The Road Through Hell

To celebrate the recent release of my short story collection, The Devil Wears a Dressing Gown, I present this story as a teaser.

The Road through Hell

by

D.A. Cairns

(first published in 2004 in Champagne Shivers, then again in 2012 in short.story.me)

            “Slow down!”

            “Why?” said Pete, easing his foot off the accelerator slightly. “It’s three o’clock in the bloody morning. The coppers are asleep. Gimme that bottle!”

             “It’s dangerous,” replied his long suffering girlfriend, Kelly, before reluctantly handing him the bottle. She was used to his penchant for speeding and criminal disregard for safety. An urgent reminder in the form of loud verbal abuse was usually all it took to bring him back into line, even if it never lasted very long.

“It’s so dark,” she said.

“It’s night time, stupid!”        

They always travelled at night. In fact they did everything at night. She didn’t really know why, it was just the way they were. Living a life of occasional highs under a smothering blanket of darkness.

A sign appeared on the left of the narrow highway, shining briefly in the unearthly glare of the headlights. Kelly read it out loud in a tone of forced interest, as she often did, mocking Debra Winger’s senile father in Forget Paris.

Welcome to Hell.

A New South Wales tidy town.

pop. 653

 “Wanna spend a night in Hell honey?”

“Why don’t you drive right on through to Heaven instead?” said Kelly, trying to sound flippant. She had never felt more afraid and it wasn’t just the name of the town.

A shadow moved on to the road ahead, and stayed out in front of them for a few seconds. Then it disappeared. Did she imagine it? It returned, quickly growing as though inflated by an invisible compressor, and began to form into a ragged sphere. What was it? Could Pete see it?

She pointed but Pete was already looking, straining for a better view.

“What the hell was that?”

He flicked the high beams off, then on again to see if it was a trick of light. No trick. The shape grew larger still and was soon joined by another, then another.

Pete gripped the wheel in panic, his blood starved hands shared a ghostly luminescence which shone on his face but he did not slow down.

“Is it an animal? I can’t see. I can’t tell!”

Kelly was frozen, suffocating behind a mask of awful terror as she watched a third shape ooze up from underneath the road. The three things maintained their speed and kept themselves just in front of the car before suddenly merging into one. The new shapeless entity was bigger than the car.

As they stared in dumb horror, a huge misshapen head extended from the centre of the black formless mass, followed quickly by two arms, then two long and powerful legs.  It was running!

Kelly screamed as it turned to look over its shoulder at them. Accompanied by a wide toothless smile, two bloodshot eyeballs floated in a sea of torn flesh, gawking mischievously.

 Madness gripped Pete, insane fear drove him to press harder on the accelerator as the monstrous apparition turned its whole hulking frame to face them. Still running, backwards now, it laughed at them.

“I’ll kill you, get off the road, I’ll kill you!” roared Pete.

“I’ll kill you, get off the road, I’ll kill you!” mimicked the beast, its disturbingly deep and raspy voice amplified inside the car.

In the same instant that the running creature put up his open palmed hands and stopped dead in the middle of the road, the car crashed into a tree and split in two. Flung like worthless trash, the twisted halves of metal and plastic sped through the cold night air in opposite directions, carrying human debris with them.

The crumpled bodies of the young couple were discovered the next morning, on either side of a sign post which stood like a sentinel in a grassy field. The doctor rose from his knees and nodded to the police sergeant who pulled a blanket over the face of the woman. He looked at the sign and sadly shook his head as he read.

Welcome to Hell.

We have two graveyards and no hospitals.

       Please drive carefully.

The Devil Wears a Dressing Gown

I've recently released a collection of short stories called The Devil Wears a Dressing Gown. It features both previously published and unpublished stories.

To celebrate its release, and to entice you to buy the collection, I thought I would share some of the stories here.

Gravel Rash

by

D.A.Cairns

‘Don’t fall and get gravel rash.’

     The voice was unfamiliar, maybe imaginary, but the message was well known to him. From the first day he had pedalled free of the training wheels attached to his new bike, Brendon’s mum had warned him and worried for him, with those words. All kids crash their bikes and rip up their knees. Brendon had the scars to prove his childhood bravado just like most of his friends. No big deal. He always replied to his mum that he would be fine and usually he was.

     Did he really hear someone say that to him just now? He was alone, wasn’t he? Gravel crunched and jostled beneath the tyres as he rode through Lakeside Park on his way home from work. Had he started the trip after dark, he would have ridden the long way home but an extra fifteen minutes to avoid the park was fifteen minutes he wasn’t willing to give up tonight. He had a date. Samantha Ewells had finally said yes.

     Daylight was being folded away like a piece of paper soon to be imprisoned in the darkness of an envelope. Brendon pedalled harder. He would probably make it through the park and reach the freeway before the black night began to reign but he maintained his pace, even ramped it up a little. There was no way he was going to be late home tonight. He had to make up time. That truck was to blame. The one which arrived late at the Toyota dealership, around the corner from the depot, to unload its cargo of new Camrys. The whole road was blocked for ten minutes as the driver made numerous attempts to reverse the truck into the lot. Brendon had sat there staring at it and tapping anxiously on the steering wheel. Wondering why him, why tonight and trying to not to think of having to make Samantha wait. She might not wait. He had cursed under his breath as he waited impatiently. Must have been a new driver. Inexperienced.

     Now he was running late. Running out of time. This was an experience that Brendon could have done without. He had heard stories about people going missing in Lakeside Park. Everyone said it was no place to be after the sun had gone down. The only ones to disregard the danger were the drunken fools and deviates who frequented the park in order to debauch and destroy themselves under the cover of darkness. Brendon would have happily avoided them for the rest of his life.

     In the quiet of the dusk, the only sounds were Brendon’s heavy breathing, a squeak from the pedals on each revolution, and the chuckle of the gravel underneath his tyres.

     ‘Be careful of gravel rash.’

     Brendon’s first instinct was to stop and listen closely without audible interference but fear kicked in and pushed him on. Was he hearing things? The gravel seemed looser, less willing to support and carry his weight, and he struggled at times to control the handlebars and stay on course. The night was black and heavy now. The acacias which lined the track leaned in closer to him, whispering seditiously. He flicked on his night light which was perched in the centre of the handlebars, but the battery was so low it barely reached the spinning tip of his front tyre. Hot, sweaty and panicking he wondered how much farther to the freeway? He looked up for a moment but could not see through the opaque gloom. Suffocating gloom. That was what he felt. This was bad. Very bad.

     ‘Don’t fall. You’ll get gravel rash.’

     ‘Shut up!’ yelled Brendon frantically at his invisible taunter. ‘Shut up!’

     Forcing himself to concentrate on controlling the bike, afforded Brendon some peace from the persistent paranoia, but some one was watching him. He knew it. Somehow keeping up with him. One of those perverted pariahs who lived in the park was teasing him, tormenting him.

     He felt the front of the bike dip suddenly and then rise again as though he had ridden through a pothole. His left hand was jolted free of the handlebar grip but he quickly re established a firm hold. The knowlegde that he must be nearing the edge of the park, encouraged Brendon and strengthened his aching legs. He imagined he could now see the headlights of vehicles flickering through the trees as they roared southbound along the F6. Then he realised he was sinking.

     A violent and immediate stop catapulted Brendon over the handlebars and onto the gravel path. Having somehow managed to maintain a one handed grip on the handlebar, he pulled the bike down on top of him as he fell and it landed pedal first against his chest.

     Too stunned to move initially, Brendon just lay there. Insistent and angry pain advised him that he was still alive. A gush of air left his lungs as he exhaled, then he coughed for a minute or two, wincing with each contraction of his diaphragm. As he pushed the bike off himself, he felt the rough gravel nibbling at the skin around the back of his neck and calves. A strong sucking sensation against his right knee caused a new burst of pain as the sharp edges of the gravel cut his skin. He heard a sound close to him. Very close. A murmur. Low and indistinct. Garbled as though someone was talking with a mouthful of food.

     No longer pinned by his bike, Brendon tried to wrest himself free of the disturbingly soft gravel but the more he twisted the tighter he was held. If he could have he would have screamed for help but the only sound to escape his mouth was a pathetic mumble. If he could have he would have kept fighting his unseen enemy but fear immobilised him. His very last thought as the gravel swallowed him alive and crushed him, was that if only that truck had not blocked the road, he would have been home now getting ready for his date with Samantha instead of dying alone in Lakeside Park.

     Just before his head disappeared beneath the rippling surface of the gravel track, he heard the voice again, ‘I warned you about gravel rash, didn’t I?’