Both in their mid-fifties and comfortably stout after years of double-portion dinners and chocolate candy in front of the TV, the Becketts were making a once-in-a-lifetime road trip, weaving all the way from their home in Knoxville to Santa Barbara on the West Coast. It was a joint gift to each other to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, but what had seemed like a magical and exciting idea when they planned it was turning out to be days on end of featureless highways, frightening-looking hitchhikers and roadside motels with orange and brown décor that should have been put out of its misery in the mid-seventies. To really ice the cake, Lorraine’s stomach was acting up again and Frank was threatening that if she let loose one more fart in the car he was going to leave her at the next bus stop.

Praise the Lord, he thought. Just one more hour on Highway 24 and they’d be in Colorado Springs – which meant warm showers, a nap before dinner and maybe even some plain, home-style food that would help slay the dragon making war in the pit of that damn woman’s stomach.

The flat purple-grey highway cut through the dry and scrubby landscape like a new zipper down an old canvas sheet. Frank was starting to get his good mood back, and was about to break the silence by telling his wife a bad joke when the car died. Everything just stopped at once. Frank coasted the car to a halt, frantically pushing buttons and stamping on pedals.

‘Did you see that, Frank?’ Lorraine said, pointing through the front windscreen. ‘The sky seemed to shimmer slightly, like we were driving through a curtain of oil.’ She touched her fingers to her face and they came away slick and bright red. ‘Frank, I’m bleeding.’

Frank noticed that his nose was streaming blood too. ‘Outta the freakin’ car!’ he said. He didn’t want them soiling the beautiful leather seats with bloodstains. There would be a nasty amount to fork out on the insurance if there was even minor interior damage.

The dry prairie air assaulted their senses and made them grimace after the Suburban’s air conditioning. Lorraine staggered and her face looked slick and waxy with shock.

As Frank went round to swing the car hood open, he spotted something lying on the road ahead. ‘What the hell’s that? That weren’t there before.’

‘Is it a deer?’ burbled Lorraine through a handful of bloodstained tissues.

The clouds were moving rapidly across the flat land all around, and as they slowly approached the mass, a long shaft of yellow sunshine illuminated the lump on the road. It looked meaty and slightly moist. Frank had to will himself to take a step forward; his animal instincts were screaming at him to get the hell out of there.