Bewildering Stories

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The Man Beneath His Feet

by Eric Z. Fox

The night was endlessly dark. He wondered why the stars appeared so weakly in the Kansas sky yet so bright in Colorado. ‘Only about a hundred miles,’ he thinks to himself. Why he was walking to Colorado was complicated. Lets just say his companions had a falling out. He was a good man and could only stand so much crap that was his companions.

He was thinking of some Metallica song when he heard it. It could have been the wind had to be the wind. But he looked left and the Kansas sky line stretched on infinitely. Skimming the road in front of him he saw only the road. Turning right he notices mile marker 101. ‘Huh,’ he thinks.

Again he hears it. It was his name. Some one was out here and they knew his name. He turned around and still the world stretched for miles beyond his sight. His heart began to pump hard. The sound was almost deafening in his ears but still he heard it.

The voice was awful. It was a hundred demons speaking in unison, and they were chanting his name. He was frozen like some animal in the head beams of some monstrous vehicle bound for hell.

His fingertips were screaming, yet he heard it again, that horror us quire singing his name. He looked towards heaven and for the first time, he realized how unimportant to god we truly are.

Slowly he looked down and noticed that the road was polished glass. Below him a replica of existence stood; and below him was a man a man beneath his feet. The reflected man looked up, or down which ever your perspective maybe, and grinned. Our traveler’s eyes widened to an almost comic size. He tried to run, but already the man beneath his feet had him. He was submerged in the mirror to his shins and god he should have stayed with his friends.

The man beneath his feet pulled him to hell. He could smell the burning of his own flesh and nostril hairs, yet he saw... nothing. He tried to take a breath, but insanely there was no air, as you might expect in hell.

Local newspaper

At infamous mile marker 101 another life was lost: an unidentified man was struck by an 18-wheeler truck. The driver was quoted as saying; "He just appeared in front of me with some other guy." No other man has been identified at this time. Alcohol was not a factor; police are investigating it as a suicide.


Copyright © 2003 by Eric Z Fox