The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Eyes on the Road
by Suzanne Madron

He was driving too fast again. He knew this, knew she would start to yell at him, but his foot pressed harder on the accelerator until it bumped against the floor. He needed to hurry.

The car lurched forward and he felt himself being pressed into the seat. Ahead of him was open road, a straight run for as far as the eye could see. Once, there had been fields of green, crops and forests, but he had left the lush growth behind him twenty miles after the last stop for gas. He was almost home. Just a little further.

The engine roared under the hood and he felt the vibration all around him as the wind pulled at the edges of the vehicle. The night streaked past the windows but he knew there was nothing to see. People had not lived out this way in decades. The stretch of road showed the wear and tear of nature reclaiming what was once its own.

He swerved to miss a gaping pothole yawning black ahead of him and was only partially successful. His teeth clacked together as he bounced from the impact. From the corner of his eye he saw movement from the passenger seat. A cold chill gripped him and he focused harder on the abandoned highway. Just a little further. If he could get them off this damned highway, maybe they could finally rest.

“You’re going to look, you know,” she said. Her voice was tired, brittle. Made of ashes.

He shook his head, tears already carving lines into his cheeks and deepening the crow’s feet surrounding his eyes.

“Honey, you have to look.”

“Not this time.”

“Every time. For always.”

She was right. And he looked, just like she said he would. He couldn’t help it any more than he could escape this repeating hell he existed in now.

The charred corpse grinned at him from the warped springs of the passenger seat, the seatbelt melded to her flesh and clothing. But it wasn’t really a grin, was it? The expression was purely due to a lack of lips.

The bright light ahead of him lit the scene in extreme contrast of light and shadow. As he had so many years before and so many years afterward, he looked directly into the cloud looming in the distance as it grew into the horrifyingly familiar mushroom shape.

Fiction © Copyright Suzanne Madron
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from Suzanne Madron:

For Sale or Rent

The house across the street seems to go on the market every few months, but this time nothing about the sale is normal, including the new owners. No sooner has the for sale sign come down and the neighborhood is thrown into a Lovecraftian nightmare and the only way to find out is to attend the house warming party.

Available on Amazon!