Roadside Crosses
A little supernatural horror to end your week...
The road had been desolate for miles, there were no lights, no houses, or any other signs of life—just a narrow one-lane stretch of blacktop snaking its way through the ancient English countryside, its sides flanked by gnarled skeletal trees and seemingly endless fields cloaked in darkness beyond the grass verges. Rupert drove on, the dull thrum of his tyres on the cracked surface was the only sound in the darkness. It was late, too late to be out here alone, but the sales conference had overrun, and to add to his misfortune and frustration, he had taken a wrong turn sometime ago. His GPS had long since lost its connection to its counterpart in the heavens above, rendering the map on his phone futile. He’d been driving blind for the past forty minutes, hoping for a sign, a turn off, anything that would guide him back towards civilisation and ultimately the safety of home. His eyes were growing increasingly heavy, lulled by the hypnotic rhythm of the endless hedgerows and the sway of his headlights. He longed for home; there was something eerie about the backroads that never sat right with him. During long, lonely journeys like this, his mind wandered to disquieting thoughts. What if he broke down out here? Miles away from anyone and anything, alone in the dark, unsure of where to go—would he ever be found?
Then, as if his unmuttered prayers were being answered, his trance was broken, as a junction appeared out of the gloom ahead, breaking the monotony of the road and lit by a single lampost standing like an illuminated sentry at the crossroads. Beneath the light, bathed in soft white, stood a crude wooden signpost protruding from the overgrown hedgerow, weather-worn and aged to a point where its directions were now almost entirely incomprehensible in the pale glow of his headlights. He eased off the accelerator pedal, basking in the relief that came flooding through him. Finally, he had a decision to make on this dead and mind-numbing artery. The signpost was difficult to read, but he could make out two numbers. To the left, a town with a name hidden under the dirt of ages was 3 miles, to the right, an equally ambiguous destination was five miles. He chose to take his chances on the left-hand offering, and that was when his stinging eyes fell upon the cross.
It stood awkwardly on the roadside, just off the shoulder—a simple wooden memorial, the type people erect for lost loved ones, lost to the asphalt. Someone had died here. Rupert felt a chill creep down his spine as the car slowed. These makeshift graves had always unsettled him; he'd often look away from these subtle reminders that death was never far away on the roads, but something about this one made his stomach lurch. As his car rolled to a stop at the junction's threshold, he leaned over the passenger seat, peering out through the window into the inky gloom past the glass. The cross was as crude as any of its kind, two simple, uneven planks loosely nailed together. A bouquet of dead flowers was tied around the centre plank, the dry brown stems held on by a grubby ribbon. As he focused, fear set in like a fog around him; on the horizontal beam, carved deep into the wood, was a name. His name... Rupert Langley.
His breath caught in his rapidly drying throat, and his pulse began to pound in his veins. He blinked, hoping he had misread it, hoping that when he looked back, he would see a different name and be able to blame this all on fatigue or the shadows being cast by his headlights playing tricks on him. But no—the name was there, etched upon the wood as if waiting or goading him into finding it. The brief calm he had felt only moments ago was now replaced with a tidal wave of dread that crashed over him. This was impossible, it had to be a coincidence... but a voice in his mind whispered a chilling reminder that his name was not all that common.
His hands trembled and turned white as he gripped the wheel and slammed his foot against the pedal again. The car lurched violently forward, the engine roaring in protest as he sped across the junction line. He didn’t care which way he was going anymore—he was just desperate to put distance between himself and that cross. The moment he turned the wheel, something roared towards him from out of the darkness. Headlights, too close and too fast. The last thing he saw was a blinding wall of white light, and then everything disintegrated into nothingness.
When his senses finally returned to him, he found the world around him was cold and oppressively still. The acrid stench of fuel and blood assaulted his nose. He tasted copper as he tried to move, only to find his body was pinned, crushed under a great weight. Pain seared through his ribs, his legs—his entire body wracked with pain. His car was wrecked, reduced to a mess of twisted metal, steam and fuel leaked out of countless voids. His vision cleared somewhat, and he came to realise he was suspended upside down in the corpse of the vehicle. Blinking through the obscurity, he saw shapes moving outside, dark figures assembling around the wreckage, watching in uniform silence. One of them broke from the meager group and moved closer. A man, tall and thin, with hollow eyes that glinted in the feeble illumination cast by the pale moonlight. The stranger crouched beside the wreck, peering in at Rupert with something that resembled recognition. 'It's always strange the first time,' he said, his voice raspy and distant. 'Seeing it before it happens.' Rupert tried to speak, to ask what he meant, but his throat was thick with despair and blood. 'You never believe it,' the man continued, his head tilting to one side. 'At least not until you’re lying here, feeling the life withdraw from you.’
A cold hand, accompanied by the smell of damp and decay, reached into the car, resting lightly on Rupert’s chest. The touch burned him, not with heat, but something worse, something askew to reality. He wanted to recoil, to scream, but his body refused to obey. 'Don’t fight it, with acceptance comes release,’ the man said as his fingers pressed harder against Rupert’s skin, and then suddenly, he understood. He had been here before, at this junction and on this night and each time, he had seen the cross. Each time, he had tried to flee, and each time, he had died and awoken again. “With acceptance comes release...”
Rupert turned his head as much as he could from his trapped position. he saw the stranger's hollow and lifeless eyes that bored into him, filled with an otherworldy knowing. 'We'll see you soon, I hope,' he whispered before the world went dark. Then, the road stretched out, endless before him once more. The hum of his tyres. The whisper of the wind outside the car. The faint glow of headlights that cut through the night.
A junction ahead. A roadside cross and a name he knew all too well.
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Restack
Eerie, creepy... this sent a shiver down my spine.