Uncertain Danger
Click-click. Click-click.
Roberta's thumb repeatedly pushed the button on her pen as she stared at the unmoving cars ahead of her. The stubborn line might have gone on for a few hundred feet, or it might have gone on for miles. She couldn't tell. Semi-trucks blocked her view forward, leaving little to watch but the yellow sedan stopped directly in front of her. Her radio buzzed pointlessly in the background, two people battling against static to talk about politics or… something. It was hard to make out.
It was only a slight exaggeration to say there was nothing on either side of the road. Street lamps flooded the freeway with harsh white light, but they left the paper-flat plains on Roberta's right and left to the shadows.
Her eyes flicked to the green glow of the clock. 7:01.
I should be home right now.
Click-click.
Roberta wondered if her friends would notice she wasn’t online. Well, ‘friend’. Barry was the only person on the server she knew well; the others just talked down to her constantly.
Click-click-click-click.
Did they talk down to her though? Whenever she complained to Barry, he would explain that so-and-so didn’t have the best social skills and didn’t actually mean to sound rude, or some variation of that. She didn’t think it was always true, but she also didn’t think Barry was trying to be dismissive. Probably.
Roberta released the brake to roll forward a few feet. She was tired of the “do Barry’s friends think I’m an idiot” train of thought and cast around for something else to absorb her attention.
Click.
Her eyes fell to her phone sitting upside down in the cup holder, charger plugged into her dash. Well… it wasn’t like she was actually driving at the moment. She might as well dip into the server and let everyone know she hadn’t died.
The pen dropped from her fingers as she reached for the phone and tapped in the pin number. As soon as the app was open, it notified her that Barry was typing. Instantly her clenched jaw relaxed. Had she been tensed up this whole time?
BarBear89: took u long enough lmao
A smile pulled at the corner of her mouth as she punched in her reply.
Rt5021: Sorry, stuck in traffic. You know how it is.
Barry started typing again, but the conversation from before flowed around them. It seemed Tristan was having trouble with his manager, and the others were commiserating. She took a moment to look out through the windshield. The sedan hadn’t moved. Outside of the tetris-piece cars hemming her in perfectly on all sides, the world seemed reduced to a void whose only feature was that it was darker than the clouded-over sky. Maybe this traffic jam was all that was left. She shivered.
BarBear89: how long til ur home? we should play smth if u dont have work tomorrow
Roberta frowned. How long would it take to get home at the rate things were moving? Where had this jam come from? Was there an accident up ahead? Construction? Was she just overdue for some old-fashioned congested traffic?
Rt5021: No idea, sorry. Still up for the game tho, unless I’m here all night.
Unless I never get home.
She shook her head briskly to rid it of the ridiculous thought.
gexman69: o shit all nighter in berta’s party wagon lmao
Her eyes rolled of their own accord as she punched in her response.
Rt5021: Can’t have a party with just one person genius.
And then, to her surprise, a name she didn’t recognize flashed briefly across the screen with a message. She hadn’t seen any typing notification.
Conium: Are you sure you’re alone?
The screen shut off.
Roberta’s mouth went dry. The phone was still plugged in, so it couldn’t be out of battery. She held down the power button. Nothing. It had just died after that creepy message.
She had to force herself not to throw it down, instead letting the useless slab of glass and metal slip through her shaking fingers into the cup holder. Deep breath. She wasn’t in an emergency situation just now. Not having her phone just meant a little boredom on her part, that was all.
Are you sure? The first three words of the message seemed to flash in front of her eyes. She shook her head vigorously. Of course she wasn’t really alone, but that was just because the interstate was full of other traffic prisoners like her. Her fingers drummed the molded grey plastic of her steering wheel. Not out of nerves, of course.
The clock read 7:10. Whatever talk show had been struggling to play on the radio faded entirely to static. Roberta furtively cast her gaze to the car on her left.
A small bubble of relief welled in her chest at the sight of a man in a suit sitting stiffly in the driver's seat. A glance to the right revealed a woman in a security guard’s uniform leaning against the window of a pickup, clearly as tired by the proceedings as Roberta.
There, nothing to worry about. She gripped the steering wheel more tightly and made a conscious decision not to check the back seat for a deranged axe murderer, because that was ridiculous. Instead her eyes trained themselves back onto the sedan’s license plate.
The seam of the sedan’s trunk stood out against the back of the car in a thick black line, the top raised fractionally from where it should have sat flush and locked.
Her nails dug into soft plastic. It had always been ajar, surely. She just hadn't noticed it before because she hadn't been looking for things to be worried about.
Are you sure?
The car rolled smoothly forward with the sluggish queue. Its trunk jerked open another half-inch. Obviously that was a result of the car's movement, regardless of the fact that it hadn't bounced back to its original position as she would have expected. The light was messing with her eyes. She was tired. Nothing was happening.
The yellow sedan rolled to a stop, and Roberta pulled up behind it. The illumination from her headlights crept up over the bumper, then filled the trunk with brilliant yellow light. Roberta caught a glimpse of a spare tire, some boxes... and a twitching movement in the foreground.
The trunk slammed shut again.
Her heart constricted in her chest. Maybe she should get the attention of the driver. Yes, they probably weren’t aware that… that the catch on the trunk was faulty. Because that was all that was happening. The movement could have been another vehicle inching by, casting shadows over the curved surfaces she’d been watching so anxiously. Or a stray cat could have gotten into the car. They did that sometimes, right? It didn’t explain the trunk slamming closed, but...
She craned her neck, trying to see the driver of the yellow sedan so she could catch their eye. The headrest of the driver’s seat completely cut them off from her field of vision, and the mirror angles didn’t allow her to catch a glimpse of their face. Roberta’s jaw clenched. She could get out of the car and tap on the window, perhaps. No one was moving at the moment. Or she could honk.
Roberta stayed seated, sweaty hands gripping the wheel as she turned over possible actions she didn’t want to pursue. An irrational burst of anger surged through her mind. Well what was she expected to do? Was it her responsibility to do anything? If she got this person’s attention and it was nothing, she’d look like an idiot, her schedule could get thrown off even further if they confronted her, she was already so late getting home and probably wouldn’t be able to sleep and she had work tomorrow, why was interacting with other people so difficult–
Scrtch. Scrtch.
Her fingers tightened further, knuckles going white. Checking either side showed that for once she hadn’t neglected to lock the doors. She didn’t need to be anxious. Nothing could get in without breaking a window, and someone would have to notice if it came to that.
Are you sure?
Glance to the left. The man in the suit hadn’t moved, glassy eyes fixed on the road in front of him like he was in a trance. Glance to the right. The security guard remained slumped against the window, limp as though she had recently died.
What is wrong with me tonight?
Roberta shook her head again. She had been in traffic jams before. Everyone would start moving again, and the still figures beside her would spring to life. All she had to do was wait.
The clock read 7:15.
Are you sure?
The clock read 7:21.
The suited man sat rigid as a statue. The unnatural white light from above highlighted a thin trail of drool from the corner of his mouth. None of the cars had moved.
The clock read 7:26.
Scccrrrrrtch.
Every muscle in Roberta’s body tensed. She couldn’t be sure, but she didn’t think that had come from outside the car.
So… so a squirrel had escaped someone’s trunk and crawled up under her hood or something. That wasn’t a reason to be afraid. It was irrational. She was being irrational. She could just ignore it and keep driving, as soon as traffic flow started up again. It was better to pretend it wasn’t there, because nothing was there, and she didn’t want to feel foolish.
Scrtch, scrtch, scrtch.
Her eyes flicked involuntarily to the vents. ...no, it couldn’t-
Are you sure?
Roberta’s gaze lingered just long enough to see the plastic bars bend around pale, bony fingers that pressed through the vent’s gaps, reaching for her with those scratching nails. A white mass squeezed above its knuckles like a soap bubble, and another, and another, dark holes of pupils fixed on her face. A dozen eyes and fingers impossibly squeezing into her car.
Roberta didn’t remember picking up the pen. Her arm shot out on reflex, stabbing into the vent as she screamed. The fingers twitched and recoiled. She tried not to focus on what happened to the pierced eyes. And she kept jabbing until the pen no longer found purchase in the dark behind the vents. Black ichor oozed down her dashboard as though the car itself was bleeding.
She slumped back in her seat, tears in her eyes. The world outside the car was silent and unmoving. No one had noticed what happened, yet somehow her lips turned up in a shaky smile. She wiped her face with her sleeve. At least now she knew her fears were justified.
Are you sure?
It felt like a cold hand clenched around her stomach as the thought resurfaced, and she looked once more to the vents.
The dark stains were gone.