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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/CIAHerpes on 2024-04-09 10:15:34.
We had been driving for over two hours when the nightmare began. The anomalous behavior that would affect the area started as abruptly as a lightning strike. I felt strange and dissociated. Goosebumps rose all over arms as a smell like ozone filled the air, filtering through the air vents in thick, invisible clouds.
“I am so excited to see this!” my girlfriend Alice cried happily in the passenger seat. “Do you know I have never seen a full solar eclipse before?” I glanced over, feeling nervous. Yet Alice didn’t seem affected in the slightest. I wiped my forehead, clearing the trickles of sweat that had begun forming there.
“Do you smell that?” I asked, changing the mood abruptly. Alice glanced over at me, the smile falling off her face in a space of a moment. She shook her head.
“No, smell what?” she said. I gave her a look of disbelief. The smell of ozone was so thick that I could almost taste it at the back of my throat. I repressed an urge to gag. I rolled down the windows. The breeze cleared out some of the smell, but I still caught hints of it even on the fresh currents of air that streamed through the car.
All around us, the slit wrists of the sky shone a cyanotic blue, covering the earth like a suffocating blanket. Mountain ranges loomed overhead, their sharp peaks hidden under fresh virgin snow. We planned to hike to the top of the highest peak before the solar eclipse began.
“This whole place is so… empty,” Alice said, brushing a lock of blonde hair the color of platinum over her ear. “I can’t remember the last time I saw a house.” She took out her phone. She flicked on the screen before heaving a deep sigh. “And we get absolutely no service all the way out here. You better not get injured! We won’t be able to call for help.” I laughed nervously, wondering if she had just jinxed us.
“You’re the one who’s accident-prone,” I said, starting to relax slightly. The last trace of the foul ozone smell had dissipated by now. The clean mountain air and majestic landscapes rising all around us made the place seem like some kind of wonderland, far removed from the small sufferings and agonies of daily life.
***
After another twenty minutes of driving, surrounded on all sides by dark forests filled with evergreens and shadows, we saw a faded, brown sign reading: “TO MOUNT BLOODSTONE. 5 MILES.”
“Finally!” Alice cried triumphantly, her whole expression changing into one of excitement. “I’ve never been here before, but Kaitlyn told me this place has the best view in the county!” As the mountain loomed in front of us like a crouching giant, I could see why.
It towered over all the surrounding mountains, its sharp, white peak stabbing upwards into the blue sky like a spire. Steep cliffs of light brown stone surrounded it on all sides. Untouched forests of maple, oak and pine grew thick and vibrant on Mount Bloodstone’s rocky soil.
“We still have four hours until the eclipse starts,” Alice said, looking down at her cell phone. The pavement suddenly ended, and the road turned into a snaking path of treadmarks and loose stones. My SUV handled it easily, but it was slow going. A few minutes later, we broke out through the forests and thick brush that carpeted the land. On the driver’s side stood a cliff of jutting rectangular stones and a drop of hundreds of feet to a field of massive stones far below us if I accidentally veered off the narrow road. On the passenger’s side, there were just smooth, vertical walls of hard granite.
“The parking area is supposed to be up ahead just a few miles,” Alice said excitedly. I felt sickening waves of dread passing through my stomach as I glanced out the window at the steep drop waiting only inches away on my side of the car. I wasn’t exactly terrified of heights, and I had no problem going on planes or roller coasters, but situations like this always sent butterflies fluttering through my chest and caused my feet to tingle with anxiety. It was the idea of unsecured heights, the realization that an accidental jerk of the wheel or a tire blowing out at the exact wrong moment could send us careening over the edge.
“You’re not nervous right now?” I asked. Alice only laughed.
“Nope. I trust you, Brian,” she said, putting a warm hand on my shoulder. Her soft skin reminded me of suede, unmarked and unlined. I still couldn’t believe that such a beautiful girl wanted to be with me. We had been together for three months, and it had been one of the happiest periods I could remember.
I looked over at her with love, taking my eyes off the road for a moment. Suddenly, it felt like all of the tires exploded at once, and the car began swerving wildly out of control, the steering wheel spinning wildly in my hands with a pull like a falling stone.
***
“Fuck!” I cried. Alice screamed next to me, her voice filled with mortal terror.
The SUV nearly swerved off the edge of the cliff when the metal rims caught on something and veered hard in the opposite direction. The vehicle swung hard into the rock wall on Alice’s side. There was the tortured shredding of metal, the explosion of glass. Screams filled the car, but I didn’t realize until later that they had come from my own mouth.
My head flew forward, smashing hard into the steering wheel. I immediately tasted salty blood as I bit my tongue hard. My vision went white and pain like lightning ripped its way through my forehead. Time seemed to spiral away into something strange and alien. Stunned, I sat there, not knowing what had happened.
“Brian!” Alice’s voice rang out from next to me, sounding muted and far away. I felt someone shaking my arm gently. “Brian! Can you hear me?” I blinked fast, my vision starting to return to normal. My head felt like it was being pressed in a vice. A splitting migraine ripped its way through my skull. I groaned, raising my hands to my forehead. I tried pushing on the sides of my head, as if I could keep it from splitting apart from simple willpower alone. After a few moments, the pain subsided slightly. I inhaled deeply and spit blood on the floor.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m OK,” I said, though I wasn’t sure how true that was. I pulled my fingers away from my forehead, seeing they were slick with blood. I glanced over at Alice, but other than a small cut across her cheek, she seemed totally unhurt. “What the fuck just happened?” She shook her head, uncertainty crossing her eyes.
“We had an accident,” she said, glancing down at her cell phone. She tried calling 911, putting it up to her ear. She gave me a grim look and shook her head. “There’s no cell phone towers anywhere around here. We’re going to have to walk to find help, or at least until we can find somewhere with cell phone reception.”
“An accident? With what?! The goddamned air?” A rush of adrenaline pushed the pain away temporarily. I flung the door open, stumbling out of the SUV. I looked back on the dirt road that spiraled around its way around the mountain and out of view, seeing the glint of steel. Confused, I started over in that direction.
“Wait!” Alice yelled, quickly jumping out of the vehicle and sprinting to catch up with me. “You don’t look very steady on your feet yet. Maybe you should sit down…”
“Look at this fucking shit!” I cried, pointing to what lay stretched across the road, dug slightly into the dirt. Alice’s eyes widened in understanding as she saw it too.
Someone had set up a spike strip. The gleaming spikes of metal reaching up like claws still had pieces of my shredded tires caught on their sharp points.
***
“Someone’s out to get us,” I whispered nervously, glancing both ways down the dirt road. I had no idea what to do now. We were out in the absolute middle of nowhere. I didn’t even know which direction to go, unless I wanted to try hiking back dozens of miles to the last gas station we had seen. The SUV was blocking the narrow road.
Further down, I saw a small dirt turnaround jutting off to the side. I drove the vehicle on its rims and pulled over, locking the doors. I grabbed my backpack and filled it with my water bottle, buck knife and the small amount of food we had in the car, mostly trail mix and candy. It wouldn’t last long, I knew, and the water would run out even sooner if we didn’t find a river or stream. I grabbed my Swiss army knife and lighter and put them in my pocket, just in case of emergencies.
“Which way?” Alice asked. It was a good question. This road didn’t just lead to the trail that wound its way to the top of Mount Bloodstone, after all, but also continued down the other side and potentially to civilization. I had no map, so I just shrugged and motioned forward.
“I think we should keep moving in the same direction,” I said. “The last gas station was at least twenty miles back that way. For all we know, there could be a house or another gas station much closer if we just keep going straight.” It was weak logic, and I knew I was grasping at straws, but at that moment, straws were all we had.
Alice grabbed her backpack and, side by side, we started hiking up the winding road that ascended the steep slopes of Mount Bloodstone.
***
We had been walking for nearly an hour when I noticed a strange smell wafting on the breeze. It was an overwhelming smell of ozone, thick and cloying, just like I had noticed earlier. I nearly gagged, bending over.
“Oh God, what is that?” I asked. “It’s like a chemical factory is nearby or something.” Alice just shook her head.
From the nearb…
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