The night was cold and dark, the rain falling fast and hard, and the wind was raging over the sea. The windshield wipers squeaked in their furied race back and forth, but did little to clear the view. My headlights bounced off an impenetrable curtain of rain. I eked along upon that lonely road, hoping the maps were leading me right.
To the west was the stormy sea, black and dark as the clouded sky. To the east, a cliff-face where a few solitary firs rose, and a line of lonely streetlamps stood like silent sentinels over the treacherous road.
I prayed, seeking comfort in the gale. Under the whirring of the wipers, I could hear the burring of the fan, pumping as much hot air as it could into the interior. I placed my cold fingers against the vent. It felt like fire, but it eased my joints. I switched hands, my eyes ever peering forward.
That was the state I was in. You should mark it then, as I tell you the next bit. I was not, as it were, of an easy mind. I understand if someone might say I dreamt the whole thing. I can only know what I know, can only tell you what I saw.
There was a group of them. As I came around a turn, I saw them shadowed there: Strange, amphibian things, who walked in a lurching sort of way, always hunched over. I hit the brakes. I wasn’t going fast, so the car stopped quickly. They didn’t seem to care. Lumbering on, they made their way toward the cliff-face, and one by one, they each leapt, frog like, upon it. There, they climbed up out of sight.
One of them, the last to go, stopped under a streetlight and turned toward me. I could not read those eyes, what for the darkness and the rain and their own alien quality. I know not what emotion was held in them. He stared, standing up tall. He waited, watching me, until the last of his party had crossed. Then, like the others, he leapt away.
That is all I know of the matter, gentlemen. I merely report that they did. I’ll leave it to others to answer why they crossed the road.
Tale Told 