Glowing Red Eyes

"Will you please slow down? It's like you've never driven a car before," Colter barked at his girlfriend Bethany, who was speeding down a wet road on a wooded highway just outside of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. They were coming from a football game, which they had left early because of the rain. Well, Colter was begging to stay, but Bethany was cold and damp and wanted to get home to her cats.

"Calm down, okay? I'm tired and my toes are still frozen and I just want to sit them in front of my space heater for the rest of the night."

She was also annoyed because of Colter's dimwitted friends who would constantly make snarky comments toward her, calling her uptight, always asking Colter why he lets her boss him around. Bethany most certainly was not uptight. She had boundaries with certain things, respecting herself in a way a lot of people wouldn't understand. And she definitely didn't boss Colter around. He wanted to go to an after party with his buddies out by the base of the Silver Bridge, at least what was left of it, and send Bethany home. It was kind of a no brainer that your significant other was supposed to leave with you when they arrive somewhere with you, so she wasn't the happiest of people and picked a fight then and there. Colter was willing enough to drop it all, as long as he could to the after party for one hour. Bethany snapped she wanted to go home and so they left.

"You're not still mad, are you?" She glanced over with a glare and he threw his arms up in frustration. "Shit, Bethany, I don't know what you want me to say. Sorry for enjoying the last of my college days with my friends drinking beer?"

"When you want to go out without me and make it very clear you don't want me there, what do you think goes through my head?" She caught his eye roll in her peripheral but didn't bother to point it out. "You have the rest of your life to drink beer with your friends."

"I told you, life is different when you're in college. When you're done, that's when the student loans kick in and you can kiss your money goodbye."

Bethany ran her tongue along her teeth, frustrated. "You know what? Just go to the party. I don't care anymore. Just don't end up dead in the woods somewhere."

"Is this about Kayla?" She ignored him and tried to concentrate on the road by turning her brights on. Kayla was a girl who had a few classes with Colter. Bethany noticed their mild flirtation the second it started, and slowly watched it become more and more fierce. She even tried to make the moves on him right in front of her at the game, another reason the night turned into a total bust. "When are you going to get over that?"

She whipped her head to the right so hard, the steering wheel jerked with her. "Did you really just ask me that, you--"

That was when something collided with the car with a loud bang. They each let out yelps as whatever it was tumbled over the top of the car. Bethany hit the brakes and the car slid across the wet leaves before coming to a complete stop.

"Oh my God, did I just hit a person?" she exclaimed, trying to catch her breath and was physically shaking.

"It was probably an animal. What kind of person goes walking along this highway at night?" Colter unbuckled and turned the flashlight on his phone on as he climbed out of the car. Bethany followed after him, even though she'd much rather put the pedal to the metal and get out of there. He checked out the front of the vehicle for damage as she rounded it toward the back. She wanted to try to peek at whatever that was that caused their accident.

She raised her phone's light and her jaw nearly dropped to the ground. Lying on the pavement before her was what looked like a man in dark clothing. He was on his side, facing away from her. She stepped closer to ask if he was all right or if he needed an ambulance, when her foot came down on something and it crunched. She looked down and it looked like a shower curtain but it was moving, flopping beneath her weight. The man shifted as if he was trying to get up but couldn't. The object she was standing on ripped out from under her and it sent her straight to the ground.

When she looked up, she screamed. The man was not a man at all, and that wasn't a shower curtain on the ground next to him. It was at least eight feet tall and Bethany couldn't tell if it was gray, brown or even black. What she had stepped on were its wings, which it raised and were fifteen feet wide. Its feet were like claws, and there were leaves stuck to the nails. What really disturbed her were its eyes, glowing, red, like you've never seen red before, and they pierced straight through her. With one flap of its wings, it shot straight into the night sky and disappeared. Colter was running over to her after hearing her scream.

"Hey, hey, what happened? Are you okay?" Bethany was in too much shock to speak. She let him get her to her feet and back into the car.

She didn't say a word for the whole rest of the ride home, not even to convince Colter to stay the whole night. He waited until she fell asleep before he had a friend pick him up to head out to Silver Bridge.

Around four in the morning, Bethany awoke to a faint tapping sound at her window. She stirred and turned toward it, thinking it was a bird or some kind of animal not knowing what it was doing. She had to hold in her scream when she saw the glowing red eyes staring in at her. It raised its hand and its long claw continued-- tap, tap, tap! on the window. She tried to keep as still as she could so it hopefully wouldn't notice she was awake. She kept her eyes on it until eventually, she was unable to keep her them open and dozed off.

The next morning, Bethany woke up thinking it was all a nightmare. She called out for Colter but he didn't answer. She checked her phone but no messages. She dialed his number and waited for him to answer. That was when she heard a familiar ringing sound. Colter's ringtone. She spun around to see where it was in the room and realized it was coming from the window. She walked over to it and pushed it open, where the ringing got louder. Draped outside was the flannel shirt that Colter had been wearing the night before. Inside the pocket was his phone, and the entire shirt was soaked in blood.