Jack did not normally work the late-night shift. His job at the near-by greasy fast-food joint catered him to the delicacies of grill-tending, floor-mopping, and ass-kissing (more often than not), but rare was the day that he was inclined to agree to after-hours work. Today, however, was one of them.
Burger Boy was open until three o'clock in the morning. Most of the graveyard shift left then, but a couple employees were assigned to hang around and transform the effects of a day's worth of patron-damage to the shining example of business etiquette that was presented each morning. Jack was apparently a part of that team.
It was not until four in the morning that he left. He walked sleepily across the parking lot to his Nissan truck. The last hour had been dreary. His co-worker, his comrade-in-"dirt duty," had been a small, weasel-like, basket-case named Richard. Richard was not known for his conversation. People, on the whole, steered clear of him. Richard, on the whole, steered clear of people.
As Jack was unlocking the door to his truck he noticed the moon. It was hanging low over the trees. Only about three quarters full, it shone brightly—almost painful to stare at directly. Damn, that's bright, he thought as he got in and slammed the door.
Driving home was another drudging experience. Nothing good was playing on the radio. WJLK (his favorite station) was enduring another blackout, apparently, for the only thing broadcasting from 100.1 was static. He dug around for some cassette tapes behind the seat and found nothing.
He gave up the notion of entertainment and drummed along the desolate road in silence, pondering the excitement awaiting him at home: Laura, his "lovely, darling wife, until death do we part." Laura was eight months pregnant with their first child and held no hesitation about expressing her distaste for the particular shape she was presently harboring. Nor, it seemed, did she have any trouble with blaming everything on Jack. Oh, life was wonderful. As wonderful as life with a living hyena could be.
So, wound up in his thoughts, he barely even noticed the large Semi cruising along towards him in the other lane.
Nor the animal crawling into the road.
It didn't really crawl—it wobbled. It was like a large rodent, but seemed to have scales. Jack imagined that it was an armadillo, but he hadn't seen one before. At any rate, it didn't really matter what it was because two seconds after the head lights on the Nissan 4x4 discovered it, it became road kill.
Sha-Thunk!
The sound made him sick. It was a squishing sound but with a deep bass to it. The noise was slightly drowned out by the passing Semi, but it was a declaration of death that Jack would never forget.
Sha-Thunk!
The noise echoed in his ears. The sickening feeling in his gut rose to his throat. He gulped huge breaths of air to keep his dinner intact, safe in his stomach.
Sha-Thunk!
He had never really killed an animal so brutally before. Well, he fished, but that didn't count. He wasn't being unreasonable there. The fish bit down on the hook by their own accord. He'd squashed bugs. Even shot a bird once when he was younger. But never in his field of recollections had he ever so horrendously and viciously slaughtered an innocent animal before. An innocent... armadillo.
Sha-Thunk!
He wanted to cry—no, not that, he wanted to scream. He wanted to scream the life back into that poor animal. He wanted to scream so loudly that he'd forget that the whole incident had ever occurred. He wanted to scream until he forgot. Until he forgot the sound. It echoed in his ears. It sounded like...
scratch...
Huh? He felt something just above his foot. Damn bugs, he thought. Probably a mosquito. Get off me. He reached down to scratch his socked-ankle. The feeling had gone. He shook his head and wondered how much longer it would be until he got home. It couldn't be more than five min...
scratch...
There it was again! It was higher, on the inside of his left calf, inside his pants leg. It felt like a... well, like something. He didn't know, but it was definitely not a mosquito. It didn't itch. It just felt like a...
scratch...
SLAP! He smacked his knee, trying to knock off whatever it was that was crawling up his leg. Nothing was there. He was getting nervous. What was going on?
"What the hell's going on here," he muttered out loud, "What's happening..."
scratch...
"...aaargh!" He scraped at the inside of his thigh just above his knee so hard that he almost ran off the road. He was panting heavily. Sweat was trickling down his face.
scratch...
It was moving up the inside of his thigh.
scratch...
"Get off me!" he yelped.
scratch...
It crawled now, very hoarsely. Farther and farther it went. Each step was another...
scratch...
...that plunged Jack into a deeper and deeper state of terror.
scratch...
It had almost reached its goal. Jack stopped breathing.
scratch...
Almost there. Jack squeezed his eyes shut, a tear pressing out of each corner. He knew where it was heading, and it was perhaps one step away. No, please God, no...
SCRATCH!!!
He doubled over in pain and inadvertently swung his truck off the road and into the middle of a large pine tree. The engine ruptured and the gasoline ignited. A split second before the contents of the gas tank exploded into a huge nova, Jack screamed.
And then he died.
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