The evening heat glares down at the red Arizona hills. My filthy white mustang screams along the empty desert straight, the wheels throwing up enough dust to choke a camel. Ahead of me is a beautiful orange sunset. Behind me dark turbulent clouds. The storm is chasing me.  But I’m the  only man on the road and more than happy to run from it at divine speeds in my American chariot.
My lit camel shrouds me in delicious rich smoke, hiding the greasy hair, the cracked glasses and the maniacs grin.  Christ knows how long I’ve been driving or even where it is I’m driving to. This is the work of the empty bag of coke sliding around the passenger seat. I’m currently working on the second one, scooping up the white powder with a key and ramming it into my nose as quick as I can. The acid’s long gone but still I see patterns flashing in the nothingness and the quick shot of smack at the hotel room makes the tough leather seat feel like a sinking sofa.  My glove compartment is enough to send me behind bars but there’s no police here, there’s no one. The thought alone makes me start cackling wildly and the storm responds with its own, thunderous laughter.
Most of the adult world would frown on this devils drive but stick any sane man in a meeting for 10 hours straight at some cheap southern hotel . Then offer him and his filing cabinet stuffed with narcotics a drive through the fucking Mojave and see if he dares resist it.
I snort up one more key, slapping the dashboard as its fries my brains. Then crack a beer, slurp away the cool foam and toss it behind me with a clatter.  The contents soaking into the sand briefly before evaporating upwards
                                                                                      *
Perhaps hours have passed but there’s no way for me to know my watch’s long since broken and I haven’t taken my shoe-less foot of the pedal once.  Having become so engrossed with my speed that I swear I’ve become one with the motor.  I do know that 3 packs of camels been smoked since. Realizing this fact my fingers begin twitching for another. I raise my head from the steering wheel and grope all over the glove compartment, only finding the crumpled cartons.
It’s when I look up that I see something, the very first thing that’s not a cactus or a rock. But a tree, it’s branches are leaf-less and withered. It casts a vast shadow that stretches onto the road. Standing in that shadow is a man. At least I think it’s a man, who knows, I can’t trust myself at all. Not at this stage anyway. I bring an empty beer up to my face trying to use it as a telescope but it only turns my vision foamy and green. I smash it against the side of the car and then once again reach for the non-existent camels, curse and with a shout stamp down on the pedal. With a screech we’re off.
*
My brakes slam right next to the hitchhiker. The stop jolts me forward along with the cluttering sound of empty bottles and loose drugs. The dust cloud I’ve built up catches up with the car and smothers me in it. Spitting and thrashing I attempt to shake it off. The hitchhiker hasn’t said a word so far in this debacle, perhaps he’s afraid ? But when I finally do see him it’s me who feels a the fear.
He’s taller than any man should be, seven feet at least. With arms that look broken and stretch down past his knees. Sweats starts pouring down me as my eyes follow them down to his fingers, oh god those fingers. So long, so pale they show all the minute bones yet not a single vein. They’re twitching ever so slightly clacking curled claws against each other.
Calm yourself , I think, you’re just in a very deep well of drugs  right now and you’re probably scaring the man to death. Sort yourself out.
So I do, with a quick dab of emergency speed on my gums I find the courage to look up at his face with a demented grin. I wish I hadn’t because there is no face, just a long bovine skull, dirty and covered in scraps of meat. There’s only blackness in the eyes, like of a deep ocean at night.  I can’t even stutter out a word before he’s clambering into the back-seat. Rocking the car as he slouches down.
“W-w-here, are you headed?” I finally say, my throat drier than the desert around us from the tobacco, dust and mortal panic.
The figure does not speak, only points, it’s finger reaching past my ear, points forward.
We drive.
*
After a while, I began to calm a little. Convincing myself that I’m only tripping is easy if I just don’t glance at him in the rear-view. The trouble is, my tiny panicked eyes can’t seem to do that and every time they do he glares right back at me.  So, I do what I can, I drive. Like some freak-show cab we fly over the pot-hole scarred roat. My hands shake so bad we zig zag off and on the road constantly while my mind flashes in and out of sanity. The passenger doesn’t seem to mind. Christ I think I  even hear him chortle once or twice.
The faster we the go the more intense the journey grows. I grit my teeth against a tornado like wind, my eyes dry from the dust and my dry mouth prickling like a cactus. I feel myself getting heavy, lead flowing through my muscles. My fingers numben, I feel my stomach churn and brown bile forces itself way out of me. The pain doesn’t subside.The whole horizon has turned pure red. I am convinced we are no longer on this earth. While I die against the oceanic pressures on me, my hitchhiker sits calmly, hissing through his skull.
It goes on so long I feel my soul writhe in pain, then, as if it was nothing the red mist clears. We’re  back in the desert. The pressure has morphed into a soft lulling. Everything shifts in front of me, the air feels purple. Yet I’m sober, I know that, this is no hallucination, the pain from the crossing has forced a vicious and unwelcome sobriety upon me.
“Where, are we man” I ask, as casually as if I was riding with a friend
“In ThE PlAcE BeTwEen”
I face forward; its voice is so still and cold like diving into ice.
Just focus on driving forward, that’s all. Just keep the car straight. But that’s becoming increasingly difficult as the earth around us grows soft and shapes being to melt, my eyes can barely stay open against this visual barrage.
*
We pass through a small town; its house’s crooked and haphazardly built from rotting woods. I see a few of its citizens, hellish beasts, stumbling between them. Some have three, someone and some none but there eyes are transfixed on the passenger behind me.
I glance into the mirror but the hitchhiker shakes their head softly, I sigh with relief and stomp on the gas, moving far far away from the monstrosities that shamble after us.
*
I feel days, nights, weeks even pass during the drive. The sun moves down and drenches us in vibrant purple sunsets that give way to silvery moons and silent blue nights. The horizon is flat with no direction but forward.
I reach into my back pocket and pull out a joint. I take one sweet drag and instinctively pass it behind me. Its eye’s widening in amusement it brings the roach to its mouth and blows smoke from its nostrils. I laugh nervously.
*
Three figures appear on the horizon, casting a shadow on us from miles away. The beast points at them with a crooked finger, I nod understanding. This is it, what we’ve driven for. Despite the overwhelming terror I’ve felt from the very start I now curiosity begin to over-ride it.
*
Three other creatures just like the one in the back, stand in front of my. With one step they move and surround the car. I duck my head down in fear, hoping they’ll just let me be, wishing for my bag of speed.  Christ,I cry inside ,I don’t want them to slit my throat. They look at me with minute interest and talk to the passenger.  Their language sounds like the rattling of bones, dry and emotionless. I hear the car door slam and look up to see all four standing together at the side of the road. Their heads are down as they speak in hushed whispers. Something, some white object gets passed between them, ending in the hands of the hitchhiker. My interest piques and I can’t control myself. When they’re not looking I pry my door open and try to move to them.
Before my foot even hits the ground , their heads crack back at me, “StaY in ThE cAR”, they shriek and I leap back into my seat with a yell.
They conclude their business and as the item gets puts away the three visitors point their hands up at the sky, flap them and shoot off like giant bats. The car lurches again and the door closes. Again the finger points forward.
I’m so tired I don’t think I can bear any more of this freakishness, with desperation in my voice I ask,” Where now”
“NoW We Cross Again”
*
The second crossing is far less painful. I grit my teeth against the red mist and take the aches and twinging with no second thought. When I do, the mist parts a little and I begin to see glimmers of other worlds that lie beyond. I see the desert filled with cars, I see some fat troll-like creature sitting on a rock and I see myself dead in a bar. Simply nudging the wheel could throw us into another of these worlds. The choice makes me feel drunk, but as though it read my mind the demon leans forward and whispers.
“Do NOT sTrAy”
The pain increases the further we go, although I was convinced I could take it at the start I find myself reflexively stamping the pedal, begging it to be over. The mist morphs and twists into a bright red theatre curtain, I see a stage. We plow through it, steam-rolling the audience. As they touch the car they begun to explode into red sticky liquid. Like skin balloons filled only with blood.
I look down at my hands, covered in blood. But wait, whose?
*
I feel a sharp twist and the curtain vanishes, it’s my blood. I realize looking down at the steering wheel. I’m dripping with it. Panicking I try to see myself in the rear-view but it’s been completely ripped off. The wind-shields shattered into a million pieces (most of which I feel sticking into me. Plumes of foul black smoke erupt from the engine. Shit, when did I crash into the tree…
That’s when I finally hear the voices that have been yelling at me, “Sir get out of the vehicle, I’m going to shoot mother-fucker”. I become conscious of the red and blue lights lighting up the night ( shit when did the sun go down, I wonder) and even more conscious of the various, revolvers, pistols and shotguns begin stuck in my face.
“All right, all right, you fucking swine”  I yell out, on jello-legs I step out of the car offering no resistance as they pin me against the hood and scream my rights in my ear. A few clamber into the vehicle and whoop boyishly, holding up the empty baggies and bottles. “ Look at this one boys”. Unable to bear this circus-act, I roll my eyes up at the sky, where I see streaking across the pale moon. A long shadowy figure, with unholy long arms and a gleaming white face.
“Ahaha what a fucking ride that was” I yell out loud and swiftly get baton’ed in the ribs.