Nightblind and Braindead

I always drove at night. Will and the others were day people, and would switch out driving duties throughout the day. Myself, I preferred the quiet and solitude of the night. It offered time for reflection and contemplation of the swirling soup that was my drug skewed mind. I also stayed awake during the day, which often left me too tired to drive at night without some sort of chemical crutch to keep me from falling out the door onto the cracked pavement that was perpetually whizzing past. Not one to waste valuable driving time sleeping, I frequently took LSD to stay awake for my night drives. This sometimes wasn't even enough after three or four days of not sleeping.

July 3, 1994 Missouri

I had been awake for more than just a few days by now. Each night I would consume double the dose of LSD as the day before. The human body builds tolerance to the drug incredibly quickly. A dose of one hit would have to be doubled to two the next day to achieve the same high. Day three would be four hits, then eight... I was on about day five or six and it would soon be time for a few days off to let my head clean out. It just wouldn't work another day without selling an organ.

As I drove east on US 70 the sleep deprivation and hallucinogens were creeping up on me. I would see all manner of things wander onto the roadway. Sometimes I would imagine a hitchhiker walking into my path of travel. Some times it was an animal scurrying across the road. Each time I would stifle a scream and get ready to swerve around it only to see it dissolve into a shadow or a sign at the edge of the road. After a few times, I would regain control and would not be so quick to believe my eyes, only to freak out and try to dodge my imagination again after a little while. Other that this, it was a fairly uneventful night as we approached St. Louis.

Just as dawn was starting to turn the sky from black to a dark navy blue I was near the limit of my abilities. I was swerving around imaginary roadkill victims with more and more frequency, and finding it harder and harder to recover from my fright between incidents. Just as my racing heart would begin to beat at a somewhat normal rhythm, something else would scramble onto the road. I was terrified that I would run something, or someone over, but knew the whole time that there was nothing there to run over.

I pulled off the road into a rest area for a break. I got out and smoked a cigarette and walked around the van to clear my mind. The air was warm, but still felt cool enough to freshen me up. I walked barefoot across the small, sharp pebbles on the concrete it an attempt to stimulate brain activity. Everyone else was sleeping like the dead inside the van. At this time of day, on the 4th of July, there was little traffic on the road and only a few cars at the rest area. All was quiet as I got back in.

On the highway again, I could see the anonymously dark shapes and forms turning into trees and houses. I was sure my mind was awake enough to drive until the others were awake, but I prepared myself for the unexpected. It had been a long night and I was sure that I would still be tormented by hallucinations, no matter how awake I felt.

Just a few miles down the road I was starting to feel the weight of sleep pressing my chin into my chest. I shook my head from side to side and slapped my cheeks to wake up. Coming over a slight hill I saw movement in the trees at the side of the highway. It bolted toward the road. My first thought was that it was a kid. I could see the blue of denim flash against the dark green of the trees in the gloom. Refusing to play the victim to my sleep starved brain again, I didn't flinch. My hands gripped the steering wheel and I pressed the gas pedal down a fraction of an inch just to prove to myself that the boy was not there. He was running up the embankment in long bounding strides. Too long to be those of a kid. Our trajectories were locked. Neither of us slowed or changed course. All the previous hallucinations had lasted just a heart beat, but this one lived on. I could count the steps up the hill toward the road. This was lasting too long. Was he really there? I lifted my foot slightly, not knowing if he would suddenly be transformed into a bush or sprint onto the road and meet the grill of the van at sixty miles an hour. At last I snapped into reality. I pulled the wheel to the left and floored the brake pedal as he crossed the narrow gravel shoulder and reached the pavement. It was too late.

Just before his head slammed into the front right corner of the van, the boy became a young deer. It's head made first contact just above the headlight, the bumper hitting at it's shoulder. The deer folded in half as it was pressed down, under the bumper. The wheel was locked. It had stopped turning and screamed across the pavement, leaving a long arc of black rubber that curved to the left. I let my foot rise from the brakes in an attempt to regain control of the van. As the wheel started turning the deer's folded corpse forced it up. The van was almost airborne as the front wheel bounced over dead flesh. The front of the vehicle was not yet back to earth as the back wheel began it's flight. With both wheels off the ground, the van drifted toward the median of the divided highway. By pulling the steering wheel to the right, I forced it into a steady course and guided it to the side and stopped.

Screams of panic and confusion rose from the pile of passengers in the back. "What the fuck was that? What did you hit?"

"It was a kid! I hit a fucking little boy that ran into the road!" I screamed. "Wait! No! It was a deer! It was a deer!"

"You stupid fucker! You hit a kid?"

"No! I thought it was a kid, but it was a deer. It wasn't a kid. It wasn't a kid. It was a deer."

They all jumped from the side door. Some went to the front of the van to survey the damage, the others back toward the bloodied mass on the side of the road. I climbed out and smoked. I was so sure that it was a kid, but a kid in my mind. I was so confused. It had lasted so long. Him running up that hill, then it was a deer. It was a deer when it went under the van. Oh please. I prayed that it was still a deer when it came out the back.

"Holy shit man. You creamed that thing." Will told me as he came back to the van.

"Was it a deer?"

"Yeah. It WAS a deer. Why were you screaming that it was a little boy? How much acid did you eat last night? You need some sleep."

"It was a deer. It was a deer. OK. It was a deer. You should drive now Will."

"No wait guys. We can't just leave this deer here like this. We have to do something with it." Justin said.

"It's off the road. Lets go before we have cops here." Will replied in a still sleepy voice.

"No man. It's just not right." Justin argued.

TO BE CONTINUED