Estimated reading time — 15 minutes

As a kid, it took everything I had not to paint the inside of my family’s car with a wave of vomit. My carsickness was the bane of our long road trips. We tried dozens of tricks to minimize the Jackson Pollocks I created on our car windows. Books, movies, counting, songs, medications, those stupid-looking glasses with the air bubbles all over the place. None of it seemed to work.

That was until I went on a ride with one of my friends to soccer. I was feeling queasy when I looked over and saw him pressed against the window, one finger bouncing up and down along the glass, leaving a perpetual trail of fog in its wake.

“What are you doing?” I asked, swallowing the acrid bile at the back of my throat.

He looked back at me. “Racing,” he said as if it was a stupid question.

“Who?”

“My friend.”

“That’s dumb.”

He shrugged and turned back to his window.

Feeling my insides twist, I blurted out, “Where is your friend?”

He pointed to the blur of countryside whizzing by. “It’s not like an imaginary friend,” he explained. “It’s more like a player in a video game that I jump over trees and mailboxes when they fly past. I make him do flips and dodge other cars and whatever. It’s kinda fun when you’re on boring car rides. It distracts me.”

I scoffed at first, but the way he explained it actually made it seem pretty cool. Turning back to my own window, I looked over the rolling ditches and fields and buildings flying by. My head began to ache and the trees rushing by overhead constantly stole my line of sight before snapping back with dizzying results.

Without thinking, I imprinted a shadow on the trees, just passing by at first but then starting to gain momentum. I imagined him stumbling, tripping a couple of times, before finding his feet, and dodging a car just in the nick of time. He vaulted over a mailbox, leapt onto a tree branch, and launched himself through the canopy of green before landing beside a deer that calmly stepped into the woods. From there he clambered over fences, down into ditches, swung from power lines, and did anything else I wanted.

It wasn’t until I got to soccer practice that I realized I hadn’t felt a modicum of queasiness.

I laughed and looked for my shadow friend. In my mind, he came to a halt against the fence lining the field and disappeared.

I turned to say something to my friend, but he was already getting out of the car.

My parents were overjoyed to hear I’d cured my carsickness. Even if it was a slightly unconventional solution, the distraction of my stick figure shadow guy, who I would eventually start to refer to as “The Runner,” kept my mind and thoughts occupied.

It’s hard to describe exactly what he looked like the same way it’s hard to describe how someone you make up in a dream might appear. You can explain them in as much detail as you want to others, but they’ll always have a slightly different idea of how you see them.

The Runner was essentially just a black imprint upon the passing world. I’m a tad embarrassed to say that from the moment I conjured him up to the moment he ruined my life, he always had the same appearance: that of a simplistic stickman reminiscent of those early internet animations people made of a stick figure kicking the asses of a bunch of other stick figures. Back then, I guess I found it the easiest way to have him do all those cool things running alongside my car.

As I grew older, I just stuck with that image. Always darker than whatever surrounded him. Even at night, by the glow of the moon or the din of my car’s headlights, I could still make him out sprinting effortlessly along the passing world. His composition would shift depending on how I felt. If I was relaxed and in a good mood, The Runner took on a more fluid aspect. He’d still have his stick figure outline, but his movements would become smoother, loping along and pirouetting over obstacles with ease. If I was distracted, he’d glitch and teleport through obstacles at random. Just doing whatever he needed to keep up.

I remember the first time I was angry at something during a car ride. It was maybe two months since I’d started imagining him. I’d gotten into a fight over something stupid with my mom and decided to give her the silent treatment. At this point, The Runner had become a knee-jerk reaction as soon as I looked out the window. Sometimes I felt as though he was already there before I looked.

This time, as my mom drove down a small two-lane road, The Runner ran like a machine. It reminded me of the chase scene in Terminator 2, where that cop runs after the kid and everything about his gait is mechanical. The Runner sprinted like that, his arms chugging back and forth at right angles, legs powering over fence posts and along barbed wire fences with no flair to his movements at all. No flips or dodging. He ran angry. Something in my mind tightened, and I pushed my face harder against the glass, willing The Runner to run faster. My anger, irrational as it was over the stupid fight I’d had, surged over me.

The Runner suddenly tripped. Being that he was a figment of my imagination, I didn’t allow him to get up. He staggered, bouncing off the fence posts, dragging along the gravel, grit scouring the darkness bleeding off of his form.

I clenched my hand, briefly reveling in the control I had over him. I could do whatever I wanted with him.

The feeling only lasted for a moment. Like when any kid oversteps their boundaries and realizes they’ve hurt something, I instantly felt a rush of guilt. I imagined The Runner getting up and continuing to lope along, but he didn’t immediately do as I bid. He crawled and stumbled along the blurring countryside for more than a mile before finally resuming his usual gait.

By that point, the anger had bled out of me. Guilt still bubbled in the back of my mind, but also relief. That feeling when you’re able to get your younger sibling to shut the fuck up after you hurt them and you want them to keep quiet and they agree. You promise you’ll never do something like that to them again.

I swore to The Runner I would never do that to him again.

Of course, as with all such promises, they never last.

*****

As I grew older, The Runner never really left me. He remained my guaranteed, tried-and-true method for not seeing partially digested chunks of meals splattered across valuable leather upholstery. Anytime I was in the car, I’d lean my head against the window, and there he’d be, a stick figure cut out against the world, drawing my focus to him and the blur of the world passing by.

Other solutions did come about, though. Namely, a new medication for car sickness that my mom convinced me to try when I was just entering high school. She knew about The Runner, of course. My parents and siblings all did. Though they treated it more like a mental exercise.

The drug was some new pill that helped people who suffered from motion sickness balance that part of their brain. When I first tried it, I was pleasantly surprised to discover it actually worked quite well. I could turn away from the window for longer spells during car rides and focus more on what everyone was talking about without my insides revolting.

There were some drawbacks to this drug, however. Namely, it affected my state of mind. Those moments where I felt angry and sought comfort in exacting control over others came about more frequently. I began to put The Runner through increasingly brutal trials.

Driving down the highway to somewhere I didn’t want to go became a game of dodge the semi-trucks coming the other way. Though The Runner could duck or vault over them, sometimes he’d slam against one and be dragged along the concrete. Trips through forests might just as likely be to see how many branches could lacerate the darkness off The Runner as they were to see if he could jump from trunk to trunk at great speeds.

The point where I truly fucked up was when I turned fifteen. I was learning how to drive in my mom’s car, and she’d taken me to some backwoods road in the middle of bumfuck nowhere so I wouldn’t have to worry about other drivers. For the better part of a year, part of me had been wondering how The Runner would materialize when I had to be the one behind the wheel.

The moment my ass hit the driver’s seat, The Runner formed off to my left, black as a tear in time and space, loitering on the edge of my vision. If I turned my head, he’d come into clearer focus; otherwise, he lurked in that area where you know something’s there but can’t quite tell what.

With gentle encouragement from my mom, I turned the ignition on, checked all of my mirrors, lowered the gear shift into drive, and applied tentative pressure on the gas. The car’s engine rumbled as it glided forward.

Beside me, The Runner began to jog along. He didn’t perform any acrobatics. Just chugged along like a marathon runner.

My mom offered words of encouragement as I turned the wheel into a slow arc to go around a curve. I was doing about ten under the speed limit, but she didn’t mind. Alongside me, The Runner kept up effortlessly, his tarry, black limbs and thin body bouncing up and down in a familiar rhythm.

Feeling more confident, I went a bit faster. I noted the quickening of The Runner’s limbs in my periphery and kept my attention glued to the road. My mom kept giving me words of encouragement, though the death grip she had on the Oh-Shit handle above her door made me doubt her confidence.

I was beginning to believe this might not be so bad. I continued on for another five minutes, following the path of the road through the trees, nodding at my mom’s suggestions, and finding that I was actually enjoying myself.

I’m not sure what initially indicated something was wrong: the sudden flexing in my mom’s arms as her eyes widened, the flurry of movement in the grass off to my right, or the fact that The Runner seemed to peel away from the trees on my left and come running towards the road.

In an instant, that flurry of movement in the grass on my right became a frenzy of brown and white as a rabbit spooked out onto the road directly in front of me. My mom opened her mouth to say, “Rabbit!” as though that wasn’t painfully obvious. I squeezed the steering wheel in a mixture of terror and exhilaration, already priming myself to hit the brakes as the stupid animal zigzagged along the pavement. The Runner closed in from the left, its gait never faltering as the rabbit played chicken with my tires.

WHUMP!

It was all over. The poor rabbit went spinning end over end just below the left corner of the car, my mom let out a sound like a frog being stepped on, and I finally rolled to a stop.

The Runner disappeared into the shadows of the trees.

Stepping out of the car, I ignored my mom’s calls to get back in.

Instead, I went over to the side of the road to where the rabbit had disappeared down the small grassy embankment. I saw its little form lying there in the grass, partially submerged in a small puddle, bright red blood mingling with the brown water.

Wordlessly, I turned around and went back to the car. My mom told me I’d done the right thing by not veering away to avoid it. She told me not to feel guilty or worry, which, honestly, I didn’t.

Not in the least.

Because I knew I hadn’t hit that rabbit. The Runner had.

I’d seen the rabbit bolt clear of the car’s tires. There’d been an instant where I’d seen it run clear on the left side of the car, directly into the Runner’s path.

And two, the rabbit’s mangled body, twitching down in the puddle, had been perfectly bisected. Its muscles, bones, and organs were all sliced clean through as if by a surgical saw, finer than any butcher could ever wish.

I never knew of any roadkill that ended up like that.

*****

I steadily learned to accept the implications of that day as I grew and moved through high school and into college. The Runner, or whatever being I’d conjured up that day on the way to soccer practice was, to some degree, real.

I never told anyone about it because what the fuck would they say? They’d advise therapy or medications or both, and I didn’t want any of that.

Besides, The Runner wasn’t all that bad. He still followed me on my drives like a faithful dog. Sometimes, if I was a passenger, I resorted to the old games I played with him as a kid. Sent him jumping over trees and power lines, dodging trucks and cars, turning the world into a little side-scrolling video game with my nostalgia.

But I couldn’t deny that he unnerved me. Ever since that day with the rabbit, I realized that I wasn’t entirely in control. He’d gained some degree of autonomy over his existence. How far that degree extended, I wasn’t sure.

I knew that it was growing, though.

Sometimes I wouldn’t be able to control what he did or where he went. Especially when I was in an angrier headspace. My desire for him to trip and fall and be dragged along, slamming into trees and mailboxes, almost never worked anymore. He’d instead resort to a default jog, running along like the Terminator 2 cop. On occasion, I’d swear I’d see him clip something—a fence, a telephone pole, a bush, or whatever—and a small chunk of it would go flying off into the air.

My fear of him continued to worsen, and as it did, my control continued to slip.

I think my biggest mistake was moving to an isolated town after college. The job market was shit, and I accepted the position after going through hundreds of applications, dozens of first-round interviews, handfuls of second rounds, and a couple of “fuck you, we thought you might be the right fit but you just aren’t” third rounds. When an acceptance email actually came through, I almost broke down into tears.

Within a week, I was packed up and high-tailing it down the single, two-lane highway toward my first proper job.

I was so excited, I didn’t even mind The Runner booking it along the ditch that ran alongside the road or the odd side-view mirror it sheared off along the way.

Upon arrival, I settled into my new apartment, new job, and new life.

Looking back on it now, I should have chosen a place that wasn’t so mind-numbingly boring. The first couple weeks weren’t that bad. I made a couple of friends, got to know the two dive bars pretty well, made note of the attractions worth driving a couple of hours to and the ones that weren’t, did my job, and coped with The Runner.

But the monotony slowly sanded away the edges of my life—the small quirks and spontaneities that keep things from becoming too dull. My routine became such that I didn’t even realize the oppressive nature of its presence weighing down on my mind like a tumor until months later. I woke up in the same bed, saw the same bland fucking living room, and went down the same cold brick steps to the same shitbox car to drive to the same ugly office building while The Runner, glistening like tar, jogged along beside me. At this point, the boredom and The Runner’s existence seemed to blur together.

I began frequenting the bars more often. I’d drunk plenty in college but stayed within walking distance of my dorm. Now, I was discovering it actually wasn’t all that hard to operate a vehicle while buzzed. Hell, with my confidence, I could handle those country roads like a champ.

My buddy, The Runner, ran alongside me as I drove. He even started doing cool stuff again, dodging passing cars and flipping over fences.

For a couple months, I actually found myself enjoying my miserable little existence in that town. I’d clock out of work and head straight for the bar, then drive home pretty hammered and collapse into bed to wake up with a wicked hangover the next morning. No one at work really seemed to care so long as I got my shit done.

And The Runner was always there, right alongside me. Encouraging me into a fate worse than anything I could ever imagine.

It was a holiday. Some of my coworkers were throwing a party at their place, and I readily accepted their invitation.

They didn’t live far. Fifteen minutes from my place, a little ways back in the woods.

I went home and changed before immediately turning around to head back out. I turned on a podcast to listen to as I drove. The forest surrounding the town became dense pretty quickly, with my headlights and the moon overhead providing the only sources of illumination. A herd of deer scattered up an embankment as I rounded a corner.

On my left, The Runner kept an easy pace with me, his slender frame a void in the evening air. He didn’t move with the same upbeat style he had in the months prior, but I didn’t really take notice. Together, we wound our way toward the cabin where my coworkers awaited.

The ensuing party proved to be exactly what I was hoping for. Free alcohol to numb my ever-growing sense of boredom and insignificance in the world. I laughed and joked with them like we were old friends, sharing personal stories from my childhood, including my car sickness. It turned out that quite a few of them also had similar imaginings of figures or characters running alongside their cars as kids. One said they imagined Mario jumping around imaginary levels; another imagined one of those parkour guys that was just becoming popular when he was a kid. They all showcased many of the same qualities.

I didn’t mention that I still saw The Runner to this day.

By the early morning hours, the party began to die down. I looked at the clock and saw it was almost five in the morning. The hosts said I could sleep there, but I wanted to get home. I wasn’t too drunk, and it would be nice to nurse the sledgehammer that would be skull-fucking me the next morning in my own bed.

After saying my goodbyes, I descended the steps to the driveway and slid into my car. Immediately, the podcast I’d been listening to came on in full force, clawing at my ears. One of the two hosts was going on and on about some dog they’d had as a kid getting shot, and the other was laughing about it.

“Shut the fuck up,” I muttered, punching the mute button.

The car rumbled to life with the turn of the key and I flicked on the headlights. Overhead, the sky was just beginning to lose that velvety blue sheen of true dark in favor of the hints of morning sky.

Gravel crunched under my wheels as I pulled out onto the road.

On the left, The Runner took his spot against the trees, his form slipping along tree trunks and under gently swaying canopies. I paid him little heed as my brain thudded in my skull.

I began to pick up speed, and The Runner gracefully loped alongside me, dodging deadfall and skimming across the scummy water gathered in the ditch.

It was perhaps five minutes into the drive when a subtle Thum! Thum! Thum! made itself audible over the rumble of my car’s engine. At first I thought it was my head pounding from the alcohol. But I soon realized it came from beyond the car window, off to my left.

Thum! Thum! Thum!

My mouth went dry as I coincided the thumps with the steps of The Runner. He bounded along as always, but suddenly I realized I could hear him. I’d never been able to hear him before. Ever.

His oil-pitch legs swung through the air, heedless of the vegetation underneath. I became aware of a different sound. A gentle whistling, like air parting around a hard, metallic surface.

That was The Runner as well. Slicing through the night as effortlessly as a ship’s prow through the water.

My heart sped up in my chest, and so too did the thumps.

Thum! Thum! Thum! Thum!

I glanced over at The Runner. Had he gotten closer?

He was moving faster. I was moving faster.

Subconsciously, I’d pushed the gas down further, and the car was accelerating through the forest at twice the speed limit.

Thum! Thum! Thum! Thum! THUM!

The Runner was racing along through the veil of blurred tree trunks and swaying canopy, his outline a perfect void that seemed to draw me in.

I squeezed the steering wheel and tried to slow down. I couldn’t.

I heard the thumps again, but up and off to the right this time.

A white pennant in the moonlight, graceful legs darting under the quietly brightening sky.

Deer. A herd of them, crossing the road up ahead.

THUMTHUMTHUMTHUMTHUMTHUM!

From the corner of my eye, The Runner accelerated. Overtaking me for the first time in living memory, tearing himself free of my reality. He raced toward the deer.

The final one, a magnificent buck with branching antlers, leapt into the middle of the road and became pinned by the twin moons of my headlights.

The barest sliver of blackness slipped into my vision, cutting a path at odds with the buck.

THUMTHUMTHUMTHUMTHUM!

The buck’s back half went pinwheeling into the woods whilst its front half spun end over end directly at me. All I remember after was the sound of shattering glass, the roar of my engine, a twisting, spinning world, and an ear-shattering crash.

I came around lying in the middle of the grassy verge along the side of the road. I couldn’t believe it. Looking at my arms and legs, there wasn’t a single scratch on me. No tears in my clothes. My head didn’t even ache from the alcohol.

Turning away from the road, I saw my car twenty feet further down the embankment, where it had slammed head-on into a tree, completely crumpling the hood. One of the headlights traced the outline of the buck still lodged in the windshield. As I drew closer, I saw its perfectly bisected insides. They were still pumping. Deep red organs contracted and throbbed against sticky pink tissue, a yellow layer of fat glistened under bristling brown fur, and the white gape of bone at the spine was cushioned by flexing muscles as the perfect plane of buck entrails twitched in the night air.

I marveled at the sight and ran a finger along the buck’s spine up to its head, where I saw its muscular neck thrust violently into the windshield of my car.

There, my blood froze.

Sitting in the driver’s seat, punctured through the chest, neck, groin, and face by a twisting storm of antlers, was me. I was gaping up at the ceiling of the car, an antler plunging up through my esophagus and out of my mouth, dripping blood down into my lap. More blood poured through the various ruptures in my torso where gleaming antlers pierced my body and bulged against my flesh, staining my clothes and seat in black ichor.

I heard a soft whistle behind me.

Turning back, I caught a glimpse of The Runner standing up on the embankment, that ethereal void that was its head seeming to stare directly at me.

Headlights from a car poured into the clearing, blinding me.

Suddenly, I was yanked by some incredible force into the air at great speed. I screamed, but no sound came out as I twisted end over end in the sky. Branches whipped past my face, each one stinging with the pain of a knife serrating my flesh as I crashed through the foliage. My legs and arms shattered into a pulp wherever they made contact with a tree, my organs exploded and sloshed in the fleshy bag that was my skin as I careened into the ground, my clothes tore away and my flesh sloughed off as I was dragged, screaming without sound, across the rough gravel. I felt it peel away my lips and nose, sandpapering my forehead to expose the bone underneath, dragging my teeth into the asphalt as they ground down to bleeding nubs between my flayed cheeks and flopping tongue. I was being unmade in the most heinous way possible. Flayed and broken, shattered and reformed, pulverized and reknit by some invisible, sadistic entity.

After a mile or so, I started to understand. To realize what was being done to me. My face eventually reformed, and my shattered limbs, with their shards of bone gouging into the muscles of my arms and legs, slowly fused together.

I was finding my balance now. The pain still lingered, but so did the invisible pull before me.

I staggered as the road raced along under my feet, seeming to travel by at incredible speeds.

Looking over, I saw the car. I saw the child within, their face pressed up against the window, one finger bouncing up and down, leaving a trail of fog in its wake.

First I stumbled, then I began to run.

Credit: Hayden Dalby