Day One: Friday
He awoke.
The brightness of the late morning sun shined through the front windshield of the truck and everything seemed new. Experience of sleep Kirk would not know again for seventeen days.
He was woken from a knocking on the door of the truck, startled from a nightmare.
A teenage kid waited impatiently outside. Kirk had noticed him riding around on a bicycle last night. The 25-dollar-whore knew this kid as ‘the official Flying G truck stop dealer’. Kirk put through a request for a bag of speed
"I got that, you still want it?" The kid asked without looking at him directly.
Kirk thought of his plan...Drive as much as possible over-the-road until he had enough money for a down payment on a house.
Then he could get a daily job and be home every night instead of being on the road.
The speed could make it possible to drive almost non stop…Achieve his dream faster.
"Oh…There you are. Yeah, I'll take it - but I’m from the ‘Show Me’ state," Kirk muttered.
The dealer produced a small bag of white powder.
"Its ice...You want more here's my cell number..."
Kirk retrieved money from his wallet, a black leather snapping configuration attached to his belt by a long chain that prevented anyone from stealing it from his back pocket. He stared at the bag of crystalline white powder a moment. He then scribbled down the cell number and then the dealer rode away.
He was curious about the how effective the speed might be…He cautiously tried a bump after taking precautions to not be seen by anyone, hiding behind the black curtain that separated the cockpit from the sleeper-cab. The bitter drainage energized him. He hid the bag in a safe place and began preparations for departure.
The morning passed quickly into afternoon and he found himself many miles from the Flying G. The perfect sky above made the transition from blue to black before he was aware the day was gone. Sleep was the furthest thing from his mind.
Day 2
Orange light of morning horizon separated from the last by a period of sleepless dark.
Away he went, driving the yellow truck pulling tons of cargo bound for New Mexico from California. He became aware of moments that defined his life were an assembly of passing cars and signs that read the location he was at any given time. The meth worked great, he felt completely aware and confident. No time for sleep last night. He talked idly on the CB, drank coffee and didn't even need to stop for food.
Kirk was so on top he took a moment to be sentimental, wondering if he would miss the open road after settling down.
Day 3
He was keenly aware of the beauty of shadows that spread out from the light posts on either side of the road…A continuous white line in the center guided his truck as if on a rail. Another night of sleep was easily forgotten. Driving back through the town he was on Friday, he decided to visit the lot lizard again and acquire another bag of meth. After the prostitute was done making him feel warm, he called the ‘official Flying G dealer’. He spent the money after convincing himself it was only another fifty dollars and worth it because he would be done soon with being on the road. His perspective was in fast forward, the past few days and nights slipped away as if lubricated by the drug. The significance of everything somehow clearer than usual, he was making good time and looked forward to fast money.
“…Getting one step closer to a home and city-job…Find me an old lady, give up being in a truck all the time…” He announced to his buddies in CB-land.
He made his delivery way ahead of time. Three days without sleep was nothing so difficult.
Day 4
The loneliness of a grocery store at 4 am invaded his observations as a sickness, how artificially desolate…The emptiness of everything illuminated by fluorescent lights tended by sleepy clerks and video cameras 24 hours everywhere in the country. Four days without sleep, the world looked used. Kirk began to realize how alone and displaced he felt and was obsessed to press on without having the privilege of sleep...Until he made enough money. He kept a double-log book to account for the constant driving, truck drivers were only technically allowed to drive eight hours a day…Kirk was averaging more than 20.
He was still on top of his plan but not quite the same in regard to stability. People he saw on the road seemed to read his mind and tease him. They taunted him sometimes through the radio. The idea he was being followed came to his attention more and more. The days and nights were fusing together without any speration.
Reaching his limit and frustrated with the situation, he spilled his damn coffee again and barked on the CB about how “they” were waiting around the weigh-stations.
"..Stop following me! I saw you all there at that chicken house just past the 45 mile sticker. Get a life!" Kirk hollered into the microphone.
The CB went quiet of chatter for a moment.
He used more crank to fight off the used-up feeling. The truck roared down the road like a beast. Occasionally he thought to sleep but only did so while conscious. He was on a mission...He would not stop until he needed more meth or coffee. Cars around him flashed their lights to let him know they were following him. Kirk's aggravation became more obvious, his appearance was thrashed...But he was still awake and determined.
Indeed they were a Shadow Company; an organization of stalkers who switched cars to follow him around the country. He was onto them. How could he have not seen it before? Sleep? No way, just coffee and a piece of toast for dinner.
Eight days and Still no sleep. Cranky, confused. Fuck it. He disliked the daylight now. He barely was able to communicate effectively with his dispatch and various other people without flipping out and screaming. Everyone told him he was going crazy and that just perpetuated the fact they were trying to fuck with his head. Kirk was somewhat aware dreamlike visions now blurred conscious reality, the shadows shifted and twitched in a mocking way.
The dirtiest shadows crawling along the ground at night made him ill. There was a flicker of red sometimes that looked like blinking eyes.
The sun was bright this morning and the stalkers were not around, things were quietly uneasy. He did not see any suspicious cars until later that afternoon.
Kirk picked up a hitchhiker and finally had someone to confirm the presence of his stalkers...To prove he wasn't going crazy.
"How long have you been driving a truck?" The hitchhiker asked, taking a moment to observe Kirk, who looked like a tweaked-out zombie.
"A lot longer than those fuckers think! I know! I'm aware of their shit! Ha-ha. Well, I got their number! I'm going to outrun them this time. They follow me around the country - tell me I'm not wrong!…You see them flashing their lights at me?"
The hitcher never confirmed or denied of what Kirk spoke of, just sat quietly and waited to get away from the whole mess. The young hitchhiker, Danyil, was along for the ride somewhat impressed (and horrified) someone could be up for more than a week and still function. There were many miles of listening to Kirk babble, trapped with the ongoing delusion. He just wanted to avoid Kirk thinking he was one of the ‘Shadow Company' so remained passively interested while secretly wanting tell him he was just psychotic… Danyil’s idea to escape was stalled by warped intrigue, it was certainly hard to believe anyone would care enough about Kirk to stalk him, although it was entertaining and a distraction from boredom. It was also alarming and terrifying so at times Danyil suggested logical reasons for this or that....

The following day passed with an eerie calm. Danyil was pleased by Kirk’s temporary silence and took a brief nap. When he did awaken, night had fallen and the truck was parked in the lot of a truck stop. He watched through the windshield to see Kirk arguing with a prostitute outside. He couldn’t hear their conversation but Kirk appeared to be in some frantic gesturing at her. The ‘lot lizard’ waved a hand at Kirk like she was done listening to him and walked away.
Kirk climbed back into the truck and was obviously frustrated.
Prostitutes avoided Kirk now, their rejection just one more thing to be paranoid and angry about…Especially when he noticed shadows in their wake creeping along like serpents…Red eyes teasing him. Kirk drained more money on meth.
Danyil considered offering Kirk some sedatives but was afraid he would pass out while trying to drive. Kirk reused to just relax anyway.
"You see?! Right there. THAT row of lights...See how they flash three times? Tell me I'm crazy NOW!" Kirk barked and pointed and a distant row of lights, most likely from a late night construction site.
He INSISTED they were his Shadow Company's way of communicating. Insanity dominated him with acute panic and mental exhaustion.
He suddenly grabbed the CB microphone:
"I SEE YOU FUCKERS!"
The radio crackled while the message was sent out there, into the minds of everyone within the surrounding 5 miles of broadcast power.
"Yeah, buddy...We see you, too," a slightly uneasy voice replied somewhere from Citizen Band land. Danyil quietly giggled at the reply.
Kirk begin unravel…The hallow voices were taunting him, through the dangerous frequency that existed from seven or eight days without sleep, a very convincing psychosis while on speed.
Kirk sat rigidly in the driver’s seat of the 1997 'Freightshaker' and listened to his stalkers plan their surveillance.
A distant voice asked if his world of the Shadow Company was real or just a means to combat lonliness.
"They follow me around country...Here to California!” He yelled to his thoughts out loud, Danyil was getting used to the outbursts and just stayed quiet.
There's nobody following you. Nobody said out loud.
"Yeah there is!"
Things were out of control...Considering everything and anything all at once was just chaos. The nagging desire to smoke was the only constant.
Kirk began ranting again. He absorbed madness and smoked, watching the world roll under his stressed observation. There were no more replies from the radio although this did not convince Kirk to turn off the CB…Just continue to listen to the soft crackle at full-volume, trying to hear them talking about him.
Kirk sat there looking aggravated and alone. The powers of this Shadow Company included use of people who drove 24-hour-a-day in shifts and left messages spray painted messages on highway exit signs. The last read 'Suck It'. He had jotted down some license plates and descriptions as well as where the messages were written.
Somewhere in his world, 'Suck It' meant something less random than graffiti.
The fuck you will, he thought.
The situation was deeply depressing and the speed made it seem logical his paranoia was justified. He dare not look down from the brutal self-reflection, held together with a flicker of hope that came from the idea of escape to a warm bed in a house away from the road. His dream was being consumed by the beasts with red eyes and sharp, two-dimensional tentacles…The shadows with hooked fingers were kept at bay somehow as he walked or drove around them.
The hitchhiker had disappeared. It seemed to happen suddenly, they had stopped at a truck stop some time ago and that must have been where he departed, Kirk began to question if ‘Danyil’ ever existed at all. Somewhere in all his ranting he drove away his last real company…Or was he actually one of their spies?
Cleaver sons a’ bitches…
The rain began to fall in droplets that came down with impending fury. Another day escaped rational observation and built a higher tribute to the ego.
A peach-colored sedan had been following him long enough so Kirk slammed on the brakes, causing that ‘fucker’ to swerve into the breakdown-lane. Kirk laughed and felt victory. He growled into the CB microphone, “Take some of THAT!”
Someone replied with a question as to who he was talking to…
Renegade will-power then retuned his perpetual moment of paranoia and blind determination fixated toward the next stop or next bag of crank. Homes with warm beds and old ladies in them now a little further away then he remembered.
The lot lizards were slithering all over the chicken house. He just kept going. The shadows were creeping in daylight now and some shimmered. There was a message painted on an overpass that he did not write down…He just wanted to forget he read it:
Beware the Gutter Snipe.
A high scream came through the speaker on the CB.
Thirteen days without sleep.
The Gutter Snipe appeared in his peripheral vision; it was ten feet tall and green with long, greasy black hair. It was the king of the Shadow Company.
Biological breakdown stressed the brain into a thin line of apathy. Kirk could not do much more than drive the truck and try not to think or see anything beyond the line in the center of the road. The wet, breathing darkness came though the CB speaker just before he would see a flicker of the Gutter Snipe in any shadow he dared notice.
“Fuck! The Gutter Snipe is in the chicken house!” He reported through the CB. A rasping breath replied but no other coherent voices could hear him. Kirk was alone with a big problem.
Soon, it was going to get at the diesel…The beast under the hood.
Kirk ripped the CB from the hanger and threw it out the window.
It nearly got him, reaching out with freakish fingers and threatened to claim any remaining consciousness. The Gutter Snipe and its hoard of shadow-demons wanted to snatch his dream; The house with a white picket fence, the old-lady…His life.
Those fuckers were not going to get it, Kirk decided. He was careful not to think about it because that was exactly how they could steal it from his mind. The Gutter Snipe and the shadows were almost on top of him as the light of the sun melted away. Kirk had long since given up on making any deliveries on time, he path always detoured to where ever things seemed ‘safe’.
Seventeen Days: Without Sleep
There was no longer a understanding of awake or asleep, just exhaustion reaching a level of numbness. Kirk looked about 634 years old. He finally reached a point of knowing exactly how fucked it really was to not sleep for over two weeks, although that would be his last rational thought. Thinking was now too dangerous anyway. The shadows would tear him apart with their claws any moment now, the rancid breath of the Gutter Snipe on his neck. Kirk was parked with the motor running at a rest area, dimly watching shapes move outside. The Shadow Company took the dream of escaping the road and mangled it into a delusion he had long ago.
He screamed in a shallow, withdrawn way.
There was only one thing he could do now for anything to make sense.
A grey car drove by and it caught his attention, Kirk knew to follow it and flash his lights…He was to stalk the car where ever it went from now on or until the Gutter Snipe told him to do otherwise. He dreamed of sleeping again.
He was now one of them.

DjC 2006 (Thanks to Kirk M.)

Soundtrack on Ruined Wreckords

nice little tale.

it gave me the same creepy feeling as some of the old twilight zone episodes. it also played out well, his delusions and paranoia escalating and taking his dreams away from him. you don't feel sorry for the guy though.

i was disappointed to find the soundtrack link way at the end of the story - it would have been cool to listen to it while reading, but saying that...it gives me more reason to stick around and reply, just so i have time to listen to it.

have you posted anything else since dream mods? that was the last one i'd read.

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Thanks.
I'm working on something new.
But when Dream Modifier is together from start to finish I will sure let you know.