My ears were ringing as I struggled to catch my breath, the crunching of metal still reverberating around my skull while I dazedly dragged myself away from the steaming wreckage. The air burned in my lungs and I felt as though I’d cough both of them up along with my heart as I violently hacked up the debris until my throat was raw. Spitting what I was sure was a piece of my tooth into my palm, I squinted blearily at the sky through the heat waves, asking myself “where on earth did that billboard come from?”

The distraction had only been momentary, but some twisted coincidence enabled me to hit the only billboard I’d even seen on this desert road for miles. Some stupid advertisement for an energy drink I’d never heard of with a slogan along the lines of “you’ll never sleep again!” In this instance, I hadn’t dozed off at the wheel but rather had lost my water bottle beneath the passenger’s seat and had leaned over to get it, accidentally apparently jerking the wheel too far to the side and running off of the path that barely qualified as a road anymore with the sheer layers of dust and cracks that consumed the asphalt.

There wasn’t much to do here but pick a direction and limp for it. My right leg was killing me and I had no idea where the nearest rest stop was. Probably a thousand miles away. I had no phone to contact anyone, no booths mercifully placed along the road for wayward travelers. I thought once I found a town, I’d call for someone to find what was left of the car and pick me up, too. That car didn’t really mean all that much to me, if we’re being honest. Some old hunk of junk my dad got off of a used car lot five years ago and thought would be a great birthday gift as if it hid the fact that he just didn’t trust me with a new one. Like when your parents get you a goldfish to practice keeping something alive before they let you get a dog even if they’re vastly different creatures with vastly different needs. A new car didn’t splutter every four miles or need the gear shift jiggled frantically for it to actually shift gears. And yet, I was sure my dad would point to the metallic mess jammed against the base of the billboard and say “see? I KNEW you couldn’t take care of a car!”

The atmosphere was smoldering. The heat radiated from above and below. I felt like a waffle baking from both sides and, every few steps or so, I’d stop to check to make sure my shoes weren’t melting. (Spoiler alert, they were a little bit.) I figured the night was bound to be easier and I started to regret not hiding in the car until then, but who knows? Maybe the car was going to explode at any moment and it would’ve been stupid to stay in it. Either way, I was choking on smoke, so it was for the better I didn’t stick around.

The back of my neck was starting to blister by the time the sun went down. I’d been out there, say, a few hours? I was lucky enough that it was the late afternoon when I’d crashed so I didn’t have to be out there the entire day. I would’ve been absolutely boiled otherwise. I was beginning to feel like a farmer-tanned lobster-fied raisin when I stopped to take a break under a tree. It wasn’t much of a tree. It was more like a stick with some more sticks coming out of it that some cruel god jammed here to be a grave marker. But at the absolute least, it was something to lean back against that wasn’t the ground itself and I was kind of grateful for it. My mouth was drier than the dirt that was getting caught in my socks and between my toes and I wished with all my little heart that the air conditioner gods would cut me a break with some mystical scientific marvel of a geyser that shot cold water instead of hot.

“Wait, did I leave my drink in the car?” I thought to myself unhappily. “Goddammit. I could’ve used that.”

I was sitting there for what had to be maybe ten minutes just catching my breath and fanning myself with my shirt when I heard footsteps. Footsteps. All the way out there in the middle of god-knows-where. But when I looked around, I didn’t see anyone. Heat stroke’s a serious thing, you know. Makes you see or hear stuff that isn’t there. That’s what I told myself, anyway. It was either that or some groundhog digging around somewhere, right? Do groundhogs live in the desert? Probably not, actually. What digging thing lives in the desert? Moles? Do moles? I’ve heard of desert cats but I think those are native to, like, Africa or something.

I’m getting off track. Sorry.

The sound started to wig me out, so I got back up and tried to keep going. My feet were absolutely killing me, but I was more worried about having to sleep out here. I was right about the night being better, at least. It cooled off quickly and then I started worrying about getting too cold. My shirt was soaked with sweat and it really didn’t help right now. The heat stroke dying down wasn’t so much a mercy but just tagging out with hypothermia. My wet shirt felt like ice clinging to my back and I held it out in a tented way to keep it off of my skin. I kept thinking about all the ice cream I would eat after I had a hot meal whenever I came to civilization. A cheeseburger and fries. An ice cold glass of iced tea. Then a neapolitan. Whipped cream and a cherry. It made things a thousand times worse for the hungry, thirsty, sweating, shivering feelings in my body, but it at least kept my brain occupied.

And then I started to hear it again.

Just one at a time, one foot in front of the other, clip clop clip clop footsteps somewhere behind me. When I turned around, there still wasn’t anybody there.

You know when you’re a kid and you think something’s there, you have the stupid feeling that if you talk to whatever unknown is in the dark in your room, it’ll be so surprised you know it’s there that it won’t attack like its mission has been compromised? Like it’ll only try to hurt you if you don’t know it’s there, a sneak attack. Or sometimes vice versa. I suddenly found myself yelling “dude, cut it out!” by panicked reflex to the nothing behind me. Nothing responded, obviously.

“Obviously.” You’d think it would be “obviously”, right?

It kind of made me feel better. A little bit. I imagine I didn’t sound very threatening, though. It was honestly amazing I could get any more than a tiny croak out with how bone dry my throat was. The thing that started to scare me more was the notion that someone would find me as a piece of jerky by the side of the road by morning.

The sky was a thing to behold, though. I felt sure I could see every single star in the entire galaxy, maybe even the universe itself. I didn’t know a single one of their dad gummed names, but like estranged cousins that come over on a holiday, I greeted them all like we were the closest of friends. I grew up in the city. I never really saw many of those suckers up there. It was just pitch darkness with the ones that were brave enough to peek through the night’s black curtain before inevitably being chased away by the blinding search light of a passing helicopter. If I let my brain wander ahead of me, I could pretend I was in some other magical world and that just before I died, some god or genie or fairy or unnerving merchant would pop up in front of me as if from nowhere and offer me a second chance at life in exchange for some terrible trade that would kickstart a terrifying and amazing adventure. I’d always wanted those sorts of adventures. But sometimes, life was stupid and boring and there wasn’t anything to come out of it. Just stupid and boring.

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Hope came when I saw a light in the distance, and I pushed my body to half-limp-half-jog towards it. I had no money, but if it was a gas station, I was prepared to do what I had to with or to the clerk to get me something cold to drink. Imagine my disappointment when I saw it wasn’t any sort of building, but another stupid billboard. One of the bulbs on the left side of it was flickering in a way that bothered my eyes and I squinted to see it was the same dumb ad for that energy drink. You’ll never sleep again, huh? The billboard wasn’t the only thing there, however. I could make out the glint of my car at the base of the billboard. I thought to myself “impossible. This road has no curves. I went in a straight line.”

But as I hobbled close, it definitely was my car. Scrunched hood, rusted finish that was probably white once upon a time when this car wasn’t old enough to be considered of historical value. It’d stopped smoking, at least, and I decided to think about what kind of unholy circle I’d walked in later. For now, my priority was crawling into the wonky-shaped opening that used to be the driver’s seat and shoving aside the deflated airbag to find the water bottle that’d nearly gotten me killed somewhere on the floor of the passenger’s seat.

It was disgustingly warm in my hands, but it was something, and I downed half of it like it was just a hot cup of darjeeling, relishing the moisture returning to my esophagus at last.

Okay. It was time to ponder. How on earth would I have walked in a circle to end up back here again? This road went perfectly straight as far as the eye could see. There were no curves, no turns, no loops, no roundabouts that would’ve turned me around. I considered the possibility that maybe in my hot and unfocused state, I’d accidentally walked the wrong way when I got up from the tree, but I could’ve sworn I had walked away from the initial wreck to the other direction. The way I’d walked now was as if I was passing it for the first time.

Maybe I was overthinking, I told myself. I’d just walked the wrong way when I got up. That was my bad and a major waste of time with how long I’d spent walking. I wanted to curl up in the car and take a long, long nap, but the sun would come back and finish baking me alive in the morning so I couldn’t afford it. My legs were shaking, my head was throbbing, and I felt like my feet were bleeding into my socks but I was too scared to check. I just had to keep going. Find a rest stop. Maybe try to dig a hole in the morning to rest in and wait out the daylight. I had half a bottle of warm water left and no food. There had to be something edible in the desert, right?

I wracked my brain trying to think if I’d seen any survivalist shows that involved the desert, but my thoughts were snatched away by that same goddamn sound.

Clip clop clip clop.

I was never quick to believe in ghosts, but I was struggling now to decide between dehydrated delusion and actual demon following me. I couldn’t see anything or anyone around me. Not a person, not an animal. It definitely didn’t sound like digging anymore. When I was young and thought something was lurking in the dark, I used to tell myself “if it wanted to kill or hurt you, it would’ve done so by now”. I didn’t even allow myself to consider the possibility that monsters might want to toy with me first.

I kept my eyes wide, hoping (or not hoping) to catch some sort of movement in the moon-soaked dirt, and limped my way along the road much slower than before. Every step was agony. I was more exhausted than I’d ever been in my life. I was certain that my leg wasn’t broken, but I’d sprained something in the crash. I tried to imagine that I was riding a scooter or segue and just coasting along to give my brain the illusion of a rest, but it kept getting distracted by the impulse to glance behind me every few seconds.

“There’s nothing THERE,” I growled to myself. “Stop working yourself up!”

I wanted to hum just to have some other noise, but I refrained. I’d read somewhere that talking or even humming or breathing too much depletes moisture in your body. I tried to pretend that there was a radio in my brain playing all the hits with my best approximation of the lyrics. I was about halfway through some wonked rendition of a title I’d always assumed was “Age Old Mountain High Enough” when I heard it a lot closer than before. Really close. Too close to be an imaginary sound.

I panicked for a second and stumbled forward in a half-assed effort to run on barely functional feet and spun around to look behind me, expecting to see a zombie or a man with a knife or a creepy little girl also with a knife, but there still wasn’t anything there. My heart was beginning to beat so fast and I did my best to swallow despite my mouth being full of sand.

I’d definitely heard that, right? That was real, right? What I wouldn’t have given for a car- ANY car- to pass by. I’d’ve taken my chances with whatever creep or serial killer was at the wheel if it meant getting off of this road. Turning my head, I saw lights up ahead and, willing with every fiber of my being for it to be salvation, I limped faster than before despite the pain coursing through my body like nails were being driven into my heels with every step.

You’ll never sleep again!

That stupid fucking billboard again. The same one with the flickering light on the left side and tacky orange energy drink can plastered against a white background. The compressed vehicle sleeping soundly on the ground, some dark blob leaked beneath it. Oil probably. Or some other car fluid I didn’t know how to identify. I wanted to cry, but I was too exhausted to. I sank into the seat, glad to have the softness of it to sit on, and tried to come up with some sort of plan, but I had nothing.

Nothing at all.

This was my third time in this spot today. I was certain, 100% confident, that I had gone in a straight line. I hadn’t stopped this time. I didn’t get confused and turn around. The road. Had. No. Turns. It was just a long, straight, empty road. Something cold gripped my throat as I thought to myself “holy crap. I’m going to die here.”

I couldn’t walk anymore. I just freaking couldn’t. I was so tired and in so much pain. I downed the last of my water in one shot. Making it last in little bits wasn’t going to help anything. I remembered that much from the survivalist. It was better to be well hydrated at once and then slowly dehydrate again than consistently be dehydrated and kept alive with sips at a time. As if this amount of water was even going to hydrate me with how much I’d lost into my shirt throughout the day.

Maybe in the morning, I could make a sign right? Put some sort of sign on the road that asked for help and if I was lucky, some passerby would see it and realize I wasn’t trying to lure them into a trap. It was comforting to picture the paramedics arriving and some blurry-faced person telling me that I was going to make it. I’d wake up in the hospital after a short coma and my dad would throw his arms around me, thankful I was alive, and then cut the moment short by berating me about the state of the car. I’d get some physical therapy for my leg and turn my experience into a book to sell a million copies of. Or at least I’d have something interesting to say to a complete stranger on a bus.

I closed my eyes. I just needed to rest.

And there it was again.

Clip. Clop. Clip. Clop.

I didn’t even bother to open my eyes this time. As I could hear it come closer and closer, my mind wandered to a science lesson in 5th grade. Humans weren’t known for their size or their speed or their strength. They couldn’t fly at all and their swimming was weak. When it came to the rest of the animal kingdom, there wasn’t much humans actually beat in a skill other animals were known for. Except endurance. It was how humans managed to take down larger things. They followed it until it couldn’t run anymore, hiding out of sight until it was time to strike. Humans could span great distances, slowly but surely, walk all day and track their prey for miles. Tenacious things, humans were. Determined to survive.

I felt like the buffalo or mammoth or whatever early humans hunted to the brink. Taking a rest and hoping it was safe. If the thing was going to kill me, it was going to kill me. That was that and there wasn’t much left for me to do about it. Sleep was going to be the end of me. But I was just… so tired.

Ironically, I kind of wished I had that energy drink.