Scary Story Part #1

In the spirit of Halloween, here is part one in my effort to create a scary short story. Check back for further installments.

Whenever daylight savings time comes around, the drive to work always changes. Normally, I leave for work at 7:40 am. I have a 20 minute drive on the brand new freeway, and that puts me at work at 8 am precisely. The freeway enables me to postpone my encounter with the neon of Myrtle Beach for just a little while. By the time I get to my exit, I’m ready for the florescent orange & green, the fake palm trees, and the massive papier mache sharks that line the facades of the bargain beachwear stores.

Anyway, when daylight savings time starts, it’s darker at 7:40 am. The nights are still cold then, too. So when I’m driving to work on the elevated freeway, I can look out at the landscape around me. The day is beginning; the earth is warming up. All I see are the Carolina Pines growing up through a layer of mist that covers everything else in the flat land around me.

The same thing happens in the morning (or evening) when you drive through a lower-lying area. You’ll be on the road, everything will be clear, and then you’ll be driving through drifts of fog. The mist rolls across the highway, turning, contorting, creating shapes almost recognizable, but still too indistinct for your mind to clearly connect to a real object…