(Not to be used for AI training).
I was late.
I was warned it was going to happen and laughed it off, and now here I was, late.
Fuck.
I had been out of work for four months and was to the point where my parents weren’t willing to keep sliding me money, which was fair, but put me into a bad situation. “It’s time to start thinking about that opening for a checker at Hart Mart,” dad had told me. A four year education at college, all that hard work, stress, and sacrifice to keep my grades up and scholarships in place, only to be faced with working at a job I had when I was seventeen. Things were getting bad. I had even started to eye some of my instruments and collectibles with an appraiser’s eye. Even the coin collection my grandfather had left me in his Will.
I needed a job.
I needed this job.
Fuck.
I had gone to Roger’s Halloween party the night before, convinced by him at the last minute to throw on an old costume and come over for a little bit. I had known Roger since college, and it was clear he was trying to work up the courage to ask me out, and I sorta hoped he would, so I went. I saw some friends from school who I hadn’t seen for years and I let them talk me into staying later, and partying harder than I should have. Even sensible Roger kept telling me to stay, stay, stay. It was Carolyn who pulled me aside at midnight to remind me of my job interview today.
Sure, sure, sure.
Only, I left at three in the morning, and was up ten minutes late, and now I was going to lose this goddamned…
Stop.
Stop.
Take a breath.
Keep on truckin’.
It was still early, the sun behind thick cloud cover, and I was racing down the highway when I got stuck behind a slow semi through a long construction zone. It was late in the season for big projects, but here we were. The highway had had a shift that pushed me down a part of the roadway that must have just opened because I didn’t recognize it. This new path was a mess, but I didn’t seem to have a choice, there was no exit, and I was in a part of the city I didn’t recognize. They were working on the median, so the lanes were dropped from three to two, to one. I had a chance to shoot ahead of the semi, but they sped up enough to make it impossible before I lost the lane. I was furious and hit the horn, which made them slow down even more than they had to.
Fucker.
I looked at the clock on the radio and clenched my jaw.
I was going to be late, and as the semi slow, slow, slowed it made it unclear how late I’d be.
I looked into my rearview and saw it was just me and the truck for now, though there were distant lights approaching slowly.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, unlocked it, hit the dialing app, and called the office I was interviewing for.
It was a good job.
A really good job.
A career sort of job.
And I was going to be late.
They answered on the third ring.
I told the young man who I was and explained my situation, and was about to ask to reschedule when he laughed.
“Really? Geez, that’s awful. I hadn’t realized there were any projects going on, but they may have just started it to get one last one in before the weather turns. You know how these projects are. Sheesh. As it turns out, Nora’s car wouldn’t start this morning so she’s waiting for the dealership to come pick her and the car up, and then get her a loaner. Sounds like you may beat her here.”
I let out a nervous laugh and apologized.
“Don’t worry about it. She was excited to talk to you, and, from what it sounds like, really liked you for the job, not that I told you that, so you’re good. Get here as soon as you safely can, and we’ll see you then.”
I thanked him and hung up.
I let out a long breath and beeped the horn.
Hot damn!
The truck in front of me braked and slowed even more.
Goddamit.
It wasn’t even aimed at them.
I looked in the rearview mirror and saw a line of vehicles starting to catch up to us. The clouds had darkened and dropped, and with the highway wall on one side and another wall blocking the highway noise on the other, I felt trapped.
I let out a long sigh and started tapping my fingers on the wheel.
I turned the radio up and started to examine the semi.
I couldn’t make out much of the cab from my vantage, but it was hauling a long, flat carrier piled high with cargo. The cargo was covered with a heavy brown material, a tarp of some sort, and when the wind caught it and pulled up the back left corner, I saw that whatever was underneath was also covered, though with something that looked like burlap.
I cocked my head.
Trees?
Were they hauling trees?
Today was Halloween, which meant Christmas was coming fast, but it still seemed early for cut trees to be heading somewhere.
Perhaps live trees.
Wrapped up to keep them safe for replanting.
That seemed possible.
I nodded to myself and looked into the rearview.
A car, and semi were on me, the car closest, and creeping closer.
I slumped in my seat and changed radio stations, dancing from favorite to favorite to favorite before settling on a talk radio station talking about the upcoming election.
Christ.
It seemed like there was always an election going on.
I needed to do some research this time and…
My thought died before it had fully formed as my eyes caught something on the flatbed of the truck.
I sat up straight.
The right rear side of the covering had come completely free and was flapping in the wind. The way my car was rocking made me think that the wind had picked up, and, judging from the distant clouds, that a storm was brewing.
I leaned forward and saw that whatever was on that rear right side had also become partially uncovered. There was no sign as to when the construction was ending, though it had to be soon. With the darkening sky, fog had rolled in, making the skyline of the city just shadows that stood looking down on us. I was getting antsy and nervous. The truck at least kept my mind occupied.
Flap.
Something underneath it, lying flat.
Flap.
OK, I see something brown.
Flap.
No, pink.
Flap.
Pink, no, sorta pink sorta…
Flap.
Was that skin?
Flap.
It couldn’t be skin, that’s crazy.
Flap.
OK, mannequins, but why would you haul mannequins like that?
Flap.
Happy Halloween.
What an asshole, that trucker was.
Christ, they could give someone a fuckin’ heart attack out here.
FLAP.
Both sides lifting up in the wind, and they aren’t mannequins.
They are bodies.
Two toward the right back are uncovered; one has dark skin, the other lighter skin.
These are not mannequins.
These are fucking bodies.
I turn and crane around to see if anyone else has seen this.
The car behind me holds two who seem to be in a heated discussion, paying attention to nothing beyond themselves. I can’t tell if they are young or old, men, women, or one of each. The windshield is tinted, making them hard to see.
I turn back, and the wind has really picked up, and I see how many fucking bodies are under that cover.
Dozens.
Dozens and dozens.
Jesus.
I grab my phone and dial 911.
After a moment, someone answers.
She sounds annoyed.
It’s not even nine in the morning yet.
I explain to her where I am and what I am seeing.
Long pause.
She asks me to repeat myself, and I do.
The entire time I am watching the cover flap in the wind and watching as the first body I saw becomes more uncovered. I can see naked shoulders now, and the side of a neck and some throat.
My palms went wet.
I felt a chill run down my back.
“Ma’am? MA’AM?” The woman on the phone was insistent.
I responded that I was still there.
The woman asked where I was.
I told her.
I told her I’d been in the construction for, shit, half an hour.
I told her there was no plate on the truck, but it looked like a newer cab pulling an older flatbed.
I started to tell her more, and she stopped me.
“Wait, where are you, can you repeat that?” She asked.
I told her again.
I was on the new part of the highway. They were expanding it, or fixing it, or something. I wasn’t sure. I had been routed off the main highway to this one.
She asked me if I was sure.
Of COURSE I was sure. I was there now.
Christ.
I looked to the walls of the highway and realized that either the highway had angled down, or the walls were higher now because I could see over them.
I hadn’t really noticed that before.
It was like I was in a tunnel with no top.
I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the car behind me riding my bumper.
They looked like they were screaming at each other.
Behind them was another semi, and I couldn’t see beyond that one. I tried to see what the driver looked like, but even up close, I couldn’t make out details, just a form driving the truck.
As I watched, I saw their arm rise and pull something attached to the cab roof.
HOOOOOOONK.
HOOOOOOONK.
I looked forward, and the semi in front of me was slowing even more. No brakes, but I was riding their bumper now.
I went to slam my brakes, but luckily looked into the rearview just in time to lift my foot before the car behind me hit me.
The couple had stopped fighting and were staring at my car.
At me.
The person who was driving began to lay on the horn.
HOOOOOOOOOONK.
HOOOOOOOOOONK.
Behind the couple, the semi did the same.
Ahead of me, the semi I was following also started blowing the horn as it slowed even more.
We were doing 25 miles an hour now.
The wind was whipping the cover of the truck in front of me all over the place, and I saw that more bodies were starting to uncover.
Bare flesh.
Light.
Dark.
Shades in between.
I saw no marks on the skin, but they all looked pale.
“Ma’am? Ma’am?” The voice on the phone said.
I was still holding the phone to my ear.
Help me.
Please, god, please, help me.
I’m trapped here.
Please…
The woman was quiet for a moment, then spoke again.
“Ma’am, we have a patrol on the highway. There’s no construction. None. I looked, and we have no record of construction anywhere on the highway systems in this area. We don’t know where you are. We don’t know where you are.”
I looked from left to right and saw the corridor walls were closer. As if they had narrowed.
All along the asphalt beside the wall were littered carcasses of dead animals, some piled atop one another.
I screamed and dropped the phone.
“Ma’am? Ma’am?” The voice came.
I looked in the rearview mirror, and the car behind me was riding my bumper. I felt a light nudge as it connected. It wasn’t forceful. It wasn’t aggressive. But it pinned me in. As if in concert, the semi slowed even more, leaving almost no gap between my compact car’s bumper and the flatbed.
If there was an accident, I’d be killed.
It was as simple as that.
Far back, the semi behind the car moved up until it appeared that it was on their bumper.
We were in this together, now.
I tried to watch the right side of the corridor for an exit, or a gap. Something that could get me out of there.
There was nothing.
The semi hit the brakes.
I slammed mine.
The car behind me hit theirs.
I smashed into the back of the semi, and my head glanced off the wheel.
I felt blood trickle down my brow and from my lower lip.
I shook my head to clear it.
My airbags didn’t deploy.
It wasn’t a bad accident, but I was pinned.
I wasn’t going anywhere.
I looked behind me, and the semi door opened.
Then the car doors opened.
I unbuckled my belt, unlocked my door, and opened it in a quick move. I tumbled out of my car and hit the road, and fire shot up my legs from my knees.
I moaned.
The ground was littered with dead leaves and animal parts.
I planted my hands and stood up, and I noticed a woman’s ring, attached to a severed finger, lying just a few feet from me.
I stood.
I caught a glimpse of the flatbed at eye level and saw some of the bodies sitting upright now, and one of them, toward the cab, trying to stand.
I fell onto my hood, crawled across it, tumbled off, and hobbled forward as the man behind me slowly started toward me. My legs were screaming in pain, but I forced myself forward.
This side of the highway was also littered with dead animals, though over here I also saw bloody clothes as well.
I passed the cab, and the passenger-side door opened.
There was nothing in front of the semi, and the road went on and on and on ahead of us, seeming to narrow as it did.
Forward.
Forward.
Forward.
I was ahead of the people behind me but could hear them picking up the pace.
I started to hear things falling onto the pavement from behind me and pushed it out of my mind.
In the dark corners, though, I thought it sounded like people falling onto the ground, one by one.
One by one.
The sky was black.
The wind was howling.
Leaves danced in the air, and on that same gale was the scent of distant fires.
Ahead of me, I saw a car smashed into the left side of the highway, and atop it were stacked the bodies of dead animals.
I swallowed the pain and sprinted for the car.
I felt my right shoe come off and stopped to pull the other one off, and then hurried forward in bloodied socks.
I got to the car and climbed onto the trunk and then sunk my hands into the carcasses of things I couldn’t name and clambered up them.
Blood soaked through my suit jacket and slacks, and dug down to my shirt, bra, and panties.
I climbed.
The bodies shifted; they depressed with my weight, but they held me and stayed in place as I climbed them.
Behind me, below me, I heard them.
I heard them moving.
So many people.
The body pile shifted beneath me finally.
The people below me were pulling this mountain of death apart.
I was three feet from the top.
So fucking close.
The pile shifted.
I was sliding downward.
I set my feet and launched myself with all I had upward, and caught the rim of the road.
I started to slip but grabbed a piece of rebar and started to climb upward as the last of my strength started to drain away.
My hands were getting slick with my own blood, the bar cutting into my palms, but I used the resistance of my torn and bunched skin to pull myself up.
I saw over the rim, and there was a piece of concrete, and I grabbed it and pulled, pulled, pulled.
I was up.
Christ almighty, I was up.
I clawed forward until I was fully on the ground.
All I wanted, all I wanted in the world, was to look behind me and see what had been chasing me because I knew, I knew, I knew…
I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
I had no idea what might happen, but I knew that if I looked, then I’d be stuck down there forever.
If just in my mind.
I heard a car braking hard.
I heard a siren.
I heard more cars braking.
I looked up and saw I was lying on the edge of a highway, the sun just coming out from behind some clouds.
“What the FUCK, lady?” A man screamed.
I looked at him, confused.
Was he talking to me?
“Ma’am? Ma’am?”
I craned my neck and saw an officer behind me, his cruiser parked with its lights on.
“Help…” I started.
“Ma’am, are you OK?”
“…me…” I begged.
The officer bent down and leaned in.
“Don’t tell anyone what you saw. Anyone. Don’t ever tell them. We have an ambulance coming. You’re going to be OK. You’re going to be OK.”
I was going to be OK.
….c…
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(Not to be used for AI training).
