Family (PART 2, FINALE)

The drive continued on. There were no stars overhead, no glowing moon. Just the road, lined intermittently with pale orange sodium lights, and the thickening wilderness around it. The highway was about to end, and it would soon be the isolated, abandoned back road that no one wanted to drive on at night. Roland wasn’t sure he wanted to drive on it himself, but he knew he was almost there. Just a few more miles, and he would be back in control again.

The turn-off appeared quickly, a sharp turn into dark nothingness, blink and you miss it. The road was paved, though God knew why. No one lived back here. No one but the old lady with twenty cats, and the alcoholic redneck with the beat-up pickup truck. And, of course, Roland and his demons. Each minded their own business, never questioning, or even noticing, each other’s suspicious behaviors. They were too far away from each other to bother. Roland’s victims could scream all they wanted, and no one would hear them.

Roland drove through the trees, his foot now flat on the gas pedal. The transmission protested a little as he forced the car onward, but still, he crawled along the road. He felt as though he was driving through molasses, or towing a weight too heavy for his midsize vehicle behind him. The needle on the speedometer, incredibly, wavered between 75 and 80 miles per hour. Then why did he feel so sluggish?

And still, still she stared. It had been hours since he’d seen her face, but her gaze burned into the back of his head, penetrating into the deepest trenches of his consciousness.

She spoke.

“Mister, please. I have a family,” she said.

Normally, when the girls said something like this, Roland turned on the syrup. Not to worry, he would assure them, you’ll see your family soon enough. We’re just going to stop at my house, it’ll be real quick, I promise. He prided himself on his winning smile, the one that all the girls back in college had loved. Most of his victims calmed down after that; they believed him, trusted his soothing voice, his quiet words. But not this time, not this girl. Her voice had sounded pitiful, but Roland knew better than to assume that she was the one she was pitying. His simmering unease, his creeping paranoia, suddenly erupted into white-hot hatred, and his fingers gripped the steering wheel harder. He yanked the rearview mirror back to its normal position. She was in shadow except for her eyes, blue icicles lit by a narrow strip of light. The sight of them only made him angrier.

“Shut up.” He said. “I should think that you, of all people, know what I am by now. I’ve been doing this for twenty years, do you think I give a shit about your family? I’ve seen many of them, on the news, talking about their missing little girl. Do you know what I do whenever I watch those features? I play a little drinking game. Every time the mother cries, I take a shot. Every time the father tries to appear stoic on camera, I take a shot. Every time I see a photo or video of the kid whose naked body I just dumped in the woods, I take a shot. It’s fun, you should try it sometime. Except you can’t, because you’re about to become one of those kids. So you might as well sit back and relax, kid, because these are the last moments of your-”

“You don’t understand.” The girl’s voice cut through Roland’s rant like a knife in the dark, and Roland, in spite of himself, fell silent. “That wasn’t a plea. It was a warning.”

Roland turned in his seat, the chill in his spine returning. “What are you talking about?” He said, desperately trying to stop his voice from shaking.

The girl said nothing. She lifted her arm, and pointed.

Roland turned back around…and slammed on the brakes.

The figure in the road had neither flinched nor startled when Roland had stopped in front of it, despite being close enough to touch the hood. It had pale arms that hung limply at its side. It wore blue jeans and a striped T-shirt. Everything from the mid-torso upwards disappeared into blackness. Roland sat there for a minute, mouth agape. The idea that this was his drunken neighbor, the man a mile up the road, flitted briefly through his mind, but didn’t pan out. This man was too thin, too well-dressed. And anyway, the neighbor would not have left his house on foot—if he went anywhere, he drove.

“Idiot, what are you doing in the middle of the road? Get out of my way!” Roland shouted. The figure did not budge. Roland tapped the horn, then, when the figure still did not move, pounded it with his palm. The seconds ticked away into minutes, and still, the figure stood in the road, motionless.

Roland thought briefly of backing up the car and moving around the man, but the road was too narrow, the embankment on either side of it too steep and thick with trees. And at any rate, he was no longer in the mood to be charitable.

“Fuck this,” he said, and stepped on the gas.

The car moved an inch, then Roland heard a bang. The figure in the road had slammed his hands on the hood of the car, and it lurched to a sudden stop. Roland looked on, panting like a marathon runner, his heart pounding. In a blind panic, he slammed his foot on the gas.

The engine roared. The tires squealed and smoked. And the car did not move.

Roland let up on the gas, then stepped on it again, pushing the engine to its limit. The figure’s hands sat on the hood of the car, and though he couldn’t be sure, Roland thought he saw dents in the thick metal. Whatever it was, the figure was holding Roland hostage.

That was when he heard the rustling, the footsteps coming towards the car. They were all around him, shadows looming near each of the passenger windows, and he even felt a presence standing behind the vehicle. And there were more sounds, more stirrings. Roland thought he could hear whispering, mocking words he couldn't understand, punctuated by soft laughter echoing in the darkness. He looked back at the figure holding the hood of his car. He could see glowing, red eyes, and pale lips pulled back into a grin too large to be human. The teeth ended in neat, sharp points.

He turned and looked at the little girl. She stared back, emotionless.

“You did this.” He said.

“No,” the girl said, “you did.”

The driver’s side window shattered. Long, ropy arms pulled him out of the car, as easily as a little girl pulled a rag doll out of a toy box. All around him were eyes, everywhere, always, glowing, red eyes.

Roland's screams were heard by no one.