The sound was deafening, literally deafening. John, a 32 year old data entry specialist, was driving down a dark highway surrounded by an orchestra of noise. It was a gentle humming that followed the rhythm of a steady pulse. In John’s 32 years, 4 months, and 12 days of living 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 20 minutes now on this long road trying to speed past the constant noise around him. Only now after hitting 90 on the speedometer had he began to accept that, as fate would have it, he was not escaping this dome of noise around him. He thought of death. 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. His son might have been a pain, and at the moment didn’t care much for his father, however he still wanted just one more moment to tell him he would always love 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 tears running down his cheek. He didn’t know what was out side his car. The noise was now driving him to insanity. The humming grew louder thumping in his head and it seemed to creep closer to his car. Concentrating ahead, the head-lights were the only thing keeping his sanity. The ear splitting migraine became unbearable and the rhythm seemed to shake his brain. Unconsciously, 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 seemed like it was the only noise he could even remember or comprehend. He started to sob, barely being able to hear his own whimpers seemed to make his crying for mercy grow louder. A loud boom seemed to come from the dark woods on the right of 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 ears seemed to ring, and momentarily stop working. He abruptly looks right into the darkness looking for a source for the ear-splitting noise. With his hands over his ears he was just short of smashing his own head. Suddenly he heard scratching on the window beside him. He quickly turned and saw a claw submerge to the side of the car, unseen. He looked around as he saw silhouettes run in through the edges of the woods. There seemed to be about two-dozen of them running just out of sight of his periphery. The car tire popped or seemed to be slashed by the creature that left the claw marks on his window. The car sank as though it was surrendering. He saw a creature run toward his car in his rear-view mirror. The dark clawed figure was the size of half a human. It had a small torso with long thin arms and legs with huge claws at the end. He saw two white glistening eyes starring toward him.
When it got to the car it jumped and landed top of the car. John looked up and noticed the imprint on the car. He could barely hear it slowly crawl on top of the car over the increasing violence of the pulsing noise. The noise was now loud as ever, and seemed to be inside his head. He traced the creature’s steps to the front of the car. 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. At that moment there was another boom, but it seemed to explode right over the car. The noise was so loud it knocked John 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. The car was now getting pushed side to side from the force of the creatures. He was motionless laying in the two seats. The barrier between John and death was getting torn apart from all sides and even the bottom of the car was getting ripped apart. John was now prey to the thousands of creatures as they ran from the forest to his car to devour him.