The Disabled Zone

Note - Originally a Flash Fiction contest entry, I have made it slightly longer, changed the reason for the supernatural attack and the title from "Slivers of Soul".

The Disabled Zone

I could sense a lurking darkness on the fringes of my vision, slithering away as my eyes darted after it; a satin-black shadow that remained intangible, just out of sight, creeping back whenever I returned my focus to the winding road picked out by the feeble beams of my car headlights.

Halfway between the bright bustling city where I worked and my isolated mountain home the engine began to splutter and cough. My fingers gripped knuckle white upon the steering wheel as I leaned forward trying to will the machine onwards. It was a futile attempt to thwart fate as the engine revved and then cut out. An old road sign, pockmarked with pellet shot pointed ahead to Raithmont, 10 miles up the narrow snaking roadway. It was the last thing I saw. Night closed in around me and I was left completely blind in pitch black panic.

I fumbled with the ignition key but after an electronic clicking on the first attempt, there was dead silence. Silence, except for the flapping of that damn parking ticket stuck under my windscreen wiper. I hit the steering wheel with my open palm. Wait a minute! Didn't I rip it out and throw it on the passenger side floor in a crumpled ball with all the other parking fines I'd collected over the past year. Having my car registered in a fake name to a false address back in the city made me feel secure that the authorities would never find me.

There was a hideous shriek of metal as the door was wrenched off its hinges and I was flung out onto the bitumen. Something razor sharp sliced across my cheek. Another thin sliver cut through my achilles tendon causing me to cry out in agony. Then another cut and another until I was engulfed in a tornado of whirling dervishes.

That was how they found me; prostrate on the road, barely alive, my clothes cut to ribbons and my skin crisscrossed with a thousand cuts. They only recovered one of my assailants, wedged deep in my forehead; a black slip of paper with red writing – Disabled Zone!

When I was released from hospital I began to put my affairs in order, paying all the fines and registering the car in my true identity and address. In future, when I parked at a meter I always ensured I returned five to ten minutes earlier than the alloted time. Never again did I park in a disabled spot or feel that sinister darkness shadowing me.

That is unti-

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