Dark Highways

By Sparky Goldman

Welcome to Dark Highways! A book with three strange tales that are all trucker related.

 

In Croaking Good Time, Wayne is tormented by a frog and has a conversation with NASA's, mission control. Where's that nasty vibration coming from anyways?

 

For, The Calling, Andrew's mom told him when he discovered his true calling, it would reach out and grab him. I don't think she meant for it to be quite that literal. As for Andrew, he'd just be happy to find his customer and call it a night.

When an unexpected detour causes him to find an alternate route to his destination, his situation takes a dire turn.

 

The Road Comber is a tale about a trucker named, Hugo Morely. Have you ever had a day where things went from being okay to wildly out of hand only to get worse by the second? Hugo has a day like that as well! The person he meets doesn't see any harm in it whatsoever.  

If you're looking for some good fictional short stories about truckers, climb on into this book and let it take you for a brief ride.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sparky Goldman
• Release date: Jun 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393435907

Sparky Goldman

I'm a character that was created in one of my own stories. So who's writing this? That's what I'd like to know! I like to tell all kinds of stories. From space men to ghosts and many things in between, I have quite the interesting imagination! Seriously, I'm a former over the road trucker who loved trucking. I gave it up to care for my parents after my father had a massive stroke back in 2010. He used to look after mom because her health wasn't all that well. My health has started getting worse since becomeing my mother's caregiver back in 2017. She has dementia. I on the other hand have devoloped PTSD because she has fallen so much. Writing my stories are an escape to me. I hope they are a pleasure for you to read! I won't lie, I need the money too.  I live with my parents as their caregiver and due to being their caregiver I can't find work because I need to be here for them. My state doesn't pay family members to be caregivers. And due to my health, there's not a lot I can do anymore. So I'm trying to make some money with my stories. I have many of them to tell!  My biggest fear is becoming homeless. Mom's dementia has progressed far enough that she needs to be in a rest home. I'm not certain how long we'll (my father and I) will be able to keep up with the bills.  Here's to hoping my stories are good enough to help my situation!

Book preview

~Croaking Good Time~

When the door to an untidy little apartment flew open, an overweight man with curly black hair entered the cluttered living room cursing the rain. The storm had started around noon that day before turning into a deluge about four-thirty. Freakin rain. He thought.

Walking drunkenly towards his couch, he tottered left then right on his current collision course, intending to fall on it before passing out.

He noticed that it wasn’t very cool in the apartment like it should have been. It was July, one of the hottest Julys on record, he’d left his air conditioner on before leaving his apartment that morning.

Instead of walking into a nice cool refrigerated environment, it felt more like he was in a warm, moist oven.

Don’t tell me the AC is conking out again. He thought, getting a sick feeling in his stomach at the memory of the last time his air conditioner went on the fritz. It had almost taken an act of Congress to get the thing fixed because his landlord balked at his responsibilities for so long.

I’ll deal with it when I wake up tomorrow. Wayne thought as he took his green sneakers off.

Deal with it tomorrow. He thought again, after laying his head on a pillow.

It didn’t take Wayne long to pass out so he could start sleeping off the day's previous activities.

In his sleep, he started to dream one of the wildest dreams he’d ever had in his life.

His dream was about when he used to work for a cruddy little freight company driving a day cab semi, pulling trailers to Wichita, Kansas, and back to Topeka, Kansas with another set of trailers.

We called em doubles. He thought in his dream.

Wayne was trying to hook a set together. Normally, it was a piece of cake, today though, with all the people dancing around the truck, trailers, and transfer dolly, it was almost impossible to hook his set of doubles up.

From the driver's seat, he’d see people in the driver's door mirror dancing right behind the trailer he was trying to back up to the transfer dolly that was already positioned in front of his second trailer.

Getting agitated at the people, Wayne started shouting, get out of the king’s way!

His agitation with the people dancing into his road was only equaled by his puzzlement over the rock band that was jamming out on the dock of his trucking terminal.

Is that The Offspring? He wondered, after finally getting his set put together.

It sure looked like the rock band called, The Offspring to Wayne.

How did they get permission to use the dock to perform a show on, in the first place? He wondered while getting out of the truck to hook up the second trailer's airlines and electrical cord.

Sure wish I could stay, but I have to get this load of freight to Wichita. He thought on his way back to the truck.

Before reaching up to the grab handle on the truck, so he could step up on the running board, he noticed a few of the people on the dock with the band start knocking over pallets of freight. In the space of time measuring less than a minute, more people joined in, throwing lighter boxes of goods at each other.

Rolling his eyes skyward at the happenings on the dock, he saw the sky was covered in dark black clouds. He heard a rumbling noise.

Scanning the sky for a tornado tail dropping from the clouds, he didn’t see any.

What’s that rumbling noise then? He wondered.

It seemed like it was coming from all around, instead of above him. The rumbling noise made him think of a freight train.

Yeah, Kansas plains wind-powered freight trains. He said before thinking about the fun night in store for him driving his truck pulling two swinging trailers in high winds.

I’ve done it before. He thought.

Gotta keep 'em separated! The singer of The Offspring sang into his microphone on the dock.

Taking one last look at the dancing people around him, then at the rock concert taking place on the dock, Wayne reached up for the grab handle on the side of the truck intending to climb in.

Once he was on the running board of the truck, he took one more look at the dock wondering if the rumble was coming from the band’s music.

He was starting to say, oh well when a streak of lightning burst from the sky to hit him as well as the fuel tank under the running board.

The resulting explosion threw him into the air away from the truck. In his dream, it felt like he was flying a long way.

From inside the dock, Wayne heard someone shouting, and the winner is! The cheering of the people drowned out whoever the winner was while he flew through the air.

Still sailing through the air, motion off to his left caught his attention. He saw three men in a tug boat waving guns around before they all aimed in the same direction to start shooting.

What they shot at was an enormous green shark. It was large enough that it swallowed the boat whole before making a B line straight for Wayne.

Right before its large teeth could chomp down into him, he raised his arms defensively in front of his face while screaming, oh God, it’s going to eat me!

A sharp pain hit him.

Waking up, he pulled himself into a sitting position and let the memory of his freak occurrence play through his mind.

Minus the shark, the band jamming on the dock at his terminal along with all the people dancing around. He’d already built his set of doubles, which were two twenty-eight foot trailers.

It wasn’t full dark by then, although Wayne remembered how wicked the lightning was. It wasn’t raining at that point. He could remember climbing up on the running board of the truck pausing long enough to look back at his trailers for something that seemed out of place.

Right before he could decide to climb in the truck or climb down to check out whatever it was that caught his attention, lightning hit the fuel tank under the running board of the truck catching him with an arc of electricity in the process.

He could vaguely remember the explosion and the sensation of being thrown backward. What he remembered next was waking up laying on his back in a torrential downpour. He couldn’t move. His whole body was throbbing with a strange numb feeling. The raindrops hitting him in the eyes wasn’t the worst of it. It was the rain that kept getting into his nose. He sneezed and chocked on it at the same time.

The passage of time at that moment slowed to a crawl. Seconds became hours, hours became years. Years became lifetimes before he drifted off into the blackness.

He didn’t know how long he’d lain on the ground in the downpour before Kip, the other linehaul driver found him in a large puddle of water. Wayne could remember the wiry scrappy man dragging him out of the puddle before the sweet oblivion of unconsciousness consumed him once more.

Still sitting on his couch, he put a hand over his face to rub, it in an attempt to rub the memory of his screwed-up ordeal away.

A brief stabbing