The Drive

A return to short horror

The car thundered over a rock, the impact detonating up through the chassis in a violent shudder that rattled my teeth. From the trunk came a thin, high-pitched scream, not loud, but sharp enough to slice through the engine’s growl. I checked my right jacket pocket with difficulty.

My head snapped around to make sure the trunk hadn’t burst open.

The movement wrenched the steering wheel with it. The car fishtailed. Driving one-handed was hard enough; my left arm hung useless in its sling, a bandaged ruin pressed against my abdomen that still throbbed. Even through the layers of gauze, I could smell it again: that sweet, rotting stench of curdling flesh. It rose up the back of my throat, thick and cloying, and for a moment I thought I might vomit all over the dashboard.

The moon had been bright earlier, too bright, bleaching the world in a sick, accusatory light. But under the sprawling canopy of oak trees, their branches knotted together like grasping fingers, the road turned black as obsidian. The headlights carved a narrow tunnel through the dark, illuminating only a rushing wall of trunks and twisted limbs. Beyond that, nothing. No sky. No stars. Just depthless shadow.

Another scream tore from the trunk, hoarse now, raw. It barely carried over the engine’s steady hum and the hiss of dust spiraling up behind me.

“Somebody help me!” she shrieked into the night. The trees and engine swallowed the sound whole.

---

I was engulfed in darkness. The cramped trunk smelled like oil, old metal and something sweet. My fists pounded against the soft padded walls until my knuckles and palms grew numb.

Useless.

The car jolted again causing the loose tools to slide around and something wedged itself into my side. I grunted through clenched teeth and reached under to yank the socket wrench out before it impaled my ribs.

“Fuck you,” I hissed, tossing it aside. The car was still moving. We weren’t on any main roads anymore. We hit a pothole every ten seconds.

“Somebody help me!!” I screamed again. I strained to listen. My heart pounded and adrenaline flooded my veins.

The car slammed to a stop. I flew backwards, and the back of my head hit metal. I clenched my teeth against the pain radiating through my skull.

Where the fuck are we? I couldn’t hear anything aside from the rumble of the old engine. And then I heard the rusty door of the car open with a shriek and close with a heavy thud.

I heard him.

Soft steps crunching on the gravel. My heart raced the closer they got. He was moving slowly, his steps faltering. My free hand searched blindly across the floor for the hair pin I had on before he threw me in here. I didn’t have a lot of time.

Then I paused.

I couldn’t hear his footsteps anymore.

---

Pain tore through me in waves, sharp and electric, each pulse worse than the last. It had been building ever since I’d thrown her into the trunk, a slow, crawling agony that now felt alive, like something burrowing deeper into my hand. My fingers throbbed against the gauze, twitching inside the sling. The pain didn’t stay contained; it slithered up my wrist, into my forearm, spreading like a sickness under the skin.

Memories flickered behind my eyes in fractured flashes, as if I were already dying. Maybe I was.

What had drawn me to her? Dark eyes. Dark hair. Dark everything. She’d seemed to absorb the light around her, like the room bent inward. One drink turned into two. She invited me back to her place.

The first time she truly locked eyes with me, something slipped.

I hadn’t been blackout drunk. Just past buzzed. But when our eyes met, my thoughts drained out of me like water through a sieve. I remember heat. I remember the smell first, thick, greasy smoke. Then pain. White, blinding pain.

Candles. There had been candles everywhere. Too many. Melted wax pooling across the floor. The walls, God, the walls, lined with bones still laced with gristle, wired together into obscene shapes. Animal, I think. I hope animal. Symbols drawn in something dark and flaky.

She had been chanting. Not loud, not dramatic, steady, rhythmic. A language that felt wrong in my ears, syllables scraping against something ancient in my skull. And my hand… my hand had begun to darken. The skin tightening, crackling, as if it were being roasted over invisible coals. I watched it blister in open air, the flesh splitting with tiny pops.

Instinct took over.

I swung. My fist connected with her nose with a crunch that cut off the chanting mid-word. Blood sprayed across the candles. She stumbled back, staring at me, not angry.

Surprised?

Afraid?

As afraid as I was.

“FUCK!”

A deer stood in the road fifteen feet ahead, its eyes reflecting my headlights like twin coins hammered from bone. I slammed the brakes. The car shrieked in protest, fishtailing before lurching to a stop. The deer didn’t move at first, just stared. Then it bolted, vanishing into the trees. My head rested against the seat cushion as I brushed my corner pocket again to ensure my plan B was still there.

The smell hit me again. Sweet. Smoky. Thick. Not just burning, cooking.

Like a pig roast left too long over the fire.

I gagged, bile rising into my mouth. My vision smeared at the edges, the pain in my hand sharpening into something unbearable. It wasn’t just heat anymore. It felt like movement beneath the skin.

With shaking fingers, I tore at the bandages. The gauze peeled away wetly.

My skin had blackened, blistered, and split, but it wasn’t just rot. It was spreading, a creeping, branching darkness tracing along my veins like ink dropped in water. The blisters weren’t filled with fluid. They bulged and writhed, as if something pressed outward from beneath. One split open. A thin thread of smoke curled from the wound.

The flesh underneath wasn’t red. It glowed. Faint. Ember-orange. And it was growing.

I shoved the door open and stumbled out into the road, the cold night air hitting me like a slap. Gravel shifted under my boots. The forest loomed around me, silent now, the oaks bending inward as if listening.

My hand pulsed.

Once.

Twice.

And from inside the trunk, she began to speak.

---

The hair pin was slightly dull at the end, but with enough effort, it can still break skin. I pressed the pin against the tip of my finger until a bead of blood surfaced. It pulsed softly.

Outside, I heard a grunt and a curse muffled by the sound of the struggling engine, and something warm hummed under my skin. A smile tugged at the corner of my lips, but I held back.

“Please listen to me.” I tried, my voice cracked, my throat still sore from the screaming. “I know it’s hurting you, and it’s going to get worse.” He was quiet now. I could feel his hesitation.

“I know what it looked like,” my voice wasn’t as desperate this time. I needed him to let me out if this was going to end well. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you, please. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. You’re probably right about all of it, but please let me explain.” Footsteps shuffled outside the trunk, followed by another grunt of pain.

My voice started to crack. “I know it sounds crazy, but it was my sister. She didn’t trust you. She followed me when we went out for drinks, she wanted to keep you from learning about us. She poisoned you, please. I was only trying to undo what she started. Please, you have to trust me before it eats you alive.”

Still, only silence. The gravel crunched under heavy steps outside.

“I know you can feel it.” It was growing more painful to talk. My forehead rested helplessly against the floor. “Please, let me help you. I promise you’ll never see me again.” Another long moment of silence, save for the heavy hum of the engine.

After another few moments, I heard the crunching outside, keys jingling, metal scraping metal, and finally sliding into the lock.

With a click, the trunk popped open.

---

Sister? Her words hit me sideways. “The fuck are you talking about?” My voice came out quiet, thin as wire. The pain in my hand was no longer throbbing; it was consuming. It felt like something inside it was waking up, stretching.

I didn’t trust her. But she was getting out of that trunk. One way or another.

I reached for my keys. My right hand shook so badly it barely obeyed me. Pocket. Nothing. Other pocket. Nothing. My pulse pounded in my ears, thick and wet.

Where the fuck were they?

I looked down. They were already in my hand. I’d been clutching them so hard they had carved little crescents into my palm.

“Fuck,” I whispered.

“Please,” she said from inside the trunk, her voice smaller now. “Let me help you. I swear you’ll never see me again.”

The edges of my vision were bleeding red. My hand pulsed again, once, twice, and I nearly dropped the keys.

I forced them into the lock.

Missed.

I tried again. The metal scraped uselessly against paint before finally sliding home. I twisted. The mechanism resisted, sticky and stubborn, then gave with a heavy clunk.

I lifted the trunk.

She was curled inside, sleek dress smeared with grime, dark hair tangled around her face. Her eyes snapped up to meet mine, wide and feral. Fear was there.

Her gaze flicked downward. My pocket.

“FIX…” I tried to shout.

She exploded upward.

Her hand flashed silver. Something sharp drove into my left eye with a wet, crunching pop.

“AAAAAAA” The world ruptured into sound and heat. I felt the hairpin lodged deep, felt the sickening pressure as it shifted. Warm liquid poured down my cheek, thick, slick. I couldn’t tell where blood ended and vitreous began.

We crashed backward together, gravel biting into my spine. I grabbed for her instinctively with my left hand.

Agony. Not pain. Not even close.

It was as if my bones had been replaced with molten iron and someone had struck them with a hammer. My vision flared red-black-red. I smelled it again, stronger now.

Not just roasting. Burning.

She screamed too, high and ragged, as I clamped onto her wrist. The sound of something sizzling cut through the night. Flesh against flesh.

She tried to wrench free. Skin tore.

I fumbled at my pocket with my good hand, fingers slipping on blood. Found the revolver. Dragged it free.

I couldn’t see. I fired.

The first shot split the night.

The second shattered it.

Her scream. Her body fell, and the forest rushed back in, silent.

Somewhere close, something crackled softly. It took me a second to realize it was my hand. I heard her ragged breaths, blood flowing from wherever the bullet had struck her as she began to speak.

---

I had him.

I felt it.

He was almost mine. He opened the trunk, those beautiful, bright eyes met mine.

Once calm, they were now seething with anger, bloodshot from exhaustion and pain. His hands were trembling. He was sweating profusely.

“FIX-” I didn’t let him finish. I lunged forward, lodging the hair pin into his eye with a wet, crunching sound.

His scream echoed through the darkness as we fell backwards, his body hitting the gravel with me on top. I was careful to avoid the poison making its way up his arm.

I shoved the pin in deeper.

He grabbed my wrist, a searing hot pain flashed up my arm; pure agony. Everything he was feeling flooded my system and I screamed.

His grip was searing into my skin.

I wrenched my wrist free.

A layer of skin along with it. Mine. His. Ours.

Another scream tore through my throat. He shoved me off.

Before I could move again, a shot rang through the air. A high-pitched sound echoed in my ears. Another shot, and a warmth bloomed in my ribcage.

He had a gun.

My vision blurred and my head spun. Seconds later, my body went limp, and I collapsed onto the ground. I could hardly breathe. I couldn’t move. But I could still feel the spell.

It was hungry. So was I.

I heard movement. I couldn’t tell if it was my imagination.

Then I saw his figure as he sat up. Blurry and shadowed in the night.

He shouldn’t have been able to move. He rose slowly from the gravel, smoke curling from his ruined hand, one eye dark and empty.

The forest held its breath.

A single shot rang out in the night.