A ghostly shape materialized out of the fog, resolved itself into a speed limit sign, and vanished into the darkness.
Mick flinched and swore, his heart pounding. Just a sign, that’s all. He glared into the fog swirling all around the vehicle, concealing all but a tiny patch of road directly in front of him. It almost seemed alive, taunting him with half-seen figures that vanished the moment he tried to look at them.
Get ahold of yourself, man. Silently he vowed never to drive in fog again. Especially at two in the morning. He knew the road like the back of his hand in the daylight, but between the dark and the fog, it felt completely different.
The Mustang purred as the miles slipped away underneath him. Even now, the sound brought the ghost of a smile to his face. The cherry-red vehicle had been his birthday present to himself on his forty-fifth birthday and was his pride and joy.
A red glint ahead caught his attention. Is that…? He peered through the windshield, trying to make it out. It almost looked like…a pair of demonic eyes?
He shook his head to dislodge the morbid fancy. When he looked up again, the eyes had resolved into a pair of taillights close ahead. Too close. He swore again, slamming on the brakes, and just barely managed to avoid rear-ending the other vehicle.
“Oh, come on!” After a late flight, a missed connection, and a constant drizzling rain that seemed determined to follow him home, he was finally almost back to his own warm bed, only to get stuck behind a truck—a car hauler, it looked like—creeping along like an arthritic snail. And he knew there was no passing lane for another thirty miles.
He checked his watch. Two forty-one. Another ten miles to go before he was home.
You could pass.
He blinked. The fog billowed more thickly than ever, forming an impenetrable wall ahead. But it’s almost three in the morning. Who’s going to be around on this little country road?
Almost in a dream, he swerved into the oncoming lane and began to pass.
And pass.
And pass.
He glanced up at the car hauler. Is a truck this long even allowed to be on the road? And something was odd. All the cars seemed to be horrifically damaged in various ways. Shattered windshields, caved-in sides, even scorch marks on some of them. Not one was intact. From a demolition derby, maybe?
Finally he drew level with the truck cab. As he started to pull past it so he could get back in the right lane, he glanced over one last time.
The truck was a wreck.
Shards of glass were all that was left of the windshield. The hood was missing. A deep gash split the engine block in half, as if a giant axe had come down on it.
There was no driver. The cab was empty.
Mick’s jaw hung open as he tried to process what he was seeing. Who— what— how— He found himself shaking his head, his lips moving in silent denial. No. No, this isn’t happening. It can’t be. No!
He never saw the oncoming semi. And the semi’s driver didn’t see him until it was far, far too late.
A belated horn blare. A sudden ghastly noise. A tinkle of fragmented glass.
The fog swirled in.
And on the back of the car hauler, a new vehicle emerged from the mist: a cherry-red Mustang with the front flattened like a pancake.
