Death Highway

by J C Walsh

  I should be excited. Jack and his dad have repaired my car to almost the exact way I had it before the accident. But instead of inhaling the new car smell, and enjoying this moment of reuniting with Midnight Beauty, I break into an intense sweat. I nearly hyperventilate, and still I continue to fight against it. I place my hands on the steering wheel.

  I see fire. I smell burning flesh as it melds to leather. The sound of twisting metal fills my ears, and the panicked cries for help. My arms catch fire. There’s a face peering up at me from the flames; the flesh falls off as his mouth opens in an eternal scream before the explosion rocks my brain. I jump out of the car screaming.

  I keel over, hands on my knees and take deep breaths. I finally calm down and look over at Jack. His face is solemn; there’s something in his eyes that says he half expected my reaction.

  “Yeah, I had a feeling that was going to happen. I mean, shit dude, when was the last time you were in the car since the accident? Never, right?”

  “I don’t have time for this,” I say, frustration in my voice.

  Jack gets in the driver seat and turns the key. Midnight Beauty roars to life. Despite the attack, her idling purr relaxes me.

  “Come on,” Jack says, “I’ll drive us to Alex’s apartment. Hopefully, it’ll help.”

  When I get in the passenger seat, it’s not as bad. The anxiety is there only because I am in the car, but I’m not driving. How the hell am I going to go to Death Highway when I can’t even drive my car without seeing images of the accident, like I am reliving the whole thing again? Hopefully, jumping realities will help dissipate that part of me.

  Jack pulls the muscle car out of the back lot and to the front. He turns left onto the street, once he drives through the open fence. I can’t help but think about the visions, something was different. When I was reaching for Cody to save him in my head, he wasn’t reaching out to be saved, he was reaching out to pull me in.

  5.

  Jack wastes no time once we pull out of the body shop. He brings the car onto Roger Williams Boulevard, but he doesn’t drive off yet. Midnight Beauty idles, I find her predatory purr relaxing me even more. He steps on the accelerator and revs the engine. She roars to life. He revs it a couple more times.

  He looks over at me and smiles. I know that malicious smile, “I got something that’ll cure your anxiety.” He steps on the peddle again, relishing the sound as he’s revving the engine. I find myself relishing it all over again, as well.

  He’s working the shifter and the clutch, and, within seconds, we reach fast speeds. I sink into my seat as Midnight Beauty charges forward, the screeching tires echo throughout the abandoned street. It’s almost a territorial sound.

  We are quickly approaching the stop sign. He looks over at me and smiles. “You know, I had a dream I died at that intersection, driving too fast?”

  I raise my eyebrow. “Really?”

  He smiles at me before he accelerates the car.

  Once the front of Midnight Beauty crosses the intersection, the car lifts off the ground and sails through the air before landing. The suspension bounces around a bit, but nothing that would cause any damage. Jack continues at high speeds until we reach an overpass up ahead. He slows down to the normal speed limit.

  “Hell yeah!” he screams, “That felt good.”

  It did. Any anxiety I had been feeling seems to slowly get left behind in the dust. Especially after that little stunt; my adrenaline is pumping. I haven’t felt this alive in a long time. It feels has if the blurriness of this world is fading, leaving me clear headed. Then I start to think about Alex, worried about the state he might be in.

  “His addiction is killing him,” Jack says

  “You know about that, too?” I ask, this new world is strange and full of surprises.

  “I see a lot of weird shit, Randy.” Something in his voice has changed. The thrill seeker now gone, his voice sounds haunted. “Ever since that day we were all in the hospital visiting you, we’ve all started experiencing weird shit. Then one day you grab a hold of me, the pain had gotten to you bad, and you said something like, ‘It’s coming. The Red Plane is coming; you need to prepare.’”

  “And we did,” Jack continues, “And since then, over the past couple years, the crew has begun to slowly split from each other. I think that is happening because of the convergence of the place you told us about. I keep seeing you, and you kept telling me more things about it.”

  “Shit. I don’t remember any of this. Maybe bits and pieces, but only in dreams.”

  “Well, I mean you were supposed to be in a coma, Randy. But you got out of it and you were somewhere else. But because of what happened, Alex immediately turned to drugs, and Will is somewhere in the woods. He started playing commando after his paranoia got worse. You know how he is, being a conspiracy freak and all.”

  “Then,” Jack continues, “After all of this, I began seeing my deaths. The other versions of me dying, either from a race gone bad, like you, or just some freak accident. I’ve seen my father die, many times.”

  “What? I’m sorry you have to experience that,” I say.

  “It happens a lot. I can’t tell if it’s a warning, or if it’s other version of him dying the same way just to torment me. Then there’re the things I’ve seen, what people are turning into.” He grows silent, but only for a short amount of time, “We didn’t even bother selling the shop. Nobody came. You see the roads; there’s never anyone driving anymore. They walk around, confused and angry. So, we moved to our cabin in New Hampshire, until I had a dream you were out. I got dressed, said bye to dad and walked into the woods. Found you at the shop.”

  “You jumped realties?”

  “Yeah, there was some tunnel, just there, swirling between trees, craziest shit I ever seen. I trusted it because, well since that day you grabbed my arm, I just started knowing things. I think all of us know a little something about what is happening since then.”

  This is exhausting. Even with my own understanding, I still don’t know how it is I became what I am. Was it the statue? Was the Red Plane slowly making its merge when I got into the accident? What about the city of Providence and our little town Blackmore, what makes both places a target for the other dimension?

  We grow silent. I am not a fan of silence; I fight the urge to turn on the radio or listen to a disc in the CD player. Some heavy metal would be great right about now.

  Jack pulls up to the building Alex’s apartment is located in. His eyes are wide when he sees the building is doing strange things, things a building shouldn’t be doing. I’ve already seen this with my own home, but the house was alive with my own memories, good and bad. This building is a breeding ground of bad things. The building isn’t breathing, or swaying back and forth, it’s squirming. Parts of the building are moving around like there are things crawling all over it.

  “We have to go in there?” Jack asks, his face has gone white.

  “Yep.” I don’t want to wait any longer. I get out of the car. I check the cylinder of my snub nose; its full of all six bullets. Reloads are in the pocket of my leather jacket.

  Jack double checks the clip of his hand gun. He nods to me; he’s good to go.

  We take our time climbing the stairs that line the outside of the apartments. On each floor, the walls are squirming with whatever has infected the building and its occupants. I make sure not to touch or go anywhere near any of the moving shapes. They are not aware of us, so it seems, but still we make sure not to run. Alex’s apartment is on the third floor; we continue down the walkway, guns drawn. On the right, there are patio tables and a set of chairs for each one. On the left, we pass the apartments, four doors down we reach Alex’s.

  I reach for the door handle and look to Jack, who has grown two more shades of white; the fear is transparent. I don’t blame him, I’m afraid as well. There is something sinister about this building and the things in it that give me a more insidious feeling than anything I’ve encountered so far. Jack
nods for me to go ahead. I turn the handle, it’s unlocked. I freeze as the door creaks open. I nearly scream when I see what’s inside, what has become of Alex’s apartment.

  There’s spider webbing everywhere, large amounts covering the walls, making the furniture non-existent. The things crawling all over the building, their shapes are more present in this room, less like the illusions we have seen all over the building. One scurries over the ceiling and goes into a different room in the apartment.

  “Let’s go,” I whisper.

  Jack groans, but follows anyway, staying close behind.

  The apartment has a strange smell to it, the putrid scent is nearly intoxicating. On the far side of the apartment and to our right, there is a cocooned shape. I can tell by the legs and arms that it is a human being. I scan for the face.

  “It’s Alex.”

  “Are you sure?” Jack whispers, his eyes move around wildly, searching the ceiling for any of the creatures responsible for the webbing.

  “Yes.” I hiss. I touch the webbing that is holding him up against the wall. It feels strange as I rub it between my fingers. The sliver strings start to disintegrate, melting into a brownish color. The smell from earlier is now stronger, like something burning in tinfoil; my head feels light.

  I remember how I was affected by the Red Plane and what Jack told me about Alex and his growing addiction.

  “Don’t touch the web.” I hiss, trying my best not to raise my voice any louder, alerting the creatures in here. “It’s made of heroin.”

  “What?”

  Something drops to the ground behind Alex. We both jump at the thing that has come from its hiding spot on the ceiling. It’s has a face similar to the blood hound creatures and a round head. No eyes, its head splits open into a mouth. Its attached to a chest that has multiple tiny arms; the chest and stomach lead into the round rear end of a spider, where the arachnid legs are located, four on each side. Before I can tell him to stop, Jack pulls out his hand gun and unloads four or five bullets into that open mouth and its chest. The thing falls dead.

  “Damn it, Jack!” I yell.

  “What?”

  “You just alerted the others; you shouldn’t have shot your gun.”

  “Shouldn’t have shot my gun!” Jack yells, “Did you see that fucking thing? What was I supposed to do? Kick it?”

  “Well, yeah,” I say.

  “Fuck,” Jack says, “Can you get Alex down?”

  I look at my right hand, then make a fist. I haven’t used the power in a while; hopefully, it’s strong enough to handle what I am about to do. The skin tightens as the scars squirm along my hand and forearm. I close my eyes and concentrate on my breathing, and not the toxic smell. I try to pull my mind into a field, one where Laura and I have hung out, had lunch while sitting on a blanket. Breathing in deep the smell of the flowers around us, the grass, the clean air. Again, I don’t think this memory is real, or truly belongs to me. I never thought of us as picnic people, but it was there for me to pick from so I could use the power properly in a situation such as this. I hear a cracking noise; the web is coming apart, lowering Alex’s unconscious body towards us.

  “Shit!” Jack fires at another spider creature that was in the other room. It hurries across the ceiling, hissing angrily. It too drops dead, falling from the ceiling after taking three bullets to the rear. Jack fires one more into its head when it squirms. “Had to make sure,” he says as he pops out the clip, and quickly reloads it.

  I grab a hold of Alex, careful not to let the unscarred parts of my body touch the poisonous material. I can still feel it, but not as much with my right hand. Once I tighten the flesh and focus on the power I have, the poison does not affect my skin as much. We need to hurry since I don’t know how long I can do this, but also for fear of being overrun by the spider creatures.

  I yell for Jack to follow, as I am hauling Alex, one handed, towards the door. Jack fires on two more spiders coming from the other room, this time only using a bullet per creature as he gets perfect head shots, killing them instantly.

  “That’s how you shoot!” I say, not able to help myself busting his balls and trying to find some humor in our current situation.

  He points the gun in my direction and fires. The head of a spider creature explodes, killing it instantly. It falls from its place on the door frame. I kick it aside.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “Just making sure I continue to impress your ass.”

  Our little gun fights in Alex’s apartment have alerted the others. They have broken through the fabric of reality. The building is now crawling with these things, as they make their way towards us. As I am dragging Alex with my right, my left takes aim. First shot I miss, head feeling slightly woozy as I continue to touch the webbing. Once I regain my focus, the next bullet takes out the spider creature.

  When we reach the bottom step, we fire on the creatures that have made their way off the building and are now scurrying toward us. These two are the size of a large dog; their teeth gnash, and their arms wiggle for purchase. The arms dispatch from their bodies when met with our bullets. They go down. More come at us; the place is infested. The next batch isn’t that close to us. I open the passenger door, kick the seat aside and throw Alex’s body into the back seat one handed. I fight the heroin in my veins; the world is wavering. I shake my head to place things back in focus.

  “Give me the keys,” I say to Jack.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind? You almost had a panic attack earlier and now you look high as a kite.”

  “What I need to do to heal me and Alex only I can do, trust me.”

  “Damn it.” Jack scrowls, takes the keys out of his pants pocket and drops them into my open hand. Now he’s firing on another assault of those things, while I make my way to the driver’s side.

  We both get into the car, and I start it. Already, the roar of her engine is helping. Even though I feel the onset of the panic attack returning, I fight it. Memory comes to me like a mist clearing and I am shifting gears and working the clutch like I had just done this yesterday. She lurches forward; a few of the smaller spider creatures get caught under her tires, and she crushes them.

  I shift again, bringing the car to high speeds.

  “Whoa, what the fuck are you doing we’re going to hit that— “

  The muscle car drives through the building like it was never there in the first place. The world shifts. The ground has rough terrain and spreads open in all directions. The mountains I’ve seen other times are far on the horizon. We can drive on this land for a long time, which is good. We need to do that to ensure Alex’s health returns, as well as my own.

  “Wow.” Jack breaths while he surveys his surroundings. “This is it, huh? This is what’s causing all the weird shit.”

  “Yes,” I say, “This is the Red Plane.”

  6.

  “How’s Alex looking?”

  When we had first crossed the threshold after our battle with the spider things, Alex had gone into seizures from the heroin overdose from the web.

  I’ve been driving us for a while, whatever a while is in this world. To me, it felt like ten, fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. I’m not going to lie though, I’m enjoying driving through this section of the Red Plane, as desolate as it is. The heroin that was surging through my body from the spider web is mostly gone. My head is still a little light, but I don’t feel high. I’m hungry.

  Jack reaches in the back seat, checks Alex’s pulse. “Better. Alive. Not out of the woods yet, but his seizures have stopped. His breathing is regular, and he has stopped foaming at the mouth. So, this place can actually heal him?”

  Figures come into view on both sides of the car. They start to come closer.

  “Some kind of animals,” I say.

  “Look at these things,” Jack says, amazed.

  The animals running alongside my car are the size of a baby elephant, but have the body of a wart hog. The manes that runs along their heads and bac
ks are spikes that look sharp. I don’t see any eyes but the faces are covered in a multiple array of tusks. The bodies are covered with small mouths, and the tails are tentacles with tiny hooks that stick out of each suction cup that lines the inside of it. They don’t have hooves like a normal war pig; the feet have three digits, with black talons.

  They start to come closer to the car. I stop Jack before he rolls down the window and fires on them.

  “It’s just a herd,” I say. “I don’t think they will attack; they are just doing what they are meant to do.”

  “And what’s that?”

  I don’t have an answer for Jack, because, really, I don’t know. I’m not an animal expert, especially about the ones in this place. They just didn’t seem threatening to me. There’s another emotion in the way they are acting.

  “I think they are scared of something.”

  As I say that, one of the mutant hogs nearby gets trampled on. Whatever it was causes the hogs to tumble over each other. The trampled one is left behind in a cloud of dust. I think I notice the other creature ripping into the mutant hog. Then more of the other creatures start charging in. I immediately know what they are when I get a clear view. They have the same features as the ones back at my house, dark scaly bodies with long arms and legs.

  “Shit, it’s the damn blood hounds.”

  “The what?” Jack asks.

  “Those things we heard about when we first met The Dead One. They hunt down people if they don’t pay a debt or race a wager. They attacked me earlier, too.”

  “Oh,” Jack says, “Can we shoot those things at least?”

  “No, don’t waste your bullets, not yet.” I shift gears and push the speed past one hundred. We’ve been on this terrain for a while, and I’m not sure if there are cliffs up ahead. I’d hate to run out of ground, while going at this speed, with creatures hunting other creatures around us.