I might as well have been smothered in a blanket for how well I could see. Sliding, oozing, pouring through the air to swirl around me, the thick fog that rolled in from the ocean behaved more like a wave of viscous liquid than it did a cloud. The road I was driving on ran parallel to the water, and it only took a couple of minutes after the fog hit the beach before it had fully encompassed my car.
I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. Leaning out the window, I couldn’t even see the ground a few feet below. I would have been smart to pull off the road and wait it out, but I was suffering from an acute case of love at the time and my rational voice was a ghost beside the thundering of my blood. My son was going to be born today, and I was going to be there to see it happen.
Despite my best intentions, it would have been impossible for me to continue without the tail lights in front of me. I’d been following this beat up old pickup with a “Crazy8” license plate for the last few miles, and if it wasn’t going to stop, then neither was I. The lights in front of me slowed to a crawl, and I kept pace going as close as I dared for fear of losing him.
The two of us were the only ones stupid enough to be still be driving. We passed a half-dozen other cars all pulled off the road with their emergency lights glowing through the heavy air. The lights in front of me never stopped though, deep red beacons promising me a safe road ahead. I figured that even if he hit something then I’d be going slow enough that I could still stop in time. I was more worried about him running off the road, but he continued to navigate the winding road flawlessly and I never even brushed up against the rumble strips that warn when you’re getting too close to the edge.
It was slow going, but it gave me a chance to check in with my wife. The contractions were becoming more severe and I told her not to wait, but she just pretended it was no big deal.
“I’m going to be telling this story for the rest of my life,” she said through heavy breath. “Do you want to know how it ends?”
“With me holding the baby so you can get some god damned rest?”
She laughed. “Damn straight. You remember our deal, right?”
“Of course. It’s not going to be like with your dad. I’m always going to be there for both of you.”
“Well you can start any time now. I swear to God that if you don’t show up I’m going home with the first doctor who smiles at me.”
I think she was saying something else too, but my focus was diverted by the latest car I passed on the side of the road. A beat up pickup — the same one whose tail lights were still glowing through the fog ahead of me.
“Okay honey I’m going to focus on driving, but I’ll see you in just a few minutes.”
I hung up and gripped the wheel with both hands. Is it possible that he’d pulled off the road and another car had taken his place without me noticing? Absolutely not. I’d been directly behind him with my eyes glued on the lights the whole time. They hadn’t changed either — it was the same red glow. I checked my mirror, but the old pickup had already disappeared into the fog behind me.
I put a bit more weight on the gas and surged closer to the car in front of me to check for the “Crazy8” license plate. The lights ahead of me sped up in perfect unison as though we were magnets repelling each other. I dared going as fast as 30 mph, but I couldn’t close the distance and quickly dropped back down to 15. The lights maintained their distance exactly — just close enough for me to see the light, but not close enough to see the car.
Fast, slow. Fast, slow. I played this game for the next minute. The distance between me and the lights never changed, and the obscured landscape made me feel as though I was standing still. No one could have the reflexes to keep matching my speed like that. Or even if they could — then why? Unless of course, they wanted me to follow.
I slowed to a stop to check my GPS and make sure I hadn’t accidentally missed my turnoff. Right on cue, the lights ahead stopped as well. I fiddled with my phone to bring up the maps, breathing a sigh of relief to see my next turn a few hundred feet away. Looking up, the breath caught in my throat. The lights were coming closer now, burning through the fog with a nameless menace that raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
The lights flashed once. As they drew closer a shape began to resolve itself from the fog. The lights flashed again — no, not flashed. They didn’t go on and off. Something slid over them and then slid back. It would be more accurate to say that they blinked. It took about ten seconds for my brain to process that I was staring into a set of red eyes, much larger than could fit in a human head.
My first instinct was to slam the horn for all I was worth. The eyes immediately retreated, but only a few feet. A torrent of sound replied, like a whole herd of braying animals, berserk with fear and pain as they trample one another to death in their mad dash to escape their own slaughter. Only a herd of animals wouldn’t all start and stop at the same time. The whole chorus fell eerily silent together. The eyes turned away from me, the light vanishing to leave me suspended in the opaque white walls which felt closer around me than ever.
I hadn’t realized until that moment that I’d been holding my breath, and it exploded out of me in a gasp. The creature was leaving, and I was safe inside the car. I started to inch forward again, now using the rumble strip to guide me toward my turn. I white-knuckled the steering wheel, trembling with the car as it eased along the invisible bend.
The turn the creature had taken a few moments before. The turn which led to the hospital where my wife was giving birth. But it couldn’t be…
I had no warning before the massive impact broadsided my car. The wild braying mingled with the screech of twisted metal. The car spun almost ninety degrees from the force of the blow, leaving me even more lost and disoriented than I already was. I stomped the gas and shot straight off the road, bumping and lurching and spinning my tires to standstill in the sandy ground.
Another impact — this time from behind, propelling me back onto the intersecting road where I’d been trying to turn. 30 — 40 — 50 mph, I accelerated blindly. The red eyes filled my mirror, easily keeping pace with me. I was pushing 70 before they started falling behind. My front right wheel kept slipping off the road, but I kept readjusting and didn’t dare to slow down. If there was a sudden curve then I was dead. If there was a tree, or a sign, or an invisible barrier hidden in the fog — dead. My whole body was rigid with tension, braced every second for a collision that could happen any time.
I didn’t see the eyes anymore though, and gradually I slowed once more. I started to pull up my GPS again, but the second I took my eyes off the mirror I heard the sound again. Red eyes filled the mirror, rushing toward me in a reckless charge as though planning to barrel straight through my car. I swerved to get out of the way, sliding off the road once more. The wall of sound crashed around me, then just as quickly it was gone.
The fog was lifting with it. I sat stunned for several seconds as the air miraculously cleared around me. Directly ahead was the hospital. The relief only lasted a moment. I hadn’t gotten away from the creature. It had gotten away from me. I hadn’t escaped its pursuit. I’d lost the race.
I was inside the hospital by the time I heard the sound again. Rabid, feral, and yet with such focused intensity that there was surely a malevolent intelligence behind its bestial roar. I sprinted to my wife’s room, terrified of what I’d find yet dreading not knowing even more.
My wife sitting up in bed, holding her son — our son, in her arms. The sweat on her brow, the sweet smile on her lips, and the proud victory in her lifted face.
“He’s beautiful,” I whispered, hardly daring to breathe and disturb the perfect moment.
“Shh — you’ll wake him.”
But it was too late. He was already stretching his tiny fists and opening his little red eyes.
“What’s that face? You’re not having second thoughts, are you?” my wife asked.
“Of course not,” I said, sitting on the side of her bed to wrap my arms around her. “I’m not going anywhere.”