His head hurt like it was splitting apart. He winced at the sharp light coming from the outside. A whistling sound pierced his ears. He brought a hand to his head and tried to make sense of what was happening.

He was sitting on a car seat, seatbelt fastened. There was a humming sound filling his ears. The motor, he realized a moment later.

The lights were on and their light reflecting off the snow tortured his eyes. It also showed, in stark contrast, the brown tree trunk that had fallen over the windshield.

That was it then. He suffered a car accident.

He touched his forehead and checked his fingers for blood. There was no blood; still, his head hurt terribly. He shivered. The car’s front glass was broken and the draft was enough to chill his bones, despite the thick coat he had on.

“Where are my gloves?” He searched for them, and found out they were in his hands all along. His vision got fuzzy. He pushed up his glasses, only then realizing he wore glasses.

He realized, with some confusion, that he was not acting normal. He couldn’t think clearly. He wore glasses. The thought struck him with such suddenness, that he almost reeled away at the realization he hadn’t known that, hadn’t remembered that. He realized right after that he had no idea what his name was, what he was doing in the car or where he was going.

He breathed hard, panicking, feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the snow outside creeping up from his leg, through his spine and to his arms. A ghostly pain hurt his fingers.

The car moved.

The tree crashed on the car, twisting the ceiling and shattering the windshield.

He lifted his hands to try and protect his face from the flying glass. With a last wail, the motor failed. The tree dug in a little more, and the lights went out.

The total darkness frightened him, but also calmed him. For now, the tree seemed stuck.

He released the seat belt, and looked outside the window. It was too dark to see much, but he saw a road. He tried to get the door open, but it was stuck. He took a deep breath and clenched his fingers, feeling that they were moving as intended, not broken, not hurting, and pulled back his fist to punch the window. He stopped, realizing he was being stupid. He would have laughed at himself if he weren’t in a terrible situation.

He searched his car for something to break the window with. Unexpectedly, he felt something hard against his hip. He pulled it out.

It was a pistol.

He wondered why he carried a gun, but it was not the time for questions. He broke the glass with the handle of the gun, and smashed all the pieces carefully, before squeezing himself through the hole.

He fell on top of a pile of snow, feeling relieved.

His relief was short lived. A lump of snow lay to his left, with a distinct shape as if covering a large form underneath.

It was too close to his car for it to be there by coincidence. Was this related to the accident he suffered?

At first, he thought it was an animal, but on closer inspection the lump had a vaguely human shape. Yet, the sight did not bring the expected horror, but an almost overwhelming detachment. He carefully brushed the snow aside, filled with morbid curiosity.

He sucked a deep breath.

It was not, after all, a human corpse; yet it certainly was no animal. It lay curled on its side. A long, leathery wing spurted out of the thing’s back at the end of which was a rigid, malformed hand. The head was bald and wrinkled with sharp ears and long canine teeth.

For a while, he merely stood there, curious. Eventually, he crouched beside the creature and cautiously—even though it was surely dead—observed it.

It was thin, only skin and bones, with a shape that was a mix of man and bat in the worst possible way. It was bent and misshapen, with a skull that was too long, hunched shoulders and a spine that was too bent. A large hole had been bored through its back, clearly the cause of its death, but no blood came out of the wound. Aside from that, a small knife, beautiful even at a glance was stuck in its flesh.

Without thinking, he pulled it out.

The creature moved.

He reeled away from it, heart beating fast, falling on his butt from the scare.

It shrieked and gasped, then looked at him and gave a piercing scream, limbs flailing madly. Its head swerved violently from side to side as it braced against the ground.

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It was standing, he realized with maddening horror, frozen in place by fear. He could not look away as the thing stretched its neck as if trying to break it and let out such horrid sounds that they seemed to come from his nightmares.

It was halfway up, when it gasped and its breathing failed. Then it fell, soundlessly, upon the snow. It twitched one last time, then nothing more.

He remained still, not quite ready to believe it was dead. He swallowed. His heart hammered against his chest.

The thing continued to lay there, unmoving.

Finally, he stood, feeling the cold seeping into his bones. He approached the thing, and gave it a light kick.

There was no reaction.

Whatever that was, it was dead. He was not.

The road was not so distant. Dark though it may be, he could see it just fine. Looking to the left or right from it, however, revealed not a single thing. It was an empty road, circling a hill. Considering the terrain, he was quite fortunate that his car did not fall down further; it could have easily spelled his death.

He wondered if he should wait for a car to pass. It seemed a fine idea, but when he looked back at his car, and at what lay beside it, he decided to walk instead. His car had been heading left. He decided that would be a good direction to walk toward.

The walk was long and cold. But after a while the road sloped downward; that made him rather hopeful, though he had no idea why.

He heard a car behind him. He looked back, and surely enough a car was passing, its lights showing the road ahead. He raised a hand in request. Unexpectedly, the car stopped.

From beyond the lowered glass, a man in his mid-twenties with a prim beard and a fat nose smiled. “Hello there. We saw an accident just a while ago. Was that you?”

At first, he said nothing. Had they seen the thing lying beside his car? And if they did, was it not the sort of thing one would be curious about?

The stranger did not seen apprehensive, so he might not have had a good look at the site of the accident. Or maybe it was not a sight strange to see, and he only thought that because he had no memory. It was difficult to dwell on it. “Pretty cold tonight,” the strange continued as the silence stretched. “Not a good night to be out walking on an empty road.”

The stranger seemed far too friendly, and somewhat sketchy, with strangely threatening words, despite their apparent affability.

“Are you heading to town?” he asked with a smile.

“Yeah,” said the stranger, sparing a brief glance at the driver. “We can take him right Bill?” He turned back, smiling. “Come on in.”

The glass rose. A pushy stranger. Nevertheless, he entered the car, because it truly was too hazardous to be outside, and who knew what could be out there?

He sat alone, on the backseat.

It was warm inside. He felt it immediately on his fingers. It was only once warm that he realized how cold he had been.

“I am Eric,” the stranger said, offering a hand and a smile. He shook Eric’s hand, only then realizing he should be saying his name, and then he realized he did not know what it was.

Eric pointed his chin at the driver, oblivious to his confusion. “This is Bill.”

Bill grunted.

Eric shrugged with an easy smile. “Bill is not very talkative.”

Bill half-turned in Eric’s direction, looked at him for a lengthy second, and, saying nothing, turned back toward the road and continued to drive.

“We’ve never been to Lamplight,” Eric continued. “Small place, see. Nothing much going on for the two of us. Oh, we’re woodsmen! We work with wood.” Eric smiled at that, as if it were some private joke. “We’ve come for some land that some old guy left behind after dying and that we might use for business. A lot of land, family lands, you know, always troublesome…” Unlike his companion, Eric was very talkative; the monologue went on and on while Bill provided silent looks and grunts.

He felt light-headed, tired. Still, Eric continued to talk.

“…the deer ate until it died. Happens a lot, actually. What a dumb deer right?” Eric shook his head derisively, and laughed. “Man, these animals just don’t know when to stop. By the way, I never asked, if you hurt yourself in the accident. You seen kind of down.”

“I am fine.”

“Feeling sleepy are ya? Feel free to nap back there. When we arrive in Lamplight, I’ll wake you up. God knows, it’s awful to be stranded on the road. Happened to me once, you know...”

He felt tired. But sleep? No, he could not bring himself to sleep yet. He threw his head back, and closed his eyes. At length, he opened them. No, he could not sleep.

Eventually, Eric stopped talking.

Eric looked back from time to time, but said nothing, and seemed to think he had fallen asleep. Bill kept driving.

A languid, continuous, morose humming was coming from somewhere. It was almost like music. It felt peaceful, but out of reach. It faded, and eventually stopped.

Did he sleep? He felt like he had. But more importantly, he felt the car was slowing. He looked outside the window, but there were no lights, only the road, the mountain and the trees.

Suddenly a cold, unpleasant feeling assaulted him. It felt doubly strange in the warmth of the car. He did not speak, but held a hand above his gun.

The car stopped and Eric left, wordlessly. He walked around it, and stopped before the rear door. After a considerable pause, the door opened, slowly, gently, silently.

Their eyes met. Neither said anything for the few seconds their gazes crossed. Eric smiled a guilty, but nasty smile. The smile of a child caught doing something naughty. “We’re almost into town.” Eric, for a moment, looked in the distance, then turned back toward him. “I’d have preferred to do this with while you were sleeping.” Bill turned around, eyes narrowed dangerously, saying nothing. “But, eh, what to do, right?”

Eric raised a gun in his direction. A small pistol that almost didn’t fit in his hand. Still, a bullet was a bullet. “Listen here,” Eric said. “You’re gonna take off your clothes, and then—"

A mind-numbing shriek rang out, silencing Eric. It was an animal sound. It was like the cry of a bat, but louder.

For a moment, Eric stood still, shocked; then with a shaking hand, wiped his nose of the blood that was dripping from it. The next moment, Eric looked down as the sound of a bullet rang out. His face was rather comical, considering the bullet had pierced him through the chest.

Eric fell backwards over the asphalt.

He pointed the gun in Bill’s direction next. Bill raised his hands.

“Get out of the car!” he shouted. Bill didn’t move until he said it again, gesturing the pistol in a threatening manner.

He rushed Bill out, then jumped out himself. “Turn around,” he told Bill.

Bill turned.

Adam threw him on the ground by the collar, and then entered the front seat. He turned the key and drove away as fast as he could.

In the distance, he heard the shriek once more. Then he heard another scream, not like a bat’s, not unlike a man’s.

He drove on.

Eric had not lied. There was a town just ahead. So near, it seemed a joke.

Lamplight, it was written on the sign standing above the road.

Beyond it were lights. Many comforting lights.