There is a long, desolate, flat stretch of highway west of here that can take you all the way to the coast. On a clear, sunny day, you can see horizon to horizon; an endless expanse you can traverse like a sailor on a sea of prairie grass. Traffic flies by on those sunny days, ignoring the natural beauty. The families inside their cars often have more interesting places on their mind than the unpopulated plains.
In the nebulous blackness of a foggy October night, however, the horizons shrunk to the few yards of light that pierced forth from my car headlights. Even the light reflected from the sliver of a waning moon were lost into the diffusing haze. In the darkness, that highway becomes less of a means of transportation, and more of a means of torture. There are no landmarks, no curves in the road, and no way of gauging how far you have come or gone by looking out into the bleakness. The odometer in my car slowly clicked up, mile by mile, but I wasn't sure that the asphalt I put behind me had not somehow come back around for me to traverse again.
Not a soul lives on that highway in nights like that. Many travelers find refuge in the giant beacons of light that are the too few truck stops sprinkled across the domain. I, however, yearned to be home. I must have been eight hours on the road already, having finished my deliveries for the night. The blackness around my eyes darkened from exhaustion, and my eyelids grew heavy from monotony. The beating from the car stereo and chilled air blasting from the vents were failing to keep me alert. Not to mention the coffee I had purchased miles back down the road had been spent, and the secondary cost of a full bladder was immediately becoming apparent.
A flash of a blue sign quickly passing by informed me of a rest area with amenities quickly approaching. I slowed and exited to the paved lot in front of a small building. Other than myself, the place was deserted. With no sleeping cars, or dozing tractor trailers awaiting me, I parked as close to the small brick shack as possible. The place was not much more than a set of bathrooms with a small front lobby. Dim pale-yellow light glowed from its front barred windows, ensuring me that at least it was open.
My lights illuminated the corner of the building, and the many trees planted around it. Further back behind the building, and circling around both sides there was a small grove that had grown in as a wind block. I switched off my beams, and popped open my door before killing the engine. The last blast from the stereo echoed out into the night and died. A silence so heavy rushed into replace it that I thought I might have suddenly gone deaf. It wrapped around me and pressed inwards on my ears as though I was having my head buried into the ground. The eeriness sent a spark of icy electricity through my nerves, and the fog slowly rolling in and clinging to my skin sent chills down my arms that stood my hair straight up.
I moved quickly to the building, and pushed my way inside through the heavy wooden doors. Several metal light fixtures with incandescent bulbs illuminated the lobby. The fixture over the woman's bathroom flickered and burnt out as the wooden door behind me shut. I entered the men's room through a serpentine hallway, and made my way to the urinal trough across from the entrance. I payed no attention to the two cubicles on the adjacent wall, shrouded as they were in the periphery of the overhead lighting.
Hurriedly I fumbled with my belt and zipper. I hastily did my business, eager to get back on the road. I zipped up and turned around, while redoing my belt buckle. As I looked up I was startled to see a man standing at the sinks in front of me. He was wearing a large shaggy brown coat over a black hooded sweatshirt, his back to me.
"Jesus!" I exclaimed, "You just scared the shit out of me." He did not acknowledge my presence. Usually, being the untalkative type myself I would have not been too troubled, but I found myself stumbling on, trying to get a response from him. "Man, I didn't even hear you." I said.
Once again there was no reaction from the guy. He was staring into the grungy mirror above the sinks, but slightly downward, as if he were examining his thick black beard that hung midway down his chest. His hood obscured his down turned face. I briefly entertained the thought that he was toying with me, enjoying my suspense. But his unresponsiveness had already put me on edge, and now his unmoving gaze had pushed me over into outright fright.
I eased away and around from him, headed towards the exit, facing him the entire time. He still did not move. His arms hung limply by his sides, his hands hidden inside the too-long sleeves. Sliding along the outer wall, I slowly came perpendicular to him. Nearly to the exit, I intended to break into full on sprint when I could no longer keep an eye on him, but as I neared the hallway he finally began to rotate his body towards me.
Raising his head revealed two red eyes, pressed closely together, but his beard and shadow masked the rest of his face. Frozen, I could not move, could not anticipate what would happen next. He shambled forwards, his feet shuffling along the tiled floor, his arms slowly raising out in front of him. His beard started writhing, as through someone had grabbed the end of it and was shaking it across his coat. Stunned, I fell back into the wall, unable to make my legs operate.
Finally his hood shot back, but something large and black leaped forwards from it, right at my face. I raised my arms defensively, as more things poured from the sleeves of the now headless jacket. Hundreds of red eyes appeared in the mangy thing I thought was his beard, and then his entire body exploded in a tsunami of black rats. Fear coursed through my being, as my muscles finally reengaged with my brain. The swarm of rats flowed around me, crawling, biting, piling on top of each other. I rushed for the hallway, stomping as hard as I could on as many as possible as I made my way screaming to the exit door. Every footfall crushed hairy bodies and bones beneath my sneakers.
I bashed through the wooden doors, pitching off clinging beasts that were still attached to my clothes. The rats erupted behind me, spreading in every direction as they reached the portal to the outside. I flew to my car and jumped inside. Jamming the key in the ignition, I peeled away. No amount of speed could carry me away fast enough.