The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

It happened at a gas station in Old Monterrey
by Amanda Worthington

I let my hair out and breathe deep

The gas fumes make me dizzy

But they are a welcome reprieve

From the staleness of the cab

The man-sick has lain old Roderick up

He whose truck I now drive through the gloom

Of whatever forsaken place we now grace with our presence

A part of me prays for the doom

 Hopes he never awakens

Wants the open road for myself

Fears the birthing days that lie ahead

Better dead delivering hope than babies

Who are just more despair

With their hungry mouths and constant complaint

And air of dependence

.

I bear my sentence with dignity

I don’t know my cargo but I sense its weaponry of some kind

I swore I heard something howl from the trailer one night

It roused me at the wheel where I was fading fast

And I gulped my coffee and thanked it

And prayed for silence the rest of the way

And pulled off here at the Last Gas Station in Old Monterrey

.

You can make fuel out of anything

Crazy Cade liked to say

Before he took ill

And as I depleted the reservoir

I felt for those who would have nothing

With which to fill their tanks

And also feared their desperation

.

None of us were comfortable being still

We had to be always going, going, going

Delivering some godsend that would save our kind

.

To where or whom

No one really knew

Because those who arrived did not send word

Did not or could not

.

I knew only that complacency was man’s curse

And that I did not intend to follow them down into the sickbed

I began to pace along the brick wall

Waiting for the slow-pumping fuel to cease its flow

Wanting more than anything to be once more behind the wheel

.

A click sounded in the dark

I walked toward the truck

And did not see it follow

Did not feel it slip inside, unbidden

.

We are the hidden

And together we ride

In the guise of men

Who will fuel the hereafter

With their cries

.

Fiction © Copyright Amanda Worthington.
Image courtesy of Pixabay