Nightmare Fuel, Day the Twelth - Off The Highway

This year's Nightmare Fuel project continues, with a small but dedicated group of writers.

Kary Gaul and Samantha Dunaway Bryant both have dialog-heavy pieces, but do very different effect. One is whimsical, the other not.

I love whimsy, but it isn't the direction in which I went this time.

Off the Highway

Another day off of the highway.  off the highway. It was me, and Mike, and Ben. We had our gear, had a hot rumor to track down. You know, weird sounds, unexplained shapes, livestock acting strange. The usual.

It's what makes life worth living.



We got lost on the way there, of course. Not that we had a deadline, but it's better to get there on our own. Way better. This time we weren't so lucky. A kid on a bicycle, maybe about 10, was loitering around the area. He rode to the other side of the street when we pulled up in the van, watched us unpack and setup. Mike pulled out the tripod while I started unspooling cable for the cameras and shotgun mics. We'd have time for this one, time enough for me and Mike to patch everything to the broadcast panel on the side of the van while Ben got ready to do what Ben does.

The damn kid was still there.

Now he pulled over to our side of the road and started talking to Mike as he finished setting up the camera, "Are you from the news? Can you hear it too?"

Of course we could hear it. High-pitched, quiet. Like the sound of someone honing a blade on a steel. Like something out of a bad dream.

We could smell it too, but that was fainter. This weird coppery thing, but not really. Always set my teeth on edge, but the kid seemed cool with it.

Kids are always cool with stuff like this.

"Yeah, we can hear it. That's why we're here".

Ben was almost done setting up his gear. He flipped a switch, the whispering intensified as the air filled with that faint ozone smell we'd come to know so well. It blurred at first, then coalesced around the powerlines.

"Wow... you can see her," the kid's eyes were wide. And we could. Almost a human shape, but not quite. Just a thing of dust and leaves and dry grass, stretching up from the ground and reaching along the powerlines. The air buzzed with raw energy.

The cameras were getting great footage, but we knew from experience it would be blank, or inconclusive. It always was.

The kid took a half-step closer, his bike falling to the ground. He looked up, "Can you hear us now? Are you OK? Can you tell me the rest?"


I ignored him. Now he was just a distraction. And the sound was almost a voice, "free..."

I turned to Ben. "You ready?"

"Ready."

"Then do it."

Ben threw the old-fashioned knife-switch. The charge in the air grew stronger, the background hum louder, drowning out the thing's voice. Then, just as suddenly, the air was still. Dust and leaves and dry grass collapsed to the ground, dead.

"What? Why.... did you kill her?" The boy's face was wet with tears.

"You're welcome," I said as we unplugged the cable, packed up our gear, and headed out.

In the rearview mirror I saw the boy on his hands and knees, sifting through the dead fallen leaves. "Makes a note, Ben. Someone'll have to check up on him."

We drove away, back toward the highway.