Free Highway To Hell by Alex Laybourne Page A

second flip; she had already fallen halfway out of the window when the road came crashing down again, snapping her neck and sending the head rolling down the road like a gruesome bowling ball. By the time the car came to a stop several fingers and her left arm had been scattered along the road like the lost items that can be seen lying beside any highway; a shoe, a book, things you often wonder how is it possible to lose while within a car. By sheer chance, the rearview mirror was still in place, and although cracked and missing several large chunks, Sammy could make out what was left of Mandy’s body further down the road, a fit of spasms racing through her dismembered torso as the rain pelted down, washing the blood from the road deck as if the world were wanted to hide it.
    His head grew dizzy, the gargling sounds of his breathing lessened, and with it the depth of each inhalation became shallower. Yet Sammy refused to give up. “Mandy.” He struggled to make any sound, and was surprised at how strong his voice sounded.
    Sammy received no answer to his cries, the still night air broken only by the steady ticking sound of his car engine. The summer storm that had been threatening all day made its move, and the rumbles of thunder drowned out the emergency service sirens. Lightning cast a stark, brilliant flash on the horizon, highlighting the blood and oil covered road, glinting in the open eyes of the head that lay between the two lanes, boxed inside the dividing lines. The blond hair that crowned it was fanned out like a wedding train.
    Sammy was long dead by the time anybody arrived at the scene, his face frozen in a twisted image, as if the last thing Sammy had seen had been was death himself as he leaned in to claim him.
     
     
    ~
     

 
    V
    Graham
     
     
     
     
    “Who’s there?” Graham Williams sat up in bed – well, he raised his head as far as he could; his bed was already set in a semi-seated position; the best thing for his lungs, or so the doctors had said on their last visit. Personally, he thought it a pile of fresh bullshit but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Not anymore.
    No answer came back to him, only the echoing footsteps of the night porter walking the linoleum hallways, his mind not on the job but rather following the Monday night football. The playoff positions were filling up fast and his team needed just one victory to clinch their spot, and with it the chance to gain redemption for the painful defeat at the end of the previous season.
    Despite the lack of an answer, Graham could hear the intruder, his lumbering footsteps heavy on the cheap carpet; he knew the sound of heavy boots when he heard them, unforgiving, uncomfortable. He had been trained to hear them, as they snapped a twig or crunched on a pile of leaves. It was the smell he didn’t recognize; a sweet, meaty aroma, like a cheap butcher’s workroom in the heat of summer. He would have retched at the stench but his stomach had long ago given up its uses, now nothing more than a shriveled bag inside his decaying body, possibly the only organ that the cancer hadn’t eaten away. He hadn’t drank anything since Sunday morning, not that anybody who ‘cared’ for him would have noticed. They had all written him off long ago. As soon as the illness entered what they call end-stage, he had been moved to a new room at the end of the terminal wing, where he was then as good as forgotten. Sure, they visited every now and then, but only to check his pulse. He hadn’t had a change of clothes for three days and while he wasn’t certain, he thought that he had pissed himself at least once.
    Graham opened his mouth to call out again, his throat dry and scratched raw, his lips paper-thin. He stuck out his tongue to wet them, but that too was dry, swollen and heavy in his mouth. He heard his own breathing; slow rattling breaths as if his lungs had filled with water. Yet still he heard the approaching footsteps. It was as if