Shoes (Reflections)
This story can be found in my collection Reflections:
Reflections: 15 Twisted Tales by Cj Carlin, Paperback | Barnes & Noble®
There was a single left shoe sitting stranded by the side of the two-lane highway, just a few feet from the asphalt. It was a sneaker, white with day-glow green laces. It could have belonged to anyone. Mace drove past it without much thought, focusing on the road in front of him. It was twilight. The old Nevada highway that would take him to Vegas stretched endlessly into the distance. He could feel the wind, a constant pressure on the side of his truck and the trailer he towed behind him, which was filled with those complimentary hygiene product packets you get at high-end hotels. He had the stereo on, playing some electronic jazz to keep himself awake.
Another left shoe, this one a lady’s red pump. It lay on its
side like a dead animal, the color starting to fade. He glanced at it, then
turned his attention once again to the highway. This was a dangerous road. It
ran straight for miles, with nothing on either side but desert scrubland. You
could get what they called “highway hypnosis” and forget that you were hauling
70,000 pounds of really expensive goods and equipment. Mace owned his rig
outright, after driving for the company for eight years. He loved driving long
haul. He enjoyed the peace and quiet of it. He composed haikus in his head
while he drove, and sometimes even wrote them down.
The next left shoe was close to the fog line, the white
strip on the right side of the highway. It was a black high-heeled shoe with a
strap across the instep. The shoe sat upright, facing the highway. When does a
coincidence become a pattern? Mace wondered. When does the unusual become the
truly weird? And how long will it take to go from weird to creepy? There now
seemed to be something sinister about the shoes. What was it about them? He
resolved to watch for them.
Sure enough, up ahead on the right was another left shoe,
what looked like a baby’s Nike, balanced on the rough line between the highway
and the ditch that ran alongside it. It was pink and purple in the headlights.
The next one came closely after it, a sandal, and this one was almost touching
the fog line. Then there was a long stretch of emptiness, but after a while,
another left shoe appeared right in the middle of the road. Without thinking
about it, Mace slammed on his brakes. He knew he wouldn’t make it, that he
would…what? Run over a damned shoe? Hell, the thing wouldn’t so much as graze
his undercarriage. He let off the brakes, ran right over the loafer, and drove
on, laughing at himself for being spooked by shoes.
Further on, there were two left shoes sitting next to each
other by the center line. One was a step-in sort of shoe, the other was some
kind of ankle boot. As he drove past them, Mace thought he saw one of them move
out of the corner of his eye, but he dismissed it. He saw three more in a
cluster in his lane. He drove right over them.
Then he crested a hill and saw, on the down slope, a crowd
of people standing in the road, across both lanes. One of the people was
holding a baby, and he had time to observe that all of them were missing their
left shoe. He braked, but he knew his stopping distance under these conditions
was about 200 feet and there was no way he could bring the truck to a halt in
time. Mace wrenched the steering wheel to drive the semi into the ditch so he
wouldn’t hit anyone. The big rig, still moving too fast, ran headfirst into the
only tree for miles. Mace was thrown forward and his head impacted the
windshield, breaking the glass and his skull at the same time.
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