It didn’t help that a gas station attendant in Colorado, just before the border, had decided to play a bit of a tourist joke, telling them they shouldn’t drive through Navajo land at night. He’d obviously wanted to freak them out, maybe even make a buddy with a hotel a little extra cash by giving them a nudge in his direction.
“You guys staying in the area?” the attendant had asked. He wore a flannel shirt under a denim jacket with his name on it: Herb. His face sported what looked like a couple days of stubble, but he was just the sort of guy that would have that within an hour of shaving. His face was creased like a well-worn piece of paper, folded and re-folded. He’d been cleaning off their windshield at the time, something Bill rarely saw these days. Maybe that was how it was in small towns.
“No, we’re hoping to drive straight through the night, get some distance while the little guy’s sleeping.”
“You might want to re-think that. Driving through Navajo land at night isn’t a good idea.”
“Why’s that?”
He stopped wiping down the windshield long enough to swipe a cloth along the squeegee, then plopped it back down on the glass, making Bill and Marcy jump.
“Freaky things happen out there at night. People disappear or come out with twisted tales. Just sayin’.”
“Well, we’ll be sure to be careful. We’re going straight through, but wanted to visit the Four Corners area.”
“Being careful hasn’t got a thing to do with it. Luck of the draw down there. Even the Navajo don’t go out at night. Believe me, I’ve heard some stories that would chill your bones.”
Marcy interjected, leaning over Bill to peer out the window. “I’m sure you have, but I’ve got a child in the car and I’d appreciate you not scaring him further.”
The attendant had peered through the tinted window of the minivan, nodded. Bill hadn’t been sure if he was supposed to tip him, so slid him two bucks for cleaning the windshield. He’d taken it, tucked it into the breast pocket of his flannel shirt, shaking his head. He’d just stared at them as they left, head still shaking, grey hair lifting in the wind.
Maybe Bill should have asked him what kinds of stories.
“Did you see that coyote we passed?” he asked Marcy.
Marcy stared out the side window. She didn’t turn when she answered. “No, I didn’t.”
“Its eyes were huge.”
“I’m sure they just looked that way.”
“I’m not even sure it was a coyote. It was big, though.”
Marcy sighed and didn’t respond.
“You won’t talk about it so we can resolve it, but you can’t set it aside enough to—”
“Enough, Bill!” Marcy shot a quick look back at Ben. He’d slept through her outburst, measured breaths sounding from the back seat, the occasional snork of a snore.
After a moment, Bill spoke again. “We can either talk about it or you can be civil. We need to work this out.”
“What is there to talk about? You blew our entire savings on a bad investment without first discussing it with me. Then you lied and hid it from me. What possible validation could you have for that?”
“Sam assured me it was a good investment. He—”
“Of course he did, Bill. He needed your—our—money. What’s he going to do? Tell you it’s a bad investment?”
“He’s my brother, Marcy. If you can’t trust family, who can you trust?”
“Good question. I thought the same thing.”
“I wasn’t trying to deceive you. I just wanted to surprise you when it paid off.”
“If it paid off, Bill, if. And it’s not going to.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You’re right. Some miracle could still occur.”
Marcy pinched her lips together and rolled down her window, a sure sign she was done with the entire conversation. Anything Bill said to her now would be ignored. Eight years of marriage had taught him that, if nothing else. He turned his attention back to driving, still scanning the sides of the road to be sure nothing lurked there.
They’d traveled another half hour, the moon too slim to shed any light on the landscape around them. Despite the fact that the radio blurted out one eerie song after another, Bill had started to relax, assuming he’d imagined anything being wrong with the coyote. Trick of the light. Of course.
“All right, it’s time for a little red cape action out there. I’d far rather a charismatic wolf over our own skinwalker, wouldn’t you? I know, I know, I’m not supposed to talk about him, but I’m pretty sure beaming my voice out across the Rez every night is enough to get his attention, anyway. Here’s Sam the Sham & the Pharaoh’s for you late nighters out there. Awoooooooooooo!”
As the notes of Little Red Riding Hood drifted through the van, entwining around Bill’s spine and giving him goosebumps, something enormous shot across the road in front of them. Bill slammed on his brakes, adrenaline rushing through his veins. His heart pounded and he gasped in a breath.
Marcy broke her long silence, voice high and strained. “What was that? It was huge!”
“I don’t know. It sort of looked like that coyote-thing I saw thirty minutes ago.”
Bill watched as she removed her right hand from where she had grabbed the door with it and settled it over her chest. “I could swear it looked at us as it ran by.”
Bill nodded. He’d seen those giant eyes shining red toward him as it raced past them, too.
She began to roll her window up, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “I hear something, hold on.”
They both sat, listening. There it was again: the sound of an infant crying. Only, there was no way there could be a baby out there. There wasn’t anything out there, save plant life, rocks, and some strange creature that appeared to be messing with them. Bill reached over and clicked the door lock button. Marcy must have been scared, because she didn’t point out that the doors were already locked.
“Let’s get out of here, okay?” Her voice was small, like a child’s, the insistent cry of an infant still sounding from outside the van. She rolled her window up, adjusting herself until her back leaned against the center console and she was as far away from the door as she could get.
Bill glanced in the back seat to make sure Ben was okay. How could he still be sleeping? He was, though, fast asleep and slumped over in his seat, chest rising and falling, soft breaths puffing out.
“Good idea.” He took his foot off the brake, though it felt like it weighed a million pounds. His legs shook so hard he feared he couldn’t press the gas pedal down. Happily, it went just fine, and he’d started to ease forward when something slammed into the rear of the car.
“What the hell?” His voice came out hoarse, and he had to clear his throat before asking, “What was that?”
“Just drive, Bill.”
“Maybe I should get out and check to see what that was.”
“Go!”
“What if there really is a baby?”
“There’s no baby. Get us out of here. Please!” Panic was etched across her face and he could see her body trembling. Her eyes were nearly as large as the creature’s had appeared. He became aware of his own body quaking.
“Okay, okay.” He pushed the gas pedal down as far as it would go. They pealed out, van fishtailing, but they righted and were on their way. He glanced in his rearview, looking for anything in the road. Red backwash revealed an empty stretch of pavement, just as the one before them.
Neither one of them spoke as Bill sped his way down the highway, now riddled with cracks. The lines here were faded, muted, completely missing in some spots. The land around them was barren, rocky, with skeletal trees dotting the landscape here and there, reaching out of the shadows. Clouds moved over the scant sliver of moon, leaving their headlights as the only illumination.
The silence was like a physical barrier, the darkness smothering. He had to strain to speak.
“They grow big coyotes around here, huh?”
“I know.”
“I swear, it looked like it was running on two legs, but bent over.”
They both jumped when the current song on the radio ended and Joe Ravenshadow’s voice boomed out, bouncing around the car.
“I’m still here, folks. No skinwalkers have stopped by yet. You still here with me? Here’s a little Rolling Stones in case the night isn’t black enough for you.”
The beginning notes of Paint it Black oozed out of the radio, adding to the eeriness of the night.
“Does this guy just choose the creepiest songs he can?” Marcy asked, a shiver touching her voice. She reached forward to turn the knob, but all she found was static. She turned it off, but it only took a moment for the eerie silence to get to them.
Bill reached over to turn it back on. “Seems like it, doesn’t it? But it’s better than nothing.”
The darkness and the steady sound of the tires lulled them, their shaking subsiding as they drove. Bill’s breathing was back to normal, and his heart had slowed. It had been at least fifteen minutes since the creature had thrown itself in front of their car, and it was diminishing in their minds, starting to look like a ridiculous reaction on their part. Just a freakish coyote. Maybe rabid.
“Marcy?”
Marcy sighed before answering. “Yes?”
“I’m really sorry about what I did. There’s no excuse for it. I made a huge mistake, and I’ll find a way to make it right again.”
Marcy didn’t answer at first, and Bill was afraid she was ignoring him again. Finally, she responded.
“I know you were trying to do something positive for us. I can’t say I’m not going to be upset about it, but I’m trying. I do understand what your intentions were.”
“Thanks, Marcy. That’s all I want. I thought I was doing a good thing, that I’d have an awesome surprise for you in the end.”
Silence fell over the car yet again. In the back, Ben still slept peacefully. On the radio, Ravenshadow spoke.
“How about another creature of the night? You think those were skinwalkers in Cat People? Either way, here’s a little Hall and Oates for you 80s lovers out there. Who doesn’t love a Maneater?”
“Seriously! This guy—”
Something slammed into their roof as Marcy leaned forward in an aborted attempt to mess with the radio again. Bill jerked the wheel, startled by the loud thud above him. As he straightened the wheel, the metal of the roof began to screech as if something were tearing at it. He accelerated without thinking, twisting the wheel back and forth, hoping to send whatever it was flying. The rending sounds of metal continued, and Marcy fumbled with her seatbelt, trying to get it unlatched as her body slammed back and forth, her eyes on the roof, waiting for whatever it was to come through.
It didn’t take long for the roof to be penetrated. Cold, hard steel, ripped apart like paper. Marcy managed to undo her seatbelt and flung herself over the back of the seat, covering Ben with her body as she fumbled for his seatbelt.
An elongated grey claw shot through the roof, swiping, looking for contact with something, anything.
Ben was awake now, screaming in Marcy’s ears. Bill heard Marcy’s screams, too, but they cut off. Glancing in the mirror, he saw her lips clamped shut, eyes wide. She was trying to be brave for their son, but she was obviously terrified. She had given up on unbuckling him and had sprawled over him, hands wrapped around his head as she pulled him close to her chest and stared straight upward at the gaping ceiling.
His heart galloped in his chest as he slammed on the brakes. The hand disappeared and a mass of dark fur slid down the windshield, all awkward gangly angles. It was unlike any animal he’d ever seen. An eerily human face appeared out of the fur, glaring at Bill, pressed into the windshield in front of him. It pushed a blistered tongue through thin, blackened lips and licked the windshield, eyes never leaving Bill’s. A stench of human waste, body odor, and filth filtered through the ruined roof.
“Go!” Marcy said from the back, gasping for breath.
Bill snapped his gaze away from the creature’s and pushed the gear shift into reverse, stomping on the gas pedal to shoot the car backwards. He twisted the wheel left and right, left and right, shifting his family in the back of the car, but having no effect whatsoever on the monster above them.
A gruesome smile appeared on its face, yellow teeth poking through its lips. As Bill watched, it stuck out one paw and changed. The paw lost its grey color, becoming a tanned human hand, though the nails remained long and deadly, more like talons than fingernails.
“What are you? What do you want?” Bill screamed at the windshield, spittle flying from his lips and speckling the glass before him. The tires hit a rough spot, and he swerved the car back onto the road, driving down the center now, trying to keep an eye on the creature and the road in the rearview at the same time.
It continued to smile, but this time as he watched, its features changed, and Bill found himself looking at his own face, framed by fur. He recoiled, slamming his head into the seat behind him. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from it until it reached up and pulled itself back onto the top of the vehicle again, disappearing from his sight. He shook his head, listening as it scrabbled over the roof.
“Brace yourselves!” Bill slammed on the brakes once more. This time, no creature appeared on the windshield. Instead, there was a loud screech, then silence, as if it had slid across the roof, but caught itself.
“I’ve just had a call from old Henry Dancing Bear, down by the creek,” said Joe’s voice from the radio. “He says he’s got a bad feeling about tonight. Stay inside and stay safe, folks. Watch your neighbors and do like Santana and Put Your Lights On.”
Bill took off, tires squealing as he left rubber across the asphalt.
“Bill!”
He turned his head to the side to see what was going on, why that one word had held such panic. To his horror, the creature ran alongside the vehicle, body now more humanoid than canine, though the deformed man wore a coyote pelt. He jerked his eyes down to look at the speedometer. The needle pointed to 98 MPH.
When he looked again, the thing paced the car, head turned toward him, a grin on its nasty face, a face that still resembled his, much to his horror. Its gaze was hypnotic, and he began to sink into it, thoughts foreign to him seeping into his brain.
“Watch out!” Marcy again, and just when he most needed it. When he looked back at the road, he saw that he’d been heading for a gully on the side, taken in by that thing. Sucked in, more like. Its eyes had grown to the point that they were all he could see. He’d also slowed considerably, down to 45 MPH.
When he looked over again, it was gone.
“Marcy, do you see it anywhere?”
“No, keep going.”
He had slowed almost to a stop, his foot easing back of its own accord. As he went to accelerate again, the rear window shattered. Marcy and Ben screamed, and Marcy heaved their son onto the floor next to her, undoing his seatbelt with an unnatural speed, where before she had fumbled. She turned to face the back, keeping herself between him and the air blasting in through the broken window.
Bill slammed the car into park, climbed over them, and picked up his son’s baseball bat, which had been tucked into the space between the seat and the wall of the van. There was no room to swing it, though, and before he could do anything else, a giant mass of fur boiled through the window and came straight at him. He thrust the bat out before him, prodding the creature hard in the face. A hollow crunch sounded, and it shot backward, putting one of its clawed hands to its nose and whimpering as a dog might.
Bill stood, bending his neck and pressing his back against the roof of the car. Marcy had pushed Ben into the front seat and sat on the edge, still shielding him. She moved as if to come help, but Bill yelled for her to stay back.
He forced himself against the wall of the van and sw
ung the bat, just barely skimming past the opposite side without hitting it. The bat made contact with the thing’s face and it fell onto its back, pressed against the hatch door.
“Pop the hatch, Marcy!”
She leaned over and pressed the button to open the hatch, and Bill leapt over the back seat, pushing the mewling beast out with his legs. Its claws scraped along his calves, leaving deep gouges, but he barely noticed, intent on getting it out, away from his family. As soon as it fell, he grabbed the door and pulled it shut, screaming, “Go, go, go!”
Marcy climbed into the driver’s seat, slammed the gear shift into drive and hit the gas, throwing the van forward with a screech of tires. Bill peered out the window, warm air swirling around him, but found only empty road in the red backwash from the taillights.
“Oh my God,” he said, as he slumped to the carpeted floorboards. “It’s gone.”
“What?”
“It’s gone. It’s not on the road. Push this thing as hard as it will go.”
He dragged his exhausted body over the back of the seats and huddled on the floor between the front seats, wrapping Ben in his arms and snuggling him close. He could feel the little guy’s body quaking against his, and he realized he was shaking, too, though it was fear combined with adrenaline. Adrenaline that left him feeling drained as it worked its way out of his muscles. “It’s okay, Benji. Mom’s going to get us out of here.”
Marcy kept her foot to the floor as the sun began to color the sky a gentle pink behind them. She didn’t stop driving until they were well off Navajo lands, and she only stopped for gas then. The last song they heard from Joe Ravenshadow was Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight before he faded into static once more.
In the Dark
The scent of cotton candy and corn dogs mingled with the odor of motor oil and animal feces. Animals bleated and clucked from a petting zoo near the ticket booth. A barker’s call rolled along on a wave of jangling carnival music and laughter, followed up by shrieks from a nearby roller coaster. The bright lights threatened to give Samantha a headache.
Blue Sludge Blues & Other Abominations Page 10