Velorenstad

I was travelling in my grandfather’s car to the city to begin my first year of university and impulsively decided to take a scenic route and drive down some dirt roads. They would lead me on a more direct path to the new city than the highway which would take me in a semi-circle and hit some larger towns on the way. When I was two hours away from the city and it was nearly dark, my passenger side tire blew while I was on a right directed bend in the road. My car turned hard to the right, slid sideways, and then shot off the road and into a tree in the ditch.

When I woke up, my mind was in a haze. It looked like I had only been unconscious for about 30 minutes. I seemed to be unharmed so I tried checking the GPS on my phone, but it was dead. My grandpa had an old map in the glove box so I checked it and I saw that there was a very small town called Velorenstad nearby. I got out of the car, saw the damage from the crash and knew the engine wouldn’t be starting again. The car had hit the tree hard enough to completely crumple the front of the vehicle. I started walking toward the town, which was about 10 kilometers from where I crashed into the tree.

When I reached the town I was glad to see that there were many people going for evening walks. I stopped the first couple I saw and asked them where the auto shop was in town. The woman frowned at her husband and the man chuckled. “We don’t have an auto shop in this town, son. No one I know has a vehicle around here.” I thought that was very peculiar but they were dressed oddly so I thought perhaps they were from a group of people with Amish beliefs. I then asked to borrow a phone but the man said although there may be some phones in the town, he didn’t think any were connected. Baffled, I said that I assumed there were no cell phones in the town then either. The man responded that I was correct in my assumption.

Stumped on what else to do, I asked if there was somewhere I could stay for the night so I could grab some extra items from my car in the morning and then start hiking to a main road. The man told me I could get a room at the small hotel in town; it wasn’t much but it was a place I could stay for the time being. He and his wife were kind enough to walk me there.

The little town seemed strange but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. The lack of technology felt eerie, but was certainly not unheard of, even in this day and age. The people were friendly enough; as we walked by more of the townsfolk they all smiled and nodded at us. The town looked a bit run down and the buildings were well over 100 years old, but given their lack of technology it didn’t appear to me that any of the buildings were specifically unkempt. The man told me that no new buildings had been put up in the town since before the first world war.

We arrived at the hotel. I am not sure when, but the man accompanying me must’ve explained my situation to the owner, because the owner told me there would be no charge given my situation. That was yet another queer thing about this place, as I could not recall the man speaking to the owner out of my earshot. I thanked him and he led me to my room. The room was occupied by an old bed, chair, and desk with an oil lamp, and there was a bathroom adjoining it. There was no television or phone but I had expected that after speaking with the couple. I couldn’t find a clock, and my smartwatch was dead but since it was dark I decided to try to sleep.

To my dismay, neither drowsiness nor sleep came. I tossed and turned all night. I thought hard but had no idea how I was going to make it to a main road on foot. It would take forever and my things would likely be stolen or destroyed by the time I could get a tow truck to my car. Feeling defeated, I watched the sun rise through the window. I decided I would walk back to the car and at least grab the most important things I could carry with me. I went to the front desk and the owner was there. I thanked him for his generosity and asked if it was alright to grab some things and come back for another night. I assured him I could and would pay for the second night but he laughed and insisted I could stay free-of-charge again.

When I left the hotel, to my surprise, the entire town seemed to be out for an early morning walk. I ran into the couple again on my way out of town and they asked what I was doing. I explained my plan, they wished me luck and I walked the 10 kilometers back to the car. When I arrived, I was surprised by the sight. The car was covered in a thick layer of dust and the windows were covered in grime. I opened the car door and immediately slammed it shut again. I couldn’t believe it, there was something, or, someone in the driver’s seat. I opened the door slightly and said “Hello?” when there was no response I opened it all the way. I immediately turned away and gagged. There was a corpse in the driver’s seat of the car!

The corpse looked like it had been there for weeks, the body was bloated and green. I could see bits of flesh slipping from its limbs and the skin on the hand was gone. I could see the muscles, tendons, even the joints of the fingers. There were shards of bone scattered across the dashboard and regretfully I glanced at its face. What I saw was horrific and unrecognizable. The sockets of the eyes were somehow swollen and sunken at the same time, almost as if the eyes had melted from them. The steering wheel was where its nose and mouth should've been. All that remained intact was the drooping lower jaw. The teeth were covered in blood and a thick yellow liquid was oozing from what was left of the mouth. On the floor of the car, there was a large pool of dried blood with a congealed brown slime that had dripped from the corpse on top of it.

My head spun as I tried to comprehend what I was seeing. I couldn’t imagine who would place a decomposed body in a wrecked, abandoned vehicle. The only thing I could think of was that some people from the town were playing a sick joke on me. I could not recall that there were any farmyards or other people that I had driven by who could have done it.

Unsure of what else to do, I ran back to the town in a rage. When I got there, it was as if the townsfolk were waiting for me which solidified that they must’ve been the ones to put the corpse in my car. I screamed at them, accusing them of placing the corpse there, calling them sick and demented, and asking why they would do such a thing. No one responded, no one moved, no one admitted to what they had done; they just stared.

I broke down crying, begging them to tell me what was going on and to please, please help me. Finally, the man who had helped me earlier stepped forward. He said, “We were hoping you would have figured it out for yourself, but I guess not. You’re dead. We all are. That corpse in the car is your own.” I took a deep breath as my head spun. “Wait”, I said. “If we are dead, is this Heaven, or Hell?” The man laughed, “No son, it isn’t either one. This is still earth you are seeing, and we are just spirits. Spirits simply carry on after we leave our bodies and most of us chose to stay away from the living. We can still interfere with the mortal realm but we can’t speak to the living. Most find peace after death and prefer to either live in nature or in abandoned areas like this town.”

I tried arguing with him that I was very much alive. He said “Don’t be daft son. Have you had anything to eat or anything to drink? Have you slept? Have you even felt tired since your accident?” I thought about what he said and his points were all valid but something was bothering me. I asked “If that body in the car is me, then why has my body decomposed so much? I was only in town a single night.” The man nodded his head “Yep, that’s true. My best guess is that your body didn’t die on impact and the trauma of the accident caused your spirit to try and stay with your body a while. Once your spirit finally let your body go, it ‘woke up’. You must have clung to your body a few weeks after it died and your spirit didn’t acknowledge it was separated until you went back.”

In a flurry of rage and disbelief I ran from Velonrenstad. I went back to my car to see if I could salvage anything to help me run anywhere but here. I remembered I had a bottle of water in the front seat. I went to the passenger side to be as far away from the corpse as possible. I avoided looking at it as much as possible but in my peripheral vision I saw the corpse was wearing my pants. My gaze slowly moved up the bloated, decaying corpse in my front seat. It was wearing my black and red plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up exactly as I always wore them, and a necklace, my engraved cross necklace on a silver chain. I stumbled out of the car, felt sick, and I began to weep. I cried for nearly an hour, praying to a God I could no longer trust or believe in.

I saw two figures come around to the passenger side of the vehicle. It was the husband and wife from Velorenstad. They looked at me and saw I now believed them and knew the truth. The man said “Son, my name is Sander. You don’t have to come back with us but we have room for you if you do.” I wiped my tears, nodded and we walked back to the town in silence, everyone was waiting for us. Sander put his arm around me, looked in my eyes, smiled, and said “Welcome home”.