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Jamil Mustafa

The February Featured Writer is Jamil Mustafa

You can email Jamil at: jamil1031@gmail.com

Jamil Mustafa

VICIOUS CIRCLE
by Jamil Mustafa

When it ended, it began again.

The lulling rhythm of tires on the highway returned Eddie to long-ago nights when he would bury his face in a pillow and listen to the beating of his heart. Its muffled throb had been ominous and deliberate, like the careful tread of a hunter. One step at a time, something was coming for him—and when it reached him, its footsteps and his heart would stop together. Back then his pursuer had been far away, but years of heartbeats and steps had brought it much closer.

As the tires pulsed against the road, he dreamed, and his rig wandered past the center of the highway and into the southbound lanes.

The bellow of a horn and headlights rushing through the fog caused him to twist the wheel to the right, and the big truck lurched. An eighteen-wheeler similar to his own shot past him on the left. Glancing into the rearview mirror, he watched the truck’s taillights disappear into the mist. 

His heart pounded against his chest at the near-miss. His hand shaking, Eddie reached under the seat for the flask he kept stashed there, attached with duct tape to the bottom of his seat. He took a long swallow from it. The whiskey stung his lips and burned his throat, then waves of comforting warmth radiated from the pit of his stomach and he relaxed a little.

Capping the flask, he checked his watch. Nearly two in the morning. There was no point in driving any further tonight, as his near-fatal lapse of consciousness had demonstrated. He had been driving for sixteen hours from San Diego, fueled by coffee and some speed he had picked up at a truck stop in Fresno. He needed a few hours of rest before going on to Seattle.

Abruptly a luminous green sign rose on the right, coming into focus for a few seconds before being swallowed by the voracious fog: REST AREA. As the truck slowed, he made out another sign ahead directing him to the entrance of a parking lot. He turned right, carefully making his way along a narrow road connecting the exit ramp with the lot, all of which the weather had made nearly invisible. 

As far as he could tell, there were no vehicles in the small lot. This emptiness was hardly surprising, considering the late hour and the remoteness of the place.       

He brought his rig to a stop in one of the parking spaces reserved for trucks and looked through the chilled glass at the darkness outside. Sodium vapor arc lights loomed over the parking lot, their bases lost in the swirling mist, their tops surrounded by glowing copper-colored halos created by the moisture in the air. They shed a weird illumination on the three low structures that made up the rest area. A half-dozen picnic tables huddled together as if for protection under an unstable-looking aluminum canopy that seemed poor shelter from the incessant northwestern rain. Beyond the picnic tables, barely visible through the fog, he caught occasional glimpses of thickly wooded hills rising behind the rest stop. 

For a moment Eddie hesitated. If he drove a while longer, he might find a decent place to rest, maybe a motel where he could enjoy a bed and a hot shower. It was a tempting thought, but he rejected it. He needed sleep badly, and he would have to make do with what was available. Resigning himself to spending the night where he was, he turned off the engine, spread an oil-stained blanket across the seat, and drifted into sleep.    

Awakened by the demands of his stomach, Eddie sat up, rubbed his face, and squinted at his watch. Five-thirty. Time for the breakfast of champions. The rising sun had done nothing to dissipate the fog, and as he headed toward the pavilion, the feeble sunlight and the somewhat stronger lights of the parking lot combined to give the mist an unhealthy, mottled appearance. He pulled his denim jacket more tightly around himself and walked faster, anxious to complete his errand and return to the warmth of his rig.

Arriving at the pavilion, Eddie faced a grim trio of ancient vending machines and considered the middle one. Most of the selections were missing, and as he chose from what little was left he wondered just how long ago a delivery man had ventured out to pry open this rusted hulk’s belly and cram its innards with snacks. He dropped his coins into the appropriate slot and pulled a lever underneath the one remaining bag of potato chips.

The bag jerked forward until it touched the glass front of the machine and then stopped, poised to fall yet not falling. He cursed, slammed his open palm against the glass, and tried to dislodge the chips. They remained where they were, tantalizing him. He kicked the machine, to no effect. He hit the glass again, but managed only to send a sharp pain shooting from his hand to his shoulder. Now ferociously and somewhat ridiculously determined, he wrapped his arms around the machine and tried to tilt it forward. This last desperate attempt succeeded, and he heard the bag descend.

Letting go of the machine and stepping back from it, Eddie drew a threadbare bandana from his jacket pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He then reached into the bin to collect his hard-earned breakfast.

His fingers closed on something meaty…something wet.

Eddie snatched his hand out of the machine and looked down at it. His fingertips were dappled with drops of blood, and bits of what looked like raw liver had lodged themselves beneath a few of his nails. In disgust, he wiped his hand on his jeans without thinking. Then he looked up at the machine and stopped breathing.

The uppermost row featured a selection of the major internal organs: brain, lungs, kidneys, stomach, small intestine. This last was curled in a tight bun, like a fleshy cinnamon roll—just as sticky, but not quite so sweet.

He heard screams and realized they were his own. He reeled back a few feet and, for a moment, thought he was about to vomit. After his nausea subsided, he raised his eyes to the machine. This time, there was not much to see: a bag of popcorn; a few packs of gum; beneath a bleached cellophane wrapper, what appeared to be a doughnut.

He relaxed a little. Too much speed, and not enough sleep. He shook his head, partly to clear it and partly to rebuke himself, and again reached down into the bin for his breakfast. As his fingers pressed into the smooth muscle of a human heart, blackness engulfed him.

*****

Eddie regained consciousness to find himself sprawled in front of the machines. His tongue throbbed where he had bitten it in his fall, and he tasted blood. Tottering to his feet, he inspected his hand. It was clean and, mercifully, empty.

Vowing to dump his bottle of pills before getting back on the road, he turned his back on whatever the vending machines might offer this time, left the pavilion, and made his way along the gravel path and through the gray metal door with MEN stenciled across it.   

He crossed cracked tiles to reach a small sink underneath a grime-coated mirror. To his left, half-hidden in shadow, two toilet stalls lurked well outside the area dimly and fitfully lit by a single buzzing fluorescent tube in the ceiling. Twisting the hot-water faucet and assessing his image in the unflattering light while the water warmed, Eddie thought of a pale, pretty hitchhiker he had once picked up on the way to Tacoma.

A minute later, hands dripping, he reached into the paper towel dispenser and grasped at nothing. He whispered an obscenity and moved toward the stalls, hoping to find enough toilet paper to dry himself off. 

There was nothing but an empty roll in the first stall, so he moved to the second, darker one. “Through me you go to everlasting pain” was scrawled on the door, in thick red letters. Maybe that guy took a chance with the food in the vending machines, Eddie thought as he entered the stall. He began drying his hands, bits of toilet paper clinging to his knuckles. The soggy clump missed the mark by inches and landed on the floor. Now even more annoyed, he turned around, deliberately retrieved the clump, and carefully dropped it into the toilet bowl.

The tissue sank slowly, leaving a crimson trail behind it. Startled, Eddie looked down at his hands, which were sticky and stained. An icy surge of panic welled up from his stomach. He saw his face mirrored in the now-bloody bowl, as if his disembodied head had bobbed to the surface of a sanguineous well. As Eddie stared, the blood rose until it flowed over the seat and onto the floor.

He backed out of the stall, his eyes never leaving the slowly widening circle of gore moving toward him. The sight transfixed him, suspending time and reason until finally he found the strength to break away from it, rushing out of the restroom and into the mist. 

Once he was safely outside, Eddie’s head cleared slightly and sanity-saving rationalizations formed within it. No more speed. And no more vending machine food. God only knows what kinds of chemicals they pump into that shit.

Screwed to one wooden wall of the pavilion and protected by a large sheet of scratched and yellowing plastic, the map of California and Oregon was more current and readable than Eddie had expected. He easily located the rest stop, signified by a small blue tack surrounded by a red circle. Beside the tack and circle was a helpful caption: YOU ARE HERE. Moving his index finger along the map’s opaque plastic surface, he traced a short line from the first tack and circle to a second such pair, which indicated a nearby town whose meager amenities included a motel and a couple of restaurants. Canyonville. The name was vaguely familiar. Perhaps he had stopped there once for gas or a quick bite. All these little towns along the highway bleed together after a while.  

Eddie memorized the name of the motel and was about to turn away from the map when he noticed something odd at its center. The circle there seemed fresher, more vivid. He examined it closely. YOU ARE HERE. His eyes moved slowly up to the caption marking Canyonville, then widened in astonishment.

YOU WERE HERE.

He sensed rather than saw movement beginning elsewhere on the map. Everywhere, new captions were appearing: Sutherlin, Roseburg, Grants Pass, Wolf Creek—all across southern Oregon.

YOU WERE HERE. YOU WERE HERE. YOU WERE HERE. YOU WERE HERE. 

Then all the circles started to change. 

Blossoming like crimson flowers, they slowly gained in color and size, oozing toward one another. The tacks in the map are making it bleed.

As seconds passed, the circles grew larger, until at last they met and became a single massive bloodstain. Saturated, the map started falling to pieces. Bloody bits peeled away from its wooden backing and slid down its plastic front, leaving moist ruby trails. Fluid began to collect at the bottom of the display case, in the narrow space between the wood and the plastic. Red droplets leaked from the case and splashed against the pavilion’s concrete floor. The scratches in the plastic began to bleed, to gush.

His nose full of a coppery tang, his mind empty, Eddie tried to cover the gashes with his outstretched hands. Blood sprayed from between his fingers, spattering his face, stinging his eyes, seeping into his mouth. The plastic was warm and slick beneath his palms. Eddie pressed first his cheek and then his torso against the splintering surface, struggling in vain to keep it—and with it, his tenuous hold on reality—intact. It finally exploded, drenching him in blood and slicing him with a shower of shards.

*****

Eddie’s world came back into focus gradually, and not without pain. Somehow he had remained upright, slumped against the unbroken cover of the map. His forehead, cheeks, and hands burned as if with countless tiny lacerations, but the blurred and anxious face that considered his own from the map’s hazy exterior was untouched, and his hands were clean.

He stood up and started shuffling back to his rig. When he finally reached it, he dropped heavily onto the corrugated iron step underneath the driver’s door, his shoulders hunched, his aching head cradled protectively in his hands. He massaged his temples with his fingertips, trying to bring order to his thoughts. An explanation for what was happening to him waited just past the dark borders of his awareness, not yet ready to enter his consciousness and disclose itself fully. Perhaps it would come to him at last, if only he could relax sufficiently to admit it. He closed his eyes, cleared his mind, and allowed his memories to surface. 

At first Eddie could perceive only the velvet blackness behind his own eyelids, and the luminescent blots that occasionally pulsed like fireflies against a backdrop of night. He exhaled slowly, leaned back against the cool metal of his truck, and let the tension drain from his body.

After a time, more distinct images began forming, mental snapshots of his life on the road. Pictures of the places he had visited—an endless circuit of truck stops, rest stops, motel rooms, diners—were followed by visions of the people he had known: truckers, cops, waitresses, hitchhikers.

Hitchhikers.

He smiled faintly as their faces returned to him. They would clamber to their feet and lift their thumbs high as his rig approached, squinting against the noonday sun beating down from above and reflecting up off the highway from below, their narrowed eyes at once beseeching and defiant. Approaching him at rest stops, asking casually where he was headed. Acting cool, almost indifferent.

Later, in his cab, they would tell him their improbable stories of heroic escapes from dull middle-class families, unaware that their torn jeans and scrawny bodies told different tales of desperate flights from poverty and hopelessness. He had listened to them, sympathized with them, taken them where they thought they had wanted to go.

In return, they had given him—what? Sustenance, he supposed. Nourishment, of a sort. 

Nothing helpful there. Sighing, Eddie rose stiffly, turned, and drew the truck keys from his jacket pocket. Definitely time to go. Balancing himself on the step, he pushed a key into the lock and met unexpected resistance. He removed the key and inserted an exploratory fingernail instead. It scraped something solid.

He bent down and peered into the keyhole. A tiny piece of asphalt had been shoved inside it. Eddie knew without checking that the passenger’s door was likewise blocked, and he recoiled from the door as if it had bitten him. It seemed someone wanted him to stay.  

His phone was in the glove box, out of reach. Nervously surveying the parking lot, trying in vain to penetrate the fog, Eddie made a quick decision. He began walking toward the pavilion rapidly but cautiously, continuing to scan the lot so as not to be caught off guard by his unknown enemy, who might be lurking anywhere in the mist. He couldn’t make out any other vehicles at the rest stop, either cars or trucks, and he wondered if his antagonist had come from the woods. Struck by this idea, he stopped for a moment and stared toward them. They were old and thick and dark, and the thought of someone emerging from among those silent trees, intent on hunting him, was unsettling. He began to run for the pavilion.                

His heart hammered as he raced for the pay phone. His mind was full of stories he had read over the years, lurid newspaper accounts of the gruesome things that sometimes happened on the interstate, late at night, when darkness devoured the highway and traffic dwindled to a few widely spaced cars and trucks. A woman stopped for gas at a remote station and never left it. Two days later, state police discovered her body, bloated and strangely mutilated, floating in the fuel reservoir beneath the station. Beside her car, at the pumps, lay the attendant. A hose protruded from his mouth; his stomach was filled with gasoline. Nothing had been stolen, nothing vandalized. The murderer was never found.

Nor was the maniac found who crept out of the forest early one frosty morning to visit a family van parked overnight in an isolated campground. Two hikers stumbled upon that scene of carnage a week after the fact. Whatever they had seen there—the paper hadn’t provided details—eventually drove one of them to suicide and the other into permanent residence at a psychiatric hospital.

Those who had committed these unfathomable atrocities had done so out of necessity, compelled to cool their fevered longings, to realize their black dreams. And now Eddie had been chosen to satisfy such a need, to become part of such a dream.         

He reached the phone, housed in an old booth that had a few remaining glass panes encrusted with dust and bleared by fingerprints. Wrenching open the door, he grabbed the receiver from its cradle and pressed it to his ear, stabbing numbers into the keypad. Silence.

His eyes followed the articulated metal cord from the receiver to the phone. Disconnected, the cord twisted in the air like a silver snake. Cut. No, not cut, exactly… chewed. Eddie felt dizzy, and the phone dropped from his hand. What sort of mouth?   

He stumbled out of the phone booth and ran back to the parking lot and his rig. Somehow he would get to the glove box where his cell phone was stashed.

When he was halfway to his truck, he heard the muffled roar of an engine to his right, coming from the direction of the highway. Turning hopefully toward the sound, he saw circles of yellow light floating on the mist, bearing down upon him. Thank God, thank God.

He began running for the sound and lights, shouting hoarsely and waving his arms. The vehicle slowed, neared, cut its engine and stopped a dozen yards in front of him. As it emerged from the fog, Eddie saw that it was a big rig like his own, and this recognition brought him immense relief. Another trucker would understand what he had been going through; he would know about the fatigue, the isolation, the fear.

Buoyed and calmed by dawning hope, Eddie took a moment to study the truck more closely as he waited for its driver to emerge. He realized, with a jolt of alarm, it was exactly like his own, down to the custom insignias on the doors, the design on the mud flaps, and the license-plate number.    

At this moment of near understanding, something dark and ugly began stirring deep within Eddie’s mind—a shadowy memory, perhaps, a dimly recollected nightmare. He found himself pulled to the truck, despite his growing dread of what lay inside it. Each halting step he took toward the cab brought him closer to the answers to his questions, but with each passing second he became more convinced that in this particular instance knowledge would be far worse than ignorance. Still, he couldn’t resist the force that propelled him forward, half against his will, to confront his demons.

He reached the driver’s side of the unlit cab and, to his faint surprise, opened the door without difficulty. Empty. Somehow he had known it would be. Eddie ignored the obvious mystery and considered a subtler one. He opened the glove box.  

The glove box was also empty. 

What he sought was in the trailer, with the freight. He walked very slowly toward the back of the truck, his hands trembling. For several seconds he simply stared at the massive trailer doors, struggling against the unconquerable impulse to open them. Through me you go to everlasting pain. Finally, he drew the doors open and looked inside.

Afterward—if it made any sense, given his peculiar situation, to think of there being an afterward—he realized he hadn’t been at all surprised by what he had found. Everything came back to this, didn’t it? Everything would always come back to this.

He watched himself—but not himself—crouched over the still-warm body and feeding upon it. This was a grotesque parody of what had really happened, however; it wasn’t a fair representation. There was no love here, no tenderness, no gratitude for sacrifices rendered—only appetite.

Elsewhere, littered about the slick and stinking trailer, were other bodies, already consumed. No, it had never been like this. They made this up to torture me.

Enraged by their lies, he howled inarticulately at the thing inside the trailer, their minion. It lifted its face—his face—from its steaming meal and cast its eyes balefully upon him. Then, horribly, it smiled. As it did so, its real nature began to emerge from beneath his skin.

The mouth opened ever more widely, a monstrous and bloody circle, until it seemed to engulf the face. From row upon row of sharply pointed teeth (more lies), rags of flesh hung. An impossibly gigantic tongue slowly ran itself around glistening, bloated lips with obscene suggestiveness.

Eddie understood now (again) that he had to be punished, he knew (again) where he was and why, but nonetheless he resented their distortion of his crimes. The Father of Lies is aptly named, he thought spitefully, as the thing looked away from him and returned to its feast. Then his consciousness dissipated, and the old dream surfaced.          

When it ended, it began again.

Jamil Mustafa is a professor at Lewis University, where he chairs the English Department and teaches courses in Victorian literature, Gothic fiction, and the horror film. His publications include “‘A good horror has its place in art’: Hardy’s Gothic Strategy in Tess of the d’Urbervilles,” “‘The Lady of the House of Love’: Angela Carter’s Vampiric Sleeping Beauty,” and the Bethlehem Blog
(http://jamilmustafa.blogspot.com/).

He has also written articles on ghost and horror stories for the Facts on File Companion to the British Short Story and Short Fiction, entries on “Gothic Fiction” and “Sexology” for The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Love, Sex and Culture, and a reflection on “Reading ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’” for the Jet Fuel Review Blog.

He favors Universal monster movies of the 1930s, and was interviewed for “The Horror! The Horror! Torture Porn and the State of Scary Movies” HERE. He is currently writing about the poetry of Oscar Wilde. Jamil received his BA from Lewis and Clark College and his MA and PhD from the University of Chicago.