Midnight Dreams And Visions

NEW - Blood & Oil

Riley cursed his old pickup as it bounced along the potholed road. The engine growled, the noise amplified by the beer buzz in his veins. He pulled over and reached for the map buried under his professional camera gear.

A cigarette bounced on his lips as he whispered the route he was told to come. He'd cut along Wilmott and should be getting near to fifth line. That was what the old oil worker, Trent, had said, a few hours ago in the strip club by the motel.

Heard her singin' out at Morganton 49 when I was closin' a well. When a well's tapped, she comes near the surface.

Riley shook his head and started driving again. He should have left Dakota three weeks ago when his photo assignment finished. He had been out with a journalist, taking shots for a feature on the oil collapse. In the evenings, he would hang out at the bar and drink beer with derrickmen from all over the country, laughing and joking even as they knew their jobs were drying up.

One night they'd told him about her. The Dakota Demoness.

They said she hid in the caverns deep underground. She looked like a beautiful woman and her songs would slip inside your head, make you go loopy. He'd read up online, losing hours in reddit chats and obscure forums, keeping track of sightings and rumors. Legend had it she'd bed you if you were lucky, but you'd likely end up dead. He was sure it must have been some mélange of myth and legends, mixed up with an extra heap of bullshit, but then he'd heard her song, late one evening while taking some photos.

It had sent shivers up his arms and forced an almost forgotten memory into his mind. Sitting in a swing by the beach in Jersey, reaching his arm around his first girlfriend, leaning in for a kiss. A feeling of contentment wrapped around him for hours. He tried humming the demoness's song in his motel room, but the feeling slipped away.

Unable to sleep, he had decided to stay and find her, to hear the song again. If he could get some photos of her, sell them along with some interviews with the derrickmen... it just might be his big break.

Riley took a drag of the cigarette and flicked the butt out the window. He squinted as his headlights illuminated something ahead. He hit the brakes and pulled to a stop by a tall sign.

Morganton 49 Well – PRIVATE – Trespassing prohibited!

He followed the road until the metal oil pumpjacks loomed ahead. Reflecting the moonlight, he imagined them as the bones of some long dead thing, half buried in the earth.

He cut the engine and stepped into the cool fall air. A cricket chirped somewhere, and the breeze whispered through the tall grass. Closing his eyes, he tried to guide his hearing past these noises. The night was cool, not yet sharp with the cold of fall.

His thoughts raced, and he wished he hadn't drank so many beers.

Something jolted and Riley jumped. One of the long metal pipes was making strange knocking noises. The workers had told him the pipes did that sometimes as oil shifted within. These wells were mostly tapped, and with the prices plummeting, owners had been closing across the county.

Then another noise came – lilting and mournful and otherworldly. Something like a song seemed to hum along the pipes.

Her.

Riley froze.

The sound disappeared, but the memory echoed. He fished around for another cigarette and stepped over to the jack piston. A handle seemed to glow in the light and he reached for it, pulling it back. It must have been some sort of locking mechanism because the pumpjack began to shake with more knocking sounds. Then there was a metal crash and a loud gloop.

A muck of stinking oil splashed down, covering Riley and spilling over the earth. He stepped back, slipping and falling when a large metallic wail shook and the whole pumpjack seemed to leap a foot. It teetered for a moment, metal bolts and joints screeching and snapping.

With a terrible wail, the jack ripped apart, smashing into the ground with a crash that shook Riley off his feet.

He was stunned for a moment, cursing himself at his stupidity. He could have killed himself! Rubbing at his eyes, he gazed at the wreckage.

Something moved within the seeping oil, illuminated by moonlight.

A figure lifting itself up, roughly human... except for the bat like wings rising from its back. It turned this way and that, shaking oil free from its body.

Riley swore. His camera was still in the pickup. He turned when a whooshing sound came, and something fell before him. A red face lined with horns grinned, sharp teeth within full lips. It walked forward seductively, hips swaying, wings spread wide. A sharp ended tail held low to the ground. Riley fell back, and the creature crawled on top of him.

"I..." he stammered, forgetting about the camera. "I came for you."

The demoness leaned in and her body pressed against his chest. Pitch black eyes peered into his and he raised his arms, desperate to caress her. She tilted her head as he ran his shaking hands along her skin, hot and silky to touch. She sniffed at him, her breath hot and metallic through full lips. She began to coo, a lilting swirl of sound that crawled through his whole body.

"You're... so beautiful. I—"

She dug her tail into his stomach. Bright, brilliant pain cut his words short and he shrieked. She shifted and moved, tearing chunks of flesh out and sending vibrant waves of agony through him.

She chuckled as Riley tried to scream but his chest was heavy and barely any sound came. A flash of movement hurled him onto his side. The demoness leaped into the night sky, her song fading as she flew away.

Riley's head shook with pain and his vision blurred. He tried to breathe but nothing came. He didn't care, he just wanted to hear her song again. He tried to turn but his strength was gone, he grimaced, struggling to push himself up, to tilt his head skywards, but his hands trembled, and his body felt heavy and numb.

He tried to remember the notes and rhythms of her song, wishing he could get one last glimpse. He quivered and seized, hands shaking as his life slipped away, his fingers leaving patterns in blood and oil.