Roadkill
By
Amelia Weissman
Ulysses K. Ouellette made a career out of death. It’s not that he had some psychotic streak in his genetics or that he was overly talented in his line of work – he just never found anything better to do. While some men, dressed in suits and ties, wheeling and dealing in the affairs of finances and global production, Ulysses donned his olive-green jumpsuit and reflective orange vest. While some men toiled through the day in machine shops and at construction sites building the things that make the world go ‘round, Ulysses drove around in his truck, his only tools: a pair of gloves, a roll of contractor bags, and a flat-bladed spade. He also carried gallons of ammonia and bleach, and a chainsaw in the back – just in case it was a particularly big job. Ulysses liked to work alone so whatever challenge he came upon, he dealt with it himself and told nary a soul the ins and outs of his career.
You see, Ulysses worked for a wildlife removal company which sounded very fancy until you realized his job is simply to scrape up roadkill. He managed the northwestern section of Piscataquis County, spending his days peeling up dead crows, flattened squirrels, and unlucky deer. At least once a year he’d encounter a moose, usually notified by the local police from the scene of the accident that had proven fatal for both animal and automobile driver. He’d arrive long after the emergency vehicles had departed in silence and the tow truck had hauled away the mangled corpse of the car. No one would ever stick around to see if he needed help removing the massive carcass, but he was okay with that because he didn’t particularly like the company.
His life was quiet, predictable – until November the 22nd when he found the…whatever it was on Morrell Road. He didn’t like going down Morrell Road. In fact, most of the time he skipped it on his regular rounds, only answering specific calls and complaints when they cropped up. After twenty-five years of scraping up the remains of animals who ignored the basic instinct alerting them to danger, he was not stupid enough to think that those primal notions were above him just because he retained a higher intelligence than rodents and ungulates. That gut instinct to run always kicked in when he drove down that road. His foot always fell just a little bit heavier on the gas pedal after he’d hastily removed whatever animal he’d been called out to clean up.
On that crisp fall morning when the frost lay thick and the overhead clouds threatened the season’s third major snowfall, Ulysses turned onto Morrell Road. He felt that familiar chill creep into his bones that had nothing to do with the weather. His truck slowed to a stop in front of the stricken deer. He climbed down from the cab pulling on thick work gloves as the first delicate snowflakes began to fall. As with most of the carcasses he encountered, especially the larger ones, his intention was to drag it to the side of the road where the scavengers could access it without danger of becoming roadkill themselves. He approached the carrion and found something wholly unexpected. There were no flies buzzing around the body or raptors circling overhead. In fact, the entire wooded area exuded seclusion. Ulysses suddenly felt like the only living creature for miles around. Well, maybe not the only living creature – depending upon your definition of “creature.”
Ulysses bent down to observe the dead animal and noticed a remarkable growth of luminescent fungi lining the open wounds of the deer. These bloated little mushrooms fed greedily on the blackened blood of the deceased woodland animal, pulsing with a sickly green light. Unsure of how to proceed, Ulysses looked around as if to ask for advice, but no one was there. He shrugged, pulled the gloves up to make sure none of his skin was exposed (who knows what kind of strange disease he might contract if he touched one of those things?), and dragged the carcass by the hind legs off into the ditch.
Jostling the corpse dislodged some of the mushrooms. When Ulysses dropped the legs, he noted a simultaneous puff of spores rising from the dissipated fungi. He held his arm over his nose and mouth to keep from inhaling any, giving a wide berth to the dead animal to get back to his truck. He never took his eyes off of those particles, watching in amazement how they sizzled ominously when encountering the increasingly densely falling snowflakes. They did not obey the laws of physics, battling against the wind to escape into the dark forest.
Ulysses shivered, getting back into his truck to get the hell out of there. He turned the key in the ignition – but she wouldn’t start. Fruitlessly, he turned it again. She sputtered, didn’t catch, and let out an exhausted sigh to indicate she had finally given up the ghost. He took out his cell phone but already knew the two ominous words flashing across the top of the screen: NO SERVICE. Grabbing a flashlight from the glovebox and popping the hood, he climbed out of the truck and into the near-blizzard that was gaining momentum. He peered under the hood, trying to make out the source of his trouble when a high-pitched whine rose at the edge of the woods nearby.
Startled, he jerked around, shining his feeble battery-powered light into the swirling chaos of snow with adrenaline coursing through his veins as he scanned the area for the coyote. He always had to be on the alert for predators, especially in the more isolated areas he served when dealing with larger roadkill. He was surprised that a coyote would be out in this bad of a storm though, even to hunt.
Then he spotted the hunched figure at the base of the trees, but it was not moving toward him or the deer. In fact, it wasn’t moving at all. The beast seemed to have collapsed. Ulysses, against the advice of the cortisol in his system telling him to run the other way, trudged through the snow, already inches deep, to the animal.
It lay panting on the ground, lifting its head as Ulysses approached. Its yellow eyes pinned the road worker’s gaze with a look that Ulysses had never seen in any animal save man – terror. In a moment, the creature dropped its head with a thud as the sweet release of death overtook it. Ulysses shone the flashlight over the corpse of the coyote and almost screamed at what he saw.
Four long gashes tore diagonally through the side of the animal as if made by some monstrous clawed hand of impossible size. No creature that large could ever inhabit even these uncharted forests – someone would be bound to notice it. Ulysses watched as black ichor oozed from the open wounds. Those sickly luminescent mushrooms bloomed before his eyes as if he was watching one of those nature shows at 30x speed.
This time the mere force of the driving winds and pelting frozen precipitation was enough to burst the fungi. Ulysses stood helpless as the spores danced mockingly around his face. He swatted at them as if surrounded by a swarm of bees, but they kissed his cheeks and neck and hair with their acid lips before stealing away into the forest.
He felt as if sliced by a thousand tiny knives and poisoned by the world’s deadliest drug as he drunkenly stumbled back to where he thought the road might be. He didn’t get far as he tripped over his own lumbering feet and fell face down into the blessedly cold accumulation of snow. He couldn’t tell if the purple blossoms in his vision were mere hallucinations or if they were jolly companions to the deadly spores of the fungi, but they too delighted in taunting him by twirling merrily around his dying figure.
Then out of the dark forest like a nightmare carnival act, a gray scaly talon tipped with steel-sharp razors possessively ensnared the feebly fighting figure of Ulysses K. Ouellette. Not a soul was present to hear his maddening screams as he was dragged into the woods to be a feast for the creature who dwelt with the creeping rot.
Between the snowstorm and the fact that almost no one ventured out that way, it would be several days before any car passed down Morrell Road. A plow truck would be the first to stumble across Ulysses’ abandoned utility vehicle, its driver wondering why a perfectly good vehicle – for he turned over the key still hanging in the ignition, and she started up like a charm – would just be sitting on the side of this country woods road. He would dial the nearest tow truck to come to pick it up. As he resumed plowing, the driver would shake his head thinking that some fool came all the way out here without a cell phone because otherwise, he could have just called for help.
Amelia Weissman is a mom of six with her Master's in marine biology. Originally from New England, she currently lives in the South with her piano technician husband and gaggle of high-spirited, imaginative kids. She has been published as a scientific writer in research journals and as a fiction writer in Starward Shadows Quarterly ezine, Black Hare Press Anthology Year Four, SpecPoVerse, Sudden Flash, and Soul Poetry, Prose and Arts Magazine. When she’s not homeschooling her ragtag crew of minions, you can find her nerding out over marine research data or tapping into her muse and diving into worlds unknown.
By
Amelia Weissman
Ulysses K. Ouellette made a career out of death. It’s not that he had some psychotic streak in his genetics or that he was overly talented in his line of work – he just never found anything better to do. While some men, dressed in suits and ties, wheeling and dealing in the affairs of finances and global production, Ulysses donned his olive-green jumpsuit and reflective orange vest. While some men toiled through the day in machine shops and at construction sites building the things that make the world go ‘round, Ulysses drove around in his truck, his only tools: a pair of gloves, a roll of contractor bags, and a flat-bladed spade. He also carried gallons of ammonia and bleach, and a chainsaw in the back – just in case it was a particularly big job. Ulysses liked to work alone so whatever challenge he came upon, he dealt with it himself and told nary a soul the ins and outs of his career.
You see, Ulysses worked for a wildlife removal company which sounded very fancy until you realized his job is simply to scrape up roadkill. He managed the northwestern section of Piscataquis County, spending his days peeling up dead crows, flattened squirrels, and unlucky deer. At least once a year he’d encounter a moose, usually notified by the local police from the scene of the accident that had proven fatal for both animal and automobile driver. He’d arrive long after the emergency vehicles had departed in silence and the tow truck had hauled away the mangled corpse of the car. No one would ever stick around to see if he needed help removing the massive carcass, but he was okay with that because he didn’t particularly like the company.
His life was quiet, predictable – until November the 22nd when he found the…whatever it was on Morrell Road. He didn’t like going down Morrell Road. In fact, most of the time he skipped it on his regular rounds, only answering specific calls and complaints when they cropped up. After twenty-five years of scraping up the remains of animals who ignored the basic instinct alerting them to danger, he was not stupid enough to think that those primal notions were above him just because he retained a higher intelligence than rodents and ungulates. That gut instinct to run always kicked in when he drove down that road. His foot always fell just a little bit heavier on the gas pedal after he’d hastily removed whatever animal he’d been called out to clean up.
On that crisp fall morning when the frost lay thick and the overhead clouds threatened the season’s third major snowfall, Ulysses turned onto Morrell Road. He felt that familiar chill creep into his bones that had nothing to do with the weather. His truck slowed to a stop in front of the stricken deer. He climbed down from the cab pulling on thick work gloves as the first delicate snowflakes began to fall. As with most of the carcasses he encountered, especially the larger ones, his intention was to drag it to the side of the road where the scavengers could access it without danger of becoming roadkill themselves. He approached the carrion and found something wholly unexpected. There were no flies buzzing around the body or raptors circling overhead. In fact, the entire wooded area exuded seclusion. Ulysses suddenly felt like the only living creature for miles around. Well, maybe not the only living creature – depending upon your definition of “creature.”
Ulysses bent down to observe the dead animal and noticed a remarkable growth of luminescent fungi lining the open wounds of the deer. These bloated little mushrooms fed greedily on the blackened blood of the deceased woodland animal, pulsing with a sickly green light. Unsure of how to proceed, Ulysses looked around as if to ask for advice, but no one was there. He shrugged, pulled the gloves up to make sure none of his skin was exposed (who knows what kind of strange disease he might contract if he touched one of those things?), and dragged the carcass by the hind legs off into the ditch.
Jostling the corpse dislodged some of the mushrooms. When Ulysses dropped the legs, he noted a simultaneous puff of spores rising from the dissipated fungi. He held his arm over his nose and mouth to keep from inhaling any, giving a wide berth to the dead animal to get back to his truck. He never took his eyes off of those particles, watching in amazement how they sizzled ominously when encountering the increasingly densely falling snowflakes. They did not obey the laws of physics, battling against the wind to escape into the dark forest.
Ulysses shivered, getting back into his truck to get the hell out of there. He turned the key in the ignition – but she wouldn’t start. Fruitlessly, he turned it again. She sputtered, didn’t catch, and let out an exhausted sigh to indicate she had finally given up the ghost. He took out his cell phone but already knew the two ominous words flashing across the top of the screen: NO SERVICE. Grabbing a flashlight from the glovebox and popping the hood, he climbed out of the truck and into the near-blizzard that was gaining momentum. He peered under the hood, trying to make out the source of his trouble when a high-pitched whine rose at the edge of the woods nearby.
Startled, he jerked around, shining his feeble battery-powered light into the swirling chaos of snow with adrenaline coursing through his veins as he scanned the area for the coyote. He always had to be on the alert for predators, especially in the more isolated areas he served when dealing with larger roadkill. He was surprised that a coyote would be out in this bad of a storm though, even to hunt.
Then he spotted the hunched figure at the base of the trees, but it was not moving toward him or the deer. In fact, it wasn’t moving at all. The beast seemed to have collapsed. Ulysses, against the advice of the cortisol in his system telling him to run the other way, trudged through the snow, already inches deep, to the animal.
It lay panting on the ground, lifting its head as Ulysses approached. Its yellow eyes pinned the road worker’s gaze with a look that Ulysses had never seen in any animal save man – terror. In a moment, the creature dropped its head with a thud as the sweet release of death overtook it. Ulysses shone the flashlight over the corpse of the coyote and almost screamed at what he saw.
Four long gashes tore diagonally through the side of the animal as if made by some monstrous clawed hand of impossible size. No creature that large could ever inhabit even these uncharted forests – someone would be bound to notice it. Ulysses watched as black ichor oozed from the open wounds. Those sickly luminescent mushrooms bloomed before his eyes as if he was watching one of those nature shows at 30x speed.
This time the mere force of the driving winds and pelting frozen precipitation was enough to burst the fungi. Ulysses stood helpless as the spores danced mockingly around his face. He swatted at them as if surrounded by a swarm of bees, but they kissed his cheeks and neck and hair with their acid lips before stealing away into the forest.
He felt as if sliced by a thousand tiny knives and poisoned by the world’s deadliest drug as he drunkenly stumbled back to where he thought the road might be. He didn’t get far as he tripped over his own lumbering feet and fell face down into the blessedly cold accumulation of snow. He couldn’t tell if the purple blossoms in his vision were mere hallucinations or if they were jolly companions to the deadly spores of the fungi, but they too delighted in taunting him by twirling merrily around his dying figure.
Then out of the dark forest like a nightmare carnival act, a gray scaly talon tipped with steel-sharp razors possessively ensnared the feebly fighting figure of Ulysses K. Ouellette. Not a soul was present to hear his maddening screams as he was dragged into the woods to be a feast for the creature who dwelt with the creeping rot.
Between the snowstorm and the fact that almost no one ventured out that way, it would be several days before any car passed down Morrell Road. A plow truck would be the first to stumble across Ulysses’ abandoned utility vehicle, its driver wondering why a perfectly good vehicle – for he turned over the key still hanging in the ignition, and she started up like a charm – would just be sitting on the side of this country woods road. He would dial the nearest tow truck to come to pick it up. As he resumed plowing, the driver would shake his head thinking that some fool came all the way out here without a cell phone because otherwise, he could have just called for help.
Amelia Weissman is a mom of six with her Master's in marine biology. Originally from New England, she currently lives in the South with her piano technician husband and gaggle of high-spirited, imaginative kids. She has been published as a scientific writer in research journals and as a fiction writer in Starward Shadows Quarterly ezine, Black Hare Press Anthology Year Four, SpecPoVerse, Sudden Flash, and Soul Poetry, Prose and Arts Magazine. When she’s not homeschooling her ragtag crew of minions, you can find her nerding out over marine research data or tapping into her muse and diving into worlds unknown.
