by Jim McKenna
“Is it? You see the truck?”
“No. Try to find an entrance.”
The truck slowed even more and they both sorted out the layout of the place. There was a big building in the center of the lot, with canopies on either side indicating where fuel pumps would be. Danny found the entrance and made to turn in when they saw the heavy chain stretched across the lanes. Danny stopped. Brad peered into the darkness of the lot. On the opposite side of the truck stop past the fuel lines was a metal building, probably a small repair and tire shop. Beyond that against a back fence Brad spied a semi.
“I see it,” Brad told Danny. “Give me that flashlight on the door.”
“Whatcha gonna do?”
Brad gripped the long four cell light and opened the door. “If that truck’s here it has to get in somehow. So I’ll check this chain and look for another entrance if we need it.” With that he jumped out and walked to the chain barrier. Immediately he saw the chain was not locked in place. Quickly he lifted the link off the hook and the heavy chain dropped to the pavement. Danny rolled over and into the lot, and Brad climbed back in the truck.
Danny pulled up next to the other truck and killed the engine. The world went deathly quiet. The two opened the doors and climbed out. Brad looked around, sweeping the flashlight into the far places of the lot. “This is creepy,” he said.
“Hell yeah,” Danny said.
They walked to the abandoned truck, Danny fishing the keys given to him by Eric from his pocket. He tried the door and it opened, already unlocked. Danny looked at Brad and shrugged. Interior lights came on with the door, so it wasn’t dead. Danny stepped aside and gestured to Brad to climb in. “Ladies first,” he said.
Brad climbed into the driver seat. The dashboard was a mess of coffee stains and greasy fingerprints. Cubbyholes all over the cab were stuffed with papers and junk. On the floor of the passenger seat Brad saw a bunch of yellow paper that looked like the freight bills they had for their current load. Wedged behind the seat was a typewriter. That wasn’t right. It sent a trickle of fear down Brad’s spine.
“What is it?” Danny asked from below. Brad said nothing. He rose from the seat and opened the berth curtain after switching on the overhead light from the dashboard. The sleeper berth was filthy. There were no sheets on the stained mattress, just a few torn and stained blankets, and a lumpy, greasy pillow. Clothes were piled on the floor, and to Brad it looked like someone had been sleeping on them instead of on the bed. There was a reek of oily sweat and musk and greasy food. Litter and debris were packed into every corner.
“You’re going to have to clean the shit out of this thing,” Brad called down. Danny didn’t reply. Brad looked closer at the padded walls of the sleeper berth. There were pencil drawings everywhere. Strange circles and lines, and what looked like stick figures with long hair and sharp teeth.
Brad wanted out of there fast. He climbed out and could see Danny’s light at the back of the trailer. He jogged over to him just as Danny pulled the latch and opened the door. They both shown their lights inside. Straw covered the floor like the bedding of a hamster cage. Four large bins made of heavy plastic lie on their sides, the bottoms had what looked like blankets or bedding. To Brad they looked like dog kennels.
Brad was about to say something. He was about to express in words the fear that had built steadily since they stopped here and was now reaching a great height within him, when Danny grabbed his arm. “Brad,” he hissed. “Who is that?” He was turned from the truck and staring down the fence line. Brad turned to and raised his flashlight.
7.
They were spread out from the fence, each many feet from the other. They all crept forward swaying and bobbing, moving their hips from side to side with a kind of exaggerated sexuality. There were seven women, eight maybe or even more. They were all bony thin, with ugly sallow skin stretched tight across their arms and faces. Their hair was dirty and matted. They wore trashy biker-type clothes, with a lot of metal band logos, ripped jeans and boots. Some were barefoot and their claws scraped at the asphalt.
Claws .
The eyes were feral, the faces grinning and mocking. Sharp teeth protruded from their mouths and they drooled and slavered. Their hands ended in long scaly fingers and curved reptilian claws. Their voices were like a rasps on rusted iron.
“Hey baby.”
“We been waiting.”
“Wanna party?”
And they cackled and they laughed and they crouched, and when Danny screamed and ran they charged at both of them.
Many raced past Brad going after Danny, and Brad turned to face the rest. They came in quick and one lunged at him. He brought the flashlight down on her head. Another charged and he swung at her. A third moved in and Brad saw that she wore no shirt, and her breasts were flat empty sacks and there were iguana spines sprouting from her back. Brad jumped back from this one and grabbed the trailer door and swung it hard. The door slammed into her and kept going and the others backed off, and run turned to run.
He saw Danny bent over and screaming, with two of the lizards up on his back biting at his head. He ran towards them shouting and another charged at him. He swung the flashlight and connected hard with her head and her neck rocked to the side. She screamed and Brad hit her again and she fell.
And just then two of them crashed into him from behind and he hit the ground, but rolled out of the way fast and got to his feet. Danny was on the ground now and he was screaming, his cries sounded wet and clogged. Four of the lizards were on him and Brad had more to face alone. One with dirty blonde hair and an Iron Maiden tank top charged him, whipping at him with her filthy claws. He ducked and parried and then pushed her with his left hand and swung the flashlight with his right. The blow crushed her mouth and she fell, and the flashlight winked out.
Brad was too far from the truck to get there before them, and he saw in the distance the metal outbuilding that had once been a garage. He turned and sprinted fast across the lot, and several of them followed, screaming like cats. He made out a door in the side of the building and charged for it. The closer he got the more he could see that blessedly the door was open a little. He leapt at the door and kicked it hard as he charged through, then turned and slammed it shut. Bracing the door he felt for a latch and found a deadbolt, it was stiff but he twisted it home just as the first body crashed into the opposite side. It would hold, Brad knew. And he backed away from the door and sank to his knees, gasping for breath.
8.
Fear clenched every muscle in his body. He panted hard and tasted adrenaline in his breath. He could hear the women, the lizards, clawing at the metal door. He heard their voices titter and cackle, and he knew he was trapped.
This was no accident, he thought. This was planned. They were sent here. The yellow bills in the abandoned truck. The black trailers. What did that mean? Wheatley Trucking did this to them, but what did they do? What were these monsters? It was all too much for him, and Brad tried to get himself centered and focused. He had to do something but what that something was he had no idea.
He still gripped the heavy flashlight. He started fumbling with it in the darkness, and after taking it apart with trembling hands and putting it back together he saw that it worked, but only a little bit. Good. That was a start. He shone the light around the room. Empty cardboards boxes lie here and there along with some dented metal shelving and other cast offs. There was another door on the far side of the room, and Brad reckoned it opened into the covered repair area. Maybe he could slip out of there undetected. Brad decided on a plan, but it wasn’t a good one to him. He would sit still and listen, and when the monsters were all in one place by one door he would try and sneak out the other and make for his truck. Yeah, it sucked, but just having a plan calmed him some. He let the little bit of control over an impossible position lift him up a little. Then he heard a sound from inside the room.
It was a growling. It was a growl like an angry cat.
Brad didn’t lea
p up. He didn’t scream though he wanted to. Instead he rose slowly and turned, and in a half crouch brought the flashlight up and the beam reflected back from two bright eyes.
It charged him with a growl and he fell back. It was moving low along the ground and fast. He thought he heard the hissing of breath and the snapping of teeth. He jumped and ran and still it came across the room at him. His mind collated what he was seeing and he knew this was no she-beast.
The badger charged him and sank razor teeth into his leg. Brad screamed and kicked his leg but the badger held on. The sounds excited the women outside and they screamed and clawed the front door again. Brad clubbed the furry animal with the flashlight and it let go, but still it attacked. Kicking at it with his foot and dragging it when it tried to run up his leg, Brad staggered towards the back door.
He reached it and flung it open, then tripped and fell going through. The badger climbed his body and went for this throat. Brad dropped the light and grabbed the badger with both hands, trying to pull it from his chest. He rose to his feet still fighting with it, his hand bitten and bleeding. Then the ground went out from under him and he fell.
Brad and the badger landed at the bottom of the grease pit, a long deep space in the concrete for mechanics to work on trucks parked above. Brad slammed his head on the concrete going down and saw stars, and with his head reeling he continued to fight the badger. Finally he threw it into the darkness across the pit and heard it thud into the far wall. Brad braced himself for the little beast to gather up for another assault, when he was hit from behind by a lizard diving into the pit on top of him.
She fell on top of him and he twisted around, wrenching her head away by her hair. She snapped her teeth in his face and her breath was rank and meaty. He pulled hard on her hair again and her neck was pulled back far, and the badger charged straight over Brad’s face and bit hard into the lizard’s throat. She screamed and thrashed. Blood sprayed. Brad wriggled out from under them both and climbed out of the pit, his entire body burning with pain.
He ran towards the trucks. The lizards ran after him, then slowed. Brad continued to run and he looked back to see where they were, and instead saw a cluster of headlights approaching through the full pumps towards him.
9.
Motorcycles. About a dozen of them. Brad limped to a stop and waved his arms for help. He saw the lead man wave back and all the bikes accelerated towards him. Soon the bikes surrounded him and the men dismounted, each with either a gun or a club. The monsters stayed back, and watched the bikers carefully from a distance, growling and spitting.
It was a biker gang, that much Brad knew since they all wore cuts with the same design on them. A tall muscular blonde man with a beard walked up to him. “You okay?” he asked.
“No! Fuck no, no!” Brad said. “Those women… They’re not… They attacked us… Kill them! Holy fuck, kill them!”
The man grabbed Brad by the shoulders and shook him. Some of the bikers had lights and shown them on his face and body. He was cut all over and bleeding from a dozen places. His hands were torn up badly. The blonde man grabbed his head in his big hands and fixed his eyes on Brad’s.
“Listen, okay? Calm down and listen. You’re okay. Sorry we weren’t here. But you need to get it together now. You’re safe.”
“Safe? I’m safe?” Brad looked around. The lot lizards remained at a distance from them. A few were looking on now, silently. Four of them were gathered at Danny’s horribly gutted body, feasting like hyenas. One was farther away on her knees, eating the badger.
The blonde biker shouted some commands and then Brad was walked staggering to the door of his truck. They sat him on the step and they started working on him. They had the manner of EMTs at an accident. His clothes were cut off and he felt wet cloths and stinging medicine being applied to his injuries. He felt himself drifting off and then he was shaken awake, and a bottle of whiskey was pressed to his lips and he drank. They talked to each other but he could not make out who was speaking. It was just random voices and faces appearing then vanishing in front of him.
“Those hands look bad.”
“Have to be stitched.”
“Better hope that thing didn’t have rabies.”
“The daughters? They don’t.”
“No, dumb fuck. The badger.”
Daughters .
The word throbbed in his mind as more and more he came to. He was wiped down with towels and helped up and he felt better, standing there in the dark abandoned truck stop, surrounded by bikers, naked except for his socks.
The blonde man came to him and smiled a grim smile. “You look better, my man,” he said. He turned and walked towards the back of the truck, and Brad was helped along behind him. The bikers formed a semicircle around the trailer doors. The leader and Brad stood in front.
“The other trucker, the one before, he’s dead. I don’t know what happened but we found him a couple days ago in a stream near here. He was a good trucker, and he’ll be missed.”
“Driver.” Brad mumbled.
“How’s that?”
“We call each other drivers.”
The man smiled a little. “Fair enough, driver.” Brad looked into the man’s eyes. They were soft and blue. He wanted to trust them. He wanted to trust in anything.
“Wheatley Trucking has had the contract for years, driver,” he said. “They provide the trucks and driver, and we take care of the rest. You’ll know how it all works soon enough.”
Brad looked at him, to uncomprehending to speak. He couldn’t understand what was happening.
“I don’t know much about you, Brad. But I know you’re the right guy. No family, no friends, and you live on the road. You’re perfect for her.”
“H-h-her?”
“Yes. Mother will be pleased.” With that he turned and with a key he took from his cut pocket he unlocked the padlock, broke the seal and opened the door. Both doors were pulled back and Brad was left there alone as everyone else backed away.
Brad stared into the dark trailer. Wood chips and straw covered the floor in a thick blanket. A huge wooden box sat in the center of the space, and something was emerging from the top. The shape came over the top of the box and walked slowly towards him. Lights came on and aimed within, and the shape became clearer and he saw her.
She was tall and her body built strong. She was nude and her skin was reddish bronze. Her large breasts with black nipples jiggled as she walked but every other part of her was toned and firm. She had wide hips and long muscled thighs, and graceful calves that ended in slender, clawed feet. Her raven hair hung in a shining cape all the way to her knees. She walked to the end of the truck and stared down at him with a face at once horrible and kind, and there was a sparkle of green in her otherwise totally black eyes. Her blood red lips were ripe and full, and her needle teeth white as stars.
Brad gazed up at her, adoring her. She stared into his eyes and he felt his soul lifted up into those eyes and carried into the darkness. And he let himself go. He smelled her with every breath and he could smell every part of her. Her salty skin, her sweet breath, the oil in her hair, the musk of her sex. All the scents mixed and gathered into a perfume that made him high, made him whole. Tears streamed down his face as he stared up at her. His muscles quivered, his cock stood fully erect. He loved her smile, her neck, her hair, and he thirsted for the glistening drops of milk that rained from her nipples.
She came out of the trailer and stood before him. “My baby,” she said, and her voice was every song he’d ever heard. “My baby boy.”
She came to him and touched him and he came hard, his cum splashing hot on her thighs and belly. She laughed softly and gathered some on her finger and sucked it, purring.
“My Bradley makes a wonderful gift,” she purred. “Come to me.”
In the surrounding darkness the daughters mewed like kittens. The bikers stood scared and dumbfounded. Mother wrapped Brad in her arms and held him, and he wept, releasing everything inside
of him out to her forever.
“Mommy loves her baby boy,” she cooed. “Do you love Mommy?”
“Yes.”
“Yeeessssss. I missed my baby boy. I love my baby boy so much.” She gently pushed his head down to her breast. He suckled at her and filled himself with her hot milk, and Mommy leaned back her head, staring up at the stars, and smiled.
10.
Brad sat on a bench by the door, looking out over the fuel islands. Above him little flakes of new snow drifted through the lights. There wasn't enough to stick now but it would start accumulating as the night wore on. He pulled another slice of lunch meat out of the package and folded it into his mouth. The biker found him there and sat next to him. He smelled of cigarettes and engines.
“Dude you need to eat more of that. You’ve lost a lot of weight.”
“Yeah.”
“We got the last one in,” Biker said.
Brad nodded. “Where was she?”
“Down two exits. Looks like she got hold of a homeless dude. We found a pack. Maybe he had a dog, too. That a new jacket?”
“Yeah.”
“Packers fan, eh?” He smiled and dug a smoke from his cut pocket.
Brad pulled the last of the meat from the package and pushed the empty plastic into the pocket of his green and yellow winter coat. “This is Wisconsin. They have Packers gear here.” From the other pocket he pulled a yellow sheet of paper and held it up for Biker to read.
“Houston? Well okay. Call the southern boys once you get past St. Louis if you need anything. We don’t go down that far.”
“I know.”
“So ummm…” Biker said, “I was gonna ask how is She?”
Brad frowned at him. “What?”
Biker coughed. “Well, She’s here right? Can I, you know, see Her?”
“No, you can’t see Her. You don’t want that.”
Biker blew a cone of smoke into the frigid air. The cigarette was mashed a bit from the ride in his vest. “This chick I’m seeing is one of those witchy types. You know, black hair and nails, dresses all goth, does naked ceremonies. Satanic bitches are the best. so here she is saying she's connected to the mother spirit or Lilith or whatever, and the whole time her old man’s tapped into the real thing, you know? the real fucking thing. And I heard from Paul, you know Paul right? From Boston? Paul says he saw Her up in Maine and that She’s smoking hot and evil. Like a fucking badass tattoo!”