Hunted

By Cliff Lake

 

Hunted

 

The under-rumble is heard first,

A powerfully tuned engine introduces the intruder.

Its predator’s creep advances it over debris-strewn pavement.

A sleek thing that is less beauty and more menace.

Whatever is inside must be the real danger.

Wary pedestrians and the step-warming seated,

Glance at the gleaming threat just the once,

Before studiously pretending they have not noticed.

The potential of unwilling, unwavering servitude reeks.

Seeing this thing it is known:

If called by the occupant,

One must answer.

A servomotor hums.

A blackened window begins a descent.

The glass panel slides down with an obscene lethargy,

An assurance of cloying decadence none has dared portray.

The breach opens on a darkness complete,

A vacuum of gloom that suckles at the streetlamps,

Rendering what was merely indistinct,

To a confusion of haze and dimness indecipherable.

There is nothing inside.

There is something inside.

There is some nothing inside.

All of this is true.

None of this is true.

Unreality on the night street,

Carried in a vehicle that was never made.

The observers are caught by a terror,

A horror and a dread that shears the mind,

That empties the consciousness so that all that remains,

Is the dismay at having lived this moment.

There is a realization that none of them may sleep again.

The growl of the engine quickens,

The windowpane begins its slow, torturous ascent,

And the transport moves away,

Leaving behind an exhaust scented of despair,

And grievous hunger.

It is hours before the bystanders move,

Disappearing into homes to unwelcome beds,

There to dream of abominations without shape,

That devour without purpose –

A memory they will never recall,

And never get past.

They were indeed untouched,

And thoroughly consumed.

Darkness is their only way forward,

For Death had already arrived,

And taken them.

They will never remember their loss.


They will never forget.

 

Cliff Lake 1/15/2024

Copyright © Clifford Lake 2024

Location: Dalton, MA, USA

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