Kaechele Street

So the rains came down hard last night. And, as always, my car stopped working. Several times. I'm getting used to it, though. Turn the ignition, tap the gas, turn the ignition, tap the gas. It goes on like that for about 8-14 minutes, depending on its mood.

I left Monroe just before midnight. I said to myself,  let's not screw around now. We'll take route 25 home.  Seemed safer. And that's when I saw police lights. As I got closer I also noticed a detour sign next to the police car (which was parked sideways in the road, preventing me from reaching the godforsaken highway).

I took the detour.

It led me down some dark backroads. I attempted to watch the road, but the pounding of the rain against the windshield made it more than difficult. At some points I was just guessing where the road was. It was exciting and scary. So I smoked a cigarette.

Eventually, I came to a place that I recognized. I left the half-assed detour and continued straight into the blackness. The windshield gave me no view of the road—just a constantly shifting splatter of moving water that distorted the world.

I passed a road on my right. It was dark and fearful. I've been down that road before, I said to myself. That's an evil road. So I passed it and a smile formed on my face, believing I had just managed to avoid some horrific fate. I kept driving. The world continued to melt into itself. Then the rains increased, and after several minutes I knew to look for my right-hand turn towards home and out of the back roads I ended up in. While looking for my escape I saw a road on the right. I slowed down but refused to stop, for it appeared to be the same evil road I had passed just minutes earlier. I shook my head and said something like, "This is bullshit," and attempted to reason my way back to calm. It's dark out, idiot. All these roads look the same. But I knew better.

I drove quickly past it and onward. Then I saw it. The road went downhill slightly and there was another road coming up on my right. I couldn't read the sign, but at that point it didn't matter. I was gonna be just fine.

I drove and the rain picked up. I took a few sketchy turns on what seemed to be a more windy road than i remembered. Something was wrong. The rain was so loud now that it was as if God himself was hitting my car with a thousand hammers. I saw a house on the right that looked familiar, but not in a good way. My heart rate exploded as I came to the dead end. It was the fucking road that I thought I had passed twice already. Tricked. By the Ghosts.

My car started to putter and I almost threw up when I stopped just in front of the old abandoned barn, sitting there like a wooden demon, waiting for foolish young victims to find themselves in its clutches. I had to be careful about the gas pedal or the car would stop completely.

I could hear my heart beating in my chest. It echoed in my head. My legs began to shake uncontrollably and my hands were slipping all over the steering wheel as I tried desperately to produce one of the quickest three point turns ever witnessed by human and inhuman eyes alike. It was aided by the word "fuck" being repeated continuously. I could all but feel ghost fingers brushing by my face, and see little transparent ghost children crawling from the sides of the road towards my car.

I managed to turn my car around, and began my swearing-fueled escape. I couldn't drive too fast because of my shitty car's performance in this kind of rain. So it was a very slow paced escape. If my speedometer worked I could give you an accurate idea of how slow it was. According to the car we were going 155 miles an hour, when in actuality, it was proabably more like 8. Bogus.

There was a darkness on that road. A very certain evil that I was fortunate enough not to run in to. I saw the lights from the intersection ahead of me and, like Ichabod Crane, I bolted my ass to salvation. The moment I took a right out of there and back onto the main road I lit a cigarette and placed my hand over my chest to calm down the ol' ticker.

I did escape something—some horrible fate at the hands of children long dead and perhaps some mad butcher who still resides in the top of that Death Barn.

Immediately after leaving what I made sure to remember was Kaechele Street, the rain stopped. All of it. No drizzle. No little droplets. It stopped. I found the correct right turn (stopping at it for a few minutes to make sure I wasn't being fooled again), and made my way back to the safety and illumination of Park Avenue.

My leg didn't stop shaking until I was just about in my driveway.

I got into my house, locked the door and, in an attempt to wipe the evil of Kaechele Street from my memory, became lost in a barrage of bong hits and late night television. Safe.

...But only for the moment. Deep in my heart of hearts I know the day will come when the children of Kaechele Street finally hunt me down, angry that I got away from them during the April Nor'easter of 2007.

I live on borrowed time now, friends.  And it scares me a lot.