The Road Ahead

The dark night sky used to always frighten me as a child. When shadows loom in corners or when shadows look like creatures, peeking out from the woods. It used to always terrify me and I always needed a light in my room. To help me sleep and scare away the shadows that loom in the darkest corners.

As I got older. My fear of the dark slowly went away, but sometimes I’ll jump from a simple bump in the night or a shadow that appeared. I used to tell myself; It’s only my imagination. Then I’ll stop being afraid. Of course, that doesn’t always work. Sometimes your fear never truly goes away, and your imagination can sometimes just intensify it more.

My fear started like any other normal way. I’m a young child who just thought he saw a monster in the dark. But in reality? It was just a shadow from the moon. The light would always just shine just right on something, creating a shadow. Then my imagination would always take that shadow and think it’s something that it’s actually not.

As I got older, my fear went away, but never completely. I thought I got braver and my fear of the dark is now nonexistent. But I was wrong. Some people I used to know kept scaring me at night and my fears of the night just got worse. I didn’t know what else to do to help with my fears. So I thought about taking a night job to get over this fear. I thought maybe it would help me see that there’s nothing to be afraid of. It was simply just shadows.

At first, it seemed to have work. I became braver after working at my night job for a while. But tonight seems to be different. I’ve worked there for three months and I was on my way to work. I notice something seems to have changed with the all too familiar road. It wasn’t noticeable at first, but as I kept driving down the road, it became clearer and clearer that something was off.

I think it was almost nine at night when I first noticed something. It was so quick that I just thought maybe it was a deer. But after about ten minutes of driving, I saw it again. It was out more. It looked strange. I got distracted and stared at it in shock before I felt my car swerved.

I straighten my car and continue driving to work. I push whatever I saw back into my mind. I told myself; It wasn’t real. I took a deep breath as I just focused on driving. I tried to ignore what I saw, and I figured it would go away.

I was wrong.

It was about nine twenty when I saw something else. It wasn’t the same thing I saw, but it made me swerve my car once again. Whatever it was, it ran out in front of me and disappeared to the other side. I slammed on my brakes as I look out my window with wide eyes. I’m not sure what the hell that thing was, but it almost looked like a giant wolf with six legs. I’m not sure, but it almost looked like it had horns or something on top of its head as well. It’s my imagination. It has to be. That thing can’t be real. I swallowed as I’m pretending to see nothing, so I continue driving.

Nine thirty came around, and more things became to change. I saw whatever that thing was peeking out from the woods again, but this time there were more of them. I swallowed as I try to ignore them and kept on driving. I just need to focus on getting to work. It’s not real, but shadows that’s playing tricks on me in the night. That’s what I need to keep saying to myself. None of this is real. I’m just seeing things in the night like I used to.

When nine forty came around, it got worse. Fog rolled in and I could hardly see. I had to slow my car down, but I honestly didn’t want to. I had no choice, though. What came with the fog was a strange buzzing sound. It almost sounded like a million mosquitoes swarming around me, but I see nothing around my car. I honestly see nothing but the fog. My mind swarmed through thoughts that maybe this was just because maybe I’m near a swamp, but then again it can’t be. Right? I would’ve experienced this every night I came to work, but this is the first. No. I’m just scaring myself now. Don’t think about it. Just keep driving. It’s nothing. It’s not real and I’ll be okay.

Nine fifty came and I slammed on my brakes again when I heard a loud scream. It sounded so painful and like it was in agony. I stepped out of my car and looked around the fog as best as I could. It was so hard to see anything and the annoying buzzing sound was so intense. I even tried waving my hands around myself to see that maybe there were mosquitoes around. But I’m still hearing the strange buzzing sound, and it sounded like it was getting louder.

What I didn’t expect was a small portion of the fog to disappear, but only to show me a body hanging. I let out a gasp of horror. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My stomach turned at the sight of this body. It was swinging back and forth a little and I couldn’t quite tell who it was, but the frame of the body told me it was a female. I noticed some red eyes peeking from behind the body, and I knew I had to leave. I quickly hopped back into my car and drove as fast as I could see.

It’s not real.

It’s not real.

This is all fake.

It just has to be. I mean, why would there be a body hanging suddenly on the side of the road? I drive on this road every night, and I’ve never seen that. This is a nightmare. A terrible nightmare. I just need to wake up and maybe this all will be gone. I’ll be back in my room in my house and everything I just saw would just be my imagination. I’ll be fine. I didn’t see any weird shadows or fog or a dead body hanging in a tree. It was all just a bad nightmare and I will wake up from it.

I pinched myself.

Slapped myself a couple times, which almost made me drive off the road.

I tried what I know would supposedly wake you up from a nightmare. But nothing worked. I became afraid. I became terrified. This isn’t real. I hyperventilated as I tried to convince myself that this isn’t real repeatedly, but nothing is going away. I swerved again and had to stop my car once more. I tried to calm my breathing, but then suddenly everything went quiet.

I look around outside and saw that the fog was still surrounding me. I didn’t hear the strange buzzing sound, but what I saw was much worse. It was red eyes. Red eyes appearing all around me, and they were all staring right at me. I glance down towards my clock on my dashboard.

It read ten o’clock.

I look away from the clock and up in my rearview mirror. That was a mistake. There was a tall figure with red eyes staring at me, and before I could scream. I saw whatever that thing was lurching itself right at me.