Just Up Ahead and Off The Road.

by Gary McMahon

I can recall when I first thought it began to the very second. That moment seems frozen in time now, etched onto the remaining skin of my memory like a tattoo on pale, trembling flesh.

A long, seemingly endless stretch of unfamiliar harsh grey motorway: bad memories behind; uncertainty ahead. A beginning of sorts; or as good a place to start as any, because I'll probably never know when it truly began, at what point in my own history that I became a suitable candidate for what happened, or which offhand evil deed first marked me out as being somehow different from the pack.

*

Sunlight glinted off the car's dusty, insect carcass-filmed bonnet, flaring like the final light from some distant dying star. I squinted, my eyes smarting from the sudden glare, white dots swimming before me. Then the glare was gone. As if it had never been. 

The sun continued to shine as normal, on the fade now as early evening rapidly approached. Black Tarmac rushed forward to meet me, stretching on ahead like a vague promise of salvation. Going on forever; endlessly teasing, never really taking anybody anywhere. 

A snatch of lyric from an old Talking Heads tune skittered through my bleary mind: something about being on a road to nowhere. I couldn't remember any more of the song. Romantic ideas and images from reading too much Kerouac in my youth ran wild in my head.

I blinked hard, trying to get my tired-out eyes to work properly. Forcing my gaze to penetrate the shimmering heat haze that rose from the road ahead like steam, conjuring phantom pools of moisture in the road. I reached down onto the floor of the passenger side, groping blindly for the flask of cold coffee left over from some drive out into the country weeks ago. My questing fingers riffled through discarded chocolate wrappers, empty crisp packets and old cigarette cartons. After a few frantic minutes, I found it, pulling it up from the small rubbish dump on the car floor. 

I uncapped the flask with fumbling fingers, pressed the smooth plastic rim to my lips. Nothing. Not a dribble. The coffee was gone, already used up on the long drive from the city. And from her. Shit, I thought, throwing the dead flask over my shoulder and onto the back seat in frustration.  Just what I need. I focused my eyes back on the road, trying to keep them open but desperately wanting to close them for just a second. But I couldn't. I had to keep on going. To put as many miles as I could between that bitch and I before even thinking of rest. 

Her face invaded my mind then, unbidden, as always. 

Smiling. 

I tried to push her away with thoughts of mileage and fuel consumption, possible destinations and new beginnings. But I failed. Miserably. Her likeness rose before me like some Greek goddess from a lake of fire. Beautiful bitch. 

And so my thoughts were drawn back to over half a day earlier, before the sun had begun its inexorable decline. Before my own inevitable and speedy exit. 

She had called me early that morning. Out of the blue, as was always her way. Saying that she wanted to see me; that she needed me. Not for the first time, I tried to resist, to hang up the phone and hit the open road, where I belonged. But her hold on me was far too tenacious, her hooks embedded into my heart and soul far too deep and keeping me in one place for far too long. 

All I could manage to say was Yes, and I'll be right over.

What a fool. What a fucking coward. I was so weak, so gutless, so absolutely overwhelmed by lust that she could have wrapped me around her little finger. Around any finger. 

Her name was Laura, and to me she was the embodiment of everything worth possessing in a woman. To anyone else she was probably nothing special. Sexy, yes, and attractive. Intelligent in a way that wasn't daunting or threatening. But nothing out of the ordinary.

Not to anyone but me.

You know how it is. When you meet someone who you just physically click with, somebody who makes you horny by just glancing in your direction. Makes you feel like a king by just saying your name. 

That was how she made me feel and she knew it; exploited it at every opportunity. I was under her spell, completely captivated by her charms. Whenever she called, I came running. Just like a fucking lap dog. 

So I went round to her place, cock in hand, tongue hanging out so far it almost scraped the ground. All pretence of pride and dignity forgotten, lost in the torrent of passion (or obsession, if I'm going to be truly honest. And I am: about all of it.) 

It was the same old Rock 'n Roll: her husband had done a runner, for good this time, and she wouldn't have him back anyway, not even if he crawled on his hands and knees across broken glass. And she needed me. 

But back he came, of course. This time right in the middle of our little routine. We were sprawled, clothing in wild disarray, across the kitchen table, going at it like a couple of dogs in season. Her face in the breakfast dishes, dimpled arse thrusting aggressively into my crotch. Just the way she liked it – always the way she liked it.

So I ran. Leaving him flat on his back in a pool of his own blood, a large steak knife lodged between two ribs. It stuck out of his chest like some tiny extra limb, a brand new part of him. And each time he inhaled, struggling for breath, these little bubbles of blood frothed up at his lips, making a low rasping sound. 

Tiny red bubbles. Popping gently. 

Now don't get me wrong here. He came at me with the blade. I'm no cold-blooded killer. A liar, a sleaze-bag, an adulterer, but not a murderer. No way. You see, he got it in the chest as we struggled. I don't recall at what point exactly; it just seemed to happen, without anyone even realising until it was much too late. 

So there I was, running as usual, but this time from a bitch and a probable dead man. And I'd run out of coffee.  The sun finally slid down past the horizon, skulking away like a naughty child. Oily, multi-coloured smears plastered the sky, like a madman's attempt at painting on canvas. 

That was when it came back to me. A couple of miles back, at the side of the road, almost obscured by weeds grown wild and tangled. A hand-painted sign, tattered and fading, but still just about readable: 

HOT FOOD      COLD DRINKS 

 TEA       COFFEE 

It had been a home-made placard advertising one of those off the road Diners - a grubby, flyblown 1950's style caravan set up on bricks off the motorway, at the end of some battered old lay-by - that catered for long distance lorry drivers and travelling salesmen.

You always pass them, never really noticing until you've already gone by, and by then it's too late to turn back anyway and there'll be a Little Chef or some anonymous service station further on up the road anyway. So you just keep on going, soon forgetting that innocuous little sign, thinking other, more immediate thoughts. 

In an instant, I'd decided to turn back. Sink a few cups of hideously strong coffee. Rest my dog-tired eyes. So I pulled over onto the hard shoulder and spun the car around in an illegal U-turn, my nerve endings tingling at the prospect of hot caffeine, a well-earned stimulant that my body craved.

As I set off back in the direction that I'd come, my rear tyres spat up loose chippings from the road surface. The small stones pit-pattered against the filthy rear window, the sound distant and somehow lonely. Almost desolate in some way. 

It wasn't long before I was there. I spotted the diminutive ramshackle caravan only because I knew it was there. It seemed shrouded in a clandestine atmosphere, almost hidden by the grassy hills and rises that undulated away from the roadside. 

The place was tiny, possibly able to hold ten or twelve people at a time. It boasted one small window, smeared and grime-blinded. Paintwork was old and blistered; bearing the scars of ages, hinting at the decades the van had spent standing in silent service in the shadow of larger distant cousins. 

I pulled over and parked a hundred yards from the caravan, bumping up over the dropped kerb at the head of the lay-by. 

The car halted alongside four or five other grubby looking vehicles. The cars and single motorcycle looked old, neglected, as if left to die at the roadside. The sight of those vehicles, thickly coated with layers of dust and a hard carapace of long-dead insect life, was somehow a chilling sight. A coldness seeped into my bone marrow, nestling there.

I got out of the car and locked the door, glancing at the nearest of the vehicles. Ford Cortina, quite a few years out of date. One windscreen wiper broken, hanging askew like an insect antenna. Ariel snapped off midway along its length. Cobweb of cracks in the windscreen, just visible beneath the vile layer of dead bugs.

Stop it, I thought. Just stop fucking spooking yourself .I took a packet of ciggies from my jeans back pocket. One left, slightly twisted from sitting on it. I straightened it out, lit the live end with my dead dad's only bequest, a battered Zippo lighter, and sucked hard on that stick of black death. 

The smoke hit my lungs running, greeting my internal workings with a welcome kick. Pure bliss. I felt the familiar vague desire for something a little bit stronger and far more habit forming than tobacco but shrugged it off, not wanting to hoist that particular monkey onto my back. 

So I set off towards the promise of

      HOT FOOD      COLD DRINKS 

TEA      COFFEE,

stomach rumbling in anticipation. 

When I reached the caravan I pushed open the greasy door, helping it on it's stubborn way with my boot.

And it hit me in an instant: cold, squalid desolation. A silent scream in the air, spinning and hurtling straight at me and latching onto my soul with cold, cruel greased barbs. The ambience of the charnel house, all long bloody massacre and sheer desperation.

Then it was gone; the sensation seemed to depart as suddenly and swiftly as it had pounced upon my subconscious. I was left reeling, my mind and senses a blur, vision and hearing way off centre, as if I was about to faint. 

It took me a moment to pull myself together, taking long deep breaths and almost choking on the miasma of stale grease in the air. 

Recovering, I walked in. The Look upon me. The stare you always get when you walk into a room full of transient strangers: wary, peering eyes, searching, probing, and silently demanding to know why you've invaded their territory and how long you’re planning to be there . But this time it was all that multiplied by a hundred, with something more lurking beneath. Something predatory. 

I stared arrogantly back at the room's occupants, summing them up, trademark lop-sided grin set firmly in place, saying a great big Fuck You to the world. God only knows how many times that particular grin has been booted in by an offended thug or two.

There were six people seated at low Formica tables topped with checked plastic tablecloths: a short, suited business-type clutching a shiny brown briefcase as if it was a puppy, or a baby; a young couple, both harshly blonde, like California surf-babies; a big, red-bearded biker draped in leathers and motorcycle patches, eyes hidden deep behind cheap shades; a tall, thin, angular bloke dressed in faded denims with a muddy yellow hardhat perched on his head. The sixth figure I assumed to be the proprietor. Fat. Greasy. Pear-shaped. Stirring something in a battered grey saucepan with a big wooden spoon. Stir. Stir. Stir.

All five customers were seated and scattered around the cramped little interior (as much as it was possible to be scattered in such a small space, anyway), and the fat Pearman stood behind a waist-high wooden counter, tending his stove. Stir. Stir. Stir.

And they all stared. At me. Hungrily. 

I nodded, attempting a manner of dopey friendliness; the guise of a lonesome, weary fellow traveller in search of good food, strong coffee and peace and silence. And no trouble. Just no damned trouble of any kind. But it follows you wherever you go, trailing like cans on a wedding car; tied to your back and impossible to remove. Marking you out. 

When my gaze reached the fat man behind the counter, it halted. I grinned even wider around my teeth, feeling and no doubt looking a complete fucking idiot. And cursing this utterly irrational fear that had gripped me without warning in a close embrace. 

"I...erm," I stammered as I approached, then cleared my throat with a small barking cough. Feeling those hungry eyes boring holes in my flesh, burning like lasers. 

"I've driven a long way. Tired out. Could use a coffee. Some food, perhaps?" 

I beamed that idiot smile at the fat man, trying to look docile but harmless. Above all, harmless. He just stared back. Blank, slack features. Hungry eyes, black as pits. Deep as dark night. Then he nodded, one corner of his thin-lipped mouth twitching up into a kind of pseudo-grin, as if tugged by an invisible wire. I wondered who the puppeteer was.

"Sit. Please." His voice was utterly devoid of inflection, as if it was computer-generated. Emotionless. Dead. The words seemed to spill lifelessly from his lips and fall heavily to the floor. I could almost hear them as they hit the dirty lino. 

And those fucking eyes stared into me; hunger blazing past the facade. I felt that they knew me, intimately. I turned. To face the slack-faced clientele: pasty flesh, dull, dusty clothing, and weirdly bright eyes.

Oh, I was spooked. I was definitely spooked. I shuffled slowly to an empty table, trying to pretend that I wasn't really there, that dullard grin still stuck on my face, and eased down into a not-too-snug plastic seat. And waited.

As the night bloomed outside, growing darker and denser. Pushing at that small, square, sticky window, trying to squeeze through the lop-sided venetion blind. 

I fingered the red-and-white-checked plastic tablecloth, barely able to resist the urge to use the cheap stainless-steel cutlery as drumsticks. My silent companions stared eerily. Now and then, one of them would lick their lips. I felt as if I was on the menu.

A strong sense of expectation hung in the air, adding to the humidity to create a weight around me that was almost palpable; we were all waiting for something, and only the others knew what it was. My natural paranoia went into overdrive. 

Suddenly I needed to piss more desperately than I ever had in my life.

I glanced nervously about the place, my eyes scanning over old, grime-darkened framed photographs of aged, sepia-toned folk posing outside a newer version of the caravan in which I now sat. A pear-shaped fat man smiled along with them, unchanged.

Then I saw the door. It was so inconspicuous that it almost blended in with the tatty walls. A grubby sign was tacked to it in an effort to differentiate it: a black silhouette of a man's form embossed onto a white plastic background: short, squat, featureless. The gent's. I felt so relieved that I almost laughed aloud.

I rose on shaking legs; upending a pepper pot in my haste and sending a plume of grey-black dust billowing across the grubby tabletop. I shrugged my shoulders at the others, attempting to smile but only managing a weak grimace, the moron-grin's younger brother.

So I headed for the gents', not even glancing at any of them. And the fat man just kept on stir, stir, stirring his pot.

As the door sighed shut, I pressed my sweaty back against it, arching my neck and closing my eyes as the bones in my spine clicked audibly. My hands were shaking. Breathing was heavy. Jesus, I thought. Why the hell are you so afraid? It's a room full of weirdo’s, that's all. Nothing to get so fucking worked-up about. Now, take a piss and pull yourself together.

Run, said a small, scared voice from somewhere deep inside me. Get out, while you still can. Get back on the road and rejoin your quest for a better life.

Instead, I urinated and washed my hands in cold brown water from a mewling tap.

As I did so I looked at myself in the cracked mirror above the sink, PISS OFF scrawled across it in thick black scary streaks that blended into the puzzle of graffiti that was reflected from the wall behind me.  It seemed like good advice.

I closed my eyes and sighed, a rapid sinking feeling gripping my intestines.

When I managed to look again, my eyes glared back at me from hollows in a slightly fleshy but still quite handsome face. I had two days dark beard growth. My skin was pale, far too pale for the season. I pushed back matted hair that looked almost too black from my lined forehead with a trembling wet hand, licked parched lips. Pull - yourself - together, I chanted in my mind. Get a grip. 

I was almost convincing.

Back in the main dining area: the hub of my unfocused terror. And the weirdo’s still stared. I got the impression that they had been gazing unblinkingly at the toilet door all the while I was in there. A large mug steamed coffee vapours at my table, alongside a surprisingly good-looking bacon and lettuce sandwich. 

My spirits rose slightly, elevating even higher as the food-smell hit my olfactory centre.

Food does that for me, makes things seem better than they actually are. So do drugs and alcohol, but that's another long and cliché-ridden story.

I retook my seat, scraping the legs across the lino floor. The sound was deafening in all that meaningful silence, the effect upon my nerves like that of fingernails drawn down a blackboard, or chewing on a woollen sweater. I grinned an apology, picked up my mug.  And It stirred. All around. Within. Everywhere. And every thing. Pulsing, wetly. Sentient. The chipped, paint-peeled mug stopped halfway to my open mouth, frozen like a video image on freeze frame. I felt like I was underwater, dark currents plucking eagerly at me. The air seemed suddenly dense, too thick in texture, and teeming with dull, blind, stupid invisible life. Groping. At me. A scream welled up inside me, rising up in a thick, warm jet to the back of my throat. Coming up from the depths of an unborn, unfocused, yet very real terror. And then It was upon me. Writhing blindly; probing instinctively. Seeking a way inside me. A doorway. The other customers still stared, but now with the death-glazed eyes of hooked fish: cold, moist and massive, filled with nothing but nothing. Each one of them seemed occupied in some mammoth mental labour, even though none moved as much as a muscle. Not a tremor. Or a flicker.

But I was aware of them yelling and screeching beneath the surface, and the sound of invisible engines running fit to explode. As the facade was torn slowly away, ripped open at the seams with the force of nightmare. 

My entire body shook and spasmed as though an electric current was tearing through it. My life, for what it was worth, played out before me on a movie screen in my soul. And something was sapping that very life right out of me: feelings, memories, experiences. All of it, no matter what. Looking for a doorway...

Ten years old: falling during a school football match, breaking an ankle and swearing bloody vengeance on the boy who tackled me. Later, paying the local bully ten pounds to break his face as I lay in hospital, recovering with sweets and comics. 

Eighteen: fucking my new best friend's girl on the bedroom floor at some teenage party while he lay, blacked-out on Snakebite, above us, snoring under the heap of coats on the bed.

Twenty-one: Jayne Webber. Pregnant. Just about to drop. And me, running, as usual. Leaving town. Fleeing my bastard and the woman who bore it. 

Thirty-two: flat on my back in a late night alley in some one horse town, drugged and pissed-up and soaked in neon, stinking of alcohol and my own shit. The lowest. The Pit. My own, private, intimate Hell.

Then: earlier today. A flashing blade. A red, red rain; squirting, flowering, blood red blossom of my ultimate, inevitable damnation...

...a doorway...

cup drops from palsied hand

right foot beats rickety dance on cool cold floor

head nods back and forth back and forth

as

It

breaks

through

from the bleak darkness that lies in wait behind the face of all mirrors, the mirror of all faces, and opens the door that I have so unwittingly provided.

And now it is over. 

It has gained access, as planned.

It has fed once more on the weakness and depravity of humanity, the bland and thoughtless evil that created it in the first place.

So It sits here, within me – within us- waiting, thinking and scheming, as much as Its inchoate intelligence will allow. But linking us all. Making us one, existing together.

The blonde couple, Bill and Jackie. 

The businessman, Tony. 

The Biker, Carl. 

The denim dude, Jeff. 

And, of course, the eldest of all: the fat man - stir, stir, stir - Theo.

Each of them lost travellers, wanderers on the long open road of life who had paused in their personal quests for a roadside snack, or a coffee to stop them falling asleep at the wheel. Now they are nothing but spiritual roadkill, who would’ve been fine if they’d just kept on driving, eating up the road and the miles and the minutes. 

But we are all now a single being. With a single memory made up of random, painful juxtaposed images from the different, yet painfully similar, stories that led us to this point, this junction. And with a single goal.

It is us and we are It, together. A perfect symbiosis. 

And we wait. Needing to be fed. As years yawn by, passing us over. Forgetting. Depositing dust and decay and cold, empty promises while we await the arrival of another: a road-tired runaway, a hungry refugee from the many self-inflicted agonies of life.

A doorway.

Sometimes, caught up in a fit of what can only be described as bleak joy,  I hope that soon we will gather enough strength, enough doorways, for whatever grim juggernaut waits, revving its infinite engine, on the other side to break through and claim the world as its highway. And sometimes, in stronger moments when I recall a dim and distant dreamtime of individuality, I pray to whatever may be listening that we never do. 

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