Whisper of the Mist

     The road in front of Gavin seemed far away. A dull throb started behind his scar and worked its way across his head. He slowed the truck as pain took hold. A noise started somewhere in the distance then rose into a painful crescendo. The pain halted and a scream erupted inside his head. A scream of terror and fear. The scream started in the center of his head and rose until it filled his skull. The pressure built and built. Would his head explode? 

     Gavin pulled to the side of the road and buried his face in his hands. Please go away. He covered his ears, but it held in the sound. Then as the sound reached a pinnacle, it abruptly stopped. Gavin raised up and wiped the moisture upon his cheeks. Tears? He couldn’t remember the last time he had cried real tears. Must have been…but he shut that thought down right away.

     A dull roar split the silence around him. Oh no, not again…but this time it wasn't in his head. An approaching light behind the hill he just descended caught his attention. Two twin glowing orbs floated above the ground. Headlights, just headlights, he assured himself. But these looked like no headlights he had ever seen. They were faded and dull. They didn’t seem to…to belong. 

      The roar and the headlights got closer and closer. Something about the car didn’t sit right with him. The headlights didn’t just look wrong. There was something he was missing, something more wrong than anything else. Then it hit him as the car descended the hill and barreld towards him. There was no dust! The truck, even though he had stopped, still had dust floating around it in the air. No one could drive down these old dirt roads without stirring it up. The car approaching him had none. Not even a speck to mar its glowing, pristine surface.

      Even though the moon had disappeared behind the clouds,  it reverberated with an inner light. An old 1965 Mustang, black and powerful. The Mustang flew forward. He sat  transfixed by the sight of the ghostly car. As it reached his back bumper, he realized that he sat in its path. The realization came too late.

      He hunkered down and braced for impact. He fumbled with the keys in the ignition, but couldn’t get them to slide in. Images flashed across his mind of wreckage, screams and carnage. The memories of the tragedy blurred his vision. The memory of then and the reality of now merged together in his mind. He tried with everything he had to block it out, to push it away.

       But it passed him. He tried to shake off the cold chill that had taken hold. It raced ahead, its taillights glowing behind it. The keys were still slippery in his palm as he tried to slide them in once again, but he paused as his eye caught the sign illuminated in front of him. It read:

DANGER! BLAST SITE AHEAD

       The car headed straight for the edge! He jumped out of the truck and limped after the car just as it disappeared from sight. The taillights blinked out. There one moment and gone the next. Slowing to a walk, he favored his leg the rest of the way, every step agony. Pain dogged him, trying to drag him down. As he neared, he expected to hear something. But no crunching of metal, no screaming, nothing but the dark, silent night around him. He ventured to the edge but already knew what he would find. Absolutely nothing. And the strangest thing of all? A construction barrier sat blocking the road and it was completely intact. After that lay a great yawning blackness.