The Haunted Traveler December 2017 Edition

54
was all he had seen on the day’s drive on those backwoods roads of eastern Washington
State, nothing but trees and an occasional car. More accustomed to the Big Apple’s
forest of brick, light, and bustle, Scott might as well have been on another planet. Mars
would be more fun.
The dashboard’s digital clock currently read 8:56pm. Scott’s eyes darted to the 9:00pm
on the scrap, back to the dead cell phone on the seat, then settled on the candy bar
wrapper in hand, the word “payday” leering at him.
“Last one for a while, I guess,” he mumbled to the bar. “At least you taste good.”
As he went in for another bite, a glow in the rearview mirror caught his eye. The glow
focused into two orbs of light hovering over the road.
Headlights.
Approaching rapidly.
Scott sighed as he shoved the Payday in his pocket. But the headlights were coming
too fast for Scott to even reach the door handle. “Shit, slow down!”
He flopped out of the Camry and into the humid night as the headlights roared by.
He sprung to his feet and sprinted into the middle of the road.
“Hey! A little help!” he screamed, waving his hands.
The car’s taillights began to dim in the distance. Panicked, Scott wanted to run after
them, which he probably would have had this all been happening a few years prior. But
this was all happening now, with Scott’s thirty-five year old creaky ankles reminding him
where he was in life in terms of wind sprints.
“I know you see me, asshole!” he shouted as a last resort. He was certain this was not
true in the dark, but it felt good to say.
Yet, Scott could hear a shift in engine noise as the lights came to a pause. After a tense
second he heard the screeching of tires, and the taillights suddenly grew bigger as they
approached in reverse. He breathed out in relief.
It was a pick-up from what he could tell, its cargo bed empty save for a few small
trash bags. The truck’s body might have been a lighter shade once, but even in the
darkness looked the color of mud. Its engine, roaring so strongly that it shook the
hood, sounding like a tiger that smoked too many cigarettes.
Scott suddenly found himself hoping the driver hadn’t heard him yell “asshole.”
The passenger window rolled down slowly, and out stuck the snout of a snarling and
an all-around unfriendly-looking pit bull.
“Hi,” Scott said as he jerked back a step, trying his best to hide his surprise. “Hey
there, buddy….”
The dog’s jaw hung open, slobber falling from its teeth like a faucet on full blast.
Scott noticed several deep cuts on its nose, face, and around the corner of the mouth,
not that he was trying to look. The beast’s eyes bore through him, though, and they
looked angry.
From behind the dog came an unseen voice, muttering, “C’mon now, Ax.”