The following is an audio recording sent to my phone through Focebak Messenger yesterday. I had invited my friend Joanna to my house here in rural Massachusetts. That might have been a bad idea. But I didn't really understand how bad until I got this message.
May I never drive here in the dark again. I think I passed the same house five times and I'm pretty sure that the vehicle following me down this dark country lane was a tank. Or an armored truck. You know what's scarier than a giant truck following you in the dark? When it vanishes despite there being no intersections or driveways for a mile. Where the hell did it go. And it doesn't help that this blasted road goes uuuuuuuuup and dooooooowwwwwn and UP and DOWN and Leeeeeeft and Riiiiiight and LEFT and RIGHT and --
why the hell is that guy standing in the middle of the road? Why does he have a shotgun? Is he telling me to get out of the car? Now he's shooting AT ME no wait he's shooting above the car. Jesus Christ, if he would just move off the road I could get out of here. THANK you. Now where was I? The dark Middle O' Nowhere. I swear to God, you picked the worst possible -- or best possible, depending on your perspective. Why out here, though? I mean, I'm putting up with weird shrieks outside the car and I think I wouldn't be able to deal with that all the time if I lived around here. Do you put up with this every night?
Shrieking stopped. No houses nearby. No lights. Just a dark road through the woods. Fuck me, right? Hell, maybe that's what you wanted. Fuck you, you boonie-dwelling yuppie, did you WANT me to get eaten by monsters out here?
But then, why would you even live out here?
Stars.
I'm coming out of the woods into a wide open field now and the sky is filled with stars. Alright. That's definitely worth it.
There's a big truck stopped up ahead. Correction, a small truck. Armoed truck. There's a guy standing outside of it, waving me forward. No, he wants me to get in. Well that's not something I'm falling for.
Something just passed in front of the moon.
Alright, I'm falling for it. I'll try to get these guys to drop me off at your place. Bye.
And that was the last I heard from her. I don't know what shrieks she was talking about, but there have been more armored trucks around here lately. I went out and found her car, out on Sunflower Lane not a mile from here. The roof had been ripped off.
Maybe I ought to dig a basement.
Halloween Horrorquest 2019