Entry #1

Entry #1
by Ultra Toast Mosha God


Miles peered gingerly through the gap in the trees where the old man had indicated the road would be.

He drew breath sharply, stinging his tobacco-stripped sinuses with the cold night air. The stars shone their pitiful light down upon him in futile consolation as he cursed the absent moon.

Too dark to see anything properly, he thought to himself as he stepped forward into the gloom.

Perhaps the old man was just crazy and the tip-off he had been given was some kind of practical joke designed by the locals to embarrass unwanted, inquisitive types like himself. 'Go see old Nelson. He'll point you towards the Midnight Road...'

Miles remembered the insistent, hypnotic sway of the tribal music and the simmering drunkenness that deserted him the moment old Nelson discreetly mumbled those words at the Governor's party. Words that didn't quite seem real, despite the sudden clarity in his mind. For a moment he could have sworn the whole room was listening in above the roar of the drums and the stomping of feet - dancers glancing over their shoulders and the narrows eyes of the steel band all caressing him in one uneasy instant as the crooked old man whispered deliberately in his ear.

Miles edged further into the darkness. Then he saw it.

His jaw hung low like a frayed noose as the road spread out before him....