A Late Night Snack

A Late Night Snack

         Ben was driving home from the bar in the darkness of the back roads. He had been there for too long and had wasted all of his money on drinks for his friends and himself. It was Sandra’s birthday but he still had not wanted to spend too much money on drinks. After a couple shots of whiskey-including that new one that had coco leaf in it that had reminded him of cocaine-and around four beers, he was done for the night and had left at one-thirty in the morning.

         Now it was almost two o’clock and it was hard to see the damn road, even with his brights on. He burped and took a long drag off of his cigarette. He saw a couple of rabbits running across the rocky, potholed dirt road, and slowed down. There was a beer between his seat and the middle console, which he had taken with him when he had left the bar. He picked it up and took a swig.

         Right then he saw something big run across the road about twenty feet ahead.

         “Damn! What the fuck was that shit?” he said to himself. He saw it only for a second before it disappeared into the night.

         Must be one of them mountain lions, he thought. Some of his neighbors had told him that they had seen a mountain lion the other day. He didn’t want to run into one because whenever he got back to his house, he always had to open the big gate by hand to get onto his property. He would have to park his car in front of the gate, get out and push it open, get back into his car and drive onto his acre land, get out again and shut the gate, and then get back into his car and drive up to his house. It was a bitch to deal with.

         Shit isn’t gonna get my ass, he thought. He burped.

         He pulled up to the gate and put the car in park. Now the shitty part, he thought. He looked out of his back window and both side windows, making sure the beast wasn’t going to sneak up on his ass. His vision was a little blurry from all the alcohol he had drank. “Fuck it, I don’t see nothing,” he said, then got out of his car and flicked his cigarette in the dirt.

         He looked around and didn’t see anything except some of the other houses and some trees. He began walking up to the gate. Just then he heard a low, deep growling noise close to where he was and stopped in front of his car and the glaring headlights, listening and hoping that it wasn’t a mountain lion.

          He heard it again and thought it sounded like a big angry dog. He tried to look behind his car but the bright headlights were blocking his view.

         There it was again but closer this time. Damn lion’s gonna get me, he thought. His heart began pacing and sweat seeped out of his pores.

         He started walking back to the driver’s side of his Mercury and saw something moving just a few feet behind the vehicle. It was breathing and he could see blood-red ovals for eyes on the thing.

         “Jeeesuus!” he said, and froze as he saw a gigantic spider-looking creature moving towards him. It had ten tall, hairy legs and made monstrous noises that sounded faintly human to him-like someone puking their brains out.

         It advanced on him as he jumped back into the driver’s seat and reached for the door.

         He grabbed the door handle and tried to close it just as the creature reached for him. The door bounced off of its leg, making a crunching sound like bones breaking. It made a high shrieking noise as two of its other legs grabbed the door and ripped it off the car.

         “Noooooo!” Ben screamed, as he realized he was done for.

         He was grabbed up by two of the creature’s legs and thrown out of his car a few feet away. His back landed on a sharp rock and he cried out in pain. He rolled onto his belly and reached for his spine. Then the creature came upon him and picked him up by its two front legs. It lifted him up into the air and stared at him with its crimson, bubbling eyes. The two legs behind the front ones took Ben and brought him over the top of its main body.

         Ben was squirming like a doomed worm that was about to be eaten. He saw the hideous mouth open up on top of its black, oval-shaped body. “OH GOD, NO!” he screamed, looking down into the creature’s horrible mouth. There were hundreds of six-inch long, razor-sharp teeth on the edges of its oval-shaped mouth. Its fetid breath circled the air around Ben. Then it put his writhing body into its mouth headfirst and began to munch on him. It made sickly gooey sounds as it ate him. Then, after it was satisfied with a good meal, the creature moved on into the dark in search for more prey, and Ben’s car was left running by the gate.