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The girl on the road2,023 words
The all nighter to the Centos truck stop314 words
The Canadian man2,600 words

The Canadian man

“Thanks for the food Henry”
“No problem”

Comfortably they had made their way through a shared plate of Buffalo wings. He dived in first and she followed after him. She watched him lick the smears of chicken on his fingers. It was slow going but she managed it. A Grin turned itself on his face. He leaked a kind laugh for the girl licking her fingers with such a serious face. A pink drip of hair coiled across the forehead.

“What are these parts? They’re really tough for a vegetable”
“Really? Oh”

Another wing taken. The truck stop was occupied by a skeleton crew of truckers and travellers toughing it out from the Canadian border. The truck stop was waited by Lucy with the harsh Tabaco voice. Together, Fluttershy and Henry watch the stream of midnight people chip away at reheated frozen entrees.

The kitchen remains the crumbling kind of room behind a counter. A heavy man pokes out behind a grill. A radiator is a deflated hissing strapped to the wall. Outside and above them an American flag flies above the station in a howl of wind. To the left of it the glowing letters “Centos”.

“What?”
“Wait”
The crunch of bone. A greasy hand sweep from his beard, to his mouth, then the beard again.
“They’re not vegetables”
“Huh. Like a dense kind of fruit then”
“No. Not really”

She was still eating. The mind hadn’t caught up to the achingly empty stomach. She slows herself down in a collision of greasy fingers and cheap napkins. With less conviction the rain fell slower and slower. The lack of rain is followed by an anonymous boom of sound far away.

“What are they?”
“Well those parts are bones. So yeah”
“Bones”
“Yup. You vegan or something? Allergic? Christ I’m really sorry.”

The realisation slowly stained her face like the greasy stretch of the diner. She stood from their booth, an unknown horror caked on to her. Her eyes widened and her mouth gasping as if she’s drowning in it. The words she gives the human are young and frightened.

“I need to go to the filly’s room”
“You okay?”
“I need to go to the filly’s room”
“What?”

She rushes to the back of the dinner into a door with a white and blue picture of a man pissing into a pot. A startled man leaves the men’s restroom wondering why a pink haired girl rushed in.

“…What?”

He says it to himself, and it’s strange how you could carve so much hopelessness, amusement and confusion into a single syllable. He frowns and smiles at the same time listening to listless tunes from the diner’s single radio, the thought of her in his head.

The time shaves off in curls of late night pointlessness. It was ten minutes and he was thinking of a move to make. The rain was gone. The sky is dark and getting sticky. A distant boom from the outside, eased its way into his ears. Must have been thunder.

After a while Lucy reaches across with a coffee pot and a curious smile. She has tired eyes and wrinkles made from dead night labour.

“Trouble with your girl?”

He took a time to put his mind back on. The girl with pink hair. The truck stop. The coffee.

“I think she’s special.”
“That’s really sweet. It’s rare to see girls look so nice with pink hair”

The door to the men’s restroom hadn’t moved an inch. He still worried about her.

“No. I mean she’s special. As in special.”
“Like a little different in the head?”
“Yup”
“Well she’s sweet either way”

She reached across and dropped a slab of coffee in his cup. He waited for the coffees end at the bottom of the cup. The bitterly held blackness of it.

“Yeah she’s sweet”
As much as an emancipated, frightened, socially arrested girl could pull off. Even then it couldn’t be that sweet.

“Thanks for the refill”
“No problem, yell if you need anything”

He set aside a cup of coffee then drank his own. He stood up. Took a can out the corroded vendor in the corner. The can loudly screamed “Mountain Dew” in green and yellow. He laid out the can, the coffee and his patience on the table. In the light they were all diminished.

It took another moment. He took to his feet and pushed his way into the restroom. Soon everything would be sticky with smell of urine and dirty water. The used condom in the corner told of the presence of once upon a time lovers. The weeping pipes told of the lack of plumbers. The stench of bile told of a struggle with buffalo wings.

Next to the basin was a mystery in the shape of a girl. Although confused he always thought that strange occurrences would follow the girl.

The fluorescent bulb smudged a light on a perplexing situation. Somewhere, a distance from the restroom a thud falls out and shakes the bulb slightly. It must be thunder.

She was staring at the mirror. But soon the girl called Fluttershy had fallen into another bout of retching. Her body is a determined tight-lipped clench. It took her another minute to finish vomiting. When it was over he gently coughed into his hands. She turned to give him a wry, depleted smile. Surprising, considering how delicate she seemed.

“Girl don’t get any of that on the coat”
“I haven’t”

In a brisk movement he took a handful of paper towels. He shovelled it towards her in a gesture approaching kindness. She squeaked then jumped, but still took the towels. She spat out something yellow. The towels came up. She wiped her mouth.

“When was the last time you’ve eaten?”

He was answered with the loud stare of her eyes. The words had crawled back into her mouth and into her throat. So she was hunched there in his jacket with the edges of the basin perforated by her spit and bile. The mangled flood of a buffalo wing could be seen on the sinkhole. It all told him, yes. She hadn’t eaten in a good while.

“Come on then. You can’t go in the men’s room. And I’m not giving you anything with meat.”

He didn’t want to hold her hand so he took the miserable girl by the sleeve. Again a squeak flew out her mouth and was the last thing she left behind in the men’s room. Finally they were both dragged by him to the table.

He ordered baked beans, toast, fries. It took another look hurled by the pitiful girl before he ordered pancakes as well. Tired of trying to appear friendly to himself he ordered a plate of biscuits and gravy. He huddled into an embarrassed slew on his seat.

“You okay?”

It was a stupid thing to say because he wasn’t and she wasn’t. He was slumped and she was sitting straight. Despite it he still held her sleeve in his hands. Awkwardly and unknowingly they sat that way until the food came. Lucy bought it over in two trays, she was startled slightly by a low booming somewhere closer. Probably thunder.

The microwaved stack of it on the table. The hydrogenated fat and the gloriously excessive syrup. He gives her a weary smile as if to say there was no meat there. She reaches for the beans in barbecue sauce and he spoons himself the biscuits and gravy.

“Where are you from Fluttershy?”
“Equestria”
“Huh. Is that like a town near the south of here? Maybe next to the old estates.”
“I don’t really know”
“Yeah. Who knows”

The loud crack was heard again. It was closer this time, followed by the sound of a falling tree. Although dark, afterwards you could see a restlessness settling on the night.

Meanwhile she approved of the beans. Henry thinks she ruined it by grabbing a stack of pancakes to go with it. She was enjoying it though. Just like with the wings, it did him good to see her eat again.

“It was a good place Henry.”
“It was?”
“Best friends and animals. I’m a carer for animals. Been doing it since I was a little filly, caring for animals from bears to bunnies. I have a talent with animals. I think it’s why I’m good at talking to you.”

The meal was continued after her words. Another helping of French fries and he knew she was thirsty. He undid the can of mountain dew and slid it over to her. He folded himself back into his chair with a cup of coffee. Fluttershy sniffed then drank the can. She kept her eyes on the crumple of human opposite her. He lifted an eyebrow.

“I’m an animal?”
“Yes. A very nice one. Although I don’t know if you are all like this”
“Well you’re an animal as well”
“Yeah. I guess so. Also-”

She pointed to the pancakes with a fork.

“We had pancakes where I come from as well”

He would chew a mouthful and enjoy her company.

“It sounds nice”
“What sounds nice? The pancakes?”
“Equestria. The place you said you came from”
“Yeah it is”
“You shouldn’t have left”
“I didn’t have a choice Henry. It was more of an accident then anything. Pass the syrup please.”

He passes it over while she seems to fiddle with her fingers and the bottle. He dragged a hand over his stubble. Soon both his hands landed on his lap and a decision was made. He decided that he was fond of this strange girl and that she had probably ran away from something. Decided that she would have to run about this path and find her own way either to the wilder world or back to her home equestria.

He wished she could follow him, but he knows how that will look.

“Well there’s a plug under the table if you have a charger for a mobile phone. Ask Lucy for the phone if you don’t have a mobile. This is enough for the motel across the road.”

A small scattering of a conversation was heard. Fluttershy watched Lucy’s drawl flung across the room and was reminded of Applejack. Lucy was talking and gesturing to a group of humans. The group seemed worried about booming sounds from down the road. One of them was pointing at an image on a mobile phone and muttering in a low conspiracy. Another one was close to the window and starring down the road.

“You should wait till morning to hitch a ride back to your place. It sounds nice even if your running away from something”
“I think Equestria is very far away.”

A massive thud peeled into the diner and snapped into a crack. The group talking to Lucy walked out the door and tumbled into the rusted car outside. For a while the crack rolled and spilled around the dinner. Some more left the diner and no more came in.

“Christ it’s loud. Don’t worry it’s just thunder. Okay, in the morning hitch a ride to one of the big truck stops on the interstates. Hitch during the day and don’t take rides with creeps.”

“Creeps?”
“Yeah creeps.”
“Bye fluttershy”
“Bye”

While they said their goodbyes a bearded man in a truck could be seen with shaking hands.

He was obviously a Canadian. His lopsided accent was panicked and poking into his words. Terrified he told everyone to leave. He said that the thumping wasn’t thunder. That there was something down the road. His truck skidded away in fear.

The ones that were left are Lucy, a handful of truckers and the pair saying goodbye to the other.

Then the long wail of something massive. Alive. They all stare at the road for as far into the darkness they can see. Suddenly and without warning the dark patch beyond the road became dangerous and unknown.

Lucy is on the phone calling the police and the truckers were hurriedly cutting off flakes of notes, dimes and cents. While Lucy was on the phone they lay it out next to the cash register. Henry did the same but lay it next to the unfinished mess of food. Those that hadn’t left for the trucks stood together silently by the window.

A patch of silence and waiting. The quality of it almost the same as a shadow.

Henry deliberately bundles the girl into his arms. There is too much fear to be embarrassed. They hold each other and stare through the window.

“Henry, is this normal?”
“No. I think we need to go”

Above them a pillar the width of a house kissed the ground.

In a screaming outburst the air around them all broke into a single reckless note of sound. The crash so overwhelming it approached a silence of its own. The humming in the ears. The glass on the ground. Deafness.

The silence bloomed into the wail of car alarms. On top of it the Canadian man from the truck was shouting at them. He had come back with the truck and was yelling till his face turned red. A women in the passenger seat was pointing a camera to the pillar in the middle of the road. Finally the Canadians words sieved through into their heads.

“It’s a leg. It’s a goddamn leg. Christ”

The unexplainable fear had finally reached his chest. All around the crowd, the dread slotted into the right places. Six of them including the pair all had plans to move. They tripped across the glass and jumped through the broken window.

A shuddering shattering wail was held high above them. They ran to the Canadian’s truck. All of them piled into a tight spate of legs and arms. Henry lifted her above him. He dropped her into the truck, and then hurled himself after her. The truck sped off. Sloppy rubber on the road. Smoke.

Behind them a head, all consuming in its magnitude. Then two more. The climax had come.

The flickering neon words of centos were inspected by endlessly massive and endlessly unknown eyes. The glint of a thousand teeth is felt. Even with the distance they put behind them, they could feel it.

The air struggled to hold another uncontained wail. A leviathan’s wail. The tuck stop drowned entirely in teeth and open mouths. In a few seconds all of it was snuffed out in a collision. The finality of a landscape swallowed.

All they could do was ride. Speechlessly wonder at the forever unknown horror. In its size. In its origins. In its motives. The Canadian man swears. He says fuck quicker and quicker and quicker until he stops altogether and pants through his beard. Lucy has shaking hands and has put a wet cigarette to her lips and makes no move to light it. One of them is laughing in deep poisonous breaths.

Another collision and this time it was close to the horizon and not themselves. Again, another bottomless howling. They all huddle together and hope the truck takes them further away.

“What?”
“Hydra”
“What?”
“It was a hydra Henry”
“A hydra”
“Yeah”
“Okay Fluttershy. Okay. A hydra”
“They used to live in the everfree forest”
“Used to?”

Author's Note:

long time no update. But I've often imagined how awful it would be if our two worlds collided.

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