THE THING AT THE SIDE OF THE ROAD

 The thing at the side of the road worried Paul Stinson something awful.

 He didn’t know why. It was nothing more than roadkill. Some unfortunate creature that had strayed past the gravel shoulder of Highway 987 and got clipped by a passing vehicle. Or maybe it had reached the center line, got mashed beneath speeding tires, and crept its way back to the side before curling up and giving up the ghost. Either way, it was dead. Paul had passed it on the way to work and back for the past two weeks and it was hunkered there in the exact same spot… nothing more than a clump of glossy fur amid a fringe of brown weeds and wilted cocklebur.

 It was the fact that Paul couldn’t easily identify the thing that bothered him so. The thing was too big to be a possum or a coon. It certainly wasn’t a cat… much too bulky and big-boned for that. If it was a dog it was bigger than anything that Paul had seen running around. And its coat bugged him, too. It was slick and black, almost oily looking, with thin streaks of gray running through it.

 What the hell is that thing? Paul found himself wondering every time he drove past.

Not that the thing at the side of Highway 987 was the only thing about Harlan County that bothered Paul. No, since the company sent him down from Louisville to take over the local State Farm office, he had found more than enough to be bothered about. The people, the way they looked and acted… hell, even the lay of the land was all somehow wrong. But it was nothing tangible… nothing he could actually put his finger on. Every time he tried expressing his concerns to his superior back at the main office he came off looking like a freaking idiot.

 That Saturday afternoon, on the way home from getting groceries in town with his wife, Jill, Paul decided that he had finally had enough. He wasn’t driving another mile without stopping and finding out exactly what that furry black thing was.

 When he slowed the Escalade to the side of the highway, Jill turned and looked at him. “What are you doing?”

 Paul sighed and put the vehicle into park. “You remember that thing at the side of the road? The one I pointed out on the way to town?”

 Jill nodded. “The dead dog?”

 “Yeah, but that’s the point,” said Paul, shutting off the engine. “I don’t know if it’s really a dog or not.”

 His wife regarded him with irritation. “What do you care?”

 Paul exhaled through his nose and gripped the steering wheel. That was Jill’s typical

reaction. March on through life with blinders on. No curiosity, no worries. Just that

annoying, sugar-coated, Pollyanna attitude of hers.

 “I care because it’s bugging the shit out of me and I need to know, that’s why.”

Jill stiffened up a bit and sat back in her seat. She knew better than to argue with her husband when he was in such a pissy mood.

 Paul climbed out of the Escalade, leaving the driver’s door open. “I’ll just be a minute.”

 “Don’t touch that thing. It could’ve died of a disease or something.”

 Paul ignored Jill’s comment. As he walked down the shoulder of Highway 987, a beat-up Ford pickup passed by. The driver – an old man wearing a green John Deere cap – threw up his hand at him, as the old folks did in greeting.

 I don’t know you, buddy, thought Paul, neglecting to return the gesture. Ignorant hick.

 As he walked toward mound of black fur, he surveyed his surroundings. The valley was narrow, with thin stretches of farmland on either side. Across the road was a small farm; a two-story white house, graywood barn, a few outbuildings. It was early spring, so the pastures were empty of crops. No cows around at all.

A little smile of triumph crossed Paul’s face as he came within eight feet of the questionable roadkill. Now, let’s see what the hell you are. He bent down and picked up a dead branch that lay at the side of the highway.

When he finally stood over the animal, he was struck by exactly how large the thing was. Even curled inward the way it was, it was huge… much bigger than a normal dog. All he could see was that glossy black coat with the strange gray-striped pattern running through it. He couldn’t make out the creature’s head, tail, or legs; they were completely

tucked from sight. Standing close to it now, Paul found that the coat wasn’t actually fur, but heavy black bristles, more like that of a wild boar than a canine.

 Also, even after a couple of weeks of rotting on the side of the highway, Paul smelled no trace of decay. Instead, there was merely a heavy muskiness to the thing lying on the shoulder.

He should have found all this, well, unsettling. Instead, he found his inability to identify the animal infuriating. “Well, we’ll just flip you over and take a better look at you,” he said. Paul wedged the tip of the branch underneath the thing and started to exert a little leverage.

That was when the thing at the side of the road woke up.

“Damn!” Paul jumped back as it stretched and then lifted it’s head. It’s massive head. The thing’s black-bristled skull was long and narrow, almost rat-like in a way, its tiny ears laid back sharply toward its broad neck. It had silver eyes. Silver like polished chrome. And the teeth. Lord have mercy! How could anything have so many long, jagged teeth within the cradle of two jaws?

Paul Stinson knew then that the thing at the side of the road hadn’t been dead for two weeks.

 It had been waiting. Waiting for someone stupid enough to stop by and wake it up.

 Paul held onto the tree branch, but knew that it wouldn’t serve as any sort of effective weapon. He’d fare better going against a pit bull with a toothpick. He took a couple of wary steps backward as the thing stood up. Its legs were short and stubby, like a weasel’s, but powerful. It shook its coat off with a shudder, shedding a couple weeks’ worth of debris. Dead leaves, gravel, an old Snickers wrapper someone had tossed out a car window. It yawned, stretching those awful triangular jaws to capacity. The thing could

have swallowed a softball without strangling. And all those damn teeth! And a long, thick tongue as coarse and gray as tree bark.

 Paul began to back away. “What…what the hell are you?”

 The thing cocked its huge head and grinned.

 Paul suddenly remembered the Escalade behind him. The driver’s door stood wide open.

 The thing saw it at the same time.

 Paul turned and began to run. He didn’t get far until he sensed the thing beside him, then outdistancing him. Up ahead, in the passenger seat, sat Jill. Her pretty face was a frightened mask blanched of color. She watched, mortified, as the thing, which was about the size of a young calf, poured on the speed, heading for the open door of the SUV.

“Paul,” he saw her mutter. Then he heard her, loud and shrill. “PAUL!”

 “Stop!” Paul muttered beneath his breath. “Stop you, sonofabitch!”

 But it didn’t. It knew where it was going and it got there a moment later. The black-bristled thing leapt into the Escalade and, with a long tail as sleek and serpentine as a monkey’s, grabbed the door handle and slammed the door solidly behind it.

 “NO!” Paul reached the door as the power locks engaged with a clack! The thing was smart… and it knew what it wanted. And what it wanted at that moment was to not be disturbed.

“Paul!” shrieked Jill, hidden by the thing’s heaving, black bulk. “Oh, God… Paul, help me! Oh, God… it hurrrrrrts!”

 Outside the vehicle, Paul could hear the thing at work. Biting. Tearing. Ripping.

 Frantically, he looked around; found a large rock at the far side of the highway. He grabbed it up in both hands and battered at the side window. It held fast, refusing to shatter. Damn safety glass!

 Suddenly, the inner glass of the Escalade began to gloss over with great, thick curtains of crimson. “Paul!” screamed Jill from inside that slaughterhouse on wheels. “Paul… pleeeeeeease!”

 Her husband began to scream himself, loud and horrified, full of utter hopelessness. He paced back and forth beside the vehicle, wishing… no, praying that some ignorant Kentucky redneck would happen along to help him. But the highway remained empty and no one came.

 The last window to gloss over with gore was the driver’s window. The thing turned and grinned at him with those awful, four-inch teeth. Pieces of Jill clung inbetween. Her ear, the ruptured sack of an eye, the bottom half of those ruby red lips he had kissed so passionately following their wedding vows seven years ago.

The thing licked its glistening gray lips, then turned back to the ugly, jagged sack of seat-belted carrion that had once been Paul Stinson’s wife. Rivulets of blood obscured the horrible sight from view… but far from mind.

 At a loss of anything better to do, Paul dug his cell phone from his jacket pocket and dialed 911.

The first one out of the Harlan County Sheriff’s car was a tall, burly fellow in his fifties. “What seems to be the problem, sir?” he asked. He had a stern, suspicious expression on his broad face; the same severe look that the locals customarily directed toward people who had been born and bred beyond the county line.

Paul quelled the impulse to run up and grab hold of the man in complete desperation. “An… an animal of some kind is inside my car!” he said. “I… I… I think it’s… oh, God… I think it’s killed her!”

The deputy, whose name tag identified him as Frank McMahon, walked briskly toward the Escalade. His eyes narrowed as he saw the blood-splattered windows. “What sort of animal? A dog?”

 Paul laughed, almost hysterically, then caught himself. “No… no… wasn’t a damn dog.”

 Deputy McMahon tried the doors. They were all locked. He turned questioning eyes toward Paul.

 “It locked them… by itself.”

 The law officer regarded him suspiciously. “Sir… exactly what is going on here?”

 Anger flared in Paul’s eyes. “I told you… some… some thing… it jumped in there and attacked my wife…”

 “And it slammed the door behind it and locked it?”

 Paul realized how very lame that sounded. “Yes.”

 McMahon studied Paul for a long second, then turned to his partner – a tall, lanky young man – who stood in front of the patrol car. “Grab the Slim-Jim, Jasper… and the shotgun.”

 Soon, both county deputies were standing next to the Escalade, looking at one another. They then looked at Paul, who lingered at the front of the vehicle, pacing back and forth nervously.

 “If there’s an animal in there, sir,” said McMahon, “why can’t I hear anything?”

 Paul shrugged. “How should I know? You could sure as hell hear it fifteen minutes ago!” He shuddered at the memory of those wet, ripping, slurping sounds.

 “I’ll take your word for it… right now. But you stay put, do you understand?”

 Paul swallowed dryly and simply nodded.

 The elder officer turned to his subordinate. “Okay, this is how we’re gonna work it, Jasper. You jimmy the lock and open the door. I’ll shoot the thing when it comes out.” He jacked a shell into his twelve-gauge Mossberg with a metallic click-clack.

 “Gotcha,” agreed Jasper. His hands trembled as he stepped to the driver’s door and began to slowly insert the narrow length of the Slim-Jim past the blood-soaked window and down into the body of the Cadillac’s door.

 Frank McMahon stepped into the center of the highway and lifted his shotgun, bringing the butt securely against his shoulder. “Okay. I’m ready.”

 Jasper fished around with the jimmy until something within the door went click. “Get ready. Here goes!” Then he grasped the handle and pulled open the door.

 At first, nothing happened. Then Deputy McMahon’s eyes widened. “What the shit?”

 Paul watched as the thing burst from gore-encrusted cave of the Escalade, leaping straight toward the lawman. It was bigger… twice as big as it had been before… and, it seemed, twice as fast. It barreled out of the vehicle; sharp jaws gnashing, a deep, thunderous roar rumbling up from out of its gullet.

 Deputy McMahon managed to put a load of double-aught buckshot smack-dab in the center of the thing’s chest, but wasn’t able to jack another round into the breech. The creature landed atop him, seemingly unharmed. The officer cried out as he hit the pavement hard, his eyes bulging as the monster’s teeth burrowed deeply into the tender flesh of his throat.

“Do something!” screamed Paul. “Shoot it!”

 Deputy Jasper dropped the Slim-Jim and nervously fumbled his service revolver from its holster. He held it in both hands, pointing it at the thing on top of his partner. During his hesitance, the thing brought its powerful jaws together in a bone-shattering crack! His victim’s head separated from the neckbone, rolling lopsidedly across the highway, stump over balding scalp.

Jasper looked over at Paul in indecision. “I… I might hit Frank.”

“Frank’s head is in the freaking ditch!” Paul yelled at him. “Shoot the damn thing!”

 The deputy turned back and pumped the contents of his .38 into the back of the creature’s head and spine. Instead of suffering from the gunfire, the thing seemed to regard it as a annoyance. It looked over its shoulder, shook its leering head as if saying “Stupid bastard!”, then lashed out with its bristly black tail. The blow took Jasper’s right hand off at the wrist. Both severed fist and the gun clutched tightly within it crashed through the windshield of the patrol car, leaving a jagged black hole.

“Mama!” croaked poor Jasper, just before the black thing whirled and turned its fury and hunger on him.

“To hell with this!” muttered Paul. He turned and began to run down the stretch of Highway 987.

He was crossing the road, intending to head toward the farmhouse, when he heard a great, bellowing roar split the air behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and immediately pissed himself. The thing was bounding down the two-lane blacktop toward him, its paws shattering the asphalt with each heavy footfall. Its awful hunger had fired its metabolism and started a growth process that could only occur in things not fully of this world. The black-bristled creature was nearly as big as the Escalade now. Its open mouth, full of long ivory and ragged meat, looked large enough to swallow a man whole without gagging.

Paul bounded over the drainage ditch at the far side of the road, then scrambled over a barbed wire fence. He was nearly over, when his left foot became entangled in the strands. As he struggled to kick free, the thing’s head appeared. The jaws found its target, dipped downward, and chomped. As burning agony shot through Paul’s ankle and up the calf of his leg, he looked back to see the thing rolling something around in its mouth. It was a pocket of Eddie Bauer leather with a meaty morsel of Paul Stinson tucked neatly inside. The thing gobbled it down and winked – dear Lord, did it actually wink? – before it began to skitter across the fence toward him.

On half a foot, Paul began to limp toward the farmhouse, gibbering, crying, even laughing for some awful reason he couldn’t figure out. “God, God, God, oh, God,” he sobbed out loud. Funny that he would call upon that name so freely now… since the only way he had used it in the last few years was with the word damn tacked to end.

 But, then, Paul Stinson had suddenly gotten religion, as the old folks called it. That awful kind of Harlan County religion preached by things that posed as harmless roadkill at the side of deserted country roads.

 As he ran, shrieking, toward the old farmhouse, Paul sensed that the thing was toying with him. It would dart out in front of him, then circle him, allowing him to get a head start and then begin the torturous cat-and-mouse game all over again. He was almost to the front porch of the house, when the thing’s long tail lashed out, striking him across the lower back. Paul wailed as his kidneys ruptured and the lower vertebrae of his spine were pulverized into jagged splinters.

 He hit the ground hard, facing the house. An old woman opened the screen door, looked out, then retreated with an expression ofpanic and horror. That door isn’t going to help you, lady, he thought. That whole damned house isn’t going to protect you. He doubted that the vault of the Harlan County Bank & Trust would hold up to this demon’s ceaseless hunger.

 As the thing pounced and landed atop him, Paul thought of his mother and some of the quirky sayings she used to pass on to him. One came to mind as he felt the thing’s claws meticulously, almost tenderly, separate the back of his leather jacket and the cloth of the shirt just beyond. Curiosity killed the cat?

 No, that wasn’t it.

 It’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.

 Yeah. Oh, hell, yeah… that was it.

Paul Stinson felt the thing’s long, gray tongue – peppered with tastebuds the texture sandpaper and broken glass – run the length of his back, from the nape of his neck, clear down to the cleft of his buttocks. It somehow tickled and hurt all at the same time.

Paul began to laugh.

He laughed wildly, madly, straying far beyond the limits that humor tastefully allowed … until, finally, he could laugh no more.