The Black Convoy

CW: Self harm, gun violence, gore

The air conditioner had died on Sunday. By Wednesday morning, Travis Vale had begun to suspect the heat was developing a personality. Not intelligence. That would have required purpose. This was something meaner and considerably more primitive, the kind of thing that did not need to understand suffering to enjoy causing it. The heat had gotten into everything. The mattress. The walls. The clothes hanging in his closet. The fucking toilet seat. At 4:00am his bedroom still felt like somebody had parked it inside an oven and forgotten to turn the oven off.

               The repair company could not come until Thursday. Thursday had started to sound less like a day of the week and more like a religious promise.

               Travis lay on top of the sheets wearing nothing but boxer shorts, staring at the ceiling fan as it pushed hot air around the room with tremendous enthusiasm and absolutely no benefit. Sweat had collected beneath his back again. He shifted onto his left side, immediately regretted it when the movement pulled at the healing incision across his abdomen, and rolled onto his back.

               "Fuck."

               The word disappeared into the darkness. His doctor had told him recovery would take time. His body apparently interpreted time as every goddamn minute individually. The windows were open throughout the house because there was nothing else to do. Douglas usually cooled down enough at night to make that worthwhile. Usually.

               Tonight the air coming through the screen smelled like dry grass and hot pavement. Then came the distant growl of a diesel engine. Travis listened.

               Living in Douglas meant living with I-25 whether you thought about it or not. The interstate curved along the western side of town, carrying trucks between Cheyenne and Casper at every hour of the day. Most of the time they blended into the background. Occasionally, late at night when everything else went quiet, you could hear one working its way through the darkness.

               The sound rose.

               Faded.

               Travis closed his eyes. Another truck came. He opened them again. The digital clock beside the bed read 3:13am. He listened until the engine disappeared north. Seventeen seconds later, another came. Travis frowned. He counted without consciously deciding to.

               One Mississippi.

               Two Mississippi.

               Three.

               At 17, the next diesel rolled through the darkness. "What the hell?" He reached for his phone. Another. Seventeen seconds. Another. By the fifth truck, Travis was sitting upright despite the protest from his abdomen. The sixth came 17 seconds later. Then the seventh. Travis waited. Seventeen seconds. Nothing. Thirty. Nothing. One minute. Silence. He looked toward the open window. "Congratulations," he muttered. "You discovered traffic." He lay back down. By morning he had forgotten about it. Mostly.

               The following night was worse. The temperature upstairs had reached 87 degrees before sunset. Travis finally gave up and spent most of the evening downstairs, but his recliner aggravated his incision and the couch was apparently designed by somebody with a personal hatred of human vertebrae. Shortly after 3:00am, he returned to bed.

               At 3:13, the first truck came.

               Travis's eyes opened. "No fucking way." He grabbed his phone and started the stopwatch. The second truck arrived.

               17.02 seconds.

               The third.

               16.98.

               Fourth.

               17.01.

               By the seventh, Travis was standing at the bedroom window. The street outside was empty. Douglas slept beneath the orange glow of scattered streetlights. Somewhere a dog barked once and stopped. He waited for truck eight. It never came.

               Seven.

               Exactly 17 seconds apart.

               Exactly 3:13 in the morning.

               "Okay." He said it quietly. Not frightened. Not yet. Just interested. That was probably his first mistake.

               The third night, Travis was waiting. At 3:12am he sat beside the window with his phone recording. At 3:13am, the first engine growled across the prairie. Then the second. Third. Fourth. Fifth. Sixth. Seventh. Perfect. Travis replayed the recording. Seven distinct engines. He opened the Wyoming road conditions site and checked the traffic cameras along I-25.

               Nothing.

               He refreshed. A northbound car appeared. Then another. No convoy. Travis went back through the camera images as far as the site allowed. Nothing resembling seven semis. He checked a traffic app. No unusual congestion. He checked the clock. 3:27am. "This is stupid." He knew what he was going to do before he said it.

               The following night, Travis parked near the interstate at 3:05am. He had brought coffee, his phone, a flashlight, and the 9mm pistol he kept in his truck. The gun felt ridiculous. Then again, so did sitting beside I-25 at three in the morning waiting for ghost trucks. Douglas glowed behind him. He could see the red aviation lights blinking on distant towers and the pale industrial glow near the edge of town. Everything looked ordinary.

               At 3:13am, headlights appeared to the south. Travis leaned forward. The first semi passed. Black tractor. Black trailer. No company markings. No DOT numbers that he could see. The trailer had one symbol painted near the rear doors.

               I

               Seventeen seconds later, another appeared.

               II

               Travis stopped smiling. The third passed.

               III

               Fourth.

               IV

               Each truck was identical. Not similar. Identical. Same black tractor. Same black trailer. Same impossible absence of reflective tape or company logos. And none of them made the sound he expected up close. They made the sound he had heard from his bedroom. Distant. As though the trucks passing 20 yards away were somehow still miles from him. The fifth passed.

               V

               The sixth.

               VI

               Travis's hand tightened around the steering wheel. The seventh truck approached.

               VII

               As it passed, Travis saw the driver. At least he thought he did. A silhouette behind the glass. Too tall. Its head nearly touched the roof of the cab. Then Truck VII disappeared north. Travis stared after it. Every sensible instinct told him to start the engine, turn around, go home, take something for the pain, and never think about this again. Instead, he turned the key. "Goddammit." He pulled onto I-25.

               Truck VII remained approximately half a mile ahead. Travis accelerated. The distance did not change. Eight miles per hour.

               Eighty-five.

               Ninety.

               The black trailer remained exactly where it had been. Travis eased off. Still half a mile. He looked in the mirror. Douglas was behind him. Then he blinked. Douglas was gone. Not distant. Gone. No lights. No glow. Nothing. Travis immediately hit the brakes. His truck slowed. Truck VII did not. He looked toward the opposite lanes. Empty. Beyond them stretched prairie. Except the grass was black. Not dark green. Not shadowed.

               Black.

               Each blade reflected faint silver light beneath a sky filled with stars Travis had never seen. Two moons hung above the horizon. One white. One red. Travis stopped in the middle of I-25. For several seconds, he simply sat there. Then he whispered: "No." The pavement beneath his headlights looked normal. Yellow line. White line. Reflectors. Everything beyond it belonged somewhere else. His phone had no signal. The clock read:

               3:13am

               It remained 3:13am. Travis looked north. Truck VII had stopped. Half a mile ahead. Waiting. He followed. There was nothing else to do. The first sign appeared several miles later. Green interstate sign. White lettering.

               EXIT 148

               Underneath:

               THE BURIED KING

               Travis drove past. Something enormous moved beneath the black grass beside the highway. He did not stop. The next sign came 20 miles later.

               EXIT 168

               LAST INN BEFORE DEATH

               The problem was I-25 did not have an exit 148 or exit 168 in Wyoming.

               In the distance stood a building illuminated by yellow windows. Dozens of horses were tied outside. At least Travis initially thought they were horses. One lifted its head. It had antlers. And too many legs. "Nope." Travis kept driving. The pain in his abdomen had disappeared. He noticed that sometime after the second moon rose higher. Not diminished. Gone. He touched the incision through his shirt. No tenderness. No swelling. Nothing.

               Ahead, Truck VII continued north. Then Travis saw the first crystal. It stood beside the interstate where a rest area sign should have been. Blue. Perhaps eight feet tall. Light moved inside it like trapped lightning. As Travis passed, words appeared on his dashboard. Not the navigation screen. The dashboard itself. Glowing letters beneath the speedometer.

               RESTORATION POINT

               TOUCH TO RECORD SOUL

               Travis nearly drove off the road. "What the fuck?" The words vanished. He looked in the mirror. The crystal receded behind him. Something stood beside it. A person. Maybe. Armored. Head bowed. Sword planted point-first into the earth. Travis kept going.

               He eventually caught the convoy. Or the convoy allowed him to. Seven black trucks stretched ahead.

               I through VII.

               The interstate narrowed. Mountains rose on both sides where no mountains should have been, their peaks twisted like broken teeth. Then Truck VII's rear doors opened. While moving. Travis saw darkness inside. Something struck the doors from within. The entire trailer rocked. Chains appeared in the opening. Thousands of them. Wrapped around something enormous. An eye opened. Golden. Larger than Travis's truck. It looked directly at him. A voice entered his head.

               FREE ME.

               Travis screamed and jerked the wheel. Truck VII's doors slammed shut. Painted beneath the Roman numeral were words he had not noticed before.

               VESSEL: THAUMIEL

               STATUS: DEFEATED

               Truck VI changed lanes. For several seconds Travis drove beside it. Its markings read:

               VESSEL: THE WIDOW OF STARS

               STATUS: DEFEATED

               Something scraped the inside of the trailer. Truck V:

               VESSEL: KING WITHOUT SKIN

               STATUS: DEFEATED

               Truck IV:

               VESSEL: THE CHILD BENEATH CREATION

               STATUS: DEFEATED

               Travis stopped reading. These were not trucks. Not really. They were cages. And whatever civilization existed beyond the black prairie had somehow discovered the perfect shape for transporting its monsters through his world. Or perhaps his world had copied theirs. Travis no longer knew which possibility frightened him more. Then headlights appeared in his rearview mirror. A semi. Black. Identical. It approached slowly. Travis stared at it. There was a Roman numeral painted across its grille.

               IX

               His mouth went dry. "No." He looked ahead.

               VII

               Behind him.

               IX

               Travis's hands began trembling. "No, no, no." There was only one number between them. The dashboard illuminated.

               CONVOY RESTORED.

               Travis slammed on the brakes. The truck did not slow. He pressed harder. Nothing. The speedometer remained at 87. The steering wheel stopped responding. Ahead, all seven trailers illuminated with faint red symbols. Behind him, Truck IX moved closer. Travis grabbed the door handle. Locked. He punched the window. Nothing. Then words appeared across the windshield.

               VESSEL VIII

               Travis stared. More letters appeared.

               STATUS: AWAKENING

               Something moved inside his abdomen. Travis froze. The sensation came again. Deep beneath the incision. Not pain. Movement. He looked down. The scar across his stomach had begun glowing. Faint red light leaked between the stitches. "No." He pulled up his shirt. Symbols surrounded the incision. Tiny black characters beneath his skin. They had not been there before. Or perhaps they had. Perhaps nobody in Douglas knew how to see them.

               The radio turned on. Static. Then voices. Hundreds. Thousands. All speaking together.

               We found you.

               Travis grabbed the pistol from the center console. He did not know what he intended to shoot. The windshield? Himself? Whatever was beneath his skin?

               Truck VII slowed. The entire convoy slowed with it. Ahead, the interstate ended. Beyond it stood a city. Calling it a city felt inadequate. Black towers rose miles into the sky beneath the twin moons. Bridges connected them at impossible heights. Fires burned along walls stretching from horizon to horizon. And at the center stood a gate. Above the gate were eight statues. Travis could see them despite the distance. Seven were monstrous. The eighth was human. A man. Travis.

               Memories arrived. Not gradually. All at once. He remembered standing on a battlefield beneath the red moon. He remembered armor made from something that screamed when struck. He remembered seven gods kneeling before him. He remembered killing one. Then another. Then another. Not because they were evil. Because they had refused to kneel. He remembered armies fleeing. Cities burning. Children being lifted onto altars. He remembered a name. Not Travis Vale. Something older. Something that had existed before humans learned to bury their dead.

               Vaelkor.

               The Eighth Sovereign. The Last Tyrant. The God Who Chose Flesh. Travis screamed. "I'M NOT HIM!!!"

               The convoy continued toward the gate. The voices answered.

               You chose forgetting.

               Another memory. Vaelkor standing before the seven defeated gods. Knowing rebellion would eventually succeed. Knowing execution would not destroy him. So, he had hidden somewhere no one would search. Inside a mortal life. A human child. Born again and again. Generation after generation. Waiting until the road between worlds reopened. Travis saw birthdays. Christmas mornings. First kisses. Jobs. Friends. Every ordinary moment of his life. And beneath all of them: something sleeping.

               Waiting.

               The incision had not created the wound. The surgery had opened an old one. The pain had weakened whatever kept Vaelkor buried. And the heat. The sleeplessness. The nights listening to the interstate. Those had simply allowed him to hear the convoy coming.

               The gate opened. Millions of figures stood beyond it. Soldiers. Creatures. People. All kneeling. Travis felt something inside him smile. "No." His right hand released the steering wheel. Not voluntarily. It touched the glowing scar. The stitches split. There was no blood. Black light poured from the opening. His reflection appeared in the windshield. For one moment, Travis saw himself. Sweaty. Terrified. Human.

               Then the reflection changed. A crown rested upon his head. Not gold. Bone. Behind him stood something enormous wearing his face. Travis raised the pistol. Pressed it beneath his chin. His finger tightened. Nothing happened. His hand would not obey. The thing inside him laughed. Not aloud. It did not need to. Truck VII entered the gate.

               Then VI.

               V.

               IV.

               III.

               II.

               I.

               Travis's truck followed.

               VIII.

               Behind him came IX.

               As he crossed beneath the gate, the interstate vanished. The pickup vanished. Douglas vanished. For one final instant, Travis smelled dry Wyoming grass through an open bedroom window. Then even that was gone.

               Thursday morning arrived hot and cloudless in Douglas. At 8:17am, the air-conditioning technician pulled into Travis Vale's driveway. He knocked. No answer. The front door was unlocked. Inside, the house was brutally hot. The bedroom windows were open. The ceiling fan turned slowly. Travis's phone rested beside the bed. His truck was gone. Police eventually checked the interstate cameras. At 3:13am, Travis's pickup appeared northbound outside Douglas. Nothing unusual. No black semis. No convoy. Just one pickup traveling alone. Except the dispatcher reviewing the footage noticed something strange.

               For 17 seconds, the camera image distorted.

               When it cleared, Travis's truck was gone. She replayed the footage. Then again. On the fourth viewing she paused the frame immediately before the distortion. Something was visible behind Travis's pickup. Headlights. A black semi. She enlarged the image. There was a symbol painted across its grille.

               IX

               She stared at it for a long time. Then somebody in the dispatch center asked whether she heard something. She removed her headset. At first, nothing. Then, faintly, beyond the open window: a diesel engine.

               Another followed 17 seconds later. Then another. By the seventh, every dog in Douglas was barking. The eighth sound was different. Deeper. Older. Not an engine at all. And somewhere far beneath the interstate, something that had once been a man remembered Wyoming. For just a moment. Then the Eighth Sovereign opened his eyes.