Moonlit Highway

I haven’t driven in a car in a while. I kind of can’t bring myself to do that anymore. I used to be really confident behind the wheel and really good at it too. Now I can drive. I can’t sit behind the wheel to save my life. I just can’t.

The last time I drove was when I was taking Eric, my older brother, from some party he had attended. He got piss drunk and knew he was in no state to drive halfway across the country back home. That’s why he called me. I had to drive halfway across the country to get to him and then make the trip back home. We stopped at a town called Kalia because he had to throw up again.

As he was relieving himself, I was watching the beautiful scenery of the dead sea. The desert and mountains around this area look especially beautiful during the night. The moonlight illuminates the rocky terrain in a beautiful shade of gold one could stare at for hours. As Eric was done throwing up, I looked up at the road and saw something peculiar. A person. A person racing down the road on foot. Now it’s a long and winding road that stretches across the whole desert and there isn’t much traffic there most of the time. So, a lone skater wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. That, however, was approaching us way too fast to be a skater. By the time this person was close enough to be clearly seen, I could tell it wasn’t any old skater.

The guy, judging by his voice, was clad in a black suit and had some very strange shoes that looked more like miniature rockets than shoes. He had a slightly elongated helmet on. He must’ve caught my bewildered gaze when he glided past my Outlander and stopped a couple of meters behind me.

"What the?" I questioned loudly.

"Oh, this? Just a little piece of new transportation tech my family is developing." The man said as he lifted his visor, revealing wrinkly skin and these odd, hazel eyes.

"Wow… that’s cool," I quipped, genuinely intrigued.

"Yeah." The man answered, approaching me.

"How fast can you go?" I questioned him as he stood right in front of me.

"With the right gear, up to the speed of sound. Like this, fast enough to leave you and your cart in the dust." He remarked with the utmost confidence. Even though his speech sounded somewhat childlike and slurred, he sounded fairly sure of himself.

"I’d prove you wrong, but not today, I’m taking my drunk brother home," I said, just as Eric came out of the bushes in which he discarded his party edibles.

“Did I hear anything about race? Who’s this guy?" Eric motioned with his finger to the stranger. "You have weird eyes, my man… weird, I tell you…" my brother continued as he stood comically close to the stranger, barely able to keep his posture.

"I was just inviting your brother to race me, but it seems like he can’t…" the stranger quipped.

"Sure he can whoop his ass, Ben, show him what you got!" he urged me. "Where’s your car by th-the way?" Eric asked, looking around the stranger, nearly falling on his face in the process.

The guy pointed at his shoe and said, “these are my wheels.”

“Woaaah” Eric blurted out.

“You sure about this, bro? You’re throwing up from me going slowly, I don’t think you could h…” I was cut off by my brother.

“I’m fine, I’ve emptied my stomach. Now let’s go whoop some ass.” He called as he waddled towards my car, making his way there without falling. He sat inside the crossover and slammed the door behind him yelling, “Come now! We ain’ go- all nigh…”

I sighed.

“Fine. How far do you wanna go?” I looked at the stranger who was making his way towards the front of my car.

“To Ein Gedi, that should be enough.”

"That far? It’s half an hour away, are you su-" I was cut off again, this time by the strange man.

"Time depends on velocity. Now come on, on the count of three we start off." The stranger demanded. His voice was still filled with confidence and pride. Eric was shouting something in the background. I couldn’t make sense of his alcohol-fueled rambling.

I sat down in my seat and ignited the engine. I pressed on the gas pedal gently, making the Outlander roar as the engine warmed itself up. The stranger spread his legs wide with one leg being positioned strangely behind his body. He turned to face me and raised his hand with three fingers pointing upwards.

"3"

"2"

"1"

He yelled out a "Go!" that turned into a low barking sound a millisecond before my engine let out a deep mechanical growl and we both took off. I saw the stranger beside me one moment and he was gone the next. I was ahead of him. I kept on pressing the gas pedal until he became a tiny black spot in my rearview. Not one to underestimate competition, even if I had the race won, I kept my speed in the 120s of kph. The road turned to a blur of gray beneath my vehicle. The mountainous view turned into rising and falling blotches of brown and gold on both sides of my car. Eric was yelling and cursing in the back seat.

I was confident this is going to be an easy one, so I just sank into the mundanity of the empty night road as I pressed on.

Suddenly, I could see a person on foot approaching me. My heartbeat rose. That guy could indeed go up to 120 on foot. I was getting excited. As the man kept gaining up on me, I kept one eye focused on his ever-approaching silhouette and the other on the road ahead. Soon enough, he was at arm’s length from the tail of my car. That’s when I slammed my gas pedal down to the floor and sped off again, going up to 150 – I’ve lost the man.

"Got em’!" I yelled out.

"Uh, Ben…" Eric called out meekly.

"Sup?" I said as I kept on pressing the gas pedal.

"He’s catching up." My brother remarked.

"No way," I thought, no way this could be possible – then I looked at the rear-view mirror, and he was there. Catching up to the car. "Son of a bitch," I hissed under my breath and pressed the metal down the floor. The moonlit highway turned into a mess of colors where darkness twisted into light and vice versa. The surrounding mountains turned into a continuous line of brown and gold. The moon seemed to stretch infinitely, and the road became almost a tunnel in my eyes. Even the utility poles and road signs seemed to merge with the overall blur around me. The speedometer was pointing at 180 kph. The skater wouldn’t let up, though. He kept catching up. He repeatedly outran me before lagging behind. We played this high-speed game of cat and mouse with me pushing the pedal as hard as I could. The speedometer turned up to 187 when the car started shaking noticeably.

Eric opened up his window, letting the shrieking wind in. I couldn’t hear a thing; all I was focused on was outrunning this strange man on rocket boosters. He kept tagging me, however. No matter how fast we went, no matter how the road twisted and winded ahead of us. This skater maneuvered himself as gracefully as a gazelle would in a high-speed sprint. Even though this was a marathon.

Eric started shouting something, but I couldn’t understand anything beyond an "eff" sound between his drunk screams. "Eric, bro, I can’t hear a shit. The wind is too loud." Then I lost the strange skater one last time.

Sighing a sigh of relief, I nearly lost control and flipped the car over when I heard a loud thumping sound echo through the vehicle a minute or so later. The car bounced slightly and my heart skipped a bit. The adrenaline rush turned into a panic. My heart started going so fast it was beating probably faster than my car was going. My vision narrowed and my hands clasped tightly around the steering wheel. I lifted my foot slightly off the gas pedal and let myself slow down a bit.

At that moment, the stranger came out of nowhere from behind me and bypassed me with insane ease. I cursed before chuckling. When I could see him in front of me, my adrenaline-fueled, overly focused vision allowed me to see something about him. He seemed to glide above the road, as opposed to sliding on its surface. I knew at that moment that he had me beat and I didn’t press the gas pedal as hard anymore. The stranger seemed to get farther and farther into the distance before turning into a black blur that disappeared into the night’s sky.

I drove on for a few more moments before finally reaching the agreed finish line. The stranger was waiting there for me. This time, he held his helmet in his hand. My heart dropped to my shoes as the hairs all over my body stood up.

"What took you so long?" the stranger said as he approached my car.

"I… I… Ugh…" I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth. The whole situation was just too bizarre. "I… We…" I stumbled over syllables and the most basic of sounds.

"It was a good one. I had tons of fun! We should do it again." The dog-rat faced thing with dry wrinkled skin said, wiping saliva off of its hairless mug.

"Ye… ye… yea…" was the only thing I could manage to get out. My eyes were fixed on its ugly, inhuman form as it walked or slid or glided or whatever it is that it did. My lungs burned and my head was starting to spin from the lack of oxygen. The creature walked to the passenger’s door, opened it and placed something inside exclaiming calmly, “I think this belongs to your brother.” A wet slapping sound came from the back of my car as the creature laid whatever it is in the back. He closed the door shut and bid me farewell before sprinting off into the darkness once more.

I sat for a long few minutes trying to digest what I had just witnessed. Nothing seemed to make sense. My mind was not registering things properly. Everything seemed to blur into a soup of thoughts and sensations that made very little sense. After a few minutes of sitting silently in confusion, I realized my brother was silent for the longest time. He was never a quiet drunk unless he was passed out, that is.

There was no way he could pass out during such a rollercoaster of a ride. The car was shaking a few moments ago, and he’s been silent for longer than that. The door was just slammed right next to him, and he’s always been a light sleeper.

"Eric?" I called out.

Silence.

I turned my head around, only to see the brother slumped in the back seat of the Outlander. His shirt bloodied. I gagged audibly, because Eric’s face just slid off his head, landing on the car floor in a wet splat.