It was fucking freaky, let me tell you.  I’m not one to just blurt out my fears, but I have to admit that there was something odd about the whole thing.  It was like something out of a scary movie; the rain, the lightning, the wind, the glass, thunder, blood, all of that shit made my heart pound.  Even the sound of the rain banging against the crumpled car got me weirded out.  I reached out and grabbed his neck, and there was nothing.  I didn’t feel a god damned thing but cold skin.  I even shook him a little bit just to see if it did anything, and again, zilch.  This guy must have really slammed the windshield hard; his head was like a split like a ripe cantaloupe.  I could see Sally out of the corner of my eye as she bent down to kneel over the body, and I saw her reaching down toward its throat.  I yelled in her direction to let her know that the guy in the car was burnt toast, but a tumble of thunder decided that it wanted to scream louder.  She started to stand up; she was shaking her head because I guess she didn’t feel a pulse, so she turned and started to make her way back to the truck.

I took a look back into the guy’s car to see if I could get an ID from his wallet before I radioed for help.  I’d wanted to be able to tell the cops this poor guy’s name; it seemed like it would be the right thing to do.  As I reached down for the guy’s pocket, I saw a little flash of movement out of the corner of my eye, and that’s when I heard the scream.  One of those startled shrieks that you can hear from a mile away, even in a storm like that one.  The kind of scream that just oozes fear and makes the hair on your arms stand at attention.  My head darted around and I saw that the body in the road started moving, and the damned thing was grabbing for Sally; he, she, or it was reaching and pawing at her, and was going for her ankles as she tried to talk at it and check for wounds.  From the looks of things after we first pulled up, we both just figured the thing was dead…the guy in the car saw to that when he slammed into it and sent it flying.  Either way, now it looked like the thing was alive, so I figured the best thing to do would be to try to keep it alive, radio for help, and wait there until the cops showed up.  At any rate, I opened the passenger door of the truck and grabbed for the bat that I kept between the seats; I always felt more comfortable with a little backup.  I’ve seen some crazy shit on the road over the years.