200 Kilometers to Amalner

Prompt: 1000 word story, Horror

I fucking hate this route. I have always hated this goddamn route.

There are better ways to get from Pune to Amalner — one better way, from the Ahmadnagar Highway — but it would’ve cost me an extra hour, and I’m cutting it close even with the 8 that I’m losing now. My mother might not make it through the night, but NH60 is my best shot. I don’t think there is any hope of saving her but if I drive fast enough then, at least, I can say goodbye.

My mother hated this route too, but her reasons were superstitious. She always begged my father to get a bus that would go the other way, but he never listened and she never slept on any of our journeys to her home town. I’ve never slept on those buses either, not even as a young boy, but I can’t sleep on buses at all. Sleeper buses always smell like old leather and stale air to me, and I spent whole nights looking out of cold windows trying to catch stars.

The thing about this route, though — you’ll pass through the middle of nowhere but you’ll never see too many stars, not even with the new moon like tonight. You’ll never see much of anything at all, really. For a whole 3 hour stretch, all you’ll see are fields upon fields, flat landscapes that almost look like they might be part of a film reel left on loop. The fact that it feels like there’s nothing here at all, it drives me crazy.

All the bus drivers we’ve ever traveled with were afraid of this highway — especially these 3 hours. They’d have their radios on the whole night, but they’d always turn them off for this part of NH60.

“They can’t take the risk.” my mother had told me.

“Why not?” I’d said

“It attracts the wrong creatures.”

“You mean leopards? Out here?”

She’d laughed and pinched my nose, “That’s not the worst thing you’ll find, Karim.”

What else, if not leopards? In Amalner, all the locals had urban legends about a demon here that trapped unwary travelers and tore off their faces, left them for dead. I’ve never bought that mumbo-jumbo, but I can see why they’d come to fear this route. You’re supposed to be on your toes here, always on guard, and always quiet, but I’m trying to do the opposite — I need to do the opposite. I can’t think about what I’m driving towards; my radio has been turned up to its maximum volume and my windows have been rolled down despite the biting cold, or maybe for it. I don’t care, let me freeze to death, whatever it takes to distract me.

Two hours into this emptiness and a shiver run down my spine. Not the kind you get from the cold, the kind you get when you feel like something’s wrong. I get a sick feeling, for a moment, that someone’s sitting in the car behind me. It’s just an old fear, I don’t look back. My eyes are on the road, my ears are tuned into the scratchy sound of my radio, struggling to catch a signal, and up ahead, I see a milestone. Fucking finally.

From afar, I can see that there’s something right next to it, something distinct. I jerk my head forward and try to peer closer, and my heart sinks straight to my damn feet.

There’s a man, a tall man, standing behind a wickedly twisted tree, his arms spread sideways and his body turned to face me. I know he’s watching me. My eyes are drilled onto him and he knows it, so he shifts away from sight, moving sideways into the cover of the tree. I can’t breathe, I flick my wrist to switch to full beam as I pass, but he’s hidden well. It shouldn’t matter, he’s by himself and likely just a restless farmer — what matters is the milestone.

200 kilometers to Amalner. Just another hour in this hell, and then there’ll be many hills and dense forests to occupy my attention. I’m tired of this goddamn looping film reel. The only things you can look for out here are the roadside trees and the nasty shapes they make — gnarly arms and protruding roots — but this time, there’s something else.

I see the man again. I don’t know how but it’s the same man, I’m sure of it. His arms are the same, his build is the same, his head is shaped the very same. I switch to full beam again and roll up my windows, but he hides once more, and there’s another milestone ahead.

This soon? Was I driving that fast? A brief relief spreads its way across my chest, despite the strange man, but it evaporates the moment I see what the milestone reads.

200 kilometers to Amalner.

Impossible. It must be a prank, it must be his fault. That man, he’s doing something to trick me — I know he is — it’s the only explanation. Distantly, I realize that the radio has been playing the same 3 songs for a little while now, but maybe that’s just what they do this time of night. I have no choice but to drive faster still and hope I can get away from him, whoever he is. The nearest police station is all the way in town, and there might be a long while to it — if I’m to believe the milestones at all.

Up ahead, I see him again. He’s back, how the fuck did he get there? Not a single vehicle has passed me by for 2 hours; my heart catches in my fucking throat like it’s plugging the air. He’s standing on the road, this fucking psycho, his body is turned towards me again. I haven’t switched away off the full beam, I hope it might intimidate him, but he just stands right there, waiting for me to pass him by. I do. I see him.

I see nothing but big. White. Eyes. Black irises, nothing else.

I floor it, heart pounding like a fucking drill and my jaw clenched tight. This is bullshit, this can’t be happening. I get that feeling again, of someone sitting behind me, but this time I whip my head back. There’s no one there and I’m just a fucking fool, but there’s another milestone up ahead. It’s appeared sooner than the last. I know what it says.

200 kilometers to Amalner.

I see him again, of course I do. I want to scream at him, tell him my mother is dying, that I need to get the fuck home — but I can’t. My mouth is open but nothing comes out spare a choked whimper. He’s directly in front of me, in danger of getting run over if he doesn’t move, but I know he won’t. I keep going, making no effort to avoid his big fucking eyes and wide-open arms but, somehow, I know it won’t kill him. Of course it won’t, but I do it anyway.

The car goes straight through him, as though he wasn’t there at all. I swallow the bile that’s come to replace my voice. That feeling is back, there’s someone behind me. I know he’s behind me.

I know I have to look back, but I know what will happen when I do. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot the milestone again.

200 kilometers to Amalner.

I’ll never make it.