The story
The dashboard clock read almost one in the morning when the old campero, a sturdy four-wheel-drive SUV, cut through the thick highway fog. Don Hernando drove with that calm patience typical of farmers from the Valley who know every curve and pothole like the back of their hand. Beside him, his grandson Mateo was fighting off sleep, hypnotized by the constant sway of the high beams barely scratching the dense vegetation on the sides of the road.
There was no moon in the sky. The darkness of that rural area swallowed everything more than ten feet from the hood, leaving only the rumble of the engine and the whistle of the wind slipping through a crack in the window. They were traveling toward town to deliver a package first thing in the morning, convinced that at such an ungodly hour they wouldn't find anything except cattle sleeping behind the wire fences or some stray dog crossing the asphalt.
However, coming out of a sharp curve flanked by sugarcane fields, the beam of light illuminated two figures on the side of the road. They were a woman and a child. They were walking slowly, aimlessly, hugging the edge of the shoulder where the loose dirt dropped toward a deep ditch. Mateo sat straight up in his seat, rubbing his eyes in disbelief. They weren't carrying flashlights, nor coats to protect themselves from the piercing chill of the early morning, nor any luggage that would justify a trip on foot in the middle of nowhere.
"Grandpa, look at that... Could it be their car broke down? Let's stop a second to see if they need help," Mateo whispered, a compassionate instinct flaring up in his chest.
Don Hernando didn't answer right away. His hands, knotted and weathered by the years, gripped the steering wheel with a sudden force that made the worn leather creak.
"Don't you dare, son. Don't look over there and stay still," the old man ordered in a dry voice, loaded with a grim severity the young man had never heard from him before.
But the warning came too late. As they brushed past the walkers, Mateo couldn't contain his curiosity and turned his head toward the side window.
It was in that exact moment that the woman raised her face. It didn't reflect the exhaustion of a mother lost in the night; her features were twisted by an overwhelming fury, a pure and venomous grudge that seemed to pierce straight through the vehicle's occupants. Her bulging eyes conveyed a hostility so vivid that the air froze in Mateo's lungs. The child beside her moved along with his head down, almost dragging himself, like a shadow pulled along by the violence of that presence.
The campero accelerated immediately, leaving the scene behind in a second. Seized by panic and needing an explanation, Mateo desperately looked into the side rearview mirror and then the center one to check the distance.
The road was completely deserted. The red light of the brake lights only tinted the lonely asphalt and the motionless brush. There was no one walking, no shadows leaping toward the ditch, and no human trace along that clear straightaway.
"I warned you not to look," Don Hernando stated in a gloomy whisper, without letting up on the gas. "There are souls that no longer look for help in this world, son; they just look for someone to take out their oblivion on."
