Short Story

The night is hot as hell, but I'm used to it by now. I've made this long, straight journey from Vegas to one of the small, outlying townships for quite sometime.
"Next year," I say to myself in the darkness. "Next year I'll move into the city for good."
The problem is, I've been saying that same thing to myself almost everytime I make this tedious journey home from my well-paying job as a bartender in a suave Casino-Hotel.
Nobody plans on being a bartender. I mean, sure some people go to school for it, but I don't think they ever really plan to do it for the rest of their lives. I know I didn't. I figured it would be a part-time deal that would help me get enough money to go to a good college. The Land of Sin, it seems, had a different plan in mind for me.
The money was so good that I almost entirely forgot about what it was supposed to be for. School became a hazy memory in the recesses of my mind, like something from a half-remembered dream.
So here I am, almost thirty years old and still making the same commute to the job I've had for ten years. The hours used to be my favourite part of the aptly named bartending 'night-life'. Sleeping all day and working all night was perfect for a young girl. Every year though, it seems like the hours my job have required me to keep become more and more difficult.
It's almost impossible to hold a relationship with someone working a day job, which is almost everyone in the small area that I live in. In fact, all I can do at night in such a small town is drive to work, to a city lit up like a blanket of stars. A city where nobody ever sleeps.
That's why I'm here, now. A long drive home from a long night of work. My shift tonight, like most nights, started at nine o'clock. The digital clock in my sleek car reads 3:48 a.m. I've only been on the road for close to an hour, and I've got miles to go before I sleep. Miles to go...
My body snaps back into reality as I realize that my eyes had slipped shut. That is the danger of driving such a straight and constant path. If you aren't careful, the seductive mountain-scape in the distance can lull you into a dream without your consent. Not that there's anybody on the road, but you never really know; do you?
I run my hand across my forehead, and I feel beads of sweat. Is it because of the heaviness of the air? Or the fact that I nearly fell asleep at the wheel of car doing close to 100 miles per hour? I ease off the gas, just a bit.
That's when I see it. If I hadn't just laid off the gas, I would have had less than no chance. But my slightly reduced speed gave me the slightest of advantages.
My mind can't even process it. It's as if the black mass in the middle of my lane wasn't there until moments before I was. My headlights did nothing to warn me of the impending danger. It's now or never.
I press both of my feet against the brake and jerk the wheel so far right that I hear a pop in my shoulder. The car leaves the road. I can feel every bump in the uneven, rocky soil. Then something happens that I did not except.
There were no guardrails. No reason for it. But my car, seeming to act of it's own accord, somersaults forward. I squeeze my eyes shut. All I can hear is the crunch of metal and the sound of smashed glass. My seatbelt holds me in, but then the airbag ejects and I can feel my nose caving in under it's pressure. I taste blood and smell burning rubber. Then, almost as quickly as it began, the senseless violence ends.
The darkness grows and seems to mix with the red swimming in front of my eyes. I fall unconscious.


I am roused by a scent in the air. It chills my blood and sets my heart in rapid beats, although the sound of my heart is strangely weak. I smell gas. The immobility that I felt moments ago leaves my muscles, and I scramble to  escape. The window is smashed and I manage to pull myself through the broken glass and jagged metal.

I cry out as I drag my broken body across the desert grass. When I roll myself over onto my back, I notice the large shard of glass protruding from my stomach. I grasp it with shaking hands, and pull it from my flesh. Warmth washes over my hand, and my head starts to spin all over again.

As my mind shifts in and out of consciousness, I see the black crouching figure watching me. It's eyes glow red orange in the night; they seem to be alight with a hellish fire. A snarl rumbles deep in the creatures' throat. And then, it springs for me.

My scream rises in the early morning sky, and I know no more.