THE PASSING

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He exited his beat-up nineteen-ninety Ford Mustang and leaned on its rusting exterior. He fingered a cigarette from the carton and lit it with a Zippo lighter.

As he smoked, the fog wavered up from the forest and onto the road and onto the Passenger. It was rolling in thickly, like a blanketed cloud captured in essence within the night. Smoke spilled from the Passenger’s maw, and he blew it out and then threw the cigarette away. It was barely smoked. The man seemed not to care. He was shaking when he left the car, and his tremors worsened as he gazed off into the forest.

The forest . . . It had visitors inside of it. Its womb was full of insectile things crawling around its mossy regions, in hidden places, and taking refuge under countless leaves, no doubt hiding from civilization.

The passenger re-entered his car and locked the door. He sighed. His hands were shaking. The Passenger cried for seven minutes, wiped his face with his shirt, put his key in his ignition, and ignited the engine. The engine started and hummed and revved when the Passenger put his foot to the accelerator and changed gears.

He first passed a suburban stretch of trimmed, wilted hedges and painted doors. There was no one in sight. The noise was caught in a vacuum high in the dark, clouded sky, suctioning any sound from the environment, apart from the engine’s inner workings.

After the houses came general stores and gas stations, namely Big Will’s and Dollar Calls It and Nation’s Favorite and Weston Convenience Store and Hail State Service. And then Blinko’s. The Passenger stopped at the Blinko’s and left the comfort of his Mustang. Beside the Passenger was a CZ Model 527 hunting rifle. Engraved on the stock was a message that read, “He who walks through fire, receives glory.” He took it with him.

He pulled the bolt back to confirm that the .223 Remington cartridge was in the chamber. It was. Only one.

He slung the rifle over his shoulder and walked.

The bathroom was cold and lonely. The mirrors by the filth-ridden sinks were blurred with a layer of ice. The Passenger wiped a patch away with his palm, leaving his hand wet. He tried to look into the mirror, but it was still fogged.

One of the bathroom stalls erupted. The door shook from tremendous internal pressure. The Passenger unslung the rifle and dropped it. It slid across the floor, and then he slipped too. He tried to balance, but there was nothing to hold. He fell against what should have been the sink, but it was no longer there. Instead, he dropped onto a colder surface, then into a much colder liquid.

Inside an office building, the Passenger held his rifle, steadfast. The man in the tie in front of him was extinguished with the single cartridge. The Passenger left the man. He felt his head, but there was no bump. Beneath his feet were neon-lit bodies in darkness. They had all been shot. The cartridge shells lay next to them, like small, opened, dead, and wingless golden pixies. Outside, a gigantic beast flew in the distance, less like a dragon and more like a Boeing 717 with flesh and muscle fibers integument with the wings. Closer and closer it travelled, until it was here and tearing through the glass and the steelwork.

Outside of the gas station, he stumbled with cold water across his face. He still had no bump atop his head.

He had entered with a cartridge in his rifle, but now it was empty.

The Passenger cried.

The Passenger entered the Mustang.

The Passenger was unfit for this world.

He checked the map. He was on North Avn. He squinted at the direction he was going, screwed the map up, and tossed it into the passenger side footwell.

He checked under his seat and pulled a bottle of something out. He drank.

The Passenger approached an uphill incline—its existence was monumental. He started driving, changing gears as he went. When he reached the top, the waterfall took him down steeply, again, to somewhere else.

He no longer clutched the wheel; instead, he clutched a pillow. There was no sunlight. There was no moonlight. All had been removed and replaced with ash and petrification and hollowness.

He pulled the pillow back to reveal an infant’s face, purpled and putrid. The Passenger did not cry. Vacant eyes stared upon the scene and upon the world and upon the universe.

The front bumper was damaged.

The rust covering the car spread, tinting orange and red.

The Passenger was drowsy. The car swerved from side to side, and the wheels began to clog from the arch to the rim. It was no longer a cold night, but a scorching day beneath the sun and above a sandy desert.

The car halted. The engine revved and blew until black smoke bellowed from the hood.

The Passenger stepped out and began to walk. He removed his clothing until he was wearing naught but a shirt and pants.

As he travelled, his skin seeped droplets of sweat from the pores, like pus from sores, or honey from a honeycomb.

When he could walk no longer he fell into the hotness. The smell of cooked meat emanated from him. When he pulled his head up, the hand in front of him circled with the index finger, as if casting a mystic spell. The person behind said hand was invisible, or the hand was disembodied from its person. The hand flowed and bobbed and finally picked the Passenger up and carried him.

Overhead, he soared like a great eagle, or a hanged corpse to be paraded for all to see and mock.

The Passenger was then dropped from his flight, falling into a sandy sinkhole within the earth, swallowing him and bringing him out the other side into another place.

He was done with the woman. She had been used up and beaten within an inch of her life. He didn’t want to remove the bag covering her face, because then he thought that if he did, the act would become real and he would no longer hold any humanity within his heart and soul, so instead he held the knife and held it sideways and pulled her head up, but then the men with him were unsatisfied with this, so they made him slice her from vagina to collarbone and stop there. She was still breathing, but they were satisfied, so they let him finish.

His car was crashed and smoking. The trunk was open, and inside:

Such a fun hobby to have, and a stack of papers, splayed out like that, so unorganized and so, so naughty. They thought you were a freak for this, and they were right because this is all you have and this is all you’ll be, and what you did, oh what you didn’t do was so horrible, so awful that you just had to spoil it all, didn’t you? You had it all, a nice job and a nice family, but you’re just so damn guilty all the time that you can’t enjoy anything because of what happens after. It would all be so simple if you just did it, and all your problems would go away if you just did it like a commercial for TV that you can’t forget because the slogan is just so catchy.

Welcome to your life. We have never ever been happier to see you.

P.S. You did nothing wrong.

The house was in front of him. His house. Yet, the more it stayed in the town, the more it looked like all the others.

He entered and emptied his pockets. Three quarters, a paperclip, and an empty syringe fell to the hardwood floor. The noise echoed and the house coughed.

The Passenger raised his hands. They were covered in dirt. He was covered in dirt. A priest stood in front of him. The priest raised a belt and struck the Passenger again and again, and read from a bible. He dipped his hand into water and spread his thumb across the Passenger and smiled and kissed him with saliva. It wasn’t a priest, though. It was a . . .

The Passenger went upstairs and went into his childhood bedroom. Baseball cards were stacked on his shelf and posters littered his walls and the wallpaper peeled in long strips like rotting flower petals.

He pulled at the strips and moaned.

He removed his clothing. The material came off and he shed it like a mothskin. He could have kept going until he was nothing but bone, but he stood, and he was shivering, and his body was gaunt and his joints clicked as he took his steps toward the bed, and his hair was long and loose and his pubis was overgrown and gardenlike and his testicles were shrunken and receded and the Passenger had never looked so vulnerable and afraid than he did right now, living this. All he knew was that this was not hell.

His small feet slapped on the floor and he reached the bed. He pulled the covers back and saw darkness.

He turned. He placed himself inside and breathed. He pulled the covers across himself and the Passenger slept as the Pilot awoke.