Flat Tire

Bernie was driving his car under the speed limit.  It was well after 2:00 a.m. and he had been drinking all night and wanted to make it home without getting a DUI.  He thought he was driving straight, but he was swerving all over the road.  He was seeing four yellow lines on the road but told himself he was just fine.  The radio was blasting and the windows were rolled down.  It was a cold November evening and the air was sobering him up or so he tried to convince himself.



    A few miles down the road, when Dean was on his way home from work, he heard a bang.  “That sounded like a gun shot,”  Dean said.  As he continued to drive, he felt his car shimmying.  He stopped his car, got out, and walked around to the rear where he saw the left tire was flat.  “Damn!” Dean exclaimed.  After putting his flashers on, he got out his spare tire and tire iron.



    Bernie was having trouble keeping his eyes open.  He shook his head and tried to concentrate on the road even though everything looked like it did when looking into a foggy mirror.  He did not see the man on the side of the road nor did he hear the man scream right before he ran over him.

    Bernie felt a bump and slammed on the brakes.  He jumped out of the car and ran to the man lying in the middle of the road.  While kneeling down beside the man he saw that he had tire marks on his face and a tire iron in his hand.  Bernie then felt for a pulse but did not feel anything.  He put his hand over the guy’s heart and could not feel it beat.  He slapped the guy’s face and shook him but did not get a response.

    Bernie started to quiver.  He began running his fingers through his hair and started to pace.  There were already two DUI’s under his belt and he had lost his license.  Now that he had killed a man he would surely get jail time.  “What were you doing in the middle of the road anyway? If you weren’t in the middle of the road, I would not have hit you.  This is all your fault.  I am not going to have your blood on my hands.”  Bernie said to the corpse.

    He picked up the corpse and put it in the trunk of his car.  The corpse landed in the trunk with a thud.  Bernie barely maintained the speed limit the rest of the way home.  After making it home without incident, he went into his apartment and fell into bed.

   

    The next morning Bernie woke up with an awful headache.  His head felt like it was going to explode.  He got out of bed and went to the medicine cabinet for some aspirin.  Grabbing the vodka bottle, he took the aspirin and sat down on the couch.  As his headache started to subside, he remembered his dream.  He dreamt that he hit a man who was in the middle of the road and put him in the trunk of his car.  “Dreams can feel so real sometimes,” he mumbled.

    He shook his head and went to take a shower.  After getting dressed, he turned on the TV.  He was getting eggs out of his refrigerator when he heard the reporter saying, ”A car was found on the side of the highway this morning but the owner has not been found.  It appears the man was changing a flat tire when he disappeared.”

    “Poor guy,” he said.  He glanced at the TV screen and dropped the eggs.  On the screen was the man in his dream.  “It can’t be,” he said, bewildered.  He ran out of the house and opened the trunk.  In his trunk was the man whose picture was on TV. 

    Bernie stood there in shock.  “This has to be some kind of joke.  What am I going to do now?  I cannot leave this man in my trunk.  I have to get him out of here.”

    With trembling hands he put the keys in the ignition with no idea where he was going.  All he knew was that he had to get rid the corpse.  He drove for over an hour and came to a graveyard.  Thinking this was the best spot to bury the corpse, he decided to wait until dark so that no one would see him.

    Bernie found a bar not far from the graveyard and drank until dark.



    After dark, Bernie left the bar and went to the graveyard.  There was a tall black iron gate with a skull hanging in the middle.  Under the skull was a key hole.  The skull’s eyes were flashing bloody red and its mouth was opening and closing.  As he approached the skull, he saw something hanging out of its mouth.  He grabbed the object and saw it was a key.  He put the key in the lock and the gates creaked open.

    Drifting the car into the graveyard he turned right and stopped the car.  A deathly chill surrounded him as soon as he stepped out of the car.  Shivering, he took a big drink from his vodka bottle and put back in his front pocket.  Walking to the back of the car, he hoped this was all a bad dream.  While opening the trunk, he closed his eyes.  Please do not let a man be in the trunk of my car, he thought.

    Opening his eyes, he saw the corpse.  Sighing he grabbed the shovel and flashlight and started walking to find a spot to dig a grave.

    This place is creepy, he thought.  As he began walking, he heard moaning.  Bernie looked and shined the flashlight all around but could not see anything.  He shrugged his shoulders and kept walking.

    There was a light mist forming in the graveyard and Bernie was having difficulty seeing where he was going.  The flashlight only provided a small measure of light in the enveloping darkness.  Crawling up the hill, he found a spot where he could dig the grave.

    As he was thrusting the shovel into the ground, he heard the moan again.  Lifting his head up, he began having the sensation that there was someone watching him.  Looking into the darkness, he had an unsettling feeling.  “My imagination is running away with me,” he said to the eerie blackness.

    Bernie took a drink from his bottle and started to dig again. He drank and dug for another hour and had barely made the grave a foot deep.  This is going to take me all night, he thought.  His arms were aching and he needed to take a break from digging. Time to go get the corpse, he thought. 

    As he started back down the hill, Bernie saw a ghostly figure floating inches above the ground at the bottom of the hill swinging a tire iron.  The specter had a fiery glow all around it.  Its eyes were yellow with black slits in the middle.  When the figure opened its mouth, it let out a cry that sent shivers through Bernie’s entire body.  Fear had taken hold of his body because he tried to scream but no sound came out.

    Turning around he started running up the hill.  At the top of the hill he turned left and started running chaotically.  He was delving himself further into the blackness of the graveyard.  When he looked behind him, he no longer saw the ghostly figure.  While crouching down behind a tree, he contemplated what to do.

    He was so terrified that his entire body was trembling.  He felt like he was having convulsions.  He was breathing heavily and felt very cold.  His eyes searched frantically for a way out of the graveyard.  A few feet away he saw a fence.  While walking towards the fence, he heard the moaning again.  Turning around, he saw that the ghost had reappeared.

    Standing there wide eyed, he screamed and darted around the apparition and ran into the murkiness of the graveyard.  Looking over his shoulder he saw the ghoul was right behind him swinging the tire iron.  He made a sharp turn thinking he would lose the fiery glow but he could not.  It was getting closer.

    Bernie pressed his legs far beyond their limit.  Even though he felt he could not run anymore, he pushed beyond the pain.  He looked back and the figure had disappeared.

        As he continued to walk, he came upon a tombstone.  He stopped and had a baffled look upon his face.  The tombstone was not a tombstone but a tire.  The tire read “Johnny Cadillac, Loving Father.”  He walked to the next tombstone which was also a tire and it read “Mary Chevrolet, Rest in Peace.”  He looked all around the graveyard and realized all the tombstones were tires.

    “What is going on here?  What is this place?  I have to get out of here,”  Bernie said mystified.  He started to run again and tripped and tumbled down the hill. 

    After getting up from the fall, what he saw made him laugh.  He had made it back to his car.  “I can finally get out of here!” he cried.  Running as fast he could, he jumped in the car.  As he put his foot on the gas pedal, he heard a clanking sound.  His car would not move.  “Don’t do this to me now!”  Bernie screamed while slamming his fist on the steering wheel.

    He got out of the car and saw that all four tires were flat. He fell down onto his knees and hanging his head, he started crying uncontrollably. 

    Bernie felt a chilling breeze.  When he looked up the ghostly figure was hovering over him.  The figure started crying tears of blood that dripped down onto Bernie’s face.  Every tear that hit his face felt like boiling water.  He started thrashing around screaming in pain.  He covered his face with his hands and wiped the tears off of his face.  The ghoul said, “Now you have my blood on your hands.”



    The next day the caretaker of the cemetery found Bernie in his makeshift grave with a tire iron in his hand and tire marks across his face.