Last Date

Kenny and Susan had been going out for a few months, mainly going to the movies, when Kenny convinced his brother to loan him the 67 Monterey for Saturday night.

After the show (Tales of the Crypt with Joan Collins, Peter Cushing, Sir Ralph Richardson) and the mandatory burger/milk shake stop, Kenny drove out Speers to the perfect spot for a little “privacy.”

Susan was not enthusiastic: “Where are you taking me?”

“It’s an abandoned farm; I’ve gone partying out there lots of times.” The later remark was a lie, but Kenny knew some guys who claimed to have gone drinking out there; it was the perfect spot for a bush party and for other recreational activities.

Susan was even less impressed when Kenny pulled off the Fourth Line and onto the dirt trail: “Maybe you should take me home.”

“Okay, okay,” Kenny muttered; things were not going as planned. “Let me just show it to you and then we can go, okay?”

Photo: Silo Tree by Alex Ford

Kenny slowly pulled the old Merc into the clearing by the ruins of the silo. A full Blood Moon hung overhead and illuminated the surroundings in vivid detail; the fungous colored walls of the old farm buildings, the sepia waves of the tall, dead, grass, the brooding and surrounding woodlots. Kenny felt an odd sense of expectation and half-expected the sudden emergence of a crowd of partiers from the ruins of the foundation. The scene demanded people and there were none. But, at the same time, he also had the unpleasant feeling that they were under observation. 

“Kenny, I want to go home now,” Susan complained. “Maybe if it was daytime…”

Kenny suddenly got a bright idea: “Would you come back here with me tomorrow, if I can get the car?”

“I guess,” Susan said quietly; she didn’t sound very enthusiastic, but she hadn’t said no.

“Okay,” Kenny said as he turned the key in the ignition—and that’s when the screaming started.

Kenny looked up, momentarily stunned; he couldn’t understand while Susan was shrieking, what the problem was.

And then he noticed the face looking through the windshield at him.

The man’s face was thin, almost cadaverous; the pale skin was pock-marked and he badly needed a shave.  The bulging eyes that bored in at Kenny had a reddish-glint, his mop of black hair ruffled by the wind outside the car.

The girl stared in at Susan, who was still screaming; her face was also slim and wraithlike, nose pointed like the nose of a witch, black, stringy hair streaming behind her like Medusa.

Neither head was attached to a body; they just hung in the air, over the hood of the Monterey, staring in at the young, would-be, lovers.

With a start, Kenny realized the car was still in park; quickly, he shifted into reverse and hit the gas. The big car lunched wildly backwards, bucking up and down and Kenny realized he would have to turn the vehicle around.

Kenny spun the wheel and clomped down on the accelerator at the same moment the female head swooped down towards them.

Crack!!! The windshield splintered into a spider’s web of jagged lines, as the head dropped with a thud onto the hood.

“My brother’s gonna kill me,” Kenny thought instinctively, wondering if the head had made a dent – before bursting into semi-hysterical laughter: he might not live long enough for his brother to kill him.

The Merc tore down the dirt trail, the under-carriage bucking and rutting, before finally fishtailing out onto Fourth, Kenny’s howls providing a cacophonous accompaniment to Susan’s shrieks.

Kenny ran the red light at the intersection and was clocking 70 mph by the time he made a wide swing out onto Speers.

“It’s alright, Susan, its ok,” he chanted, “we’re outta there!” Kenny pressed the accelerator down to the floor board; fortunately, traffic was light for a Saturday night. He kept his eyes glued to the road ahead as he willed the 67 to go faster, faster, which is why he wasn’t aware of it until Susan yelled. “Look out.”

Kenny looked about in sudden confusion; he couldn’t see anything on the road ahead, no oncoming vehicles, nothing at all, but, then, he caught it out of the corner of his eye.

The head, the male’s, bobbled right outside his driver’s side window, zooming along in mid-air and keeping pace with the speeding car; as Kenny glanced towards it, the man turned his swart, gaunt face towards him, glaring hatefully with his bloody red eyes.

Kenny slammed his foot down on the gas, but the Monterey had reached maximum speed and was shuddering and shaking from the strain.

It couldn’t go any faster.

But the head could.

And as it scudded ahead, it sang:

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN…

Kenny could clearly hear it over both Susan’s crying and the roar of the old V8 engine and it sent cold chills down his spine – but at the same time, he began to think, ludicrously, about his hair. He had had it styled the week previously, only to find that he looked exactly like all the other guys who had got their hair cut at the same place; they all looked like they had rat-tails parted in the middle. He thought his cut made him look like a seedy chipmunk, even thought he’d paid a whole $20 to get it done and he wondered now if it was standing on end.

“I hope it don’t wreck it,” Kenny thought at the same time he realized the absurdity of his concern – and he began to laugh, at first just chuckling but soon hilariously, uproariously, violently. His eyes filled with tears and, noticing the man’s thick dark hair flowing out behind his fast zooming cranium, he began to howl even louder.

“I don’t know what you’re laughing about,” Susan said tartly; at least she had stopped screaming.

The head disappeared ahead into the darkness; for an instant it was an aerial white blob caught in the headlights and then it was gone.

Kenny eased his foot off the gas.

“Ke-Kenny,” Susan began shakily, “what where those things?”

“I dunno,” he answered. “I think they must be those things they call Bobs, eh?”

“What are they?”

Kenny didn’t have time to explain; he heard a whistling

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN…

punctuated by Susan’s screaming as the man’s head suddenly appeared in the headlights, racing directly towards them, aiming at the windshield, the black, wind-swept hair framing the haggard, wasted face.

But it was the eyes that caught Kenny attention; blood-red and brimming with hate. He stared at them in frightened fascination in the one, two, three seconds before impact.

The glass shattered and everything went red – and then black.

The wreck almost caught fire – but didn’t. Police, fire and ambulance were on the scene in less than 20 minutes, but it was already far too late.

Kenny and Susan lay sprawled across the front seats; they had been wearing seat belts, but it wasn’t enough to save them – they had been decapitated.

The heads were never found.

Did they even kiss?