Before

Before 30/09/2003
Rewrite/Update: 20/09/2008

Suddenly I focus and notice the car is doing 80 miles an hour. I feel like I just returned from a total black out and in a way I have. The digital clock between the rev- and speed counter displays 18:15 in the evening on my dashboard. The steering wheel feels firm between my hands and I’m so hungry I can eat a horse. Sweat is pouring down my face.

What the hell has happened?

Where the hell am I?

Those are the questions that drive me at the moment. How many days did I miss? I can only remember the exquisite dinner Mary and I had last Monday and that was a week ago. When I look in the rear-view mirror I only see the empty road behind me and the dust thrown up by my car settling down. When I look ahead there’s no one on the road either. The desert is deserted. I am alone.

My raving mind gets interrupted by the red blinking indicator that the car is soon out of gas. A creepy feeling moves up my back, something is luring me out of my safe hide-out, my car.

Where am I going to find a gas station in this place?

A better question to wonder about is if I have enough money to pay for it. I can’t feel my wallet in my jeans pocket, and when I verify with my hand it turns out that feeling is justified. Luckily my tired eyes spot my wallet on the co-drivers seat. Thank god for small favours.

I wonder what..

- Lathia Gas Station – 3 miles -

I just catch the sign in the corner of my eyes. I must be the luckiest son of a bitch driving around in this place no matter how I ended up here. My left hand touches my forehead trying to rub away the aching pain. For just a split second I close my eyes, try to look in the darkest corners of my mind, I try to find answers to my unanswered memories. There’s nothing there.

Wished I had some painkillers.

In the distance I can see Lathia Gas Station. Somehow it looks surreal but I’m dying for a drink and a bite. I wonder if they have a café where I can eat something.

I pull off the highway into the dusty road of the gas station while the wind starts to blow lightly. The car stops clumsily as I pushed the brake too hard. I reach for my wallet on the co-drivers seat and when it’s in my hand I check out how much money I might have. The amount of money I discover raises questions, but at least I will be able to buy anything I want.

The door handle feels cold, so cold that I nearly rip off the skin of my palm and fingers as I exit my car. My physical discomfort is getting worse. My sanity is slowly crawling beyond reason. I walk this path of nightmares towards the gas pump.

I wonder if it’s even on.

The gas shop looks abandoned.

That figures.

The gas cap comes off easily and I stick the hose in and press the leaver to find out if it is turned on. The nauseating smell of gas fills my nostrils. I feel light-headed and am suppressing my ever growing hunger for meat. Rare meat. No need to fry I'll cut it off as the bull comes by. My smile quickly disperses into non-existence as someone speaks with a discomforting voice.

"So James, you managed to come this far didn’t you?"

The tone of the man’s pronounced words are familiar like a friend. I turn around to see who it is. The man is wearing a long black worn leather jacket and has long shiny black filthy hair. His eyes contain the most beautiful and shiniest blue a person has ever seen. His face is pale and his beard looks a couple of days old. His smile is daring, his teeth are Hollywood star white. The man looks like a modern age vampire and he’s sitting on the hood of my car.

"Who the hell are you?" I demand.

“Hell, the word without a meaning for normal people, a word with no comprehension, a word that is compared with what is horrifying. Damnation, repetition, torture, eternal pain for those who sin. People can only try and imagine what hell is, but in your case... Well.”

"What? What did you say?"

"Say? I said nothing my friend."

Now he had definitely spoken, but what he said before, it was more like a whisper in the back of my head. A whisper that no one can actually hear. A whisper in a language that can only be sensed.

"Do I know you?" I ask.

"Yes."

"I don’t think so."

"I taste a flavour of sarcasm in your voice James, like sour cream, but to answer your question in fairness, you’ve been working for me the last week."

The week before now. If only I could remember.

"Nothing goes for nothing. We had a deal, even though you don’t remember it."

"What do you want from me?"

"Nothing immediate James. I’m merely waiting for that what is about to happen."

"So can you tell me your name?"

"Yes." There is a distinct mocking in his voice.

"What is it?"

"Names, names. I’m known under so many names pick one and be satisfied."

And I realise that this vampire man must be the devil.

"No point in running before you have paid."

The penny doesn't drop until he gently points his pale index towards the gas shop.

I eagerly turn away and hurry along to the shop. The door doesn't open until a few forceful pulls and I barge in. At first I don’t see anyone. As I walk over to the counter my stomach turns when I see dark red spatters and flies on the wall. I turn around to look for the vampire man. He’s still sitting on the hood of my car, looking out along the distance of the road, like he is looking into eternity.

I quickly turn away from the counter without wanting to know about the mayhem behind it. Outside the desert air hits my lungs hard. I wished I knew what to do.

In my despair I run to my car, put the key in the ignition and turn it. The engine roars proudly as I hold the clutch down and hit the gas. Slowly the vampire man climbs off the hood and walks aside to watch me race off. A cloud of dust covers him but his face has no expression. Only his eyes give away sarcastic amusement.

"There are no upsides to deals with evil, James. I’ll be seeing you soon my friend.”

The car is doing an amazing speed. I got no idea where I am, but I reckon that sooner or later I will see a sign of a place that should be familiar. What kind of fucking nightmare is this?

Exit 15 to New Water. The place where I live! The tires of the car scream loudly and give off smoke as I pull chaotically off the highway. I’m more on auto pilot then really thinking about my driving. I want to get home. See Mary and ask her what has happened to me last week.

I slam the break hard in front of our house nearly sending the car skidding. I didn’t even notice that rain had started to hose down. I get out of the car, am not even bothering with locking it and I’m leaping up the stairs to the front door as fair as my legs will allow me. But the stairs are very slippery and wet and before I know it I fall flat face down. I have to ignore the stinging pain. The door is not locked. The house is dark and cold. I’m cold, hurting and wet.

"Mary?"

Nothing but silence.

"Mary are you there honey? Mary?"

Still nothing. I stride to the living room and as soon as I’ve opened the living room door the harsh smell of decay hits my scent.

My heart stops as I make out Mary's shape in her favourite reading chair, facing away from me. I slowly approach her. I gently touch the back of her neck and turn her and her chair around. "Mary?"

She is pale like a ghost. Her eyes are lifeless and staring directly at me. Her mouth is half open and a trickles of dried blood run down the sides of her crusty lips. Her nakedness reveals an extensive artwork executed by carving, from the neck down to the... Her right foot is missing. Her left arm looks like it has been eaten. No marks on her face out of respect.

I turn, stumble, clumsily falling down with my back against the wall.

I am sitting on the floor, defeated, tears streaming like a river and screaming from the top of my lungs.

I am walking down the hallway in a mist created by my own mind and just before reaching redemption, I notice that the cellar door is halfway open. I don’t want to go in there but I have to. Maybe it will explain everything and this should be motivation enough.

I can’t see anything down in the pitch black darkness of the cellar, but the dirty stench is far from welcoming me. I slowly tred down the stairs to reach for the light switch at the bottom which occurs to me is a stupid construction.

The light comes on to reveal several corpses of the neighbourhood kids hanging on the bare brick wall. In an instant I throw up. I never ever felt this sick in my life. I reach for the stairs with my eyes closed, heart pounding like battle drums in my chest and horror slowing down my action.

The images of those kids will not leave my head. One of them must be the neighbour’s kid but I can't be sure. There is blood everywhere. The rotting stench is harsh, the maggots and the flies are stomach turners. Several of DIY tools all over the cellar floor. I can't imagine what happened here.

I’m crawling up the stairs and eventually roll into the hallway. Another load of vomit sprawls. Everything is going vague like I am close to fainting.

I hear the door getting knocked down.

I feel hands on my shoulders shuffling me to the floor and a knee in my back.

My face is being pushed into the carpet and they are pulling my arm up. I can feel handcuffs being locked around my wrists.

I think I just wet myself whilst laughing hysterically.

I wake up in the police car dizzy and bruised as hell. The rain is still pouring and making ticking noises on the roof of the car. It sounds like music but surely I have gone insane. I can see someone standing across the road. A dark figure.

It's the vampire man. He’s grinning at me. He lifts his hand and points at me making a pistol figure. Suddenly, I remember some fragments of my past. I remember the pain when I got shot at that gas station. The promise I made to him in order to live. I can even feel the dark change and how...the things... until he put me on time-out. Why?

I realise that I should be dead and that I never even noticed the bullet holes with blood that are still in my white shirt.

I close my eyes for a moment. Savour the taste of the rain in the air. One could describe this moment as being nearly perfect and so I smile. It is dark. My way out of this madness is presented to me on a silver plate.

We drive away. The officers never speak but I already know what has been said amongst them. After a few blocks we stop at the place Mary named 'Death's Hill'. The driver gets out and opens my door and drags me out. He un-cuffs me, throws me in the mud and him and his colleague look me deep in the eye but still they do not speak. They draw their guns, not their on duty weapons may I add, and empty their clips on me.

I smile and I look the devil in the eye, just like before.

END

EPILOGUE

"I love you..." were the last words she spoke.

James was dragging Mary’s dead body back inside leaving a blood trail on the grass in the garden. He put her in her favourite reading chair. He was supposed to go back to the gas station, he knew that much but he refused to do so. First he had to take care of this urge entailing something he wanted to do for a long time. Something that needed to be satisfied and it was a dark longing, so dark.

He started cutting and ripping her clothes off until she was naked and perfect, pure like a canvas. James proceeded to carve very carefully with his knife and would do so for the next few days and when he was done with her, those damned kids would be next.

Mary was walking in the desert where she found the man she was looking for, the guy that looked like a modern vampire.

He was peacefully sitting on the top of a sandy hill.

"Are you the one I am looking for?" Mary asked.

The dark man didn't turn but she could make out that he was smiling. Mary looked up and saw what he was looking at.

It was a beautiful sunset over a meager gas station and in the distance under the light red horizon a car was speeding towards it.