Phobia: A Fiction Short Story

Author's Name
Dated February 1, 2021
Total Number of Words: 2293
Phobia
It was 2 O'clock of a gloomy night in the mid of winter. Allen was driving fast to cross the spooky road to her home before her auto phobia overcome her senses. The hazy air had faded away streetlights, making the path more ghastly. Attempting to ignore the beastly howling of hounds and hooting of owls, she began to remember how her friends used to laugh at her whenever she got frightened of the somberness at night. Once, a few of them remarked, "imagine, if you had to cross the road alone some night?" the others replied, "stop it! Else she would die horrorstruck even conjuring up all this", they laughed and laughed, making her drive pleasant. But, it was a friendless night in the car tonight.
Allen was a young, grey-eyed, charming girl dressed in pitch-black with her blonde hair on both shoulders. She worked in a restaurant. She used to return at 8 o'clock with her friends daily. Today was a special day for the restaurant owners who received some special foreign guests. So, Allen had to perform many tasks until it was 2'O clock. Her friends had gone, leaving her to venture on the nasty road to her home alone.
Drinking a bit of water from the bottle, Allen attempted to focus on driving. Keeping the bottle close to her leg in the car, she turned a deaf ear to the creepy howling, blind eye to the looming darkness and forbidding shadows of trees on both sides of the road. She did not give a single thought to the souring silence around. Suddenly, the car stopped. Only stopping the car in the mid of menacing loneliness was enough to kill Allen, who was already sweating from being alone in the car at this hour of the night. The poor girl tried to start it again and again but in vain. She did not want to come out of the car, which she considered safe, because everything outside was too heinous for her to bear. She could hear the hounds and owls more clearly in the pin-drop silence of the surrounding. The fog clouds covered her view from the windshield, where she could see through car headlights, while both sides of the car were drowned in the eerie darkness. She felt choking inside the car. Gasping and sweltering with fear, she realized that she had to open the bonnet to cool down the radiator. She had another, a larger bottle of water lying next to the bottle she placed next to her leg in the car. But, she had never thought of opening the car door even in the daylight when she is alone. Soon, her fear began to rise in her grisly loneliness. The pinch-black side-glasses on both sides made her feel that somebody is staring at her from the outside whom she cannot see, and if she stepped out, something terrible would happen. No hope left. She had to open the door and move out to make her car rerun, or she had to die of fear of isolation and silence bleakly lingering on the road. She leaned back, closed her eyes, tried to balance her breath for a while. This made her a bit peaceful for a few seconds. Suddenly, she heard a clanking sound coming from the roof of her vehicle. Allen opened her eyes wide, felt paralyzed in her seat. "Who is this?" Allen asked in a guttural voice. Again, an unintelligible sound came from outside. She gasped, shuddered, and lowered down her head feeling that somebody is around her, staring at her from the black side-glass of her car door. A few seconds later, when ominous silence prevailed again, she attempted to control her senses to get prepared to go outside with the bottle. Suddenly, Allen felt her hands clammy and her pulse racing while looking in front of her. There was a hand on the windshield, clearing the misty surface. Before she could scream, it disappeared in the haziness followed by a peal of weird laughter, which also vanished, leaving the girl trembling and breathless. There was nothing to do except hiding her face in her lap and cry, so Allen did so. The next few minutes, there was nothing in the intimidatingly silent atmosphere but the low-pitched sobbing of horrified Allen. She wanted to open the car door, look in the eyes of the mysterious creature outside the car, poking fun at her loneliness and fear, and reach the bonnet to cool down the car, but she could not even raise her head to see at the windshield again.
Her sighs misted the soaring air inside the car for a few minutes. Then, she thought something, which rose courage in her eyes. She raised her head, controlled her nerves, and vowed anew to face the challenge of fixing her car. At the same time, a piercing sound broke the sequence of her thought. Somebody was knocking at the car side glass next to her. This terrifically transfixed her in her place. "Allen!" somebody gutturally said. Allen leapt up from the seat and sank into the other corner of the car, shrieking asked, "who is this?" "Allen, let me come in!" the throaty voice said. Allen screamed at the top of her voice, asking, "I said who is this, tell me who is this?" but the hoarse voice went on saying, "Allen, let me come in." Allen gave loud screams to hush away the harsh voice, but it turned more panic and creaking. It was a female voice, now deeply groaning and begging from Allen, "Let me come in." "No, go away, leave me alone," Allen desperately yelled at her. The most echoing sound in the air was knocking at the car's glass, which showed darkness from outside, but Allen realized to be seen outside by the power knocking at it. Allen, extremely distressed and hopeless, began to pray silently for her survival and divine help while her whole figure was quivering. The next few minutes were perilous for the lonely girl. Soon, the knocking stopped. Allen scarily came close to the glass, and frightfully tried to look out to ensure that nobody is staring at her anymo...