Malice

I know, it’s strange. But that’s how it goes. It never ends. I’m sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. I don’t know where to start… ok. I was driving. Yes, I was driving down a road, that road. God, I hate that road. I apologize again. This must all be extremely confusing. Okay, I was driving, and it was raining. I remember the rain mostly because the drops were the size of small poodles. Visibility was almost nonexistent, so much so that it was a wonder I ever saw the sign. Malice, Population: 100. What a name for a town, huh? I didn’t think much of it at the time. I was too busy trying to avoid careening of the road into the dark, imposing ditches on either side of the road. I do remember thinking that the sign had to be wrong. If there were a hundred people living in the area, they must have all been homeless, because all I could see was that one farmhouse and the diner with a covered parking lot that I pulled my stuttering, soaked, fifteen year-old Ford into. I remember how cold it was when I stepped out of the car, the eerie silence so deep that it seemed to take precedence over the pounding rain.
I walked up to the front door slowly, the ambiance getting to me. I was never normally a frightened man. I mean, I’m not the biggest guy I know, but I could handle myself if I have to. But for some reason, that night, I couldn’t bring myself out of the frightened child state. It was almost like something in my body was telling me that I needed to leave as fast as I could, but my ego wouldn’t let me. I ended up entering the diner timidly, only to be surprised by the appearance of… nobody. The place was absolutely empty, which for some reason dropped my ego’s resistance down to a minimum and made me want to turn around and run back to my car. But I didn’t. I should’ve, but I didn’t. My ego had given up, but curiosity had taken its place. I approached the counter where the cash register stood and rang the dinner bell. I almost didn’t hear the noise over the echoing ring. It wouldn’t have mattered anyways. The man was quick, and so was his knife. I felt it slide into my back, piercing my kidney’s and my intestines before sliding out of my belly button. I felt all of this in much the same way a onlooker feels it when someone in the distance gets hit by a car. They feel it, but they don’t really feel it. I remember looking down at the knife in astonishment, turning to face my attacker. I almost wished I hadn’t once I did.
The man was decrepit to say the least, yet slightly familiar. He seemed to be a bit on the elderly side, though he was well-built, with a wickedly evil smile accentuated by the appearance of only two teeth where there should have been a dozen. I don’t remember much else about him except that he didn’t say a word as I slid to the floor, closed my eyes and succumbed to the deepest darkness I’ve ever known. Now, you may think this is the end. Noooo, in fact this is only the beginning. A story with such an ending as this would be nothing more than a normal headline on the six o’clock news in today’s world. Nope, it gets much stranger because you see, I woke up.
Yup, I woke up. And I wasn’t in the diner anymore.
No, the diner had disappeared, as well as the old man without a dentist. In fact, I was back in my truck. Not just back in it, driving it, and not just driving, driving towards a sign. Déjà vu is probably one of the most awkward feelings a human can feel. For a few seconds, life unravels and things don’t seem to be clear-cut anymore. This bout of the French phrase lasted a lot more than a couple of seconds though. As I drove through the pouring rain, trying to keep my Ford steady, I read with complete and utter dread the name of the town. Malice. I was inexplicably drawn to proceed with events as planned, parking my car in the covered parking space and walking into the diner. This time, I watched my back. Though I believed I had fallen asleep at the wheel and dreamt of the old man with two teeth, the fact that the diner I stood in at that moment and the one from my dream were identical made me want to be as cautious as possible. Instead of walking up and ringing the bell as I did in my dream, I decided to search the place. I walked around the counter, approaching the huge pizza oven. It wasn’t until then that I noticed the smell of something cooking. I slowly opened the oven door, and was equally amazed and disgusted at what I uncovered. Inside the oven were eight human heads. That was the disgusting part. What amazed me however, and invoked a spirit of fear into my soul that I had never before encountered, was the fact that each head was the splitting image of me. Even the whoosh of the knife couldn’t bring me out of the transfixed spell that seeing my lifeless heads had put me in. A hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me around after another hand had twisted the knife in my stomach. I turned and came face to face with the decrepit old man, only he didn’t look so decrepit or elderly anymore. In fact, as he smiled and revealed four teeth, I recognized the eyes, the shape of the mouth, and the hair. Sliding down the oven onto the floor, I stared up at the grinning face of myself, minus a few teeth, and sank into my own confusion for a second before sinking into the darkness.
I awoke in awe. The rain had not subsided, and neither had my fear. The sign was much closer now than it had been last time. I noticed things then. Things I hadn’t noticed before, like the empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. I looked down and noticed that a large part of my small intestine was laying in my lap. I glanced in the rearview mirror and stared at the decrepit old man that was me. I looked up at the heavens and saw the clouds were a shade of red I had never seen anywhere but coming from the human body. All these things I noticed and all I accepted because I had no choice. I drove because I had no choice, kept the car steady on the blood-soaked road because I had no choice. Yet as I approached the sign, I felt I had a choice. I chose to glance over at the reddish-brown street sign with more white letters than I had managed to notice earlier. Funny, you would think that I’d have recognized something so strange. Malice, Hell Population: 101.
I could have sworn the population had been a hundred. I know, it’s strange. But that’s how it goes. It never ends.