You will discount my story as the delusion of a tired mind, I know. Yet these events occurred just as related. I do not ask for your belief, for some truths are too horrible for the sane and must instead be raved by their few, unfortunate witnesses. I ask only for your indulgence as I retrace, yet again, those minutes which I might never forget.
At a total of one thousand miles from Murray, KY, on the second night of my drive home to Forks, WA, it was 2:00 AM. I had been driving for eighteen hours since St. Louis had faded from the rear-view mirror of my Jeep, that morning. Now, deafened and chilled by the seventy-miles-per-hour wind which ripped through the exposed interior, I drove through miles of desolate South Dakota. The gas needle was at half-tank, and my next stop would be Sturgis, SD, some three hundred miles distant.
On this stretch of highway, there were no city lights or bright billboards to bear witness of 2007. Even the occasional semitruck seemed distant, in the eastbound lanes of I-90. I drove west, and the landscape was black. My dim headlights cast grotesque shadows amongst the rare, skeletal barns and in the ragged edges of unhealthy fields. The twisted shadows also invaded my sleepy thoughts. I settled into a reverie and slipped under the blanket of the noisy wind. And shapes soon danced across the white, striped highway, just beyond the waking reach of my unfocused eyes.
The world twisted ninety degrees, and the Jeep was gone in my dream. I was falling past the now-vertical highway and towards a ground of solid white. As it neared, the wind roared back into reality. I woke suddenly and jerked the wheel. The front tires screeched across the gravel of the shoulder and again found their purchase on the highway. I had, it seemed, dozed off and driven into a thick bank of fog. My heart pounded from the shock of the near accident. I was blinded by the white glare of my headlights in the fog and so slowed to a crawl. The damp air beaded on my forehead.
The last scraps of fog soon parted, yet I maintained my slow pace. The Jeep coughed, and I spared a glance at the instruments in surprise. More time must have passed than it seemed, for I had somehow lost a half-tank of gas. The needle hovered over E. As though in answer to my rising panic, I noticed a faded, unlit billboard on my right: "Food, Gas, Lodging -- Draper, SD -- Next Exit."
The exit was dark, dusty, and its pavement was cracked with weeds. A narrow road led north, towards the promise of gas, for two miles. At its crossing of Old US-16, I could no longer see I-90 behind me, nor could I hear its comforting traffic. Instead, ahead of me, I saw the few dim, yellowed lights of a small town amidst the rallying tendrils fog.
An unreal silence settled around me, as I passed the first few, small buildings on Main Street. Even the usually-cheerful rattle of my Jeep seemed to die mere feet beyond its doors, as though alone in an enclosed soundstage. At this late hour, no lights lit the windows of this town's few shops and residences. A few blocks away, I could see the source of the only light: a small, two-pump gas station. The Jeep coughed again and almost died. A sudden, unreasonable fear gripped my heart.
A stop sign compelled me to halt. With marked effort, I looked to my left and my right. A large house on the corner was covered in tattered, white plastic. Meant to have been fumigated, perhaps, but then suddenly abandoned. I shivered and continued forward. Yet, on this block, more houses were wrapped in the old plastic. This spread until, approaching the station, each house was entombed in stuff. I could not guess what disaster might have required such a grisly scene. And I dared not imagine.
The station was soon before me, and it brought a temporary comfort. The two pumps were labled Self and Full. A light came from the windows of the service building. This single hut, at the center of town, was untouched by the pale wraps. I began to feel ashamed of my brief terror. My tires crunched with comforting noise through the loose gravel of the station as I pulled up to the pump labeled Self.
The Jeep coughed a last time, and then died to silence. I laughed and said out loud, to steady my nerves, "That was too close, Teddy Gilman!" Yet, as I began to swing myself out and onto the ground, the Jeep roared to life, lurched forward, and I was thrown back into my seat. I hastily disengaged the engine. I was now in front of the pump labeled Full, and this probably saved my life. An old, hunched attendant stood silhouetted in the bright doorway. As he approached, redoubled horror gripped my stomach.
His malformed body advanced upon the Jeep with stumbling hobbles and crooked lunges, and his knobby hands were outstretched in constant anticipation of falling. Yet, it was his head that inspired my wordless, thoughtless horror. His entire head was wrapped in strands of shiny, white plastic. As he approached, he spoke in an annoyed, phlegmy voice, "Ya too good t'pump yer own gas, son?"
I could not speak for several seconds, and my voice was small and dry when I did, "I can't walk." And that was true, for I was petrified. His fingers lingered on the handle of the pump, and he did not look at me as he replied, through spasms of wet coughing, "Ain't that... a shame." As he began to pump the gas, he turned his blank, plastic-wrapped face toward me and rasped simply, "Leave." Then, his free hand began to reach toward my face. Its stench finally inspired movement in my frozen limbs, and I began to scream.
I fumbled with the ignition and, just as his cold hand clutched my shoulder, the Jeep thundered awake. I screamed again, wildly, and jammed the accelerator. The tires spun, the gravel flew, and my vision blurred with tears and panic. Next thing, I was back on I-90 and, though he'd only pumped for a few seconds, the gas needle was at half-tank. I kept the accelerator floored until I reached Sturgis, SD.
There, everything was normal, and I already began to doubt my memory. Later, after ordering pizza and watching a few hours of TV in the hotel, I undressed for bed as the sun rose and felt much better. My t-shirt had a small rip on the left shoulder, but I'm almost certain that was from offroading, the previous week. Almost.
