The sound was deafening, literally deafening. John, a 32 year single divorced father was driving down a dark highway in South Texas. It was a cloudy night in early July so the area around the car was completely dark other than the head lights. But instead of hearing a thousand screaming cicadas like he was used to hearing in the dead of night, John was surrounded by an orchestra of rhythmic humming that followed a steady pulse. In John’s 32 years of being alive on Earth, he had never heard such an ear-splitting wave of noise. The noise seemed to be sitting comfortably in the darkness around his car.

 He had been driving home from the night shift for 30 minutes. Only being half way home now he tried to speed past the constant noise around him. Only now after hitting 90 had he began to accept that he was not escaping this dome of noise around him. He thought of death. Not able to understand what was going on, he was slowly slipping into insanity. He began to reminisce about his mediocre life. Though he knew his life was relatively insignificant, he couldn’t help but think of his son Jeremy, named after John’s father. 

 His son might have been a pain in the ass, always making him feel guilty about divorcing his wife. But what he wouldn’t give just to get home for one more moment to hold his son and tell him he loved him. He also thought about his ex-wife that at times he couldn’t stand, but knew he would always love her from the bottom of his heart. 

 He had a tear running down his cheek. He didn’t know what was out side his car. The humming grew louder thumping in his head like the worst migraine of his life. Concentrating ahead, the head-lights were the only thing keeping his sanity. He had both hands on the wheel, the palms of his hands soaked in sweat. His whole body was in a cold sweat. It was fear slowly choking him making it harder to breath. The ear splitting migraine became unbearable and the rhythm seemed to shake his brain. Surrendering, he took his foot off the gas and let the car creep to a stop. With his hands still tightly grasping on the steering wheel, his watery eyes stared forward toward the head-lights. 

 Moments after the car stopped, the noise seemed to wash over the car engulfing him in noise. The sound increased like it had finally caught up with him. He started to sob, barely being able to hear his own whimpers.

 A loud boom seemed to come from all around him. The boom was long and sounded like a rifle that was shot inches from his ears. It rattled the windows on his car. The noise was so loud his ear drums felt like they were beating out of his head, and momentarily stop working.

 Suddenly he heard scratching on the window beside him. He quickly turned and saw a claw submerge to the side of the car. Frightened he quickly unbuckled his seatbelt and scooted towards the middle of the car. He looked around and saw silhouettes run in front of the car just outside of the headlights. When he looked closer he was able to at least a dozen running just inside the wood line almost hidden in the darkness. The car tire suddenly popped or seemed to be slashed by the creature that left the claw marks on his window. The car quickly sank with a thud. He saw a creature run toward his car in his rear-view mirror. The dark figure was half the size of a human. It’s body was black and slimy. It had a small torso with long thin arms and legs with huge black claws on the end of its long fingers. He saw two white soulless eyes starring toward him.  

 When it got to the car it jumped and landed top of the car. The noise was now loud as ever. He could barely hear the creature on top of the car but he was able to trace the creature’s steps to the edge of the front windshield. It then smashed the front of the of the car glass in with its talons. Glass shot toward him, one piece sliced the skin above his brow. Taking cover he saw the creature peak into the car through the broken windshield and look around the car. He then saw it jump forward off the car and quickly run on all fours disappearing into the woods to join the rest. 

 At that moment there was another boom but this time it sounded like it was a thousand times louder than the first one. The noise was so loud it knocked John slightly unconscious, a trail of blood flowing down the side of his face from his ears. His surroundings were blurry and he was now unable to hear. He lay sideways across the front two seats facing directly at the glove box. He opened the glove box and suddenly a wave of chaos hit the car. It was getting rampaged by creatures, getting thrown side to side. He grabbed a paper from the glove box and laid motionless in the two seats. Glass raining down from all directions, claws ripping metal from all around, and creatures taking their turn to peak inside and see their next meal. The barrier between John and death was getting torn apart from all sides and even from the underneath of the car. A third and final boom came from the atmosphere of noise all around. So loud that it knocked John fully unconscious. All the creatures now ran from the forest to his car to devour him. He lay holding a family picture of him, his son, and his wife. That was the last thing he would ever see as the creatures dragged him out of the car and fought over his lifeless bloody corpse.