There are No Curses, Only Mirrors - Chapter 1, Part 2 [End of Chapter]
A WLW horror romance
Chapter 1, Part 1
Alice knew that stare meant “Please leave. I’m not sure at all, but I need you to do this. For me.”
David - oblivious to their conversation - reached up to stroke Maya’s cheek and leaned in towards her again. Without breaking eye contact, Alice nodded slowly and crept around the corner out of sight, worried she was about to see something more intimate than she should be a part of. She glanced up at Maya’s clock in the kitchen. It was a birthday gift Alice had given Maya last year. The little wooden clock was shaped like a cat, its tail swinging back and forth with the seconds and the front paws indicating the hour and minute. She’d gotten it online from an artist that let her customize it, so it was painted to mimic Mr. Man’s tabby gray coat and white belly. His acrylic white paws showed it was 5:11.
Alice could hear the two of them breathing heavily. She briefly considered calling 911, but what would she say? “Hi, yes, I’m in an uncomfortable social situation, so I think my friend might be in danger”?
She unwillingly relaxed as the time passed with no further hiccups. There was intermittent rustling sounds, like clothes brushing against each other, and they’d occasionally say something to one another. But it was always too low for Alice to hear.
Not that she was trying to eavesdrop anyways.
After a while, her concern morphed into embarrassment and then finally landed on annoyance.
Why would Maya invite me to be here for something like this? Something that I very obviously should not be here for? To taunt me?
Alice distracted herself on her phone, checking emails, Instagram, Reddit, but couldn’t stop herself from continuing to glance at the time every so often.
At 5:25, Alice was pulled out of her scrolling by a muffled cry. It was definitely Maya. She sounded strained, like she had to force or choke the sound out. Alice felt her hair stand up as she was doused with cold fear, followed by a wave of guilt. Guilt for her annoyance with Maya, guilt for agreeing to leave the room in the first place.
You stupid, stupid motherfu-
She rounded the corner of the kitchen, expecting the worst. Perhaps Maya pinned on the couch by this man with his hand over her mouth to stop her from crying out again.
But it was just... Maya. Alone on the couch. Calm. Content. There was no sign of a struggle, no indication that she had yelled out. Just Maya sitting on the edge of the cushion, back straight and staring at that same watercolor painting that had captivated David’s attention earlier.
David, on the other hand, was gone.
“Oh… did he leave?”
Maya looked up with a start, like she’d forgotten Alice had been here the whole time.
“Hm? Oh, yes, ha! You just missed him.” She touched her lips absentmindedly. “I’m really sorry about all that. I know this was probably kind of weird for you, but sh- I appreciate you being here.”
“Yeah… no problem…” Maya seemed better than before. Not on the verge of tears anymore at least, and calmer than Alice had seen her since Maya had found out that David was in town days ago. But Alice hadn't missed the odd slip between ‘she’ and ‘I’. It made her uneasy.
“So, he’s gone? That’s it?” Alice asked again, not believing that that was it. There had to be something more. There was something more.
Maya rolled her eyes and huffed as if she couldn’t even be bothered to grace Alice’s question with an answer.
“Yeah, yeah he’s gone, stop worrying about it, jeez!” She waved her hand, annoyed.
Alice’s mouth dropped open - nothing came out. This wasn’t how Maya talked to her. Ever. In every variation of their relationship, this was never how Maya talked to her.
Maya looked up at her face and realized that she had crossed a line. Given something away perhaps. She swallowed her annoyed, impatient expression and replaced it with a strained, sickly sweet smile.
“Actually… would you mind finishing that tea for me?” Maya asked, like an annoyed mother trying to get rid of her kid without yelling at them. “I’m just a little thirsty.” She laughed - not the high, clear, full throated laugh that Alice knew and loved and fell in love, having heard it so many times over the years.
But in that sniffing, animalistic way. Like David.
Alice checked her phone. It was 5:33. She looked back at Maya.
“Well, I have a thing at six you know.” This was a lie. She knew it and she knew Maya knew it, but she didn’t want to stay longer than she already had.
Maya’s eyebrows knit together. “What thing at six? What are you talking about?” The questions came out fast and angry. Alice couldn’t tell if the anger was from the lie, from her trying to leave, or merely the natural result of Alice staying in this conversation longer than Maya had wanted her to.
Alice rocked back and forth, unable to meet Maya's unusually intense stare. She’s bad at lying and even worse when it’s about something so obviously untrue.
“Yeah, you know. Just a friend that I promised I’d meet up with for dinner. You don’t know them…
I should probably get going so I’m not late.”
Maya laughed again, but this time it was performative. A loud cackle that drove home the point of what she said next straight into Alice’s chest.
“Oh fuck off, Alice. You and I both know you don't have any friends - at least none that you didn’t meet because of me.”
Maya had never said that before. It was true - of course it was true - but she would never say that. Alice felt her stomach drop. Her blood thundered in her ears. The person sitting in front of her was so far from the person she knew and loved. The person that had helped build her up when she was alone and desperate, who invited her to parties and lunches with Maya’s wide network of never-ending new acquaintances so that she would have people to talk and laugh with as well. The person who, when she smiled at a group of her adoring fans (or friends you could call them, but those terms felt interchangeable when it came to Maya), locked eyes with Alice for just a few seconds as if to let her know, Yes, these people are my friends and I like them, but you’re the one that knows me best. You’re the one that all this is for.
Alice couldn’t come up with any articulate response, because how do you respond to the person you trusted the most pulling at your biggest insecurity?
The best she could do was mumble, “Go fuck yourself, Maya,” as she pushed past her, out the door, into the street, flinging herself into her car. Her only saving grace was that she managed to close the door before bursting into tears behind her tinted windows.
There Are No Curses, Only Mirrors - Chapter 1, part 1
To all those who have been lost and to those that lost them.
A queer horror/romance
It only took Maya 17 minutes to realize she didn’t like David being there. Alice knew that because he arrived at 4:34 (over 30 minutes later than the 4pm agreed upon meeting time).
After Maya and David exchanged the base pleasantries that revealed absolutely nothing besides their mutual agreement to be cordial - the usual “how was your drive here/how have you been/what have you been up to’s” with Alice sitting to the side a quiet observer - Maya excused herself to the bathroom. A couple seconds later, Alice received a text from her at 4:51 (I’m sorry to do this to you, but I need to leave) and heard the back door slam shut.
That would’ve been ok if Maya had come back quickly. Or told Alice why he was here. Or told Alice why Alice was here.
Ugh. It was so unfair. Maya had begged her to be here for emotional support:
“Please Alice! I haven’t seen or heard from him in such a long time. It’s kinda wild that he’d drop in out of the blue like this. I want to hear him out, but I need you with me.”
She had said this with a smile on her face. Like she was joking about needing her, joking about the anxiety that was clear in her eyes, but the relief that had relaxed Maya's whole body when Alice agreed to be there told a different story. So Alice showed up at 4pm, as promised, and waited with Maya until the infamous David arrived. And he was 34 minutes late - much to their shared but unspoken annoyance.
So David and Alice sat there quietly in Maya’s cramped living room. The space between them got smaller with each passing second and Alice became acutely aware of the passage of time, peeking at her phone from underneath her leg. She knew she was checking the clock too often to not be rude.
David was calm though. He didn’t give an explanation for why he was so late. Or an explanation for why he was there at all. Really, despite the uneasiness between them, there was nothing truly wrong with him. Nothing Alice could put her finger on.
“So… Alice, right?”
She nodded.
“How have you been? What are you up to now?”
It annoyed her that he asked those questions like he knew her. Like they had met before and were old friends catching up. Perhaps Maya had shared with him details of Alice’s life - though Alice knew that she hadn’t. That she wouldn’t.
Alice smiled tersely and answered with short, clipped words. “Good. And, uhm, nothing really.”
He smiled blandly at her, purposefully ignoring the rude answer. God, Alice hated that. The bland, passive, niceness of small talk suffocated the air between them and she wished for a moment that he had instead burst into a fit of rage at her rudeness. Something to show a hint of a personality.
She checked the time again. 4:53.
As they sat in that dense, nauseatingly-nice silence, Alice finally felt an overdue twinge of guilt. Yes, he had been late; yes, his presence obviously upset Maya; yes, he was dull to the point of frustration; yes, his questions annoyed Alice personally… but he hadn’t done anything egregiously wrong.
Maybe he didn’t deserve such a cold shoulder, she thought and ventured into the conversation again.
“So… David, right?”, hoping that he’d find a bit of humor in her parallel question.
“I prefer Dave now actually.”
Of course you do.
He laughed in a peculiar way - short, quick puffs of air expelled through his nose. The sound reminded Alice of a dog sniffing a new object, desperately trying to uncover all its secrets from the scent.
“How do you know Maya?”
She asked this even though she knew a partial truth: they’d dated for a bit a long time ago but - somehow, for some reason - it ended poorly.
Perhaps - given how Maya had told her about him in such a sparing, glossy way - disastrously.
“Old friends honestly. I thought this would be a nice way to reunite but…”, he craned his neck to look down the hallway, through the kitchen at the door where Maya burst through in a hurry. “I guess not.”
Alice tried to keep the surprise on her face by his use of the word ‘friend’ muffled with a polite smile.
But you know people can be awkward about past relationships… especially since he doesn’t know me that well. She decided to move past it without comment.
“Yeah… sorry about that. She’s not usually like that.” This was true. Alice had known Maya for three years. She was normally friendly and kind, a true host at heart who was constantly concerned with making sure that her guests were not only having a good time but felt truly at home. But it was 4:56 now and there was no sign of her.
“Oh it’s alright. I’m not complaining. Unfortunately, it does makes everything a bit harder.”
“Harder?”
“Yeah.”
She waited for more of an explanation. A random article had appeared in her feed a few days ago about how if you wanted more information out of someone, you should keep quiet and the informant would eventually fill the silence themselves with the details you were looking for. But the seconds passed and he simply smiled pleasantly at her again.
He had a slight accent that Alice hadn’t noticed before; the way he pronounced the “th” in “everything” made it obvious enough that she picked up on it. Once she heard that “th”, it was like an optical illusion where once you saw the horse running in the opposite direction, you couldn’t ever go back to seeing it run the other way. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to un-hear it. Despite its constant presence in her ears now, Alice couldn’t place the accent. Of course that didn’t mean much; she’d never left the United States and her ear for different languages left a lot to be desired.
“Well…” Alice looked at the multi-colored, braided rug that was absolutely covered in gray and white fur. Maya’s large tabby cat, Mr. Man, normally loved people and would roll around on the rug to show visitors his gorgeous, fluffy white belly (an adorable trap for those that took the bait and pet him, only to be met with playful teeth and claws). But he’d run up the stairs to Maya’s small loft bedroom as soon as David - Dave, now - had walked through the door. Alice wished he hadn’t; the cute creature would’ve helped make this interaction slightly more bearable.
It’s 4:57, she thought, where is she?
“Well,” she started again, realizing she’d trailed off the first time with no purpose. “There’s nowhere to go around here. It’s really only this neighborhood and then the highway. So she has to be back soon.”
“Undoubtedly."
“Um… Would you like anything while you wait? I think she has some tea and coffee. She probably wouldn’t mind if I made you some.” Alice desperately looked for something to do that wasn’t sitting there making small talk with this strange, unforthcoming man.
“She would,” he said confidently. “Mind, that is. But yes, I would like some tea.”
“Ah… what…why...?” Alice shook her head to clear her confusion. “No, no, don’t worry, she won’t mind.”
She’d thought about asking why he said such a bizarrely obtrusive thing for seemingly no reason, but figured it was easier to make the damn tea.
Alice moved to the kitchen and stood in front of Maya’s electric kettle, waiting for the water to boil. She could see David through the narrow doorway sitting on the couch. After making sure he was busy staring at the cheap watercolor painting Alice was 99% sure Maya got from Target, she pulled out her phone from her back pocket and began texting with ferocity.
A: It’s been ten minutes where are you??? Can I do anything while we wait? What is happening????????
Maya responded immediately. Was she already on her phone?
M: I’m here I’m sorry I needed to take a breath
A: Ok…?
M: Don’t make him tea
Alice, heart now pounding from the surge of adrenaline the text sent through her, stopped spooning sugar into the mug.
A: How did you know I was making tea? Why not?
M: Just don’t please
A: Ok… come back asap pls this is unbearable.
Alice heard the front door open moments after she saw her text read “Delivered”. Maya must’ve been standing right outside the door this whole time.
“Hi, hi, sorry… I needed… I wanted some more time,” Maya sniffled.
Alice started walking back into the living room to greet her friend. But before she crossed the kitchen threshold, David stood up abruptly with his back to her facing Maya. From over his shoulder she could see Maya’s face. Her eyes were bloodshot and watery, nose red to match her flushed cheeks. She wiped her face aggressively, pulling at her cheeks and the corner of her mouth with each swipe, to try to hide the fact that she had been sobbing.
“I understand! No worries. I think your friend was just about to make me some tea.”
He sounded cheery, like a regular guest being accommodating to an uncomfortable host. There was nothing threatening about his tone, nothing to indicate violence or conflict.
Yet Alice was distinctly reminded of a scene she saw in a cheap horror movie (coincidently, one she saw with Maya) where the vampire’s MO was to smile at his victim and assure her (they were always pretty, young actresses that undoubtedly thought it was going to be their big break) that everything was going to be alright… seconds before ripping her throat out. She started backing into the kitchen quietly.
“It must be nice… having a friend like her.”
“Yeah, Alice is great.” Maya’s eyes flicked up at Alice’s face as her voice cracked on the word ‘great’.
Alice furrowed her brow dramatically, widened her eyes, and mouthed “What?”, hoping Maya could give her some kind of clue as to what was going on or how she could help. But Maya just shook her head slightly, an almost imperceptible twitch right to left, and flicked her eyes back at him.
“Here… let me make you that tea instead.” She emphasized ‘me’ like she was offering her body up for sacrifice as she tried to move past him.
Dave stepped sideways to block her path. “No, no, it’s alright. You’re back now anyways. There’s no need to put this off. I’ve been waiting so long for us to reconnect! Please sit with me.” He yanked on her sleeve to guide her back to the couch. Maya sat down gingerly.
“Did you miss me?” He leaned forward and whispered in her ear, just loud enough for Alice to hear .
Maya looked down and shifted on the cushion shamefully. “A little bit.”
David grabbed her shoulder firmly with one hand and lifted her chin up so she’d meet his gaze with the other. Alice hated it. She felt like she was watching something supremely dirty. Something not for her eyes.
“I missed you a lot.”
Maya leaned back abruptly, breaking free from his grasp. “Alice, do you mind waiting in the kitchen for a bit?”
“Um… yeah… I mean, are you sure…?” she asked. Regardless of the discomfort she felt, Alice was hesitant to leave Maya alone in the room with him even if she was just an open doorway away. Maya answered silently with an intensely desperate stare, the sclera around her iris completely visible. Alice knew that stare meant “Please leave. I’m not sure at all, but I need you to do this. For me.”
"If I had known you were going to be so much trouble, I never would have taken you in."
Each divot and bump on the dirt road to the hospital jostled the car violently, making the inside of my eyelids flash red with pain. I couldn't say anything besides the two words I'd been saying for the past 10 minute drive.
"I'm sorry."
"Tsk. Sorry? You cause so much trouble. At school, you don't make friends. At home, you're rude. Now, hospital? On a work day too. So much trouble."
I opened my eyes into a blurry slit to see the back of my host moms dark, curly, cropped hair shake side to side in disapproval.
"I'm sorry."
I know I said it, and normally I would mean it. A people-pleaser terrified of having others angry with them. Keeper and manager of other people's emotions. A role many eldest daughters are familiar with. But right now, with the roiling, tight pain burning through my torso, I didn't give a shit. I couldn't.
Her ranting continued as I closed my eyes again to focus on not spewing pain-induced vomit all over the back of the four door SUV's cloth seats.
The government volunteers, ex-exchange students themselves, don't tell you during the couple weeks of training before you're sent abroad that your host family might not like you. That they might not have even wanted you. They don't tell you that your host mom might only have agreed to take you last minute because they'd pay her extra for the trouble and your original host family backed out last minute for reasons unknown. They'll tell you it'll be hard, they'll tell you the culture shock will be difficult, they tell you the food will be different - but they don't prepare you for the awkwardness of having to wait an extra two hours alone at the hotel where the "Welcome to Malaysia" ceremony took place (45 minutes after you landed from a total combination of 18 hours of flying, no accounting for jet lag I suppose) because your host mom forgot that you existed.
Luck of the draw I guess.
The nausea subsided by a sliver, letting me know that the car stopped.
The door I was leaning against being flung open with the command, "Get out," let me know that we were at the hospital.
I caught myself before landing on the payment and waddled humiliatingly towards the entrance of the ER.
"I'm going to park the car. Check yourself in."
I nodded, bent at the waist because my stomach felt like if I straightened up it would tear open, spilling toxic waste into the rest of my body.
Eyes closed, curled over, I made it to the front desk.
"Awak ke sini untuk apa?" The nurse asked without looking up. I groaned in response; I'd only been there a month and while Malay was a relatively simple language, I'd been too focused on other things to make any real progress. She looked up. Seeing my clearly non-Malaysian features, she switched to English.
"What are you here for? What's your name?"
My face burned. I marveled at how, even in the worst pain of my life in the one place where they've probably seen worse, I could still feel embarrassed. "Lee Aboud. A B O U D. And... uh... constipation."
Yeah. Here's another thing they didn't tell me - "they" this time being the skinny, perfect, fitness, thin-spo content creators I hated myself for looking at: Anorexia has some of the least glamorous side effects of disease. One of them, if you're me, is not being able to shit for three weeks. Not enough coming in to make anything come out I guess. Gross. I know. Also incredibly, horribly, embarrassingly painful.
Thankfully, the nurse reacted with what I felt was the appropriate level of concern. "How long since your last... movement?"
"Three weeks."
Her eyes widened and she began shuffling paperwork together to hand to me. "We'll get you right in. Fill this out and take a seat over there in the mean time."
I found out later that constipation for this long is not only painful and embarrassing, but also life-threatening! Wow! What a way to go that would be. My own fecal matter leaking out of rupture intestines causing a fatal infection.
I stumbled to a waiting chair and contorted my body into a position that was tolerable. The paperwork she gave was frustratingly long yet necessary.
'Please mark yes or no for the following allergies:' taunted me at the top of the page after my name and date of birth. I jerkily dragged the pen through all the "No" boxes, not actually reading the list.
'Please write your emergency contact:'
Fuck. Who would qualify for that? Not my host family. Not my real family that I flew half-way around the country to escape from. Not the exchange volunteers -
"Aboud, Lee?"
A doctor appearing from behind double doors saved me from making that decision.
I did my horrid little waddle toward her and handed over the half-finished (which is generous) paperwork. She waved me over to a bed.
"We're going to start you with some painkillers," she glanced at the papers, squinting at the ragged line I had drawn through the no's for allergies. "Just to confirm, you're not allergic to any medications?"
I shook my head as I rolled gratefully and pathetically onto the gurney.
"On a scale of 1 to 10, where are you at on pain?"
I looked up at her with watery, puppy dog eyes, hoping I would look pathetic enough to get her to give me the strongest stuff they had. "10."
She nodded. "Dilaudid then. It's a synthetic form of morphine, about 10 times stronger. You'll feel better instantly."
Bingo.
I watched them put the IV in and felt with satisfaction as the drug crept icily up my left arm. Then, it reached my heart, and with one more lub-dub, I was mercifully taken away from everything.
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I hate driving. Even before the incident, I hated driving. I guess HATE is a strong word, but I could never understand people who find it relaxing - a hobby even. Something they prefer to do. At best, I think it’s boring; at worst terrifying. But just for the normal reasons, you know? Like “I’m driving a giant hunk of metal and with one wrong twitch of my hand I could kill myself, everyone with me, and a lot of people around me” terrifying kind of way.
Not this… other way.
Ok so basically, I was already in a situation I was uncomfortable with. I was driving from New Orleans up to Boone, North Carolina, a small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains for spring break.... Which, for reference, is a 12-hour road trip. Not only that, but my partner, Sam, was coming with me to meet my family for the first time. Ipso facto… a lot of anxiety and sweating was happening.
The only good thing about this situation was we could split the drive up into manageable 3-hour legs for each of us to drive twice. My parents moved to Boone a year ago. Even though I had only been up there once before, that was one more time than Sam had been, so we agreed I’d take the last 3-hour leg winding through the mountains.
Most of the drive was completely uneventful (well, driving through Atlanta was a bitch, but if you’ve ever driven through Atlanta, you know why). We talked, listened to music, got a bunch of junk food… normal road trip stuff. The sun went down around 7pm, so the last bit of the trip was plunged into darkness, but that still wasn’t a problem.
In fact, I used to prefer driving at night strangely enough. Not anymore though.
So we’re toodling along, stopped at a gas station around 6:45 to fill up, and kept on trucking. After that it was mostly small towns; I turned onto the Blue Ridge Parkway soon after. I don’t know if this is common knowledge, but the Parkway is known for being gorgeous. People come to North Carolina just to drive on it. Weird people, of course - people who actually like driving. But at night, it's treacherous. The road is built right into the side of the mountains for the most part. There’s a hard rock wall on one side and a steep drop on the other with tons of sharp curves. I was a bundle of nerves.
Man, I wish Sam hadn’t fallen asleep.
I mean, I get it. It was a long day and I had slept through their last driving shift, but still. I really really wish they hadn’t fallen asleep.
Every so often, I’d see another car driving behind me to turn off onto one of the side roads or whizz by to pass me (I drive slow, especially at night, and especially on the Parkway at night). But after almost an hour and I hadn’t seen anyone else I started to feel that something was off. Yeah, it was dark as hell, but it was only 8 o’clock? People live out here. They go places. Not a lot of people… but… I don’t know… I couldn’t help but wonder, where was everyone?
Either way, I took it as an opportunity to flip on the high beams. I hadn’t turned them on yet because a car would come by every five to ten minutes and I didn’t want to blind them. The tree branches were so white and bright; it was unsettling. Like looking at huge, pallid veins trapping us in the mountains. That, plus the extreme lack of other people… I was starting to feel spooked. I turned the music up as loud as it would go, hoping that it would wake Sam up. It didn’t work but I wasn’t too surprised – they’re a heavy sleeper.
I kept driving with the high beams on and the music up for what felt like another hour at least… but still no other cars. Not to mention, I should’ve been at my parents house by then. Or at least closer to it? But my estimated time of arrival displayed mockingly on my phone’s GPS wouldn’t budge. It just stayed stuck at “ETA: 1 hour 6 minutes”. I don’t know when it stopped counting down, but once I noticed, I started to pay closer attention to my surroundings. I know that long, winding roads and forests are not distinctive landmarks, but after a while, I could swear I was driving past the same areas over and over and over again.
At this point, I was freaking out. I kept shaking Sam’s leg TRYING to get them to wake up, but they were completely out of it. Their eyes rolled completely back into their sockets and their head lolled from side to side in a sickeningly limp way. I was about to yell their name until I saw something in the corner of my eye that made my mouth go dry and my blood run cold.
A woman. Just standing between the trees. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to look straight at her, but just the knowledge of her presence sent my heart beating so hard that it was all I could hear. Once I saw her, I couldn’t unsee her. I was always aware that she was there, barely visible out of the corner of my eye. From the details I was able to make out, she was in a long gingham dress and an old-fashioned bonnet - what I’d imagined women wore on the Oregon Trail or something. All of my more rational fears of crashing or driving off a cliff dissipated and all I wanted to do was get away from her. As I pressed my foot down on the gas pedal, I watched our MPH tick up on the speedometer.
But it was like I was running from the moon. No matter how fast I drove, she was there. The trees flew by, I ripped around curves, but she was still there. Standing there. Staring at me.
I turned off my high beams because I didn’t want her to be able to see me better than she already could… but right before I flipped them off, I caught a glimpse of her straight on as I turned a corner.
It.. God just thinking about it makes me want to vomit. Her mouth was sewn shut with thick black cord. The skin around the stitches was puckered and red, with an oozing crust where the cord penetrated her lips. Her bright, ice blue eyes stared straight at me - or maybe through me? with a complete lack of emotion. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes as panic clouded my brain. I knew at that moment what it felt like to be a prey animal who finally saw the predator that had been stalking it for hours, waiting for me to make a mistake to strike. I was so focused on that awful, awful mouth of hers that I almost crashed into the mountain. I jerked violently to one side but I over-corrected and had to swerve again to avoid flying off the road over a sharp cliff into whatever lay down below. For the split second when my headlights were pointed over the edge, I thought I saw the same face with the thick stitches and staring eyes peeking up from behind the rocks and sparse grass. But that wouldn’t have been possible - it was a straight drop down. Sam’s head slammed hard against the window from the turns, rattling the glass, but they didn’t wake up.
Before this point I hadn’t known that my reaction to complete abject terror would be uncontrollable sobbing, but as I raced down the road hoping to god I would outrun that woman (knowing that I couldn’t), I felt tears streaming down my face. Even through my blurry vision I could see her standing there.
Watching.
After a while, I guess I grew complacent. The threat was there and I was still terrified, but the instant, adrenaline pumping run-for-your-goddamn-life fear subsided. Instead I started thinking of ways to get off this road, to abandon my trip to my parents house, and just get somewhere - anywhere - with people. People without mutilated faces preferably.
That was my mistake. It was like she knew that the shock had worn off, and unfortunately that wasn’t good enough for her. Out of the corner of my eye I saw an abrupt movement; she jerked her arm straight up, elbow locked and fist pointed in the air. Her arm was stiff and straining against the gingham fabric so straight that her elbow looked like it was going to snap in the wrong direction. I was reminded of pictures I’d seen of people in the throes of tetanus muscle contractions with their bodies contorted in painful positions against their will. I forced myself to look away and stare at the road instead - partly because I didn’t want to crash but mostly because I felt like if I looked at her for too long, I’d be fully acknowledging her existence, making it more real.
So instead I got a full view of something so much worse.
Another woman, also dressed in gingham with her mouth sewn shut, crawling up and over the side of the mountain. As I sped closer, terror gluing me to the road, I could see her face clearly illuminated by my headlights. Her eyes, blue like her compatriot, were wide and blood shot with the whites visible all the way around her pupils. Her lips strained against the thick black cord as she twisted her mouth into a smile, blood beginning to run down her chin as the crusted-over wounds reopened. I could see a glimpse of bloody teeth where her lips were able to separate. It was a manic, delighted, terrifying vision of my impending death.
When we were only a few feet away, I watched in horror as she skittered forward on her arms and legs with her limbs bent up in unnatural ways like a four-legged spider. She crouched lower, bunched her legs up beneath her, and launched herself into the road. She flew horizontally, arms outstretched and claw-like hands extended out. I felt her body slam into the car – but I hadn’t hit her. No, that would’ve been too easy. I could hear her nails scraping against my car, metal squealing under her weight, as she gripped on to the undercarriage. Only a few inches of metal, plastic, and carpeting separated me from her. Her claws sounded like nails on chalkboard and it bore into my mind as she scrambled to maintain her position.
I have dreams a lot that I’m screaming and I just can’t scream loud enough. My voice strains and strains but I can never amount to more than a hoarse whisper. My fear that that would be the case in real life was finally confirmed. I couldn’t make a sound. When she hit my car, well… the only thing I could do was piss myself.
I thought of stopping suddenly to try to throw her off but the idea of stopping the car was utterly unbearable. I pictured her flying off, spinning around, and launching herself through the windshield. Or even worse, her being able to hold on and once the car stops, scurrying up the side of the car, punching through the glass, and coming face to face with her fetid, rotting breath.
Her nails kept scraping beneath me.
Sorry to get off track, but I need to say this. I despise people who hit animals. I know that sometimes it’s unavoidable, but I’ve seen way too many people swerve to purposely hit a squirrel or turtle to assume that every animal on the side of the road was an accident. So what I did next… look, I feel horrible but it was the only option I could come up with in that split second. Perhaps it was the only option I had.
By some saving grace, I watched a doe dart across the road out in front of me. She was quickly followed by her tiny, brand new to the world, baby fawn. Now hitting any full grown deer, at the speed I was going would be a death sentence. Slamming into 120 pounds of wild animal at 80 - 90 mph means putting a deer through your windshield with frantic hooves pummeling you to death or concussion even if you both survive the initial impact.
A fawn on the other hand… Well, he was small enough to go right under the car.
I barely thought the thought before I twitched the wheel slightly and slammed into the poor thing. I can still see the fawn’s big, wet, scared eyes pleading with me seconds before I took him from this world. Those eyes have stayed with me since then. But I’d do it again in a heartbeat, because it did exactly what I was hoping for.
I watched his head and neck snap backwards too far before the fawn disappeared under the car. The whole vehicle lurched wildly as the little deer slammed into the fucking demon thing gripping the undercarriage. I heard the excruciating scream of nails clawing down the length of the body as she struggled and then a shutter once she lost her grip, tearing off pieces of metal as she fell. I held on to the steering wheel for dear life trying to keep from crashing as the back tires careened over two jaw-rattling bumps. In my rearview mirror, I saw two bodies – one bigger than the other – tumble and skid to a stop behind me. I watched the bigger of the two twitch violently and lift a hand with broken, mangled fingers pointing every which way.
Then I turned the corner and they were gone.
I held my breath until I could feel my lungs burning for air. But nothing came bounding around the corner after me. I couldn’t see the woman in the trees anymore. But I didn’t feel any relief until I saw another car coming towards me, a little silver sedan with their music playing and windows rolled down. I realized that my music had been off too - for how long, I’m not sure - so I hesitantly fumbled for my phone to start up Spotify again. I saw the ETA on my GPS had gone from its suspended “1 hour 6 minutes” to a mere 3 minutes.
My jaw unclenched, my stomach relaxed, and I began to laugh through large, embarrassing sobs of relief. Sam finally woke up, concerned and begged me to explain what the fuck was going on. I tried to describe what happened, but as I stumbled over my words couldn’t come up with anything that sounded even slightly coherent let alone believable. I choked out that I had accidentally run over a small animal, a possum or a raccoon, and continued to quietly cry. Sam, bless their heart, asked if I wanted to pull over for a second, to which I yelled at them, “NO! No, no that’s alright, I just want to get home.”
Finally, I saw the sign pointing to the little neighborhood where my parents live. I pulled into the driveway, Sam and I made our brief greetings, and I excused us to bed, saying the drive had been long and we were exhausted. The next day, I took my car to the local mechanic alone. I tried to play dumb and said I had no idea what had happened to the car. Maybe a wild animal or something? I could tell they didn’t believe me, but they couldn’t come up with a plausible explanation so they just charged me for the repairs (minor damage surprisingly) and I went on my way. But for the rest of the time we stayed with my parents, I refused being out at night on that parkway. Especially alone.
About three days after Sam and I returned home - the rest of the trip went lovely in case you were wondering - my mom gave me a call. Apparently, there had been a horrific car accident just a few miles down the road from them, which unfortunately happens more often than you’d think. The unusual thing, she explained in a gossiping but distressed tone, was the passengers were found dead at the scene and all of them were absolutely shredded by long, ragged claw marks. Despite how deep and painful the gashes looked, they weren't deadly; the cause of death had been from the head trauma in the crash. Authorities at first thought perhaps they crashed and a mountain lion found them before anyone else did and just went to town on the corpses - not at all normal behavior, though at least slightly plausible.
But the autopsies proved they’d sustained the injuries before death. Like something in the car had torn them to pieces before they drove into the side of the mountain, crushing themselves to death.
I hate driving. Even before the incident, I hated driving. I guess HATE is a strong word, but I could never understand people who find it relaxing - a hobby even. Something they prefer to do. At best, I think it’s boring; at worst terrifying. But just for the normal reasons, you know? Like “I’m driving a giant hunk of metal and with one wrong twitch of my hand I could kill myself, everyone with me, and a lot of people around me” terrifying kind of way.
Not this… other way.
Ok so basically, I was already in a situation I was uncomfortable with. I was driving from New Orleans up to Boone, North Carolina, a small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains for spring break.... Which, for reference, is a 12-hour road trip. Not only that, but my partner, Sam, was coming with me to meet my family for the first time. Ipso facto… a lot of anxiety and sweating was happening.
The only good thing about this situation was we could split the drive up into manageable 3-hour legs for each of us to drive twice. My parents moved to Boone a year ago. Even though I had only been up there once before, that was one more time than Sam had been, so we agreed I’d take the last 3-hour leg winding through the mountains.
Most of the drive was completely uneventful (well, driving through Atlanta was a bitch, but if you’ve ever driven through Atlanta, you know why). We talked, listened to music, got a bunch of junk food… normal road trip stuff. The sun went down around 7pm, so the last bit of the trip was plunged into darkness, but that still wasn’t a problem.
In fact, I used to prefer driving at night strangely enough. Not anymore though.
So we’re toodling along, stopped at a gas station around 6:45 to fill up, and kept on trucking. After that it was mostly small towns; I turned onto the Blue Ridge Parkway soon after. I don’t know if this is common knowledge, but the Parkway is known for being gorgeous. People come to North Carolina just to drive on it. Weird people, of course - people who actually like driving. But at night, it's treacherous. The road is built right into the side of the mountains for the most part. There’s a hard rock wall on one side and a steep drop on the other with tons of sharp curves. I was a bundle of nerves.
Man, I wish Sam hadn’t fallen asleep.
I mean, I get it. It was a long day and I had slept through their last driving shift, but still. I really really wish they hadn’t fallen asleep.
Every so often, I’d see another car driving behind me to turn off onto one of the side roads or whizz by to pass me (I drive slow, especially at night, and especially on the Parkway at night). But after almost an hour and I hadn’t seen anyone else I started to feel that something was off. Yeah, it was dark as hell, but it was only 8 o’clock? People live out here. They go places. Not a lot of people… but… I don’t know… I couldn’t help but wonder, where was everyone?
Either way, I took it as an opportunity to flip on the high beams. I hadn’t turned them on yet because a car would come by every five to ten minutes and I didn’t want to blind them. The tree branches were so white and bright; it was unsettling. Like looking at huge, pallid veins trapping us in the mountains. That, plus the extreme lack of other people… I was starting to feel spooked. I turned the music up as loud as it would go, hoping that it would wake Sam up. It didn’t work but I wasn’t too surprised – they’re a heavy sleeper.
I kept driving with the high beams on and the music up for what felt like another hour at least… but still no other cars. Not to mention, I should’ve been at my parents house by then. Or at least closer to it? But my estimated time of arrival displayed mockingly on my phone’s GPS wouldn’t budge. It just stayed stuck at “ETA: 1 hour 6 minutes”. I don’t know when it stopped counting down, but once I noticed, I started to pay closer attention to my surroundings. I know that long, winding roads and forests are not distinctive landmarks, but after a while, I could swear I was driving past the same areas over and over and over again.
At this point, I was freaking out. I kept shaking Sam’s leg TRYING to get them to wake up, but they were completely out of it. Their eyes rolled completely back into their sockets and their head lolled from side to side in a sickeningly limp way. I was about to yell their name until I saw something in the corner of my eye that made my mouth go dry and my blood run cold.
A woman. Just standing between the trees. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to look straight at her, but just the knowledge of her presence sent my heart beating so hard that it was all I could hear. Once I saw her, I couldn’t unsee her. I was always aware that she was there, barely visible out of the corner of my eye. From the details I was able to make out, she was in a long gingham dress and an old-fashioned bonnet - what I’d imagined women wore on the Oregon Trail or something. All of my more rational fears of crashing or driving off a cliff dissipated and all I wanted to do was get away from her. As I pressed my foot down on the gas pedal, I watched our MPH tick up on the speedometer.
But it was like I was running from the moon. No matter how fast I drove, she was there. The trees flew by, I ripped around curves, but she was still there. Standing there. Staring at me.
I turned off my high beams because I didn’t want her to be able to see me better than she already could… but right before I flipped them off, I caught a glimpse of her straight on as I turned a corner.
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