18 Wheels of Horror

by Eric Miller

  Then everything spun out of control.

  ***

  Hayward stood from the wreckage with a groan and stumbled away. In a daze, he tripped around the debris, trying to get his bearings. The truck was in a heap and he knew it would be a total loss. This wasn’t a company rig. He worked for years so that he could own it. With only a few months left until it was paid off, this one hurt him to the core.

  He slowly put it all together and took in his surroundings. The dark woods. The steep hill in front of him. The graveled edges of the road above. The moaning gossamer woman with bleeding eyes shuffling toward him with her arms outstretched.

  Hayward yelped and turned away. He was surrounded on all sides by them. Twenty or more by his count. Men, women, children, and even what looked like a wiener dog. All translucent and milky white, save for patches of crimson that shone bright in the moonlight. Some were missing body parts. Others were contorted and had car parts sticking out of here and there. And they all glided over the wooded floor toward him, moaning blood.

  Hayward screamed as he tried to scale the hill leading to the road. He couldn’t get his footing and only understood why when he looked down. His ankle was fully twisted around so his boot pointed behind him. He gulped as the blood-dribbling ghouls glided toward him.

  Above, he heard a low, constant thumping sound approaching. Then he saw the lights cutting through the darkness overhead. Somebody was coming. Normally, he hated those kids who played their music with the bass thumping so loud it shook the neighborhood into incontinence, but he had never heard anything as welcome as this. He clawed at the ground, digging his fingers into the dirt. He slowly worked his way up the hill.

  Hayward crested the top and managed himself to his feet along the side of the road. He saw the lights skimming through the trees and knew that the oncoming music fan was just around the nearest turn.

  He turned his eye-popping gaze down the hill. Some of the ghouls waited below, their dead eyes boring into him. Others floated listlessly toward him. The wiener dog spun in a circle.

  The pounding beat was getting louder. He looked back to the road and started waving his hands above his head. He saw the car coming straight at him. They couldn’t miss him.

  “Hey! Help me! Hey there!”

  The driver of the car, a young kid with a funny haircut, looked right at him.

  “Right ‘chere! Help me!”

  The kid’s mouth opened wide and red brake lights illuminated the road behind him. The passenger, a pretty girl with wild hair, was also looking straight at Hayward with disbelief. She leaned into the back seat.

  Hayward limped toward the car. “We gotta get outta here. Scary shit’s on the way.”

  The boy’s mouth was agape. He stared at Hayward with saucer eyes. The girl nudged him and hollered. He threw something hard and fast out the window and the car peeled away.

  Hayward heard the screams as he watched the flung object coming straight at him. He raised his forearm to block it, but it went straight through it, creating a puff of smoke as it exited and went through his entire body.

  He heard the slap as the thing hit the road behind him. He turned to it and recognized it immediately as a tenderloin steak and licked his lips.

  He looked to the edge of the road. The damned were upon him, circling him, but they weren’t after his blood or soul. They were welcoming him into eternity.

  “Dang.”

  After attending the private Christian college John Brown University with thoughts of entering the ministry, Del Howison dropped out and backslid all the way to starting, with his wife Sue, the most famous horror store in America, Dark Delicacies. He edited the acclaimed horror anthology series Dark Delicacies as well as Midian Unmade, Tales of Clive Barker’s Nightbreed. His story The Last Great Monster appeared in the horror anthology Hell Comes To Hollywood II. Del has been awarded the Bram Stoker award from the Horror Writers Association and the Il Posto Nero Award from Italy.

  LUCKY

  Del Howison

  “…wind moaned beyond my room as if a million pipes played the air.”

  —Patricia Cornwell

  IT WAS TO BE A SHORT but annoying trip in shitty weather. It always was short and mostly annoying when you’re running empty in one direction. The shitty weather was only an added bonus. This was a drop and hook run with the deadhead she was hauling for free in exchange for a supposedly preloaded double-tiered livestock trailer moving hogs south out of Indiana to a Tennessee packing plant.

  She’d read something once that said if you lined up semi trucks with the amount of grain it takes to feed Indiana’s pigs in a year they would stretch from Indianapolis to Disney World. She believed it. There were a lot of hogs in Indiana.

  Ray didn’t much care for moving livestock. She’d done it a few times before. The shifting of the animals, the noise, the smell, plus it made her feel a little strange. She was a meat eater but loved animals. She had a hard enough time joining those two ideas in her mind without taking them to slaughter. Hauling them in weather like this was even worse than putting up with the summer smells. The freezing cold would rush through the metal grid work of the trailer with a nasty wind chill. Every time she’d arrived at the processing plant in the winter there would be a few animals frozen alive to the metal walls. The workers would come out with tools and pry the pigs loose while they squealed and squirmed to get away. On several occasions they would rip themselves out of their skins in the process.

  She never would have taken this run except for the fact that she had not had a run in a couple of weeks, rent was coming due, and the cupboards were feeling a little bare. She was lucky to have gotten the job no matter how shitty it was. She had been lucky her whole life. Not big lucky but lucky enough. Always getting by when things seemed at their darkest, like this crap run when she was desperate for money. If Cullen would get off his fat ass and find a job things wouldn’t be so tight.

  When money was absent the fighting at home grew worse than it normally was. Maybe the break of being on the road would calm things down. Cullen had called her every fifteen minutes since she’d left, probably to bitch. She never picked up. The idea was to get away for a couple of days and let things calm down. She’d let her voice mail pick it up. With the battery running down from the constant ringing Rachel plugged her phone in and turned the ringer to vibrate. She took the last swig of cabin-temperature coffee and set the empty cup back in the holder.

  The wind was spinning the snow around so hard that it appeared to be falling horizontally. The trailer bounced and swerved behind her, yanking the rig from side to side. Without any weight in the trailer she had to keep her speed down just to stay on the interstate. She was only about 50 miles out from her pick-up dock but at this rate she would never make it before they closed the gates. She grabbed the radio mike and double keyed it before speaking.

  “Hey boys, any of you still in dispatch?”

  She was met with the same kind of snow on the radio as she was looking at outside. She keyed it again.

  “Hey, Pacer Trucking. Anybody there? This is Ray coming at you from the blizzard in Indiana. I’m northbound on the 69 just south of the Marion exit. Todd? Hello?”

  Nothing. The storm seemed to be screwing everything up. She’d try again later but in front of her she could see the bubblegum lights of a police car flashing. She hung the mike back on the radio and downshifted. Even picking up that small amount of drag made the trailer swim and flutter as she slowed it all down to a crawl. Rachel could see the running lights of a couple of other rigs in front of her along with another couple of cop cars. There was an officer walking through the snow toward her with both hands up, palms flat, telling her to slow it down and stop.

  She pulled up to him and brought the truck to a standstill. Ray rolled down the window and the officer stepped up on her running board. He wiped snow from his eyes and started to say something, then turned and stepped back down onto the snow. He started waving somebody through when an ambulance,
lights and sirens cutting through the snow, drove past him and on down the road in the direction Ray was headed. The cop stepped back up to her window.

  “Yes sir?”

  “You can see what these conditions are like. You’ve got a layer of ice under a layer of snow. We’ve closed the highway at the next interchange. Too dangerous. You’re going to have to wait there until morning. Then we’ll see where we stand. How are you on fuel?”

  Rachel glanced down at the dashboard.

  “I’m good for the night,” she said.

  “It’s zero out right now and expected to drop another ten degrees during the night. With this wind the chill it should be about thirty below. You’ll need the heat blasting all night.”

  He glanced in the cab.

  “Hope you’ve got something to eat. The truck stop at the interchange won’t be open until about 5:00 in the morning and that’s if the crew can get in to work.”

  He started to turn away when he thought of something and turned back to the window.

  “Do us all a favor and stay away from the pumps when you pull into Squire’s. There will be plenty of drivers needing to fuel up first thing in the morning. There is plenty of flat lot space down the sides and around the back of the restaurant. Pick anywhere there you want to camp on.”

  “No problem officer.”

  Rachel smiled at him.

  “I’ll just snuggle down in the cab with the heater and catch some sleep.”

  He looked her over one last time.

  “You do that,” he said and jumped down from the truck, waving her on.

  As she rolled up the window she could see him slowing down the next truck. I wouldn’t want that job, she thought with a shudder. Even with the heater blasting, having the window open just that short time gave her the chills. She started driving toward the interchange. The wheels slipped and then grabbed on the ice-covered highway but she gradually picked up a little momentum. She wanted to make the off-ramp incline without any problems. Hopefully there wouldn’t be any stopping at the top of the ramp as she didn’t have chains on. The road was becoming slipperier by the moment. Loose snow that was drifting across the roadway wasn’t helping things either. Her empty trailer bounced about, sitting on top of the snow.

  The cell phone buzzed. She didn’t even bother looking at the screen. She knew who was calling. This was a good night to just cool off and try to get beyond the fighting. Ray reached over to where the phone sat and pulled it out. She tapped the button and the screen shut down. She laid it back on her passenger seat.

  “Tomorrow,” she said. “Tomorrow.”

  Through the snow and steamed windshield she could see the red and yellow running lights of the trucks that had already managed to find their way to Squire’s Truck Stop off to her left. Ray would have to climb the off-ramp and then make a turn at the top cresting the bridge all without stopping. If she had to stop for any reason she may not be able to get the rig rolling again unless she backed all the way back down the ramp and had another running start. Not a good idea. She glanced at her side mirror to see how far behind her the next truck was. The headlights didn’t seem to be moving. It was probably still stopped, talking to the cop.

  Ray pressed down on the accelerator, allowing her some more speed. Too much of a punch and her trailer would swing around and pull her off the road. Then she’d be fucked. The back end bounced and bucked but held the road. The snow came out of the darkening sky in big handfuls of white like badly made snowballs. The wipers merely piled the snow in long thickening strips on each side of her blurry windshield. Despite the defrosters working full blast the steaming and icing of the glass threatened to take away all of her vision. She kept wiping at the inside of it with her gloved hand.

  She gambled and pushed the accelerator a little more, swearing and fighting to control the truck. A white arrow on a sign with a green background almost obscured by the snow stuck to it suddenly loomed to her right. She had almost overshot the ramp. There were only seconds. Ray swerved, trying not to jerk the wheel.

  “Easy, Goddamit!”

  The ramp rose to her right and she had to get over even further. The vibrations from her tires changed up and she knew she had slipped off the asphalt and was thumping over the gravel and frozen grass. She needed to get over as the truck attempted to climb the ramp. The trailer was dragging her left toward the snow-choked embankment. She would certainly be stuck. She might even roll over. It was now or never. She yanked the wheel to the right and as soon as she hit what she felt was the ramp swung it back to the left. The trailer bounced and tried to pull her nearer the slope. She was gone and she knew it. At the last moment the side of the rig’s rubber hit the reflector rail. The force bounced the empty trailer straight behind her as she headed up the ramp. It all happened in a blurred frenzy of slow motion.

  “Fuuuuuck.”

  Ray made the top of the ramp and swung the cab to the left. The trailer stayed with her and together they crested the bridge. On the other side of the highway she pulled into the truck stop and swung around past all the sitting dinosaurs to the back corner of the lot, pulled the brake and stopped dead. She dropped her head on the steering wheel and took a deep breath. She had always been lucky.

  “Well, that was a Kansas City shuffle.”

  Rachel grabbed a cigarette out of the pack and lit it up. A couple of deep drags slowed down her pounding heart and she stared out the windshield at the driving snow wondering why she was here instead of at the bottom of the embankment in a bunch of twisted steel. Luck.

  It was a white sheet in front of her headlights covering a mattress of ice. She blew out a long cloud of smoke. The trailer tire would have to be checked to make sure she hadn’t busted the bead. Even though she wasn’t a fan of sub-zero temperatures it was better to check it now than in the morning. The same temperature always felt colder in the morning when she was just getting up. Awakening to a flat tire would suck.

  Trying to find a reason to stall opening the cab door Ray picked the cell up off the floor where it had bounced and turned it back on. It was still working. As it lit up it bleeped three missed calls. Cullen was tenacious if nothing else. Ray plugged the charger adaptor cord that had pulled loose back into the phone. She had a feeling that whenever it was that she decided to call Cullen it was going to be a long conversation. She’d better be fully charged up and ready for it.

  Gloves on, head tucked in under her hood and coat buttoned tight, she was as ready as she was going get. She took the flashlight from the toolbox on the floor, checked the beam and put her shoulder to the door. It shoved open into the breath-snatching blizzard. The snow pushed past her into the cab as the vacuum that opening the door created sucked out all of the heat. Ray’s feet hit the ground, shot out from under her and she landed hard on the icy turf. Getting back up was difficult what with the bumpy, glacial ground and the icy wind which threatened to take her back down at any instant. She stood back up, grabbing at the truck for balance. Then hand-over-hand she leaned against the trailer and made her way down to the rear wheels.

  When she arrived Ray bent down at the trailer tire. She was shaking with pain but able to pull off her glove. Her flashlight shone on the wheel and she ran her fingers along the edge where the rubber and metal met to make sure she hadn’t popped a tire. It seemed smooth, tight. The rubber tire must have slammed against the guard rail and bounced the truck back onto the exit ramp. She could feel the indentation in the rim but it hadn’t popped the tire. Damn lucky break. She lowered the light and looked how the tire sat on the snow. It appeared fully inflated.

  Slipping her fingers back into the glove she pulled it down tight over her hand with her teeth. Then, mimicking her previous trip down the trailer, Ray made her way back up to the cab. It took several tries against the wind but the cab door finally pulled opened and she flung herself inside. Reaching back she slammed the door.

  Ray grimaced as she tried to find a comfortable way to sit in the driver’s seat. It had been a
damn good whop on her tailbone but she didn’t think anything was broken. There would be one hell of a bruise come morning.

  Great, she thought. Bruised, stiff, and cold at the loading dock in the morning. I can hardly wait.

  As the trooper had mentioned, Squire’s Truck Stop was closed so there was no getting something warm from them. She had her cooler, some energy bars and a pillow. Ray decided to hunker down and make the best of it. She only wished that she could pee out of her cab while sitting sideways in the seat with the door open like the male truckers. She could make it until early morning when the Stop opened. There was no way she was going to crouch in that weather. The wind would probably blow it back over her anyway.

  Stripping off her gloves she held her fingers in front of the blowing heater to warm them and noticed she had missed another call while she’d been out checking the tires. Ray took two aspirins in hopes of waylaying the pain in her backside by morning. She knew it was probably a futile gesture. After fiddling around with the knob and not surprisingly discovering there wasn’t much to pick up on her radio she decided to just click it off and settle in for some sleep. The truck was rocking her to sleep as the blasts continued their relentless buffeting. Like a baby, she drifted off to dreams of Cullen asking for forgiveness for arguing with her.

  ***

  The lot was still shrouded in darkness when she jerked awake. The mellifluent outcry of the wind gusting against her empty trailer rose and lowered in volume as it pummeled the truck. The rig seemed to shudder and then settle back to brace itself against the next onslaught. Ray touched her phone and the digital display told her she had a half hour before the truck stop was due to open. She smoked another cigarette. From where she sat she couldn’t see the front of the building. Ray had to pee. She needed to pull around toward the front so she could tell when the morning crew arrived. She unplugged the cell phone and slipped it in the front pocket of her coat, then sat up straight and prepared to drive up around the side of the building.