This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/TheDarkerMatters on 2024-10-11 05:55:02+00:00.

I reset the cruise control and took a second to stretch my aching legs in the confines of our cramped Saturn sedan. The gentle glow from the dashboard clock read 2:21, AM. That means I’d been driving for 3 hours nonstop now. It was hypnotizing, watching the endless line of reflective gold stripes pass one by one under the tires. I was in no danger of falling asleep, the slightly questionable, most likely toxic energy drink purchased at a gas station in Des Moines made sure of that. But I still found myself astonished at how I had been unaware of time passing around me. It was as if I had dozed off, and the car had been held in control by some benevolent spirit that inhabited Interstate 80.

I heard Keith stirring in the passenger seat, he let out a small groan of discomfort, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“You need a break yet?” Keith asked in a groggy tone, barely above a whisper.

“No, I’m fine,” It came out sharper than I had intended.

The move had been his idea. He thought it could be good for us, starting over in a new, small town, away from our shared past. Not to mention him being fired from every reputable law firm in Chicago. The fact that the Cass County Public Defender would even look at a resume like that did not inspire confidence.

“Alright, wake me when you need me.”

I smiled wryly at this, wondering how the sleep-deprived, hungover, and short-tempered man next to me would be trustworthy to drive at highway speeds. Despite the repetitive fields, flat and unending on both sides of the car, I found myself enjoying the drive. There were so few other cars out here this late, it made the drive almost meditative. Not that I really wanted to be alone with my thoughts anymore. The years spent since marrying Keith had gone by in a blur, and with every passing day, I grew to resent him.

I was pulled out of my reflection when a sudden flash of blue and red lights blazed off my rear view mirror. I began to curse loudly, as the shrill chirp of a siren further confirmed the fact that I was being pulled over. I knew that I had been speeding, a modest 10 miles over, but the lack of cars on the road must have made me easy prey for some trooper. I flicked on my hazard lights and pulled onto the shoulder as Keith began to join my litany of swear words.

“How fast were you going?” Keith yelled, spit flying from his mouth with the words.

“Just 90,” I said restraining a scream of frustration, “Maybe we have a broken taillight or something.”

I tried to compose myself, hoping that this would be a simple slap on the wrist. I rolled down my window and waited, the gentle, warm breeze stirring my hair. The emergency lights kept flashing; the effect was dizzying. I sat there, drumming my fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. I waited expectantly for the crunch of boots on gravel as the patrolman would be approaching my window, but nothing came. I heard only the sound of wind rustling the corn stalks, it sounded like whispers being exchanged hurriedly. Keith began to sigh, as he twisted in his seat to look behind.

“Hey, settle down,” I muttered, “We don’t need to look suspicious.”

“At this point, I don’t care how we look, it’s 2 fucking AM, and every second we spend here is time we should be heading to our new home.”

I almost laughed at his use of the word home, but instead, I just reserved myself to sitting, staring straight ahead as we waited in silence. I glanced at the clock on the dashboard again, 2:50 AM. We had been sitting here for 10 minutes, and aside from the blinking lights that cast flickering, ghoulish shadows across the road in front of us, there was no sign of life from behind. I felt my stress level rising, trying to imagine what was taking so long. Was he running our plate? Was he just procrastinating because he could?

“Don’t worry Barbs,” Keith said with a grin as he leaned his seat back, “He has less than 50 minutes to detain us, then we can go.”

I tried to force a chuckle, imagining the absurdity of that happening. But I became increasingly worried as time ticked past. It was 3:15 now, and silence covered the whole scene like a sheet. Keith had gone from nervous, to smug, to irate. He continued his fiery rants on our rights, case law, and how unfair this was, I nodded and tried to play along, trying to stifle the fear that had been creeping up on me as we sat on the side of the road. I hadn’t seen another car pass for at least 20 minutes, and I began to wonder if this was all an elaborate ambush. Maybe some cult of inbred cannibals stalked this stretch of open country, luring unsuspecting middle-aged couples to their untimely doom.

I had been so preoccupied with my fantasies of the true-crime podcast our lives would most certainly become when the click of the passenger door pulled me back to reality. Keith was unbuckling his seatbelt and swinging his leg out the open door.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“This clown is violating our rights,” He said, bleary eyes filled with righteous fury, “I want his name and badge number.”

“Please, just sit back down,” I said, sudden fear over the possibility that my angry husband brandishing his phone as he recorded could be mistaken for something else in the darkness.

Keith just shook his head in disgust, and turned, the strobing lights distorting his face into a gruesome, ghostly imitation. He opened his mouth, surely about to name some case law that was being violated, when he froze. He didn’t even scream as the long, dark tendril shot through his heart. It looked almost like the branch of a tree in winter, all jagged edges and brittle-looking twigs splintering off in different directions. I felt the hot, sticky blood splash over my cheek as I watched in terror as a second, third, and then more than I could count began to drive into him like needles. In seconds, Keith was reduced to an unrecognizable, bloody pincushion, and then he was gone. Dragged silently into the night by those hideous tentacles.

I didn’t even realize I had been screaming until I stopped, gulping in the air desperately as I shifted the car back into drive. I didn’t have time to process my husband’s gruesome fate, I needed to focus all my attention on escaping this thing. The lights and sirens were gone, but I somehow knew it was still behind me, leaping from shadow to shadow in between the sporadic streetlights. The road stretched ahead,

I desperately looked at the navigation on my phone screen, trying to see the nearest human civilization was. It looked like I was 10 minutes away from the town of Stuart, barely a dot on the map, but as long as there were people, I knew I would be safer. I pressed harder on the gas pedal, watching the scenery blurring around me as I began to exceed 100 miles per hour.

I sobbed quietly, despair and horror clouding my mind. It was terrible, watching someone, a human being, so casually reduced to a pile of unthinking meat in seconds. I could only pray that he died instantly, that he didn’t feel those wickedly barbed thorns reaching through his skin, pulling him away to be devoured by something unimaginable. When I saw the distant glow of the Chevron gas station at the edge of town, I began laughing in relief. It wasn’t that I thought the minimum wage gas station worker would be able to fight off this demon, but at least I wouldn’t have to face it alone.

I threw the car in park and sprinted to the double glass doors, trying to outrun the slithering noise that seemed to come from every direction at once in the darkness. I ran in, seeing the attendant standing behind a small counter. He saw me and immediately smiled, raising his right hand in a friendly wave. I slowed to a brisk walk as I approached the counter, words tumbling from my mouth in an incoherent ramble. Despite my desperation to get help and find some haven from this monster, I noticed the strangeness of the employee. Through my breathless account, he continued to just sit there, smiling, waving his right hand seemingly oblivious.

My words started to trail off, as I stared at the figure, unsure of what to make of his odd behavior, when I noticed something that froze me in utter fear and disbelief. The man’s arm, still waving slowly back and forth, was suspended on a wire-thin, coal-black string of tissue. It was the same sort of black tentacle that had pulled Keith to his death. I started to back away, noticing that his whole frame was held from the ceiling by a myriad of these dark tendons. Even the corners of his wide, static smile, were held up by the two pinpricks of shadow in his cheeks.

My backpedaling turned into an all-out sprint as more of these things began to whip down from the ceiling at me. I held my hands over my head protectively, feeling the sharp burn as my skin was flayed. I barely made it out the front doors, stumbling back to the still-glowing headlights of my car. I yanked the door open, jumping into the driver seat as I watched the glass at the front of the gas station shatter apart.

As I sat there, I began to feel a wet, warm stickiness spread along my back and upper legs on the seat. I wondered if I had been cut more severely than I thought when I looked down to see a yellow, viscous substance oozing out of the cushions. I gasped, feeling the stinging burn on my finger as I touched it. Then I noticed that the whole interior of the sedan was just wrong. The dashboard and steering wheel looked to be carved out of some sort of dark wood-…

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1g130qz/i_recommend_avoiding_interstate_80/