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| Foggy Logic | |||||||||||||||||
| Copyright 1999 by Adam Johnson | |||||||||||||||||
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This was inspired by a trip to Boone for New Year's Eve a couple years back. Not picked up yet. This is just an excerpt. TJ flipped on his wipers briefly and cleared away the newly accumulated moisture from his windshield. The fog was so thick he couldn’t see much more than ten feet in front of him, and to make matters worse it was just cold enough to cause it to condense on the glass. A sudden flash of light emerging out of the fog in front of him startled TJ, causing him to swerve to the right of the road. His tires hit the sloping, gravel shoulder and started to slip into the ditch. A large U-Haul truck sped by as TJ finally managed to bring his car back under control, easing it onto the road once again. “Crazy fucking drivers,” TJ muttered to himself as his pulse slowed down to a near normal pace. Apparently the fog didn’t bother some people. He took off his thin, wire-rimmed glasses and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. His sandy blonde hair was slightly stuck to his forehead, and he pushed that back too. TJ glanced in his rear-view mirror, grimacing at what he saw. He looked like absolute shit, and felt even worse. He had partied pretty hard the past few days. It was New Year’s Eve after all. But even though he had stopped drinking over sixteen hours ago, his eyes were still bloodshot and his head pounded. Good thing New Year’s only comes once a year. He had spent the past few days in a mansion just outside of Knoxville, Tennessee. One of his friends from back home had been house sitting, and they decided to hold the New Year’s party there. It was more than just a New Year’s party, really. It had lasted for four days, and TJ had been pretty well hammered the entire time. What he remembered had been a lot of fun, but boy was he paying for it now. Usually this drive from Knoxville to Boone, North Carolina was pretty nice. The scenery was beautiful, driving through the wonderful mountains of Northeast Tennessee. Plus, it only took about three hours. That was not the case this evening. As soon as he had gotten to the Tri-Cities area, the fog started to roll in. It got thicker the farther east he went. He was still about a sixty miles away from Boone on 19E, and the fog had him slowed down to a crawl. TJ hated fog. He had always been a little creeped out by it. Too many cheesy horror movies as a kid possibly, but he wasn’t really sure. Driving through it with a monster hangover didn’t help things out too much either. TJ slowed to twenty miles an hour as he eased around a sharp turn. This wasn’t the greatest road in the world to be driving on in fog. It was uphill for the majority of the trip and rather curvy too. Not too mention that it was completely out in the boonies. Except for a couple of small towns, there wasn’t much between himself and Boone at the moment. The road straightened out slightly and TJ’s speed crept up. At this pace it would take over two hours for him to get back to Appalachia State. He turned on his hi-beams just to see if it would help at all. The reflected light off of the fog caused TJ to squint, and he swiftly turned his brights back off. TJ blinked a few times to clear his vision. He didn’t have the greatest eyesight, and driving at night was always a little worse. This fog just upped the ante a little more. After a second, his vision began to clear, and that’s when he saw it. Emerging out of the fog was what appeared to be a person standing on the right side of the road. But what TJ saw wasn’t quite a person. It stood about five and a half feet tall, with thin, spindly arms and legs. It’s skin was a light gray color, or so it appeared in the fog. The most striking aspect of the creature was its head. It was enormous, and shaped like an egg. It’s eyes were two large, tear shaped openings that didn’t look so much like they were colored black, but that some kind of blackness emanated from inside of them. It stood on the side of the road, completely still, staring in at TJ. Before he could even react to what he saw, he was past it. He glanced into his rearview mirror but whatever it was had already disappeared into the fog. TJ gripped the steering wheel and tried to regain his breath. He was sweating profusely, and had to crack a window to try and cool down. The cool night air flowed into the car and clamed his nerves. There was no way he had just seen what he thought he had seen. “There’s no fucking way I just saw an alien standing on the side of the road,” TJ said aloud, trying to reassure himself. | |||||||||||||||||
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