer. Thinking about this too much brought the same pain behind his eyes, and with it the risk of him swerving off the road. The weather was another matter sure as he was that it had been dry and sunny when they’d set off on their journey and now it was heavy rain and thick fog. None of that mattered, though. He just had to keep driving, his gut and every instinct he had told him this.
Coupled with the panic about the Event and where it had taken his family, a growing feeling of nervous isolation had started to spread through him. Oliver had switched on the radio to combat it. This was a rarity for him as he preferred to drive in silence, or with gentle conversation. He wasn’t a confident driver, and radio chatter or music stole from his attention more than he was comfortable with. That was then though, when the world still made sense. Right now, he’d needed to hear another voice, any voice. When his hand turned the knob on the radio, that’s exactly what he heard.
“Is anyone there?”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“Somebody help”
“I can’t find my way out…it’s getting closer.”
A cacophony of noise, human voices crying out in desperation and horror. Screams of anguish, loss, pain and fear. Oliver had switched off the radio less than a minute after he’d turned it on. It all became too much to bear, louder and louder with every second. He’d had to turn it off before he lost control of the vehicle, and he could not allow that. The idea of completely losing his wits now, getting into an accident, had become his primary fear. There was nobody around to help, nobody to call if he was lucky enough to be able to reach the phone. He’d just lay there and bleed out, alone in the rain and fog. The thought of this made Oliver panic, renewing his focus on the road.
At some point in the endless amount of time he seemed to have been driving, all of this, plus the constant failure to see another car on the road had brought Oliver to the conclusion that whatever had happened to his family had happened to everybody else too. There was nobody left, just him. He’d seen films about this sort of thing, usually with a strongly religious slant. All the worthy are taken bodily to some Heavenly destination or other, and the damned are left behind. Perhaps this had affected the entire country, perhaps the world. His on-board computer was linked to his mobile phone, allowing him to use the apps on the touch screen of the dashboard. Through this he had even tried to check Facebook and Twitter, the news even. An act of desperation, risking a distraction that he would never normally allow whilst driving. This had failed before it began, as none of the apps would open. There was no signal, even via the car’s on-board Wi-Fi. If the outside world still existed, he couldn’t contact it.
Oliver glanced at the SatNav, stuck to the middle of his windscreen. It was still working, still showing the blue arrow travelling down a long road. At the bottom left of the screen was the name of the motorway on which Oliver was driving; AC43R0N. Bit of a lengthy name, Oliver had thought. Perhaps it was a new toll road, and they’d give it a simpler name in time. He glanced at the screen again and for a second his vision blurred, the road name appearing to say ACHERON. Oliver blinked a few times to clear his eyes, and returned his gaze to the road.
Glancing in the rear view mirror up to now had shown him nothing but fog and an empty road behind him. But now something caught his attention. Two pinpricks of light, quite some distance away, but unmistakeable. Oliver slowed down and the lights started to grow bigger as they closed the long gap between them. Hope filled him and he smiled broadly. Another person, somebody else who wasn’t taken by the Event. Maybe they can help, maybe they…
Oliver saw the cold breath escaping his lips in a little greyish cloud. His whole body shuddered and a tightness gripped his throat. A voice, no…less than a voice, an instinct, an indistinct awareness, told him to not let those headlights get close to him. For the love of God, keep driving. Oliver had no idea why he felt this way, where the feeling came from, but it was overpowering. And with it came the memory of the loudest voice on the radio: “I can’t find my way out…it’s getting closer.”
Slow down and get a look at the car? Pull over and see what the driver does? Or speed up and get the Hell away from those lights? Oliver’s brain raced, and then his thoughts were sliced open with a sudden pain in his chest. It was sharp, bright, and electrical. The pain made the decision for him, and his foot hit the floor. The car slid on the rain-slicked black road, but Oliver kept it steady still moving forward. Checking the rear view mirror, the headlights grew smaller, smaller, and then they were gone. He allowed himself a sigh of relief, but still felt the presence of the unnatural fear that had gripped him.
On he drove, that same road, never seeming to gan much ground but travelling some distance nonetheless. Despite his usual preference for it, Oliver now started to find the silence oppressive. He’d actually be glad of some music, some conversation, but he daren’t turn the radio on again. The car was too new to still have a tape deck or CD player, but the on-board computer could synch up to his phone or iPod and play music that way. There was no music stored on the phone though, and as with the other apps a connection to a music server wouldn’t currently function. As for the iPod, that was in his suitcase in the boot of the car. Getting to that would mean pulling over, stopping the car. Would that be so bad? A moment’s respite, for the sake of getting some artificial company? The familiar glint in the rear view mirror answered that question for him.
The other car was back, somehow closer this time. How had it gotten so close so quickly? He had slowed down since last time he saw it, not comfortable running the car at full speed constantly in these weather conditions. But even so, for it to have caught up at such a rate? Oliver put his foot down again to gain some ground, but the other car kept pace, matching his speed. His heart raced in his chest, banging against his ribcage almost painfully. The air in the car went cold, his breath visible once again. A slow frost started to creep across the windows, inside and out. Oliver pressed the button for the heated screens and turned the dial up to maximum on the internal heater, somehow knowing it would have little effect. The cold started to hurt his hands, his fingers feeling stiff on the wheel and difficult to move. This was it, he thought. The other car was going to catch up to him and then? Then…he honestly had no idea. But whatever came with ‘then’, the prospect of it terrified him.
A ray of hope came to his left, the fog parting slightly ahead of him to reveal a turn off. Oliver muttered a silent prayer of thanks…who to, he wasn’t entirely sure…and then forced his freezing arms to turn the wheel. The turn off led up a slight slope, then onto a junction with four exits. Oliver took the one across from where he entered, to take him as far from where the following car would be as possible. The road then led down to another motorway, equally lined by fog as that which he’d started on, but surely taking him in another direction now. His foot pressed further down on the accelerator and he sped away, allowing Oliver to relax slightly.
The SatNav screen blurred and glitched for a moment, and then went black. Oliver wasn’t overly concerned because for the moment he wasn’t trying to follow it anyway, merely get away from the other car. It was when the screen returned to functioning that he felt a growing panic. The road name was still the same, AC43RON.
“No!” Oliver banged the side of the SatNav with his palm. “No!”
Perhaps it had broken, frozen up somehow. Those things were prone to break, and it wouldn’t surprise him given the lack of signals on his Wi-Fi and such. This potential ray of hope, that the SatNav was broken, faded fast when Oliver saw the fog parting ahead to his left. It looked identical to the turn-off he’d just taken. He shook his head and cursed. This was impossible. He wasn’t taking it again, he just wasn’t. At least that was how he felt until he saw the lights in the rear view mirror again. Even closer now. The decision was made; he’d try the turn-off again.
This time he took the first exit on the junction, which took him to a winding road he hadn’t seen before. Good, that was progress. Except that it wasn’t, of course. The road led back to the same one he’d started on, those lights approaching in the distance. The turn-off came again, so he took it and chose the third exit. The same result, which by this stage he had expected. None of it made sense, but that didn’t seem to matter at present. Any confusion or questions about reality and what could happen and what couldn’t, had all been pushed aside in the name of getting away from that damn car. That singular goal brought a form of clarity, a survival instinct perhaps.
The radio switched itself back on, the clamour of anguished voices filling the speakers inside the car.
“I can’t find a way out…”
“Where did my mother go? She was right here…”
“Don’t let him near……he won’t stop, but you can outrun him if you try. Just don’t let him near.”
That last one cut through Oliver’s brain like a hot blade. It might as well have been talking directly to him. Once more he took the turn-off, but this time he made a U-turn on the junction and went back the way he came. Logically this was the least sensible option, of course. But logic had stopped being a deciding factor some time back.
The car slid on the road slightly as Oliver made the tight turn, but he kept control of the vehicle, refusing to let the road take him anywhere other than his intended destination. As the car headed back towards the motorway, Oliver closed his eyes for a moment, as long as he dared, in the hope that perhaps opening them would reveal a different outcome. He wasn’t sure how the action of closing his eyes could help the situation, but once again logic was a long departed companion on this drive.
“Yes!” Oliver cried out in joy, even daring to take one hand from the wheel and bang it against it in a fist.
The road ahead of him was slightly different. The SatNav still gave the same name, and it was still a long straight motorway. But it wasn’t the same. He’d spent enough time on it by now, however much time that actually was, to see the difference. The fog banks on the side of the road weren’t quite as thick. The shapes beyond the grey were more visible, almost enough that Oliver thought he could make out vague structures. Were they buildings, perhaps? The surface of the road was slightly different too, not quite as flat and smooth as the one he’d been driving on previously. Hope filled him, he might finally be leaving behind this dismal loop that he seemed to have gotten lost in. He still daren’t leave the car or stop driving, as his instincts continuously screamed at him that this was a very bad idea. But at least he’d found a new road, something to take him further away from wherever he’d been stuck.
The abandoning of hope is often likened to darkness, but for Oliver it had become light. The awareness of a sudden reflection of light, shining in his rear view mirror. Two lights, in fact. Headlights.
“No, god dammit, no!” Oliver roared, slamming both hands against the wheel and causing the car to swerve. He re-gripped the wheel and brought the car back to the left side of the road, then gritted his teeth heavily. His own headlights reflected from something ahead, something green and metallic on the side of the road. It was a sign, and printed in white text was the word “services.”
Oliver took no hesitation in turning. Anything to try and lose the approaching headlights. There might be help here, after all. This was somewhere new, away from that endless motorway lined by fog. Perhaps somebody, anybody, could be found here. And if not then perhaps the other car wouldn’t follow away from the road. Perhaps it couldn’t.
The cold was already starting to build in the car, his breath visible once again. Oliver sped up slightly, reluctant to take the turning too fast as he didn’t know the layout of the new road ahead. He couldn’t risk crashing now, or the car would catch up to him for sure.
A sudden pain hit his chest, just like the one before. He cried out and found his foot forced to the floor. The car sped on, leaving the headlights far behind. Oliver steered the car into the services area that opened up before him, heading towards a bright source of light that appeared blurry through the rain. He pulled the car over but left the engine running, not sure what to do next. Turn back around? But what if he passed the other car? Could he hide here? Glancing at his new surroundings, Oliver could see that the brightly lit building was a petrol station, complete with little supermarket no doubt stocking the essentials for a long trip. There was also a McDonalds, currently appearing to be closed, and a third building which looked to be a small hotel.
Oliver glanced at all three buildings twice over, and then made the decision to head into the petrol station. It was lit, when the other two weren’t. That suggested life had been there more recently. It suggested warmth, rather than the further dark emptiness that the other buildings seemed to offer. Driving the car round to the back of the petrol station, out of sight for anyone else that might now drive onto the forecourt, Oliver quickly exited the vehicle and ran inside.
He realised upon entering that he wasn’t even sure what he had come in for. To get supplies, to find a weapon? Both of these seemed like a good idea. He wasn’t sure when he’d last eaten or drank anything, but there wasn’t currently any desire to do either one. Still, he grabbed a large bottle of water from the fridge and a large bag of crisps from the shelf just in case. Better safe than sorry, who knew what might happen later or if he’d be able to stop again.
Next on the spontaneous little shopping trip was a weapon. But what? This was a small petrol station supermarket at a service stop in Britain. They weren’t likely to have guns or blades like the highway stops in an American horror movie. The best he found was a small hammer to break window glass in emergencies, a can of deodorant and a lighter with which he contemplated making a small flamethrower. Somehow the thought of that as a defence…heat and light… made much more sense against his pursuer than bludgeoning them with a hammer. Not that he intended to physically confront the driver of the other car. That would involve getting dangerously close to them, something he had no plans to allow.
Much to his own self-mockery, Oliver actually took the selected goods to the counter with the half-intention of leaving the relevant money on the counter. For who, he thought? Who was ever going to come here and notice the missing items, check the security tapes and track down the thief? As he thought through this, Oliver automatically glanced up at the security monitor behind the counter to see just how clear an image of his face it showed. The monitor was split into four, showing the station from different angles, including one of the petrol pumps out on the forecourt. This particular image suddenly grew brighter as Oliver watched, the metal pumps illuminated from an external light source. Oliver frowned, not sure what to make of this at first, but then his breath became visible from his lips, and he knew the answer as it filled him with cold dread. The other car had pulled onto the forecourt, its headlights pointing towards the pumps.
Oliver grabbed his items and glanced at the glass door to his right through which he’d entered. He heard a car door slam, and it was now terrifyingly obvious that he would soon have a visitor in the supermarket. There was no way he could safely leave through the door without being seen. Spinning round he saw no other exit, so instead ran to the far end of the supermarket. Perhaps there was a display stand he could move to hide behind, a small broom cupboard, anything. But no, the stands were fixed to the floor and there wasn’t a cupboard in sight.
“Shit…. Shit!” Oliver cursed internally, seeing that the glass panel of the drinks cabinet to his left had started to frost over. The floor, too, was starting to sparkle with a thick silvery frost, approaching him slowly like creeping flood waters. With a desperate effort he turned and ran back towards the counter, leaping over it awkwardly and landing in a heap on the other side. He didn’t have time for the pain his clumsy landing brought, and instead pushed himself backwards until he was flat against the rear of the counter. Making himself as small as possible he closed his eyes and held his breath.
He heard the door to the supermarket open, and his hands went for the aerosol and lighter. He shook with cold and nervous energy, biting into his bottom lip so hard that he could taste blood. Something entered through the door, something tall and black. Oliver could only just see the top half of it above the counter as it passed his peripheral vision, but he wasn’t even slightly tempted to try and get a better look. He didn’t want to see. In fact he had a powerful desire not to.
Tins and packets crashed and broke as they were hurled from shelves. Glass smashed, and then a noise so loud it made Oliver wince as one of the metallic stands was torn from the floor and pushed over. Whatever it was wanted to find him, and was not happy at being eluded for so long. Oliver gripped his makeshift weapon, but no longer felt he had the courage to even use it. He just wanted to stay here until his pursuer left, if they ever did.
There was a rush of movement towards him, and then he heard a bang on the counter behind and above, as though somebody had just slammed their hands on it. A scraping sound now, like nails moving along wood, and out of the corner of his eye he saw what looked like fingers leaning over the edge of the counter towards him, gripping it. If he turned his head slightly then he’d see the hand, he knew it. But he didn’t dare. Under no circumstances did he want to see that thing, any of it. Not even a hand.
Oliver shook so hard he could barely keep hold of the aerosol and lighter, his teeth grinding against each other so tightly that it now hurt. A sudden, powerful surge of energy filled his body, making him feel he could do anything. Oliver leapt to his feet, his fingers pressing the aerosol pressure switch and the lighter ignition at the same time. As he rose he did so with a plume of flame projecting before him, out over the counter towards whatever had been about to discover him. He could see a tall, black outline as something staggered back beneath the flame. Oliver didn’t waste the opportunity, and used his newfound energy to now leap over the side of the counter to his left and then out through the door.
His car waited for him around the back of the petrol station, rocking slightly as he virtually leapt into it and slammed the door. The tyres spun and screeched as he took off. Oliver couldn’t help himself having a brief glance at the other car as he passed it on the forecourt. It was long and black like a hearse. A black shape left the petrol station, flames still lingering about it, and Oliver knew the car would soon have its driver back behind the wheel.
Oliver got back to the motorway, and noticed immediately that the fog was thicker, encroaching onto the edges of the road. It now felt as though he were driving through a long grey tunnel, with nowhere to turn whether he wanted to or not. The lights appeared once again in his rear view mirror, as he knew they would. However angry his pursuer had been before, he was infinitely more so now. The lights swerved all over the road, getting closer and closer with a fury all of their own.
That sharp, electrical pain hit Oliver’s chest once again, somehow energising his car as well as himself. He gained speed, leaving the lights further behind. His eyes filled with water, his mouth dry, a rhythmic pounding now filling his chest as though someone were banging their fist there like a drum. The fog gathered around the road ahead of him, growing thicker still. Oliver roared with all the energy inside of him and drove into the fog bank as fast as he could, leaving the trailing lights a distant memory behind him.
“Mr. Kent? Can you hear me? Oliver?” came a frantic voice as Oliver opened his eyes.
Oliver groaned something in response but couldn’t quite form words.
“Don’t try and move, you might hurt yourself,” said the voice. “Just lay still for me, you’re going to be alright.”
There was a series of blue lights flashing to Oliver’s left, figures moving around in uniforms adorned with reflective material. The voice came again and this time Oliver’s vision had cleared enough to see the face it belonged to. It was a man, slightly older than him, wearing a dark green uniform and crouching over him.
“You’re going to be fine, Oliver. You had a car accident, but….”
“My wife…my son, are they alright?” Oliver interrupted.
”They’re OK, you took the brunt of it. But relax now, we got to you in time. For a while there I thought the Reaper was going to get you for sure, I won’t lie to you. Had to use the paddles three times, and an adrenaline shot, and then try and kick-start your heart manually, but you evidently decided to come back to us.”
Oliver smiled to himself and closed his eyes, enjoying the noise and sounds of the world around him. Even the pain he felt was welcome. Anything was better than that cold, empty darkness.
“You made it, mate.” The ambulance driver assured him again. “You made it.”
#
[bctt tweet=”OCTOBER TERROR 2018 Short Story Award – Entry #23 ‘AC43R0N’ by Lex H Jones – Enjoy all this terrific, disturbing material you have in your hands, lots of horror stories at your disposal for your dark delight and vote!” username=”theboldmom”]
On October 23rd we’ll close submissions and open a poll for the readers to choose their favourite one! You’ll have a week to make your choice and on October 31st we’ll announce the winner!!!
