Phantom Of Lonely Roads

Part III

     On the road again, time felt as though it was continuing. The odd behavior of the sun said otherwise. It still stood at noon, something she hadn't noticed until she was far away from the gas station. That experience was jarring...mostly because she still had no idea what happened. She was unsure if she missed something, or if it was an illusion and that's who the man in the suit was. Still, it seemed very real. Then she thought about the fire, how it had gone from a pillar of engulfing flames to a series of diminishing smoke trails in the blink of an eye.
     She decided that she would continue to drive for now, and try to enjoy the landscape as she had before. So she did, and the young woman was quickly lost in the landscape of the desert expanse. Some cacti rose as pillars of strength, many feet tall, while others hugged the sand, raising only inches above the dunes. She was viewing such cacti as they passed, looking at them from another angle, where they often had burrows of small animals. The young woman slowed down as she approached a substantially sized Saguaro cactus, curious.
     No sooner had she reached the other side, then she was turned sheet-white by what awaited her. There! It was the man in the suit, who appeared completely fine. She eased into the brakes, remembering her last brake at the gas station. Opening the door, she cautiously approached the man in the suit.
"Are you okay? Are you hurt?" She asked, taking deliberate steps. He extended his arm, his palm facing up. He spoke slowly but surely.
"Take my hand."
She stopped. "What are you talking about?" She ventured, still behaving cautiously.
      Then it became dark, and there was a chill in the air. The young woman began looking around, curious yet wary about the sudden change of scene. Looking up, she gasped. There was a swarm of birds circling, blocking out the sun. Then, they rapidly descended, screeching maliciously. With a shriek, the young woman fled to her car and slammed her foot on the gas. As she sped away, she looked back in her mirrors with horror to see the man in the suit viciously attacked by the birds, his hand still outstretched. Just as soon as he was covered, though, by the swarm of angry beaks and wings, the birds flew away, leaving not a trace of the man in the suit.
     The young woman began hyperventilating, desperate to calm herself. The experience was so abstract and strange, yet so real and terrifying. Increasing her speed, she began to convince herself that it was not a real experience, that it had to be a hallucination. Maybe it was the heat. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder, and her blood went cold. Shakily raising her eyes go the rear-view mirror, her heart dropped when her gaze was returned by him. The man in the suit. She began hyperventilating again and the whole world seemed to spin. The last thing she remembers before it all fading was her orange Chevy drifting off the road.