There is something there, at the edge of the road. The taillights flicker red, on and off. While they're on, you can see it. A lumbering form, its arms long enough to drag along the asphault. It's head the red light you mistook for someone else's taillights. It's black eyes null but focused on you. Your head swims as the headlights fill your vision. Someone has come.
Places were, Vera realized, impermanent. People talked about them like they were there forever. Old men planted trees whose shade they never saw, the saying went. Families left stores to each other over generations. Homes were hosts to hundreds, lived in for a time and then left to whoever came after. All of it was an illusion. The town was just as mortal as its residents.
He dreamed of himself on top of the word, the king of Helena, Montana, as the creature ripped open the skin of his stomach and pulled out his pieces to scatter them across the burning forest floor.
