The cost

The car clung to the road like the desperation of love. On the corners it went as close as you could. Straights pulled it forwards with a hungry come on. On a night like this I could see every head lamp for a hundred miles. It was just the road and me and the night.

We ducked down into a hollow where a stream overran the road after summer storms. I braked hard in the corner at the bottom and my back tyres kicked up puffs of stream-bed dust as I screamed away. Bugs danced in the head lights like stars swarming out of infinity. I was moving at warp speed. From time to time I had to squirt the windshield and let the wipers swipe away the mashed bodies of insects.

Down a long straight the gradient let me reach an even ton. I saw the bug zoom out of the night like a tossed stone. It’s arc smashed it against the window - a juicy crack and its juices quivered in pulsing veins as the slipstream dragged it up the windscreen.

I squirted fluid on the screen and set the wipers to work, but a bug bigger than the first hit the screen before it was clean and the wipers smeared its sticky carcass out in streamers. I let the speed ease a little, but there must have been a pocket of standing water near the road because of a sudden the air was thick with the things. A moth the size of a bat zigged crazily into view and bounced off the screen in a puff of silver. I let my speed drop again, but the bugs kept on coming as though they were hurling themselves at me.

For a second, the air conditioning hiccoughed, then spat a chewed up insect at me. A shrapnel of wing casings and shattered carapace came juddering out of the vents. I slammed them close, but I could feel something whirring around in the car with me. The bombardment of insects drummed against the wind screen like hail, unabated. In the rear-view, I could see dazed squadrons of spiralling survivors, casualties flopping, one-winged, broken-legged on the road in the brake-light wake. Beyond that: nothing.

The road climbed a steep hill wound round a copse of trees. On the outside corner: a dry stone wall, then darkness. Something - a freshening breeze, or the slight gain in altitude - was thinning the swarm. A final moth, the size of a sparrow, careered out of the darkness, bounced, spun off the bonnet and was gone.

The squeaking of the windscreen wipers stopped, leaving them at half mast. I switched them off, then on again and they slid another grudging inch through the muck and seized.

I pulled the car into a lay-by and fished around in the passenger foot-well till I found the de-icing window-cleaning device. I popped the door open and got out. The interior light of the car came on and the computer chimed gently to remind me that the keys were in the ignition. I scraped at the insect debris on the windscreen. It had a queerly lubricant consistency and the rubber foot of the scraper slicked over it ineffectually. I flipped the thing over in my hand and raked the toothed edge through the muck. Whole bugs were trapped in the goop, their legs and mouthparts working to free themselves. I slopped them onto the dirt, flicking my wrist to get the scraper clean. Some stuck stubbornly to the glass and I had to reach into the car to work the windscreen cleaners. I saw myself reflected in the rear-view mirror and shouted in disgust. Something was caught in my hair and I swatted at my own head trying to disentangle it. I stepped back, away from the car almost in a panic. I could feel that thing in my hair, writhing. A moment then it was gone. I ran my fingers through my hair to comb out whatever was left, till I was sure it was all gone and then some.

The air was cleaner up here at the hill top, but it wasn’t bug free. I could see them flitting around the head lamps and interior lights, and I resigned myself to driving the rest of the way with a cabin full of unwanted guests. I brushed my seat clear and got back into the car. Back safe inside my bubble, I gazed out through the windows. I watched insects materialize out the darkness and bounce of the windows of the car. It must have been the lights that attracted them. I turned off the engine and the interior lights, but I could still hear the tiny impacts, gentle as a light summer rain as the insects passing through the darkness collided with my car. That was odd. With the lights out there was nothing to attract them and nothing to throw out their navigation or distract them.

I sat in the dark a moment longer and felt a shiver break through me. Then something landed on my cheek with pin-delicate feet and I scrabbled at the key in the ignition.

The movement of the car eased my disquiet, lulled by the soothing sound of the tyres on the tarmac and the shifting gravel as the wheels turned. I drove a little slower at first, flinching as each ghostly insect shape floated out of the darkness on a trajectory that wanted to pull it through my space. I worked up through the gears, letting the car find its way back into the rhythm of the turns and dips. There was not another soul in sight.

The head lights picked out an old white sign that promised another twelve miles of open road between me and the rest of the world. It flicked past amidst a tumble of bracken, broken brambles, a rambling almost-down wall.

The first sight I got was subliminal: a here-there-and-gone movement, barely registered. The near side tyre blipped over something, a stone maybe. Then again. A flash of movement and… blip. The road was smooth here, repaired less than a month ago, so I felt every one. I was ready for the next and my eye caught it long enough for an image to form in my conscious mind. A mouse, out from the roadside grass, barely a shiver of light, its shadow longer than its self. Frozen in the glare, then… blip. The tyre went over it. As my concentration wavered an oncoming corner slid towards me and I jumped on the brake. A mouse broke cover. The car slid, skidding into the turn and the mouse stopped, doubled back. Blip. I felt the minute lift as a wince of disgust, thrilled by the edge of adrenaline. For a second - less - the tyres crunched in the gravel and the roadside bracken slapped at the window before I regained control.

I pulled away from the corner, then stopped. The road ahead was scattered with mice, a rat. For a second, all was still, their eyes fixed constellations of almost stars, before they started to move. This was not some second-guess reflex.Those twitchy soft bodies and star-prick eyes were racing their shadows towards me. Over the growl of the engine there came a rusty shriek.

Without thinking, unable to know what to think, I jammed my foot down on the accelerator. The car leapt forward then stalled. In the sudden silence and phosphorescent afterglow of the lamp glare scene, the screeching intensified. I scrabbled for the keys and jarred the engine back to life. The car jerked forward again, freezing the scene ahead in a strobe moment. Up ahead, I saw the twin green eyes of something larger - a rabbit maybe, or a cat. Third try, the engine caught and I zipped forward. The road surface seemed to melt and flow in the pooled light. The back wheels briefly spun searching fur traction on… I let my mind slide around that idea, searching for my escape. The car picked up speed, murmuring as though driving over soft cobbles. The suspension registered every tremble of the surface beneath. In the mirror, I saw the tyre tracks heal over like footprints in a rising tide.

After a few seconds, the road started to clear, the odd melting appearance solidified into reassuring black top. I gunned the engine and felt the rear end fish tail ever so slightly searching for grip. Shivers tightened through me like skeleton fingers. Here the road passed into open moor land. Scrub grass and heather threatened to overflood the road at every point. The verges were hidden in an overhang of scratchy vegetation. On a good night, this was the best stretch of road - the whale back hills and easy corners seemed to go on forever. Over the horizon, I could see the dusty smudge of orange street lights on low cloud. Overhead the sky was clear, the barren moor exposed to infinity.

I wanted to drive fast, but I was wary now. On the best nights the road was scattered with the sad flattened sacks of road kill. Forensic collections of skin teeth and exposed organs glued to the road with gummy blood. Slammed flat and sun dried. In the wilderness either side of the road, I saw, or thought I saw, the light of my head lights reflected in a hundred pairs of eyes.

I realised that without thinking, I had let the car gather speed. It swung down into a small valley with a stomach lurching drop and I pulled my foot off the accelerator and laid it on the brake.

That was when the rabbit broke cover and lurched into the road. It hit the bumper with a thump that bounced it into the road ahead. I saw it twitching as I steered round it and came to a halt. I looked back over my shoulder into the red glow cast by my tail lights. The broken silhouette of the rabbit was dragging itself towards the car slowly. I got out. I saw that the animal’s spine had gone. Its front legs scrabbled for purchase on the tarmac. I watched it for a second unsure of what to do, then I picked it up gently and wrung its neck. The trembling body went slack.

In the crimson half-dark behind the car, the road seemed wallowed up by the wilderness, bounded by the verges on either side and by darkness behind. As my eyes adjusted to the afterglow, I started to pick out lights in the darkness on the edge of seeing. Pair after pair of unblinking eyes gazed out of the night at me. Once again, I had the feeling of being lost in interstellar space, but this time the feeling was vertiginous with none of the ecstatic thrill of unstoppable momentum. I could feel beneath me the depths above which we are suspended.

A hare took a half-bound forward and I realised how close all those eyes must be. The hare waited for a second then came at me with surprising speed. I stepped aside, but it continued in a straight line without pause or deviation. For a moment I thought it meant to flee beneath the car, but instead it ran at full tilt into the car’s bumper. I heard a crack, whether from the car’s bumper or the hare’s skull I didn’t know nor ever found out, but that crack seemed to act as a signal.

They came out of the night in wave after wave to dash themselves against the car, like waves that might eventually tear down the cliff and flood the towns, that will one day roll unimpeded over highways and parking lots, float cars and debris together. Hares and rabbits I saw, weasels, stoats, wild cats. An otter snaked through. A fox raced past hares and slammed into the passenger door with a force that dented it. The dazed animals lay beside the car or threw themselves against it again and again.

I stood amazed. The tide of fur and claws had reached the top of the wheel arches. Something large careered against the passenger window, which spat out thin cracks from the impact. Something collided with the back of my knee and I fell. I put my hand down to break the fall, but it rolled awkwardly on the taut body of a fox and I hit the ground in a breathtaking sprawl. Animals raced over me. I could feel the heat of them and their claws as they scrambled over me. The wild stink, hot and sharp, overwhelmed me. I rolled over to cover my head, curled into a protective ball and let the river of them flow around and over me. My world had shrunk to the flurry of passing bodies. I was lost amongst the avalanche of senses.

When I came to, something was nudging my shoulder, tapping insistently. Gratitude filled me. In this nightmare wilderness, someone had found me. They would explain to me patiently, as though to a frightened child, that I had been in an accident. An ambulance was coming to carry me to a safe, sane hospital. The hand continued to push and tap. It grasped the material of my shirt and tugged. It snorted and I smelled the mash of chewed leaves and grass in its stomach. I opened my eyes. The car was buried to the windows in a mound of flesh and fur. Stunned animals tried feebly to climb back up the mound to throw themselves against the car. I rolled flat onto my back and gazed up at the deer that stood over me. I looked up the length of its face at the hard eyes. The head dipped towards me and pushed my head gently but firmly round to look back at the car. The I felt the deer’s muzzle push beneath my shoulder, lifting me up. It was strong. I sat, then got shakily to my feet. My legs felt weak and I stumbled when the deer butted me towards the car.

I stood at the edge of the body pile unsure of what to do. The deer butted me again, harder this time and this time I did fall. The animals onto which I fell felt surprisingly solid, sheets of muscle and bone. Before I could find my feet the deer pushed me again. Confused, and scared now too, I started to cry. The deer pushed me again and suddenly I understood. I pushed for purchase and banged my head against the car. Again and again as I sobbed for breath, thick ropes of mucus hanging from my nose, I banged my head against the car. I understood in some way I was being punished, but my confusion deepened when I felt myself dragged away from the car. I twisted and saw that the deer had hold of my shirttails in its teeth. It held me in place.

“What do you want?” I said. I was pitiful, half choked with snot and tears. I looked into the deer’s eyes for meaning, then, still crying, started to laugh. There was nothing there but emptiness as vast in its own way as the night. In answer, the deer pulled me to my feet. Standing, the deer was as high as my chin. On seemingly delicate legs it picked its way among the dazed assortment of creatures and dipped its nose among them. By dint of shaking its head, nipping and lifting, it cleared a space around the car door. Then it looked at me.

I stepped forward and grabbed the handle. I saw the smooth side of the car had been bent all out of shape. At first the door wouldn’t open, the mechanism no doubt interrupted by the damage the car had suffered, then I felt the familiar click as the latch opened. Gently, I pulled away rabbits and foxes. Blood, slick, then sticky, was on my hands. I cleared a space large enough for the door to open and got inside.

The engine was still running, though fitfully. Tentatively, I pressed the accelerator. The engine raced. The door wouldn’t close now and the computer chimed idiotically to remind me. Is this what they want? I thought. I put the car into gear, gunned the engine and let up the clutch. The engine screamed and I thought for a moment it would stall. The front of the car lifted, the bonnet pointing to the stars, then it lurched free and jumped hungrily over the scattered bodies.

The road ahead seemed narrower, the grass and heather pressing further in. They came at me in groups, alone. I felt the solid smack of each body that hit the body of the car, the jerk as the wheels rolled over again and over the bodies. I felt a dizzy rush, as though my journey was nearly over. I sprinted for the finish. A savage joy rose up from deep within me. A fox rolled up the bonnet suddenly lifeless throwing a spider’s web of cracks across the screen. I laughed and caught sight of the wild look in my own eyes, my pupils dilated to animal width.

I accelerated again, aiming for the narrowing gap between the sides of the road. The massed moorland was pinching the broad tarmac to a point. They all fell beneath my tyres. A dog howling, rabbits insensible tumbled, a ferret lashing like a snake in throes. A barrage, then in a turn of recognition I saw that for years I had been throwing myself at them. No less insane, only momentarily more powerful. There was no road ahead, only a flattened place in the grass, two furrows flanking a tussocky divide. The car bounced along, pouncing on a stoat here, then an otter. Jumping to meet them as the suspension propelled it forwards over the rough ground. For an instant the car seemed to arch its back, the lancing head lights carving mad spirals across the moor. The front wheels came down and I saw the stag.

It stood there alone in my head lamps, casting its shadow on infinity. I hit it at maybe fifty miles an hour. It rolled onto the bonnet, which folded like soft butter around it. The force of the impact jolted me from my seat. The windscreen splintered, the scything horns of the stag tore through the seat where a moment before I had been sitting. I felt the steering wheel strike my chest. The sudden shock of night air. There was a moment of weightlessness, a feeling of complete freedom, then the ground hit me.

After the dazzle of the headlights, the darkness seemed total. The silence doled out between the ticks of the cooling engine now silenced forever. As my eyes grew accustomed, I saw that the moon and stars bathed the world with a light that in its own way was as strong as that of the sun. The stag lay atop the car. For a moment there was complete stillness then the car burst into flames that licked hungrily up through the carcass.

I watched for a long time as the fierce heat consumed the car and the stag. When the fire began to wane, I fed it with the dried branches of bracken and bramble, scrub heather and grass. I found a fallen-down sign, the white paint all but gone. I was still ten miles from anywhere, but there was no longer a road to guide me. The two tyre ruts across the moor had vanished. I scanned the horizon searching for the tell-tale orange smudge of reflected streetlights that pointed to a town just out of sight. There was none. I felt the hair prickle on my back with realisation.