Roadkill

"Roadkill" By StupidDialUp

“Oh shit! What the fuck?!”

Tom stands there startled and though he would never admit it out loud he was downright scared shitless. No one expects to see a stranger sitting in the passenger seat of their car as they walk out of their house at night. And to see an elderly, white haired woman sitting and staring at you, motionless, with a face that probably reflected Tom’s, one of utter shock and fear, can spook a fucker out.

He gawks at this exceptionally creepy woman, until he gains the will to look around hoping to find someone, anyone to make sense of what the hell he was looking at. Tom asks himself quick, random questions: Was someone punking him? How did this spooky hag get in his car? Wasn’t his alarm set? Or did his airhead wife forget to set it like she always does when she comes home from work? Is she the one fucking with him? These were just a few of the questions for which he found no suitable, immediate answer.

Tom slowly backs up toward his front door, stumbling over a bricked garden that tripped him on an unexpected curve. As he balances himself, he opens the front door and calls out to his wife, “Lill! Lillian! Get your ass out here! Lillian, hurry up!”

“I am on the toilet! What the hell?” Lillian responds, concerned yet annoyed.

“There is an old lady sitting in the fucking car! You know about this?” Tom asks as he moves further into the house to get in better range to hear her answer.

“What are you talking about Tom?”

“Wipe your ass and come see this!”

Lillian rushes out of the hallway restroom, buttoning her pants on the way out. “An old lady is

in our car?”

“Yes! Come see…”

Tom follows Lillian out of the front door. “Tom, you rushed me off the toilet for nothing! You scared me half to death! Quit being a dick and just go get dinner.” Lillian storms back inside and up the stairs as Tom comes outside, looking confused that the old woman was gone from his car. He closes the front door behind him and approaches his car to take a closer look. The doors are locked and all of the seats were empty other than the smelly junk he had thrown on them during the past few weeks. As he unlocks the car and takes a seat in the driver seat he notices that there are tree leaves and sticks on the front passenger seat. He didn’t remember putting anything on the seat yesterday that would have left this particular mess but he also didn’t know what his wife was up to earlier in the day when she used the car for work and errands. “It is dark outside, I’m trippin’,” Tom mumbles, convincing himself, “Fuck it stinks like taint in here! I gotta clean this shit out tomorrow.”

He pulls out of the driveway in route to pick up a couple burgers. This was a 15 minute trip to the middle of a small, affluent town, just outside of the city. Tom figures he can make it there in 10 minutes if he speeds. He doesn’t want his wife, Lillian, to give him any shit about the food being cold either so he will have to speed back. Thinking about how she is “rich daddy’s little princess” and a certified bitch, he questions if he would have ever married her a year ago if she wasn’t rich and smoking hot. These thoughts keep him from focusing on the nasty, vanishing hag.

Tom drives down several winding and wooded roads until he makes it to the center of town to stop at the burger joint. He notices the drive thru is out of order and reverse parks so he can go into the restaurant to pick up his food. As he exits, he sneaks a couple fries out the bag and walks up to his car. He notices that the passenger side bumper had a large dent in it along with a cracked headlight and a dent on edge of the hood of the car. Tom squats down to inspect the damage further and notices some blood, flesh and hair in the grill of the car. He did not notice the damage while at his house or on the way there since it was too dark. Starting to get really pissed off, he questions why Lillian did not tell him that she hit something while using the car today.

As he stands up he once again gets terrified, so much so that he tosses his

<p class="MsoNormal">food and drinks up in the air and stumbles backward onto the ground. He scoots backwards, trying to gain distance from the same old woman that was once again sitting in the passenger seat of his car. She is staring out of the side window as she was at his house but this time she is not looking at him, but rather just staring out into the distance, with the same fucked up, twisted look.

<p class="MsoNormal">Tom composes himself and apprehensively walks to the driver’s side of the car and veers into the open window. “Hey, what the fuck are you doing in my car?” he sternly asks. He has a better look at the woman now; she looks like she is in her 90’s, dirty and skinny with white, balding, frizzy hair that looks to have been fried from years of dyeing her hair. She’s wearing a cream colored house dress with a delicate lace neckline, tattered and ripped in places, with dried blood decorating the slits in her gown. Her dress reaches further than her knee with only her vein and spot-riddled, sickly white skin exposed at her calves and chins. No thanks to an extremely well lit parking lot, Tom notices her bare feet. They were a special type of hideous; mangled nails of yellow and gray, arthritic toe knuckles, and dried cracks of ash and wrinkles wrapping around mind numbingly grotesque bunions.

<p class="MsoNormal">Looking as though she is injured, Tom feels the need to assist her. “Old lady, do you need me to take you to the hospital or something?” The hag, still looking opposite of Tom, nods her head once. He notices her ears were incredibly large, but remembers his own grandparents and how a friend told him that the nose and ears are the only two parts of the body that continue growing your entire life. His grandparents face verified this fact, as did this woman’s ears, double-fold. He jogs back to grab the still closed bag of food and as he sits onto the driver’s seat he is hit with a pungent odor that could only be described as death meets mothballs meets rubbing alcohol. It permeates the vehicle and he could practically feel it being absorbed into his skin. It took all of his restraint and several rolled down windows to keep from gagging more than twice. “Ugh, I’m going to need a bath after this,” he whispers to himself.

<p class="MsoNormal">Tom pulls out of the parking lot and makes his way toward the hospital that was 3 miles away. He tries striking a conversation with the woman, “How did you get in my car at the restaurant? Were you hiding on the floor in the backseat or something? Are you a ninja or something because I did not see you there at all?” The hag offers no response. “Did someone hurt you? You look like you are bleeding.” He still receives no response from the woman. He decides to focus on the road, thankful that the woman decided to keep to herself.

<p class="MsoNormal">As Tom approaches an especially winding part of the tree-hugge

<p class="MsoNormal">d road leading to the hospital, he starts to slow down like he always did taking this road due to the high level of accidents in the area. It was always difficult to navigate the bends of the road while keeping enough room for oncoming cars on the other side of the road. He passes a secluded ranch style house, the only home on this road. He suddenly gets startled by a high pitched screech coming from the woman. “HERE!” the hag shouts with drawn out, ear piercing intent. Tom swerves accidently due to the violent scream of the woman and slams his brakes as he swerves toward the shoulder of the road.

<p class="MsoNormal">He turns his head to push on the dome light and finds the old woman staring at him again with the same fear-inducing expression. Her eyes are blue and cataract and her nose is bulbous, overgrown and oddly pointy all the same. Skin tags and age spots line the neck of her chest bone. Small, hairy brown moles litter her defined cheekbones and her eyebrows were as non-existent as her thin lips and her flat, minimal chin. Tom sits paralyzed at the sight of this hideous woman staring at him with alarmed, blink-less eyes. She raises her right hand and her startled expression turns into a thin grin as she reaches her arm out to smoothly stroke Tom’s left cheek with her swollen, arthritic knuckles.

<p class="MsoNormal">***

<p class="MsoNormal">Tom returns home and places the bag of food on the oven. He proceeds upstairs into the master bedroom and closes the door. Lillian is on the living room couch watching some reality talent show. She jumps up and heads to the kitchen. “Damn Tom what took so fucking long? I’m starving! Where are the drinks? Hey, can you hear me?” Lillian asks. “Yeah well look, a fucked up thing happened today. I hit something on my way to my gyno appointment. I think it was a deer or something. It messed up the front of the car a bit. I spoke with Daddy and he said he will fix it for me so don’t be pissed at me. Serves that dumb thing right walking on the side of the fucking street like that. I didn’t even stop to see if it was ok, I was so pissed. I was late enough as it was.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Tom did not respond and Lillian assumes he was angry about it and just stormed up to the room like he always did when he was pissed with her. She eats her food alone, finishes her show and takes in some Facebook time then goes up to the bedroom to go to bed. As she changes into her nightgown she notices Tom isn’t in bed but the light in the master bathroom was on. Lillian sits at the edge of the bed looking

<p class="MsoNormal">at her phone while waiting for Tom to come out of the bathroom, “Are you almost done in there? It fucking stinks in here. Flush!”

<p class="MsoNormal">Tom emerges with an angry expression on his face and approaches Lillian. She knew he was angry about the car and decides to try to sweet talk him to bed, “Come on baby, don’t be mad at me about the car. I told you Daddy will fix it. He always fixes my problems, you know that. I love my Daddy. I love you too baby,” Lillian explains as she stands up to coax Tom to bed. “Don’t be so pissed Tom. Come on, if I take a picture with my phone to post on Facebook will you smile for me? I’ll kiss your dick to make up for it.” Tom gives an uninspired smirk as Lillian takes the photo. He steps forward and reaches out his right hand to gently caress the left side of Lillian’s flirtatious face.

<p class="MsoNormal">***

<p class="MsoNormal">“This is a helluva scene here boys. Three of these in one week? I couldn’t tell you the last time I was on one of these cases. First that old lady was found on the side of the road on her weekly walk to the hospital to pick up her meds. And now these poor souls? Brian, be sure to bag up those leaves and sticks on the floor and that girls cell phone for evidence. And what the hell am I looking at here doc? Is that their spine I see poking out? How in the fuck do you think they broke their necks like that?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Sarg, come see this! You have GOT to take a look at this fucking photo.”

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