American Gothic:  a Real Horror Story

AMERICAN GOTHIC:

A REAL HORROR STORY

by

Louis Lopez

1

You are on vacation in Florida and beginning to wonder what happened to your friend who was supposed to arrive yesterday afternoon.  You are living in Atlanta while your friend lives in Houston, so you decided to meet here.  You got here two days ago and didn’t mind being alone that first day, but you are now feeling uncomfortable about the situation.  Before this, you had never spent more than a weekend in Florida, even though it is not far from where your are living.

You were looking forward to coming down to this particular beach resort in the northwestern part of the state--the Peninsula as they call it.  The whole state is a peninsula. You didn’t want to go to a spot where you would be trampled by the usual crush of tourists, so you came to this secluded and quiet place near Panama City.  You also wanted to visit Panama City because it was mentioned in one of your favorite horror novels Ghost Story by Peter Straub. You are a big fan of horror movies and novels.

You didn’t feel like going north to see your folks in the middle of winter.  They said they would miss you, and you feel guilty for not making the sacrifice to go back, but you really didn’t have your heart in it.  Why be phony?  You’ve been working very hard in the last few months and deserve a long, peaceful rest.  These days it seems everybody is working more and more for less and less.  Struggling on the road to your parents’ home with that northern cold and snow would not have been relaxing at all.  You’ll be able to see the parents some other time--if you want to.  You like the idea of going home to visit the family, but you usually wind up wanting to leave after only a few days.  It never seems like what you want it to be.  It soon gets boring and your parents always want to know so much about your personal life.  When you go out, they always want to know where you are going.  Then there’s your father.  You’re afraid to see him, to look at him.  You don’t know how you would handle seeing him after what everybody in your family has written about him lately.  Besides, you never got along very well with him in the first place.

The sun went down more than an hour ago and the sky is now completely dark.  You are reading this horror novel, The Quiet Hotel.  You sit looking out from a second-story room window of the Ocean View Motel.  Looking up from the book every so often adds to the fright effect.  The room overlooks the beach, and there is a small peninsula on the right jutting into the Gulf of Mexico.  A chill wind is blowing into the land, and it can be felt if you put your fingers on the window cracks.  It buffets two small boats moored on the short dock to the left and has left the beach below totally devoid of human beings.  You think about going to eat dinner at the restaurant downstairs, but you don’t feel like it.  It would feel uncomfortable to dine alone.  As you read, you have eaten four Ho Ho’s and have almost finished a bag of pecan shortbread cookies.  You are starting to feel full and probably won’t need to go down to eat anything more.  Besides you are feeling very drowsy, starting to nod a little.

You and your friend had carefully planned the time you would spend here, including the making of the motel reservations well in advance.  It is surprising that your friend has not communicated with you in some way.  Another strange circumstance is that when you made a call to your friend’s house, a recording announced that the number “has been disconnected or is no longer in service.”  As far as you know, your friend had every intention of staying in the same apartment for the indefinite future.  You called Information, but there was no new number listed.  You start thinking about what different things might have happened and then decide to go take a walk on the beach while you toss it around in your mind.  You think about getting in touch with your friend’s parents or relatives, but you don’t know either their address or their phone number.

There is little light on the beach except for that from the full moon hanging over the waters ahead.  It casts a spear of silver light, which follows you as you walk along the water’s edge.  Your shadow’s edges dart wildly along the wrinkled sand.  There is no one in sight.  You wore a jacket because it is cold and the wind pierces your regular clothing with a seeming vengeance.  You now clearly admit that deciding to spend your vacation in this part of Florida at this time of the year was a miscalculation.  You hadn’t even thought of the possibility that a part of Florida could be cold.  Your impression was one of warm, sunny beaches everywhere.

As you look back on it, you started to have doubts about the trip soon after you left your apartment.  It was nothing you could pinpoint since the trip down in the car was pleasant and uneventful.  It was more of a feeling--an intuition or a premonition--that things were not going to go as planned, and you do believe in intuition. Of course, it has turned out that the plans have changed now that your friend still hasn’t shown up after almost two days, but you’re still not sure whether that means that things will necessarily be bad.  You don’t want to be a pessimist although people have accused you of being one, and you’re not sure they were wrong.  You have to think that if your friend never shows up it might still present a good opportunity for a great adventure.

You are generally shy and reserved, but lately you have been looking for new opportunities to show more independence and daring in meeting new people in new situations.  The circumstances under which your friend has failed to arrive are not very reassuring, however, and you don’t like the idea of being alone in a totally new place.  There are too many dangers these days.

Just now you see a long falling star over your right shoulder in the southwestern skies.

5

You paid attention to the astrological predictions this morning.  You listened to Sidney Omarr on the radio.  He didn’t make any startling predictions for your sign.  The predictions seemed very middle-of-the-road, neither good nor bad.  That kind of hedging seems par for those kinds of predictions.  At a drugstore, you peeked at this year’s book for your astrological sign which goes into more detail.  It wasn’t very clear to you either, but you do remember that it said that “you will make a trip, pass through some trying tests, but will rise above it all.”  You wonder whether there might not be something true about it.  You’ve seen some predictions come true.

You notice a bright light in the sky faraway to the southeast.  You are sure it just appeared, or you know you would have noticed it before.  It is bright white and getting brighter.  You stop in your tracks to make sure it won’t escape your sight.  It is like nothing you have ever seen before.  It appears to be several hundred miles away, like over Cuba.  It seems too high in the sky to be man-made.  The light has now turned into a beautiful hue of orange.  It is intense but not too bright to look at directly.  In fact, it feels soothing to your eyes.  It is not very large and is roughly in the shape of a large seashell sitting on its flat edge.  Slowly the light dims and then finally goes out.  Immediately after, a forceful breeze that is neither cold nor warm sweeps through the beach.  You hear movement in the water as well as a short, low howl from the direction of the small peninsula to the right.  You see two fleeting shadows running along the edge of the beach, but they disappear from your sight.  Now there is dead stillness.  The shadows were here only an instant and seemingly disappeared in thin air.  You aren’t even sure that it wasn’t purely something you imagined.  One of the figures seemed to be wearing some sort of military helmet.  For the moment, you don’t feel any fear because the figures were running away from you and seemingly oblivious to you.  You look back at the place in the sky where the light appeared, but it is still dark without a trace of anything before.  You aren’t sure what it was, except that it was not a flying saucer.  It was more like a supernatural apparition.

For the first time, you realize how alone and defenseless you are.  You are generally very cautious and are surprised that you ventured out here alone without a second thought.  It was almost as if you were under some sort of spell.  There is still no one in sight.  No one coming to inflict harm, but at the same time, no one to yell to for help.  The motel seems very far away now.  It only has a few people in it, as can be seen by the very few rooms that are lit.  It is not tourist season, and the few people who are staying are only passing by, probably on their way to Miami.

You are feeling more scared, but you are now frozen in your steps fearing that the slightest movement will cause you to be detected.  Still, you know you must get back there.  That is your only chance.  So far it is still completely silent all over the beach except for the natural sound of the waves rolling onto the shore; you can’t know what might happen.  The moon gives some visibility, but beyond a few yards, you can’t see a thing.

Finally you feel yourself unchained and your legs are beginning to move.  First, the right leg and then the left, you feel yourself moving clumsily forward.  As you regain the feeling in your legs, they feel stronger.  You are able to move them easily, but it doesn’t seem like you’re getting anywhere.  Your feet sink deep into the sand on each step, and it takes forever to pick them up each time.  The wind has started again.  You feel it hit cold on your ear lobes.  It helps give you forward momentum, but you worry that it will interfere with hearing what might be behind you.

You don’t look back.  It wouldn’t help.  You’ve got to get to the motel as soon as possible and looking back will only waste time.  You’re almost sure now that there is something back there, something connected with that orange glow and the other mysterious occurrences.  What do they say is the significance of seeing a falling comet?  Does it make a difference if it happens on a night when there is a full moon out?  You are not superstitious, but at the moment, you would like to know what they say it means.

It seems you’ve been running for a long time, but the motel looks just as far away as when you started to run.  You are starting to breath heavily and your legs feel like granite blocks as you keep trying to move them through the stubborn sand.  At this snail’s pace, they’ll surely catch up with you at any moment.  You’ve got to try harder; can’t give up.  If you go a little faster, you just might make it in time.  Who knows what they want from you?  Who knows what they’ll do?  You can hear yourself breathing harder and harder.  Your ears and face are thoroughly chilled.  Your legs are feeling tired, but you have to keep moving as fast as you can.  There is no slowing down.  For all you know, they are right behind you.  That motel still seems so far away after all this running.  You have hardly advanced.  Will you ever get there alive?

No use crying for help.  It’s you against them.  This reminds you of some of those old movies you saw like It Came from Outer Space or Them!  You have to go as fast as you can, but you realize you have to keep a close eye out and not fall, or you will be doomed.  The lighted windows on the motel seem so small and remote.  It hardly seems like a human habitation.

You are definitely closer to the motel building, but it still seems a long way off.  So far you’ve gotten away.  You don’t know whether the sand below your feet is actually more firm now, or whether you have simply gotten used to the feeling of running in the sand.  Either way you seem to be running better.  You’re hoping you can make it all the way.  It would be your luck that they would snatch you right at the door.

When you approach the building, you think of looking back but quickly resist the temptation.  You reach for the metal door to the back of the building and immediately press down with your thumb on the lock lever.  It doesn’t give.  You checked it when you went out, and it was unlocked.  Had the motel manager locked it for the night while you were out?  Would it help to pound on the door?  Would anybody hear?  Or if they heard, would they act?  Did you have time to go around to the front door?

The door suddenly opens.  No one is there, so it wasn’t opened by someone from the inside.  It just finally opened on its own.  You dash inside and close the door quickly.  You stand with your back against the wall trying to catch your breath and enjoy a deep feeling of relief.  You still don’t feel safe so you dart up the stairs to your room.  You lock the room door behind you and feel your face perspiring now that you’re inside the warm building.  You lie in your bed physically and mentally exhausted, not believing what has just happened.  You run to the window to see if you can see anyone.  You look hard into the outer darkness, but there is no one.  Everything looks the same as it did before you left the room.  It is a peaceful scene with no unusual lights in the sky.

You turn on the television and switch the channels around several times to try to find something you like.  You finally settle for a channel, but after a while you realize you aren’t even paying attention.  Instead you keep thinking about what happened, trying to reconstruct the events.  As bizarre as it seems, you are sure it actually happened, and you are almost positive that someone was back there on the shore even if only watching.  After a long time of thinking, you feel tired and start to nod.

You start feeling like you want to go to the bar downstairs.  You don’t go to bars much, but right now you don’t want to be alone.  In the bar there should be people, someone to talk to.  Even the sight of other people would be reassuring.  Yet you feel afraid to go down to the bar, not so much because you think you will be caught by the mysterious persons or beings or forces that you thought were chasing you but because you know you would feel uncomfortable walking in alone.  Everyone would stare at you and wonder why you were alone.  They would pity you for not having any friends to bring with you.  Then what would you say to people there?  You wouldn’t have anything to talk about.  You would look weird.

You always did feel awkward around other people even as a small child.  You were often worried of doing or saying the wrong thing.  You would have horrible nightmares as a child.  There were many nightmares in which there were monsters chasing you, but there were others in which people were afraid of you and tried to avoid you.  The worst of these came the night you saw The Creature from the Black Lagoon, an old movie on television.  Most kids who saw that movie had nightmares in which they were chased by the Creature, but in your dreams you were the Creature, and no one wanted anything to do with you.

You were trying to decide just the other day whether you had lived a happy childhood.  You’ve usually thought that you had an unhappy childhood.  You remember many times when you felt unhappy or confused.  Sometimes you felt bad for several days.  At the time, you used to think of yourself as feeling “melancholy” and now realize that it was depression.  There were problems at home.  Sometimes your mother and father would have bad arguments and not speak to each other for days.  It was an unpleasant atmosphere because during these times things that needed to be done didn’t get done because it was necessary to get your parents to cooperate with each other.

10

You made several friends as a child, but the best friendships didn’t last long.  The good friends usually moved away.  Other friendships ended on account of squabbles that, looking back on it now, were petty.  You’ve lost track of everyone you went to high school with.  Sometimes you wish you could see some of your old school friends, but it is very hard to get in contact with any of them.  You envy people that you know who have still kept up with their school friends.  It was not until recently that you realized how unhappy you were in high school.  You always felt outside of it all--another face in the crowd.  Nobody paid any attention, nobody cared.  You inwardly resented the ones in the limelight, like the Most Popular people, the cheerleaders, the football players.  You couldn’t see why they rated so much attention.

In spite of your fear, you decide to try going to the bar downstairs.  No matter how bad, it would feel worse to stay here alone.  You know you’ll need something to keep you nerves calm, so you take some of the Valium you are carrying.  Your doctor gave you a new prescription just before you left so it should hold out for some time. 

It is true that you are high strung, but you are normally not this easily frightened.  This is a special night.  You take a shower, make sure your nails are clean, spray on some deodorant, and brush your teeth with a toothpaste guaranteed to give fresh breath.  To make sure, you wash your mouth out with Lavoris.

It takes time to decide which clothes to wear.  It’s hard to decide which pieces of clothing go with each other.  Just as you are about to finish with your preparations, you start to have second thoughts about going down.  You begin to visualize how it will be.  It makes you start feeling very nervous again.  What can you get out of it, if you go?  It will only be pointless aggravation, and you might wind up feeling even worse afterward--uncomfortable, depressed.  You might run into somebody obnoxious and stupid.  The place might be empty, and you’ll have to talk to a bored bartender.  You had thought about telling someone there what you saw tonight, but on second thought no one would believe you.

It might be better to just leave this strange place tomorrow.  There is still not a word from your friend.  The light on the telephone that would show that you had any messages is off.  What are you going to do here alone?  You have a definite feeling that there was something out there tonight, and it wants you in particular although you don’t have the slightest idea why.  You had better get away as soon as possible.  It might follow you, but it could be worse to remain.

Now you’re having third thoughts about going down to the bar.  It could help calm you down just to be around some people.  You decide to go.  You leave all the lights turned on for when you come back.  The hallway is very quiet.  No sign of any other guests.  You go down the stairs as quietly as possible.  You don’t want to take the elevator because you’re more likely to see someone that way.  Your footsteps can hardly be heard on the soft carpet.  The only other noise that is heard is the noise from pipes in the building and the heating system.  At the bottom of the stairs, it is a left turn to go to the bar.  The desk clerk doesn’t see you, and you can’t see the desk clerk.  There is no one else around.  It is eerily deserted.  The bar is about 200 feet down the hallway.  Down here your footsteps sound louder.   You look out the window as you pass and think you see some shadows moving on the beach.  You don’t stop to investigate.  You reach the door of the Gulf Moon Bar and pull to open it.  It doesn’t move.  You pull hard on it, but it still doesn’t give.  You go to the window next to the door to look inside.  All the usual advertising signs for beers are lit on walls, and there are lights above and behind the bar itself, but there is no one in there.  What could have happened, you wonder?  You feel a sudden emptiness in your stomach. 

Then you notice the small sign attached on the window showing the hours of operation.  They weren’t supposed to close until 12.  You look at your watch and see it’s 12:20.  The time got away fast.  You must have spent hours watching television without even noticing.  There is still no one in the hallway.  You don’t want to meet anyone, so you hurry to get back to your room.  You almost run up the stairs.  You can hear your heart pounding fast.  You get to the door, fumble with the keys that don’t want to work, but the door finally opens.  You look around carefully to make sure no one has gotten into the room.

Perhaps it would be better to report what happened earlier to the local police and ask for their protection.  You’re not sure.  It could be much simpler that way, but they would probably just think you were a kook.  You’ll sleep on it and make a definite decision tomorrow.

2

You wake up and lie in bed thinking for several minutes, but it doesn't take you long to decide you had better leave. This motel is definitely giving you the willies. It is nine in the morning. You pack your clothes quickly, which doesn't take much time since you didn't bring very much. You look out your window at the beach, but there is nothing

different from the day before. There are dark clouds over the water that are moving toward the shore threateningly.

You walk downstairs with your suitcase, You walk as quietly as possible. The hallways are absolutely deserted. You don't hear a sound except for that of your own footsteps and a continuous hum that seems to come from the heating system in the lobby. There is no one but the desk clerk and a man sitting on a sofa reading the newspaper. You go up to the desk and greet the clerk.

He looks at your bill and points out, "You are leaving early. I hope your stay was satisfactory. Was everything O.K.?"

"Yes, it was fine," you answer. You don't feel like saying much. You still don't feel fully awake.

"Where are you going from here? Miami, maybe?" he inquires.

"Yes, Miami," you answer. It's a lie but you don't want anyone following you so it's just as good to deceive him. You don't want that man reading the newspaper to listen in on anything. You don't try to encourage any conversation with the desk clerk so you give him the shortest possible answers. You look back to see the man reading the newspaper and catch him staring intently at you. He quickly looks back into the paper as soon as he sees you looking at him, He is middle-aged and looks a little shady to you. You keep your eye on him as you leave the lobby, but he doesn't look up anymore. As you drive away from the motel, you keep looking back to see if the man follows you, but he never comes out,

You drive to a Dunkin' Donuts a mile down the highway to eat breakfast. You park the car in the back so that it will be harder for anyone deciding to follow you to see it. You don't want to eat much. Mainly you want some coffee to make sure you stay alert for today's traveling. You also eat some donuts--one cherry-filled, one lemon-filled, one chocolate cake, and one old-fashioned French. The only other customers are a middle-aged couple who seem to merely be passing through the area--probably on their way to Miami. They are both on the overweight side and seem relaxed and happy this morning. They don't seem to pay much attention to you.

You don't know which way you are going to travel, but you have definitely decided not to go back to your home. It's not very far away, but they might follow you if you go there directly. You're not sure who "they" are or if there is any "they," but you aren't taking any chances. In any case, you definitely think there was something that came on the land last night. If not any definite persons, then surely some form, some substance with a purpose--a probably not very good purpose. You've got to elude it and are going to take a roundabout way back. You're not sure what your exact destination is, but for now you are going to go west.

You finish your fourth cup of coffee, leave a quarter tip, and go out to the car to start the journey. It has started to sprinkle and the sky is cloudy for as far as you can see. The rain is not going to help your shiny 1979 Thunderbird look any better, but at least it recently had a polycoat put on it so it won't be so bad. You have a Thunderbird because you like the safety of a big car. Of course, you never wear a seat belt and that may cancel out the safety of a big car. It might even be safer to ride in a small car with a seat belt on. Your car is your home since you don't own a real home and don't expect to for many years. You think of your car as your castle except that it is not yet completely yours. You are making payments on it and still have almost two years to go.

You drive for two hours without anything happening out of the ordinary. You enjoy just driving and looking at the passing scenery. The highway goes right along the Gulf shore for about 100 miles, and it remains very cloudy all along. You have seen no one along the road except for the people in the other cars.

A little before reaching Pensacola, there is a lone hitchhiker by the side of the road. He is standing on top of the pavement and very close to the pathway of cars. He is wearing blue jeans, a worn, black parka with a fur lining around the collar, dirty hiking boots and a blue denim baseball cap. He sticks his thumb out a little menacingly. It looks like his fist is right in front of the windshield, but you realize it is only your imagination. He makes you feel afraid. It startled you to see him because you didn't notice him until he was very close. He keeps looking directly at you with an icy, mostly

15

unemotional stare except for an air of disdain. After you pass him, you look back in the rear-view mirror. He remains frozen in the same position with his thumb sticking out even though there are no more cars coming. The only thing different is that he is now looking over his right shoulder and staring coldly at you.

You speed up and before long he is out of sight. It is a relief. The hitchhiker looked like the man who was in the lobby of the motel when you checked out this morning. On second thought, this man is younger and thinner. He is dressed much differently, different style. It couldn't be the same man. He couldn't have gotten there so quickly. You've been driving fast and didn't stop that long.

That motel was definitely on the strange side. You hardly saw anyone the whole time. There were only the desk clerks and one or two residents that you remember seeing. The last night you were there, when you took a walk out on the beach, there were few lights on in the rooms. As you went in and out, television sets could be heard in the rooms, but you never saw nor even heard any of the occupants. All that could be heard were those television sets on different channels. It seemed as if the cars parked outside were never moved during that whole time. Maybe it is just your imagination getting carried away now. Maybe that was just normal. Motels are lonely places.

In Alabama, you pass through the low, swampy land around Mobile. There aren't very many houses. Occasionally you see an old, gray wooden house that needs paint and looks deserted, but there is an old car in front giving a sign of human inhabitants. Once you see an old black man walking around slowly in his little field, bent over looking at the ground.

In Mississippi, you decide to turn north and go through Jackson. A sign tells you that you are passing through the Piney Woods. You like green forests so you are glad you decided to turn north instead of continuing west. You roll down the window a little to let in the smell of the fresh pine. After a while, you reach clear skies and the light of the sun makes the green of the forest look that much more luscious.

At Jackson, you turn west again. You aren't sure where you are going, but you are thinking of going to Dallas. You've never been there but have been wanting to see it for a long time. You started gaining an interest after the TV show Dallas came out. Then you heard there were a lot of rich and ambitious people there whom you think would be interesting.

Northern Louisiana is flat and dull and poor. In Monroe the sheriff's deputy riding around in his car looks like he could use some excitement. You see more bumper stickers of the kind you've been seeing on the road like Keep The Southland Great or The South's Gonna Do It Again. You saw one not far back that said The Only Gun Control We Need Is To Aim Straight And Steady.

Just on the other side of the Texas-Louisiana border near Marshall, you stop to gas up at one of those convenience gas stations that sell motor oil, carburetor cleaner, beer, soda, packages of 100% natural popcorn, peanuts, almonds, fried donuts, honeybuns, fruit pies, cup cakes, chocolate wafers, spearmint gum, Bubble Yum, bits of gum, Tic Tac, camera film, teddy bears. The kid who is the attendant looks barely 18. He is lanky with sandy blonde hair. The giggly girl sitting next to him is obviously his girl friend. They both act friendly and polite. She looks even younger than he. They make a cute couple, and it wouldn't be surprising if she got knocked up soon--if she isn't already--knowing the way it is these days.

Before very long, the light of the short winter day starts to fade. The headlights of the oncoming cars stand out against the vanishing blue sky over the western horizon. Below the freeway are peaceful towns like Kilgore that can barely be seen because they are away from the road. This is the Texas that the inhabitants are always boasting about. It's not bad so far but still not especially impressive.

As night sets in, more trucks begin to appear on the road. Supposedly most of them like to travel at night because there is less traffic on the road. Some of them like to travel fast and pass you up no matter how fast you are going. They don't have to worry about the cops. With those CB's going, they can put the pedal to the metal and forget about it. "Breaker, breaker, 1 . . . . 9er."

You remember the CB craze in the mid-70's. Your dad put a CB in the car and you could hear those truckers talking, sometimes for hours. Most of them had Southern drawls, either real or affected. You can still hear the low-humming, sometimes spooky sound of the air over the CB. The CB craze started all those car movies and TV shows like the ones with Burt Reynolds. Cars and trucks speeding around the country with cop cars chasing them--and all in the middle of an energy crisis.

Soon after the CB was installed in the car, it got stolen. Your dad installed another one but that one got ripped off, too. Then there were several antennas that got taken and sometimes were literally ripped off by punks. Those kinds of things happened all the time to CB owners. That was what probably killed the fad so quickly.

As you come into Dallas, you find a station KRLD that keeps referring to the area as the Metroplex. The announcer sounds staid and monotone. He is saying there are heavy thundershowers in the area. You've heard this station at night back home and it always sounds the same, same announcer, same somnolent voice.

You're worried about missing the correct exit and getting hung up on the wheel of highways going through the city or maybe even getting lost in the middle of the city on some dark little street. There are green and white signs all over, but it is confusing. There are several lanes on the freeway, which makes it very wide. You're hanging to the right, but for all you know the exit you want will be a left exit. It happens that way.

Then you aren't even sure which is the correct sign to follow. You know you want to go north, which means you should probably be looking for any sign saying the road goes to Oklahoma. City, but then for all you know the right highway to Oklahoma City won't even say Oklahoma City. It'll say some other town you've never even heard of and you'll miss it.

You decided to go north because there isn't much west of Dallas. It's pretty much the armpit of the country until you get to L.A. and even then you aren't sure. It's a Friday night, and there are plenty of cars on the road.

Suddenly it starts pouring. You're into one of those thunderstorms that was being announced. Long lightning bolts flash through the rain, and it is coming down so thick that the windshield wipers can barely do the job even at high speed. It is going to make it that much harder to see the signs, and just as you think that, you come into an area on the freeway where the lights are all out--even the lights for the highway signs above. You'll never get off this contorted asphalt ring. The signs can be seen with the lights of the cars but only after you get up very close. Then there is the thick sheet of rain that keeps coming down, and you have to be extra careful in making lane changes. You can't make them too quickly, or the other cars might not see you even if you give the proper signal. That's how bad it is. Why do things always have to happen like this--and to you?

You keep going as slowly as you can so you can see the signs. You are sure there are going to be some traffic accidents caused by this downpour, and you keep looking ahead to try to avoid getting in one. Then there are the cars that don't even slow down a little bit because of the conditions. They speed right by and splash water on everybody else. You keep going like this for what seems like a long time---squinting closely at the highway signs and driving as defensively as possible. You wonder where you are going to end up after this is all done.

A car speeds by and splashes water all over you. You can't see a thing for several seconds because of the water. You try hard to find the dividing white lane stripes to make sure you stay in your lane, but you can't locate them for a long time. You keep looking in the rear-view mirror to make sure no one comes and hits you from behind. It seems that last car came very close to hitting you.

Then, almost before you have time to see the changes, it has stopped raining and the freeway lights are working fine. They even seem too bright. Not long after that a sign appears for Oklahoma

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City, and you easily take the right-hand exit for it. It all happens so quickly that the rainstorm seems like a dream now. You are calmly and surely heading on the right track. There seems to be much less traffic and the freeway is almost dry.

You are almost out of Dallas and realize you didn't have time to absorb it because of the storm and the problems. It is night time and you wouldn't have been able to see Dallas very well anyway. It would have still been something.

So this is the home of J.R. that selfish, impudent villain of the most popular nighttime soap opera ever on TV. Probably the most exciting thing in the summer of '80 was people asking, "Who shot J. R.?" Everybody said they hated J .R. but did they really? If they hated him so much why did they keep on watching. Maybe it was more like envy. Envy of his power and his ruthlessness in using it.

Once out of the Metroplex, there is not much left to see. It is mostly the impenetrable darkness to the sides of the road so you listen more closely to the radio.

"From the nation's capital, it's The Larry King Show," the announcer states. You've heard this show at home before but not for very long at a time. You usually aren't interested enough. It is a nationwide talk show that comes on late at night.

"Jefferson City, Missouri," host Larry King signals in this way for the next caller to go ahead.

CALLER Am I on?

KING Yes, go ahead.

CALLER (the voice of an older man who sounds both alarmed and determined) I definitely believe that the Russians are on the move and are out to get us. They and the Cubans and the Vietnamese are working together taking over one country after another and are coming to destroy us, and if we don't watch out, it will happen before we know it. They are right in our backyard in Central America and moving north according to plan. Mexico is already full of Communists so it won't take long for them to give in.

I agree with the President for getting tough with the Communists. And we also need for people to stop criticizing so much and get more patriotic.

GUE5T (He is a young, articulate man who sounds like he could be a Congressman from a Northeastern state or a former employee in the State Department. He has just written a book on U.S. foreign policy.) First of all, I don't agree that things are as alarming or disastrous as you make them out to be. This idea of a unified Communist front has been proven to be incorrect during the last 10 years, and there is no sign that there will be any great unity in the near future. As you know, China and Russia have been enemies for some time now, and China and Vietnam even went to war in 1979. More recently, there are indications that Vietnam wants to limit its ties with Russia, and of course Poland has definitely showed an unusual defiance. But even if . . . .

You get off the freeway near a town just inside the Oklahoma border called Marietta. You aren't going to stay long. You just need to get some cigarettes at a convenience store. It doesn't take long to find one. You walk in and the cashier quickly comes up from the back where it looks like he was stocking shelves. He gives a stiff and barely audible hello. He looks fairly young, about 25, slender, good-looking, definitely nervous and distrustful.

Can't blame him for being nervous. It is 2 A.M. and they hold-up places like these all the time. Kill the cashiers for the slightest flinch.

You wouldn't work in one of these places if you were starving. He probably has no choice. He stands near the cash register and fiddles with the beef jerky packages and Lifesavers around it. He is just trying to look busy. The real reason he is up there is that he is under orders to stand by the register whenever a customer enters the store. He takes an occasional glance at you with his fearful face. It looks like he is worried about more than the possibility you might shoplift. He probably wonders if you are the point person in a hold-up, serving for the bandits who will storm the place as soon as you give them the signal.

It always takes you a while to decide what you want to eat so you keep looking back and forth. Finally you decide on a ham and cheese on white in a plastic container, a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips, two packs of Ding Dongs, a pack of pink Sno-Balls, and a 16 oz. Coke. At the counter you get two packs of cigarettes and a pack of Certs, which you probably won't need but want to take along to be sure. You then notice a stack of newspapers and remember that you wanted to buy this afternoon's paper. You add that to the other things you are buying. You want to see if any story has come out on the vision you saw over the ocean last night.

The cashier bags the items and hands them to you with a smile. "You have a good night now," he says.

"Thank you. You, too," you tell him.

He seems more relaxed than at first. You go to your car but are determined to look through the paper for any stories on the vision. Sitting in the car, you carefully peruse through every column of the newspaper. The cashier notices you after a long time. He tries to go on with his work but is obviously worried again. He keeps coming back to peek and check if you are there. You are trying to hurry to get through the paper so you can leave and not worry him so, but at the same time you want to be sure not to miss anything.

You hadn't thought very much about the events of last night with the excitement of the trip, but now you are starting to feel a renewed fear. -You are sure everything you saw was real and yet here you can't find a report on it in the newspaper. You've heard nothing on the radio all day. Could it be that it appeared only to you? Are you free from it now?

You look through the paper a second time to be very sure that you didn't miss anything. The cashier looks again with his haunted gaze. You have eaten the sandwich and the entire medium-sized bag of potato chips in the time you've been sitting here.

After finding nothing in the newspaper after the second review, you are on your way. You feel tired but are not yet sleepy. You'll keep driving for as long as you can. You eat the rest of your food as you drive and take down some more Valium with your Coke--sort of like rum and Coke.

You are now wondering what to do at Oklahoma City--whether to keep going north or go east on Interstate 40. You know you have to zigzag on the route. Keep them confused. Maybe you'll take some empty side roads later to really lose them.

There is a new sound under the hood that you had not heard before. It is a high-pitched sound. It is not loud but it is continuous. You are sure it was not there before. You hope it isn't important but if it is, you worry it would be a big headache out here in the middle of the night in the middle of empty Oklahoma land.

There are some long empty spaces out there to the side of the road, long stretches with little sign of human life. There aren't many service stations, and of those, they are all closed. It looks like there are trees out there, but it is too dark to tell for sure. You can only see some twisted figures against the dim sky. Who knows what could be lurking among them. You would hate to find out if the car broke down. You don't know much about cars and wouldn't be able to fix it. There is no telling who might stop if they saw you stranded. It is cold out there. They said on the radio there was a cold front coming through tonight. Your hands and feet would get very cold. They always do.

Cars exasperate you sometimes. You never know when they are going to break down. You are always at the mercy of their whim. You take good care of your car, take it in right away at the first sign of something wrong. Still it sometimes goes wrong without any warning. There's no use worrying very much about that noise now. You can't do anything about it until the next service station, but you know it will still be bothering you until then--no matter how much you try to forget it.,

You change the channel on the radio. You don't want to hear all that boring talk about foreign policy. All those experts sound like they know exactly what they are talking about, but you can't figure out which side is right.

25

You find a rock station. It has a show on called Nostalgia Time. "My Boyfriend's Back" by The Chiffons from 1963 is playing:

My boyfriend's back,

And you're gonna be in trouble.

Doo ron doo ron

My boyfriend's back.

. . . . . . . .

My boyfriend's back

He's gonna save my reputation.

. . . . . . . .

You've enjoyed this recent fad on the radio of playing oldies from the '50's and early '60's. It reminds you of times when America was strong and everybody was happy. That music has come back because people want to think about the good old days. You generally agree that times were really great back then, but lately you've been wondering whether it being so good might be exaggerated what with things like the atomic bomb, the Russians, Sputnik, racial problems, the killing of Kennedy.

Oklahoma City is sleeping under its blanket of signs and streetlights, buildings, and bridges. It isn't very hard to find the freeway going east from here. You don't think over the decision to go east very carefully, making it almost at the last minute as the turnoff appears.

You are finally starting to feel tired and sleepy. You hadn't even thought of stopping to sleep before. You must have been thinking you could go on driving for days without stopping to rest. It would be possible to drive onto some side road and park the car, but you wouldn't feel safe. It wouldn't even be safe parking on one of those rest stops by the freeway. It's worse being alone, and there is no telling what some thief or some maniac might do--come along and chop you into little pieces with his shiny axe. There are usually other cars at those rest stops, but they might not see you being attacked.

Then there are those pay campgrounds. You would feel safer in one of those so you keep your eye out for one. You spot one just before reaching Shawnee. They only charge you $4 because it is winter. There are other vehicles here so you feel safe. Also you figure the place is guarded by the campground operators. The place is full of Winnebagos

and other recreational vehicles with their built-in color TV's and microwave ovens. People out on the hard road roughing it. At 4 in the morning, there isn't much space left for you so you have to go park on the south edge of the grounds. It feels very isolated from everyone else, but you don't have much choice. It is still probably better than sleeping out on the highway.

You move in very quietly so you won't wake anyone up. There isn't any sign of movement around since all the lights are out. Before turning in you have to go to the bathroom. You wish you had brought a flashlight to carry with you to see where you are walking. You walk to the restrooms with only the light from the moon in the sky and even that is hidden behind a very thin, hazy layer of white clouds.

The restrooms are not very well heated. Luckily there is toilet paper left but not much. You'll have to be efficient in using it. You sit down but come up immediately like an exploded spring. You sat down hard not remembering that the toilet seat would be very cold. You sit down again, but this time very slowly and very gradually. You do it by sitting down for a split second, then rising quickly again off the seat for a couple of seconds. You repeat this several times until your skin becomes used to the coldness of the seat.

The sound of a dripping faucet is very loud against the silence of the night. It sounds a little ominous and you are reminded that you didn't even look around when you came in. Somebody could be lurking in a corner. You'll have to be more careful from now on. There are other strange noises in the restroom. You can't figure them out.  Maybe it's a ventilator. Then there's maybe a water heater. As you leave, you look as far as possible under the stalls to see if you can see anyone.

Going back to the car, you are startled by a noise--a metallic sound. You stop dead in your tracks and look intently in the direction from which the sound came. You see no movement. You look behind you right away to guard that there is no one creeping up from behind. There is no one. After looking back in the direction from which the noise came, you notice a pan underneath an RV. It looks like a pan of water that someone put out for their dog. You figure now that probably some wild animal like a field mouse was trying to get into it.

You stay in the front seat of the car to try to go to sleep because it would be too much trouble to remove the things you are carrying in the back. It is not going to be very comfortable so you won't be able to sleep very long, but two or three hours should do. You, of course, make sure the doors are locked. You would like to take your clothes off to sleep, but it would be too cold. Besides you need to be ready in case anything sudden happens. It's a shame to sleep in your new jeans. You figure you should take better care of them since they cost $53. It takes time to get to sleep since you have to move and toss around looking for a comfortable position.

After sleeping about an hour, you are awoken by long, human-sounding howls. They sound sad and distraught. The howls jangle your mind into a panicked and painful wakefulness. For a long time, you lie in your place frozen in fear not knowing what to do. The howls begin to increase in number and there is a greater variety of howls, moans, chants, and cries. The number of voices rises steadily until there seem to be as many as one hundred voices in a mad, disjointed chorus. You wonder if the voices have gotten louder because they are coming near or simply because they have built up in volume. You have to find out. You are going to have to overcome your frozen fear and rear up to look out the window. You tell yourself to get up, to start moving a little by little, but you just lie there. Your brain cannot seem to move your body no matter how much it commands. You just lie there without moving a joint, but you have to get up. You have to see what the danger out there is. The sound grows louder and more frenzied. Still for a long time you can't move. This reminds you of The Howling.

You finally move your left arm in a quick jerk to overcome the inertia. Gradually you are able to move the rest of your body, but it takes some time.  You peek over the window sill and look southward where the howling is coming from. You don't raise your head up any more than necessary to avoid being seen. You peer intently into the concealing darkness ahead. The howls seem to be coming from a clump of trees about 300 feet ahead--the bare, jagged branches silhouetted against the thinly clouded sky with the moon casting its mystic light behind. The howls do not seem to be coming from the forest itself but from somewhere directly above it. You can see nothing in the space above where the sound is coming from, no matter how hard you gaze. The howls and cries are disturbing your nerves. You are going to need a lot of Valium to calm down.

Without any warning, the howling stops completely. There is an impenetrable silence. You wait for a long time for the howling to resume but nothing happens. For the first time, it occurs to you to look around to the other vehicles to see the reaction of the other people, but everything looks exactly the same as when you came back from the restroom to the car. Nothing is moving and there are no lights to be seen. You wait to see if perhaps no one has moved because they are just as scared as you. Everything remains the same. Apparently no one else heard it, or you're sure they would have reacted.

How can it be that only you heard it? It is hard to believe. It couldn't have been a dream. You feel you have been wide awake for a long time. It is possible that only you could hear it since your car was closer to the sound than any other. Maybe the other people nearby happen to be very hard sleepers. Then again maybe it was only a large pack of coyotes. You're just too nervous.

You swallow some Valium and lie awake a long time. The sun comes out before you fall asleep again.

30

3

Two men bring in a third man struggling. One of the two men is pointing a gun in the captive man's back while the other one has him by an arm and is dragging him forcefully. They have just entered the double doors of a large house and are coming into the dining room. Through the front door, a beach can be seen at a distance of approximately 1000 feet. The area appears to be the coast of Eastern Florida. It is the middle of the afternoon.

The house is expensively decorated with the latest in modern furniture including a metal and glass coffee table and a digital video disc player. The two men place their captive at the dining room table. The captive is cleanly dressed in a sweat shirt, Levi blue jeans, and athletic shoes.

The captive is angry and arguing with the other two men. They don't answer. The two captors are concealing  their identity with large head masks that they are wearing. The first captor is wearing a massive and grotesque black helmet exactly like the one worn by Darth Vader in Star Wars. He wears a black shirt and black pants.  He now addresses himself to the captive. He speaks English with a thick accent. It is hard to tell what his nationality is from the accent, but it appears to be of European or Near Eastern origin. The man with the gun wears a large shark's head that looks very real and ominous with its shiny eyes and threatening teeth in open jaws. He walks with a very bad limp in his right leg and half crouches to his right. 

FIRST CAPTOR I understand, sir, that you have invested heavily in gold, ivory, and other exotic items. You like to spend much of your time looking for good investments.

CAPTIVE You've heard right and there's nothing wrong with that. This is still a capitalist system.