NIGHT FLYERS

 

Postern of Fate, the Desert Gate, Disaster’s Cavern,

   Fort of Fear...

Pass not beneath, O Caravan, or pass not singing.

   Have you heard

That silence where the birds are dead, yet something

   pipeth like a bird?

                           Gates of Damascus, James Ellroy Flecker

 

Rice Deckart was driving like a maniac. He was driving like the devil himself was after him, and in a way, it was. Despite the danger his driving itself was putting him in, Rice tried to get a little more speed from his car’s already straining four-cylinder engine.

 

His evening had begun hours before, when on a whim he drove up to the hillside suburbs, to see if he could find the mansion Jake had mentioned once, the one that looked like a castle. Rice had thought that with Jake interstate, maybe the old fart that lived there would need a new personal confidential secretary.

 

He hadn’t found the place. And shortly after leaving the main road through the hills to take the overpass back down to town, he had picked up the monstrous lights that were still chasing him now…

 

The car’s engine strained as it continued to race along the winding hills road. Rice wrestled with the wheel every other turn, trying to keep his speed as high as possible without going straight off the descending road and over the edge into the deep gorges that bordered the asphalt or into the hillside stone shoulder on the other side.

 

Darting a look in his rear-view mirror he saw what looked like a pair of red brakelights from a truck, swarming into view, getting closer… But he knew they weren’t brakelights; they were eyes

 

He gunned the car again, but it was travelling as fast it could. On the next turn the wheels squealed and creaked as Rice turned the car again to turn the corner. Below him he could see he would be racing into mists that had risen from further down the hillside. Getting out of this one would require all his skill and capacity.

He struggled with the acceleration like his life depended on it… because his life depended on it.

 

From behind him came a long low howl, followed by a growling, screaming noise that reached an almost deafening crescendo… the sound warped, warbled and altered, shifting until it was akin to the high pitched scream of a jet engine married to the ululating high-pitched terrified scream of a woman facing murder or worse.

 

Rice zoomed down the highway in his car, listening to the rumble from the wheels, the straining sounds of death from the engine and the new and ominous rattles from somewhere under the hood.

 

One way or another it wouldn’t be long now…

 

He risked another glance back, and saw nothing. Relieved in an instant, he eased off the accelerator, taking the next corner wildly wide but still at a less terminally fast pace than the preceding curves.

At the following curve, Rice passed a semi-trailer going in the other direction, its red running-lights providing another small shock to his system as his car continued to slow down to a more normal running speed.

 

After a little while, Rice pulled over, switching his car engine off and opening his car door to stretch his legs and calm down. He fumbled in the glove box for a half-drunk bottle of Diet Coke. Grabbing it, he quickly took the top off and drained the remaining liquid in a few brisk gulps. Almost as soon as it hit his stomach, he had to relieve himself, and strode a few steps from his car to a convenient large gum tree overlooking the ravine below the road. He looked back at his car and saw its yellow and brown bumper sticker,

 

I'M ONE OF THOSE BAD THINGS

THAT HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE

 

It always made him smile.

 

Zipping up he looked down into the ravine again.

 

Down there, the bottom of the hills road met with the top of the easternmost road through the centre of town. There was a thicket of light poles, traffic lights and signs at that corner. He passed it at night all the time, going to or from his girlfriend or commuting to his dead-end job. He operated the machine that shrink-wrapped magazines for a local distributor. Rice breathed deeply a few times, enjoying the fresh forest air of the hills. His breath caught in his chest. He squinted to try and somehow see more detail down in the ravine. There were a pair of red lights… brakelights… or…

 

The lights flared brighter and larger. They began rising, following not the road but a straight course across the ravine and into the air

 

Rice ran to the car, started up and revved the engine. Behind him, he could already see the twin red lights glaring in the rear-view mirror. They glided across the roadway and began coming towards him up the hill. With a stifled gasp, he turned the car around, and headed up the hill.

 

The strain of climbing the hill at speed immediately told on Rice’s car. The rattle returned and got louder and louder. Even so, he managed to coax the long-suffering little vehicle up to 90, then 95… but it couldn’t go faster up the hill.

The red lights, and whatever dark shape it was behind them, soared after him and this time soon tailgated the car. As soon as the lights were close enough to fill his vehicle with ghastly blood-red light, all power cut off in the car. Rice tried to maintain control of the vehicle, but the wheel seized up, the headlights cut out, all the displays on his dashboard went dead. Then the car was skidding across the road, towards the edge…

 

There was a smashing, crashing, grinding noise that went on for an eternity and built in volume until Rice screamed out loud to try and drown it out. He felt his head hit the steering wheel and heard something snap with a loud cracking noise. Then the car was up and over the barrier and in midair, with the red light still flooding everything like a prevision of the gore that must surely soon splash everywhere.

 

For a moment, held in time like a bubble in ice, Rice felt no weight, the noise of the car had ceased, all was quiet and it seemed as though his life would pass with him floating, levitating in his smashed car. There was a burning sensation and a smell like sulphur coming from somewhere, here and there on his body there were points of pain like insect bites, insect bites that kept spreading and connecting together to form a net of blinding pain.

 

Then the car hit the floor of the ravine. The vehicle ruptured like a freshly cracked egg splashing down into a red-hot frying pan, quickly losing its essential form and feature in a blast of traumatic alteration.

 

Rice was crumpled into the wreck. Then as the car split like a seedpod he was catapulted into the air and spun into the ground. He hit head first into the scree and rubble of the gorge and rolled to a stop. The car hissed and rattled. Then all was still once more.

 

Rice was still alive, immobilised with a terrifying numbness rather than with the pain he had so feared.

 

He was in pitch-blackness, or he was blind.

 

Presently he saw shapes. Unable to move, he saw a circumscribed slice of the ravine, including the wreck, which was a dark shape. Then everything was etched in ruby clearness by the fierce glow from a pair of huge round eyes.

A thing from nightmare flopped and hopped towards him, perching on the wreck before continuing its waddling gait to him. As Rice tried to make animal noises of terror he found that his smashed mouth felt like it was full of peanuts… as he blubbered and burbled he realised they were his teeth, free to dribble through the holes in his torn face as he continued to gibber in fear.

The creature stretched its wings. Each of them had dark claws set halfway along their rubbery, lugubrious length. The claws were like bunches of bananas, but when they stretched wide, Rice saw that their tips were razor sharp points. They were designed to slice and rip raw meat. Or carrion

 

As the monster lurched over Rice, he tried to look away or shut his eyes, but he could not even do that. The last thing he saw was the creature stretching to its full huge height and width, triumphant, claws ready and curving to attack… There was a shrill scream of triumph like a chorus of eagles…

 

Then the monster fell upon him like a curtain dropping on a stage.

 

Lights out.

story (c) Jonathan Nolan 2002

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