See, Pete wasn’t the best driver in the world. Driving at night made him downright nervous – not being able to see what was ahead or behind, the drivers that were so inconsiderate as to leave their halogen high-beams to burn into his retinas, the small nocturnal animals and pack creatures that would dart in front of his car. One thing Peter never understood was how anyone could feel comfortable driving at night, the ever encroaching tendrils of darkness that would snake around you. His eyes would play tricks on him and he could swear, and he would tell you so, that his headlights would grow more dim and his vision would fail him.
Irrational fear of darkness, to be sure, but Pete attributed his forty year old success and clean driving record to his careful, precocious nature behind the wheel of his car. In order to keep insurance rates down, Pete drove a Sedan. And while not incredibly good looking, it drove and handled much like a tank. Like clockwork, every 3,000 miles, Johnny Williams could expect to see the white Sedan roll into his garage for an oil change, tire air pressure check, headlight re-aiming, and bulb changes.
Pete was a man of careful determination. Standing five feet six, he found himself eye level with most people, and feared the exceptionally tall.
The headlights swept across the road, scaring off a raccoon that had considered for a brief second ending it all.
“Get back,” Pete muttered under his breath, seeing his headlights reflected in the eyes of the rodent.
Only ten miles to home. Ten miles and he would have the milk he needed for breakfast. It was uncharacteristic to forget something as important as milk – before that moment, Pete had never considered himself absent minded. He took it with a grain of salt.
“I guess I might just be getting old,” he thought to himself. “Old people forget things like this all the time,” his hands nervously gripping the wheel. “But I’m not that old.”
At first, Pete neglected to see the headlights behind him. They were quite a ways back, and the road for the next few miles was a passing lane. Always maintaining the speed limit, Pete was sure that any car would pass him.
He saw the headlights and his grip tightened on the wheel.
“Come on, just go around.”
The lights gained on his small white car. The headlights weren’t blinding. Not halogen, thank God.
The window of the white Sedan rolled down and Pete stuck his arm out the window, motioning for the car to pass. It pulled into the other lane and sped up, pulling beside Pete, who offered a glance at the driver.
The driver sat hunched behind the wheel, his height uncomfortable for a car of that size. His dark, curly hair fell over his face, but seemed to move away from his eyes, which were a brilliant white.
“What the hell,” Pete whispered. “Goddamned crazy contact lenses.” He stepped on his brakes, but the car in the left lane matched his speed, the driver never taking his eyes off of Pete.
“Just go around,” Pete said out the window.
The window of the black car rolled down.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that,” the driver said, smiling. Row upon row of white teeth, as white as his eyes, as white as the headlights of the car he drove.
“Just go… around, you know?” Pete motioned.
“Oh, sure thing,” the driver said, pulling ahead, his engine revving. He pulled ahead of Pete and sped off into the distance.
“Goddamned weirdoes come out at night…”
Pete didn’t notice the headlights behind him until they were against his bumper, jostling his car.
“Oh, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, not now, not now,” he said, looking briefly up at his rearview mirror. He only saw the white eyes. “What the hell is going on…”
The driver pulled up beside Pete. His window was still down and the driver was still smiling. “Did you miss me, buddy?”
“That’s – I’m calling the police, young man. I’ve got a cellular telephone, and I’m calling the police.”
“You’re not calling ****, Pete.”
“How did you –“ Before he could finish the question, the black car sped ahead and jammed on its brakes. Pete swerved to miss the obstacle, swearing and beginning to perspire. His granddaughter had told him to buy a cell phone.
They were life savers, she said.
Clean living is a life saver, he said.
The black car didn’t stall. It shot back again behind Pete, inching closer to his back bumper. His hand was forced. Breaking his own cardinal rule of night driving, Pete sped up.
Fifty in a forty five.
Sixty in a forty five.
Seventy. His hands were too slick with sweat to grip the wheel very well. He was beginning to out drive his headlights when a small animal darted across the road. Pete swerved, but it was too late. The animal ran under his wheel and Pete felt the distinct bump.
And the black car fell back.
Pete slowed down to a safe speed, looking for a place to pull over and collect himself. He turned his headlights off and stepped off of his brakes, going invisible.
He watched in the mirror as the black car stalled. The driver’s side door opened and the driver stepped out. He looked very tall, abnormally tall, at least seven feet before his mop of hair.
Bathed in the headlights, he moved to the front of the car to the small animal that Pete had crushed. Without so much as a second glance, he stooped down and picked the small creature up. There was an inhuman click that sounded as his jaw unhinged, his teeth popping, but what were teeth to the driver? He didn’t need to chew. The rough fur of the creature brushed against his tongue and sent a shiver of delight down his spine.
The lump of his throat was forced down by a rhythmic pulling from inside, and soon there was no evidence of the animal except a small pool of blood on the ground.
Pete felt the bile rising in his throat.
“I can’t hide.”
Pete started his car and peeled out, driving as fast as he could, animals and laws be damned.
The headlights caught up behind him, growing brighter and brighter in his mirrors until he was sure impact was imminent. He shut his eyes tight, gripping the wheel and holding his breath.
The black car drove into the white Sedan. It did not collide, rather drove into the Sedan, melding with the white framework.
Pete opened his eyes. The seats beneath him felt different. They were leather.
And in the passenger seat, the driver sat.
“Hello, Pete. Sorry about that show back there. Nasty habit, but one has to eat.”
“What the hell…”
“What have you got here?” The driver asked, reaching down into the passenger well and pulling the milk bottle out. “I thought they might still deliver milk. I hate this stuff. Doesn’t do anything for the old gastrointestinal tract.”
The driver spoke slowly, but with precision. Each word was marked by his baritone voice, which came out smooth as a milk shake and deep as a lake.
“It’s just milk,” Pete muttered.
“I know you have questions, Pete. I know you can’t ask them. Too nervous. Most people are nervous when they meet me.”
“Who are you?”
“Figure it out yourself.”
“I just want to get out of here, man.”
“Then stop the car.”
Pete nodded and stepped on the brakes, bringing the car to a slow careful halt.
“Just step outside,” the driver said, smiling.
He has pointy teeth, Pete noticed.
Pete opened the door and set his foot on the ground, but there was nothing a solid. A wave spread out as he tried to set his foot against the pavement, the ground rippling. The ripples faded near the tree line. Pete kicked harder, and like water, the pavement splashed around his foot.
“What is –“
“Well, now that escape isn’t an option, why don’t we drive?”
“What if I get out?”
“Then you get out here. That’ll be that. You’ll uh… I think you’ll sink. No one has ever gotten out, though, so I wouldn’t know.”
“I think I’ll drive.”
“Good call,” the driver said, nodding his head. “Just head for the horizon. Straight line.”
“The road curves ahead.”
“Straight line, Pete. Straight line.”
Pete nodded, and started the car.
“Sorry for scaring you back there. Didn’t mean to tap you car like that. It was my mistake. Things, they weren’t ready yet.”
“Yeah.”
“I see you gripping the wheel like that. Do you want to hit me? You can try.”
Pete swung out, but his hand slowed down as it neared the driver, and when it was supposed to connect, his hand felt like it was going through lukewarm water as it passed through the driver. He swung back, but his hand was met with the same sickly wet resistence.
“You’re not real. You can’t be real.”
“Pete, I’m as real as you make me.”
“What does that mean?”
“Tree line, Pete. Watch out, the road curves.”
He tried to cut the wheel, but the car wouldn’t respond. It didn’t seem like they were getting closer to the trees, rather that the trees were getting larger as a picture would get larger the closer one would get to a computer screen. It was as if the universe had stopped loading past the horizon.
The car moved through the trees and off of the edge of the world. It began a slow straight line path into a starry abyss.
The driver kicked his heels up on the dashboard, his snakeskin boots glinting in the starlight.
“I’m not in control, am I?”
“Is anyone? What you – what most people don’t realize is that no matter how carefully they live their lives, they aren’t in control. Control is an illusion for the weak.”
“I’m not weak.”
“You have the consistency of pudding,” the driver said. “Me, I’m strong. I’m pretty strong. I can lift a bus and knock down buildings. I can blow out a hurricane and redirect planes into towers.”
“Who are you?” Pete asked.
“Me, I’m infinity. I’m what everyone wishes they could control but can’t. And if you can’t figure it out, well, that’s your loss then, isn’t it?”
“Are you death?”
“Are you naïve? No, I’m not Death. Death isn’t really real either. Like control, it’s an illusion. It’s an ending point, but you’re looking at things the wrong way.”
“People don’t die?”
“No. They stop living.”
“What’s the difference,” Pete asked.
“Living and begin alive are two separate entities. Your life, Pete, I would hardly call living. I think you died a long time ago. Maybe you’re just a phantom traveling these roads at night, a spook story for horny teenagers trying to scare their date into trying to give something up.
“You’re a very self conscious person, but you’re not very self aware. Everything you do is so metered out, so measured. Do you have fun?”
“I do the Sunday crossword.”
“Is that fun?”
Pete shrugged. “I don’t like having fun.”
“Well, do you like knowing that you don’t like having fun?”
A chuckle escaped Pete. “I guess I don’t. I don’t know.”
“I could make you have fun again,” the driver said, smiling and crossing his legs. The dashboard stretched out for miles, and so did the driver.
“Would I like that?”
“You might. I don’t know. I’m not you, Pete.”
“But where can this end? You told me I don’t have any control.”
“Maybe I’m bull****ting you. You don’t know that.”
The car continued to tumble in space.
“I’m going to get out of the car now,” the driver said. “Here are your options. You step out of the car. You’ll feel weightless for a little while, and then you’ll wake up in your bed. It’ll be Sunday, you can do the crossword, and you’ll have milk in your fridge. You might tell Mitch about that crazy dream you had where you met someone who claimed to be infinity and you go on doing what you do.”
“Living.”
“Sure… Or, you can sit in the car, which is headed for those two stars. You’ll be back on the road, you’ll be speeding, but you’ll be driving. You’ll feel a new sense of control over you as if anything can happen. How would you like that?”
Pete turned to answer, but the driver was gone.
He sat, staring at the two stars ahead.
He thought back to three across from the Sunday Times. Afebrile. Status quo. “Hell, this isn’t living.”
His pupils dilated as he approached the two stars, the car barreling at faster than light speed. His hands stretched out in front of him for hundreds of feet.
And there was a thump. No quick flash, no smoke screen.
Just the bright stars, and he was back on the road. It took Pete a few seconds to realize he was back in control, because the stars were still there.
Wait.
Not stars.
He collided head on with an SUV, ejecting from the drivers seat and over the roof of the other vehicle. He landed on the pavement with a thud, rolling three, four, five times until coming to a complete stop.
He sat there, both his arms broken behind his back, staring at the ground in front of him. He couldn’t move his neck. His body was on fire.
He heard the footfalls behind him and watched as the two snakeskin boots moved in front of him to block the light.
"Or maybe I'm just a liar," the baritone voice said.
There was loud click followed by an odd popping sound that echoed for yards.
And then, there was nothing.
Irrational fear of darkness, to be sure, but Pete attributed his forty year old success and clean driving record to his careful, precocious nature behind the wheel of his car. In order to keep insurance rates down, Pete drove a Sedan. And while not incredibly good looking, it drove and handled much like a tank. Like clockwork, every 3,000 miles, Johnny Williams could expect to see the white Sedan roll into his garage for an oil change, tire air pressure check, headlight re-aiming, and bulb changes.
Pete was a man of careful determination. Standing five feet six, he found himself eye level with most people, and feared the exceptionally tall.
The headlights swept across the road, scaring off a raccoon that had considered for a brief second ending it all.
“Get back,” Pete muttered under his breath, seeing his headlights reflected in the eyes of the rodent.
Only ten miles to home. Ten miles and he would have the milk he needed for breakfast. It was uncharacteristic to forget something as important as milk – before that moment, Pete had never considered himself absent minded. He took it with a grain of salt.
“I guess I might just be getting old,” he thought to himself. “Old people forget things like this all the time,” his hands nervously gripping the wheel. “But I’m not that old.”
At first, Pete neglected to see the headlights behind him. They were quite a ways back, and the road for the next few miles was a passing lane. Always maintaining the speed limit, Pete was sure that any car would pass him.
He saw the headlights and his grip tightened on the wheel.
“Come on, just go around.”
The lights gained on his small white car. The headlights weren’t blinding. Not halogen, thank God.
The window of the white Sedan rolled down and Pete stuck his arm out the window, motioning for the car to pass. It pulled into the other lane and sped up, pulling beside Pete, who offered a glance at the driver.
The driver sat hunched behind the wheel, his height uncomfortable for a car of that size. His dark, curly hair fell over his face, but seemed to move away from his eyes, which were a brilliant white.
“What the hell,” Pete whispered. “Goddamned crazy contact lenses.” He stepped on his brakes, but the car in the left lane matched his speed, the driver never taking his eyes off of Pete.
“Just go around,” Pete said out the window.
The window of the black car rolled down.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that,” the driver said, smiling. Row upon row of white teeth, as white as his eyes, as white as the headlights of the car he drove.
“Just go… around, you know?” Pete motioned.
“Oh, sure thing,” the driver said, pulling ahead, his engine revving. He pulled ahead of Pete and sped off into the distance.
“Goddamned weirdoes come out at night…”
Pete didn’t notice the headlights behind him until they were against his bumper, jostling his car.
“Oh, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, not now, not now,” he said, looking briefly up at his rearview mirror. He only saw the white eyes. “What the hell is going on…”
The driver pulled up beside Pete. His window was still down and the driver was still smiling. “Did you miss me, buddy?”
“That’s – I’m calling the police, young man. I’ve got a cellular telephone, and I’m calling the police.”
“You’re not calling ****, Pete.”
“How did you –“ Before he could finish the question, the black car sped ahead and jammed on its brakes. Pete swerved to miss the obstacle, swearing and beginning to perspire. His granddaughter had told him to buy a cell phone.
They were life savers, she said.
Clean living is a life saver, he said.
The black car didn’t stall. It shot back again behind Pete, inching closer to his back bumper. His hand was forced. Breaking his own cardinal rule of night driving, Pete sped up.
Fifty in a forty five.
Sixty in a forty five.
Seventy. His hands were too slick with sweat to grip the wheel very well. He was beginning to out drive his headlights when a small animal darted across the road. Pete swerved, but it was too late. The animal ran under his wheel and Pete felt the distinct bump.
And the black car fell back.
Pete slowed down to a safe speed, looking for a place to pull over and collect himself. He turned his headlights off and stepped off of his brakes, going invisible.
He watched in the mirror as the black car stalled. The driver’s side door opened and the driver stepped out. He looked very tall, abnormally tall, at least seven feet before his mop of hair.
Bathed in the headlights, he moved to the front of the car to the small animal that Pete had crushed. Without so much as a second glance, he stooped down and picked the small creature up. There was an inhuman click that sounded as his jaw unhinged, his teeth popping, but what were teeth to the driver? He didn’t need to chew. The rough fur of the creature brushed against his tongue and sent a shiver of delight down his spine.
The lump of his throat was forced down by a rhythmic pulling from inside, and soon there was no evidence of the animal except a small pool of blood on the ground.
Pete felt the bile rising in his throat.
“I can’t hide.”
Pete started his car and peeled out, driving as fast as he could, animals and laws be damned.
The headlights caught up behind him, growing brighter and brighter in his mirrors until he was sure impact was imminent. He shut his eyes tight, gripping the wheel and holding his breath.
The black car drove into the white Sedan. It did not collide, rather drove into the Sedan, melding with the white framework.
Pete opened his eyes. The seats beneath him felt different. They were leather.
And in the passenger seat, the driver sat.
“Hello, Pete. Sorry about that show back there. Nasty habit, but one has to eat.”
“What the hell…”
“What have you got here?” The driver asked, reaching down into the passenger well and pulling the milk bottle out. “I thought they might still deliver milk. I hate this stuff. Doesn’t do anything for the old gastrointestinal tract.”
The driver spoke slowly, but with precision. Each word was marked by his baritone voice, which came out smooth as a milk shake and deep as a lake.
“It’s just milk,” Pete muttered.
“I know you have questions, Pete. I know you can’t ask them. Too nervous. Most people are nervous when they meet me.”
“Who are you?”
“Figure it out yourself.”
“I just want to get out of here, man.”
“Then stop the car.”
Pete nodded and stepped on the brakes, bringing the car to a slow careful halt.
“Just step outside,” the driver said, smiling.
He has pointy teeth, Pete noticed.
Pete opened the door and set his foot on the ground, but there was nothing a solid. A wave spread out as he tried to set his foot against the pavement, the ground rippling. The ripples faded near the tree line. Pete kicked harder, and like water, the pavement splashed around his foot.
“What is –“
“Well, now that escape isn’t an option, why don’t we drive?”
“What if I get out?”
“Then you get out here. That’ll be that. You’ll uh… I think you’ll sink. No one has ever gotten out, though, so I wouldn’t know.”
“I think I’ll drive.”
“Good call,” the driver said, nodding his head. “Just head for the horizon. Straight line.”
“The road curves ahead.”
“Straight line, Pete. Straight line.”
Pete nodded, and started the car.
“Sorry for scaring you back there. Didn’t mean to tap you car like that. It was my mistake. Things, they weren’t ready yet.”
“Yeah.”
“I see you gripping the wheel like that. Do you want to hit me? You can try.”
Pete swung out, but his hand slowed down as it neared the driver, and when it was supposed to connect, his hand felt like it was going through lukewarm water as it passed through the driver. He swung back, but his hand was met with the same sickly wet resistence.
“You’re not real. You can’t be real.”
“Pete, I’m as real as you make me.”
“What does that mean?”
“Tree line, Pete. Watch out, the road curves.”
He tried to cut the wheel, but the car wouldn’t respond. It didn’t seem like they were getting closer to the trees, rather that the trees were getting larger as a picture would get larger the closer one would get to a computer screen. It was as if the universe had stopped loading past the horizon.
The car moved through the trees and off of the edge of the world. It began a slow straight line path into a starry abyss.
The driver kicked his heels up on the dashboard, his snakeskin boots glinting in the starlight.
“I’m not in control, am I?”
“Is anyone? What you – what most people don’t realize is that no matter how carefully they live their lives, they aren’t in control. Control is an illusion for the weak.”
“I’m not weak.”
“You have the consistency of pudding,” the driver said. “Me, I’m strong. I’m pretty strong. I can lift a bus and knock down buildings. I can blow out a hurricane and redirect planes into towers.”
“Who are you?” Pete asked.
“Me, I’m infinity. I’m what everyone wishes they could control but can’t. And if you can’t figure it out, well, that’s your loss then, isn’t it?”
“Are you death?”
“Are you naïve? No, I’m not Death. Death isn’t really real either. Like control, it’s an illusion. It’s an ending point, but you’re looking at things the wrong way.”
“People don’t die?”
“No. They stop living.”
“What’s the difference,” Pete asked.
“Living and begin alive are two separate entities. Your life, Pete, I would hardly call living. I think you died a long time ago. Maybe you’re just a phantom traveling these roads at night, a spook story for horny teenagers trying to scare their date into trying to give something up.
“You’re a very self conscious person, but you’re not very self aware. Everything you do is so metered out, so measured. Do you have fun?”
“I do the Sunday crossword.”
“Is that fun?”
Pete shrugged. “I don’t like having fun.”
“Well, do you like knowing that you don’t like having fun?”
A chuckle escaped Pete. “I guess I don’t. I don’t know.”
“I could make you have fun again,” the driver said, smiling and crossing his legs. The dashboard stretched out for miles, and so did the driver.
“Would I like that?”
“You might. I don’t know. I’m not you, Pete.”
“But where can this end? You told me I don’t have any control.”
“Maybe I’m bull****ting you. You don’t know that.”
The car continued to tumble in space.
“I’m going to get out of the car now,” the driver said. “Here are your options. You step out of the car. You’ll feel weightless for a little while, and then you’ll wake up in your bed. It’ll be Sunday, you can do the crossword, and you’ll have milk in your fridge. You might tell Mitch about that crazy dream you had where you met someone who claimed to be infinity and you go on doing what you do.”
“Living.”
“Sure… Or, you can sit in the car, which is headed for those two stars. You’ll be back on the road, you’ll be speeding, but you’ll be driving. You’ll feel a new sense of control over you as if anything can happen. How would you like that?”
Pete turned to answer, but the driver was gone.
He sat, staring at the two stars ahead.
He thought back to three across from the Sunday Times. Afebrile. Status quo. “Hell, this isn’t living.”
His pupils dilated as he approached the two stars, the car barreling at faster than light speed. His hands stretched out in front of him for hundreds of feet.
And there was a thump. No quick flash, no smoke screen.
Just the bright stars, and he was back on the road. It took Pete a few seconds to realize he was back in control, because the stars were still there.
Wait.
Not stars.
He collided head on with an SUV, ejecting from the drivers seat and over the roof of the other vehicle. He landed on the pavement with a thud, rolling three, four, five times until coming to a complete stop.
He sat there, both his arms broken behind his back, staring at the ground in front of him. He couldn’t move his neck. His body was on fire.
He heard the footfalls behind him and watched as the two snakeskin boots moved in front of him to block the light.
"Or maybe I'm just a liar," the baritone voice said.
There was loud click followed by an odd popping sound that echoed for yards.
And then, there was nothing.
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