SPLINTER OF GLINT- excerpt II

The van was filled with the kind of laughter that only comes out on Vacation. Nothing brings out those long, group peals like two weeks of freedom, and the van was filled with cheer in the form of Spring Break. The men boasted and swapped punches to the arm, the women giggled and shared in gossip’s syrup.

In an hour they would all be screaming.

It was far from their minds, the oncoming slaughter, though one or two certainly felt something. They glimpsed a sliver of an image here and there, blurry moments never truly resolving. More like a haunting than a thought.

They were three days into a two week road trip- across the country in a custom van. They had already visited several outstanding wonders and were now headed west towards the canyons and mesas of Arizona and Utah.

Fred was driving. It was his van, and he drove most of the miles, only giving up the helm when he was truly exhausted. He watched as the sun in front of them slowly sank, watched as the night started peering over the far horizon. He was in the hypnotic state that comes to many drivers, where the lines on the road pass without register. A dangerous state in itself, vulnerable and open, made even more ominous by the content of his brief, worried dreams.
He glimpsed shapes in that shifting fog, dim imagery that suggested DANGER and HARM and even a final, terrified RUN.

Nancy was beside him in the passenger bucket, and she stared out at the road but alternated between front and side views, at times craning her head back to watch as stars appeared. “Make a wish,” she whispered, unaware of the signals being received so strongly just a few feet away. She heard no inner warning of approaching threat.

On the highway, Doom usually rides in a big dark truck, mercilessly bearing down on those who turn just in time to see it. It roars out of the night, reducing pets and aluminum cans to the same flattened discards. It throttles into town like a dark animal, a predator among those who have never before required defense.

This time Doom had different plans. He was riding in a craft, indescribable but without angles, and from the comfort of the rear of this grim vehicle he brought his plans to focus.

First, the water soured. The drinking wells would run foul as he passed in the large black craft, milk would curdle at the stoop. The year’s hottest months lay ahead and it burned men’s minds to consider living in it without the relief of a full tank.

Then he would fill their homes with the cry of useless longing, dissatisfaction, of craving and need. These were the things that burrowed deep into the human heart, things that made men mad along the rims of the outer world. All those deep requirements we make on ourselves, and the need to punish when we fall short or fail.



Behind Fred and Nancy were two more bucket seats, each occupied by a longtime friend. John was in the seat behind Nancy, half reading a book on the Grand Canyon and half falling asleep. In that midpoint of hypnogogia, he too saw scenes of ruin, of broken worlds.

John saw the ground come apart, it’s molten blood thundering out of the wounds. He saw the oily contrails of plummeting aircraft, watched as the living smoke oozed and curled. He saw a cornfield overtaken by rot and scorch, watched as the sun itself grew angry with sporadic displays, energetic curls larger than earth blossom into the void.


The craft shot across hot flat Texas, with a ripple of rot widening behind it. The being who was piloting looked up from his maps, seemingly grinning in the dims of the readouts and screens.

Cornstalks withered to ash as they passed, eventually blowing away in the rush of wind that followed. Road signs peeled, Billboards sagged with mold or flapped rips.

The discoid moved down the highway, leaving broken remains in its wake. It traveled with the unseen directness of a bullet, but slower, so the unique path it traveled was revealed to anyone who cared to note.

Those few who found their path crossing that of the dark oval were removed from their lives, in a state of torment that drove them mad before dying.

The van pulled out of a Tasty Freeze, all the occupants now more or less awake and alert as they devoured their treats.

The last bucket seat was taken by a bright young girl named Catherine. It was difficult to judge whether she too had been witness to any of these arcane and disturbing omens. She had always been friendly, which earned her a seat on this trip, but rarely did she begin a conversation. This was no exception; she sat in that last chair and kept her own council. If any foreshadowing reached her she did not show it.