Tales To Tell In The Dark

The Road

Claudio was driving his old but leal 89 Chevrolet Monza in company of his sleeping wife who was resting on the seat next to him. They drove down a winding long road.

he moon light was very humble, it was enough at least for realizing that they were driving on a moor, during midwinter, on a really cold night.

Claudio was a young man who had a scoliosis case, his back really hurt because of the many hours he would spend riving, and like a real traveler, he knew that he had to drive at least six more hours to reach a descent motel to do what he really wanted long ago, rest, an sleep.

It was really late but as everybody knows, nature has no schedule, so when Claudio felt that necessity, he just stopped the car on the side of the road, he carefully opened the car door so he wouldn' wake up his wife, and started walking on the sand.

When he finishes, he is surprised to see far away, on the horizon, that two lights appear, and they became closer and closer, and faster by second, and even more close then...

Claudio entered his car, and closed the door and instinctively starts driving as close as he cans to the right side of the road, so the vehicle that is supposed to be coming from the left doesn't collide with hi.

Soon he realized that those pair of lights came from an eighteen wheeler, which was rolling really fast, breaking the speed limit. And whoever was driving that, realized the Chevrolet coming from the right side of the road, and started to honk desperately.

Soledad (Claudio's wife) wakes up at the time the other vehicle passes b, she immediately started asking Claudio what's was going on.

Claudio reassured her, saying that nothing happened, that maybe the other driver was drunk.

Soledad calms down, and closes her eyes to fall asleep again, while Claudio watches the lights of the truck disappearing from the rear view mirror.

At the same time he's looking for a Pink Floyd CD to not fall asleep, he sees other thing coming from the road, this thing didn't have any lights or wheels, but it was moving, in fact, it had four legs, and was pink colored (or at least that's what Claudio could see on the darkness of the midnight), it was coming closer, and closer, like running, chasing something.

Claudio watched that thing moving with fear that slowly degenerate in horror, and he realized that whatever that thing was, it wasn't like any kind of animal he has seen before, and there was no way it could make sense, but that "creature" looked like a man. A man running with his two arms and legs, like an animal. He was naked and deformed.

Claudio was about to scream because he was getting closer to that thing on the road. When they finally crossed, and Claudio turn his head to the left to see it, and that thing turn to see him too; he found that it was really a man, an indescribable man, and what really got his attention was his pair of deep red eyes.

Claudio couldn't keep his pride, he screamed, he screamed because he saw on the rear-view mirror the thing stopping and staring at him. But by miracle it didn't start chasing him, just turned around and keep running on the opposite direction. His scream waked up his wife again, she asked him what was going on: Claudio what's happening? But Claudio couldn't answer, he was in shock, he told his wife that he was right, to leave him in peace, that he couldn't speak right now.

Finally they reach a Gas station, and Soledad made him stop the car even if he didn't want to, and tell her what the problem was. He couldn't take it anymore and started crying, he told his wife everything. She tried to calm him; the nice employeeof the Gas station also tried too. They fill up the car and finally started driving again. They stayed at a local motel but Claudio couldn't sleep.

They didn't start driving again until the next day's afternoon, Soledad turned on the radio and just because of the destiny, they heard a story on the news:

'The police found a eighteen wheeler on the road it appeared to have flipped. The cab was covered in blood and saliva

But the worst of all, was that they couldn't find the driver's body.'