The Engine’s Lament

In the autumn of that year, my friends and I found ourselves in the grip of a peculiar boredom. We were in the small town of Ashford, where the most exciting event was the annual tractor pull. I was with my crew – Leo, the practical joker; Maya, the skeptic; and two brothers, Jake and Sam, who were inseparable. We were huddled in Leo’s rusty Ford, drinking cheap coffee from thermoses and lamenting the lack of anything to do.

That’s when Maya, ever the storyteller, brought up the old tale of the Lament Road. ‘There’s a stretch of county road 13,’ she said, ‘where the engine of your car dies, and if you’re unlucky, you hear the sound of a thousand engines revving from the forest. They say it’s the ghost of a trucker who died there, his rig crashing in a fiery blaze.’

Leo rolled his eyes. ‘That’s the lamest ghost story I’ve ever heard. A trucker? Come on.’ But Sam, who was always a bit superstitious, looked uneasy. ‘I heard it too. My cousin drove through there once, and his car just stopped. He said he saw lights flickering in the trees.’

We all laughed, but the laughter was hollow. We had nothing else to do, so we decided to check it out. It was a dare, a way to break the monotony. Leo revved the engine, and we set off into the night.

The road was narrow and lined with dense pines, their branches clawing at the sky. The headlights cut through the darkness, but the forest seemed to swallow the light. We drove for about ten minutes, joking and laughing, but as we went deeper, the mood shifted. The air grew colder, and the radio began to hiss with static.

‘Okay, this is creepy enough,’ Jake said, his voice tight. ‘Let’s turn back.’

Leo agreed and began to make a three-point turn. But as he twisted the wheel, the engine sputtered and died. The dashboard lights flickered and went out, plunging us into darkness except for the pale moonlight filtering through the trees.

‘Hey, this isn’t funny, Leo,’ Maya said. ‘Cut it out.’

‘I’m not joking,’ Leo said, his voice shaky. ‘The car is dead.’

‘Let’s try to jump it,’ I suggested. But when we tried, nothing. The battery was fine; it was like the car had just given up.

Then Sam pulled out his phone. ‘My battery’s dead too,’ he said. ‘It was at 80% a minute ago.’ One by one, we checked our phones. All dead, except for Maya’s, which showed a full battery but no signal.

A nervous laughter bubbled up from Jake. ‘This is just like the story. Next, we’ll hear the engines.’

As if on cue, a sound cut through the silence. It was faint at first, a low hum, like a distant motorcycle. We strained our ears, and the hum grew louder, rhythmic, like a heartbeat. It seemed to come from all around us.

Leo squinted through the windshield. ‘Uh… The light… Is back…’ We thought he was kidding until we turned around and saw a single motorcycle light flashing on and off at the end of the road. It was distant, but closing in.

My heart began to pound. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ I said. ‘We can walk to the main road.’

We scrambled out of the car, but as we did, Jake froze, his eyes wide. ‘Get it out of my head!’ he screamed. He clutched his temples, and Sam started shouting about voices whispering in a language he didn’t know. Jake grabbed a golf club from the trunk and began swinging it wildly at the air.

‘He’s losing it,’ Maya whispered. ‘We need to get out of here.’

But the motorcycle noise was deafening now, a roar that shook the ground. It was accompanied by a light that flickered violently, like a strobe. We started to run, dashing into the forest, branches whipping at our faces. Behind us, I heard Jake shout, ‘The lights, can you see them?’ in a voice that didn’t sound like his own.

I turned to see him standing in the middle of the road, his arms outstretched, his eyes glowing with a sickly yellow. The motorcycle light had stopped a few yards from him, and I could see a figure astride it, but it was warped, too tall, its head tilted at an impossible angle.

I grabbed Maya’s hand and pulled her deeper into the trees. We ran until our lungs burned, until the sounds of our friends faded into the distance. When we finally stopped, we were lost, the forest around us unfamiliar.

We walked for hours, shivering, until we stumbled upon a highway. We hitched a ride back to town. We told the police what had happened, but they found no trace of our friends or the car. The road was empty, as if we had never been there.

To this day, I have nightmares of that motorcycle light, and sometimes, when I close my eyes, I hear the revving of engines, and I know that on some forgotten road, my friends are still running, forever trying to escape the Lament Road’s cruel invitation.