Black Eyes

Three AM on Highway 9. Been driving since yesterday, See 'em standing on the shoulder, Two kids, maybe ten years old. Middle of nowhere. No houses for miles. Something tells me keep driving... But I can't leave kids out here, I pull over. They climb in without a word, Don't say thank you, Don't say where they're going, Just sit in the back seat. Staring forward... I ask where they need to go, The girl speaks, Voice flat wrong... "Just drive." Check the mirror, Catch their faces in the passing lights, Oh god... Their eyes... Solid black. No white. No color. Just black. Try to pull over, My hands won't leave the wheel. Try to slow down, Foot stays on the gas. "What's happening?" "You invited us in." "Now you drive." Another one up ahead, Standing roadside. The truck slows on its own, Door opens, They climb in. Now there's three. Then I see... another, And another... Can't stop picking them up, Every few miles, Another one waiting. Black eyes in my mirror, Four. Six. Eight. Ten. "What are you?" ...Long silence... Then the first girl speaks again, "We're what happens when children go missing." "When no one looks hard enough." "When hope dies on backroads like this." My blood runs cold. "How many more?" "All of us." "How many IS that?" Silence... "How long have kids been vanishing out here?" That's when I understand... Decades... Maybe longer... Hundreds of them... Gas gauge doesn't move, Night doesn't end, Just highway. And those eyes... More and more eyes... The back seat, The sleeper cab, Standing in spaces that shouldn't fit bodies, All of them staring... Waiting... I'm not driving anymore, Not really... The truck drives itself. I'm just here, Watching the road, Watching them multiply, Watching and waiting. For what...? I don't know. Finally, The truck stops. Middle of nowhere, A crossroads... They all stand up, File out silently, Hundreds of them... Black eyes... reflecting... nothing. I'm frozen in the driver's seat, Hands finally released, But I can't move, Can't look away... They're walking, All of them, Single file... Toward something in the distance... That light... Dawn? No... Something else... Wrong color... They walk into it, And the light grows brighter... The last child pauses Turns back to me... With those black eyes... "Thank you for the ride." The light envelops them... The light grows... Fills my vision... I don't know what this is... I...can't stop it... The light...