Chapter 3 BLOOD ON THE ASPHALT

Tom Miller had retreated into a shell deeper than before. He moved like a sleepwalker, performing the bare minimum of chores – feeding the few surviving chickens, checking the patched roof for leaks, his movements devoid of purpose, his eyes perpetually fixed on some unseen horror. The spark, the stubborn fight Sharon had seen in him before, was utterly extinguished. He flinched at loud noises, jumped when the phone rang (it was never good news), and hadn't spoken more than monosyllables since Metzger left.

The weight of the debt that looked impossible, the threat to his family, had broken something fundamental.

Ken watched his father's break down with a mixture of heartbreak and helplessness.

He threw himself into work just to erase the thought of running wild, especially the way Metzger had given him a cold and distant look, like the verdict had already been passed. He started fixing fences like his life depended on it, cleaning tools that were already spotless and clearing the chicken house.

Sharon showed up every day after school. She'd bring her books with her but would barely open them, rolling up her sleeves and help out in any way she could. She didn't have to say much, she was just there to help. She was the one thing that kept him grounded, the one person who hadn't given up yet.

They'd talk quietly, like even the wind might overhear. Tossing out ideas they both knew wouldn't work-selling equipment (but they needed the tractor, and the combine wasn't worth much anymore), trying to pick up extra work (but no one was hiring in a town like Flynn's Creek this late in the year), maybe asking the bank one more time (but Henderson had already shut that door, and the way he said 'no', it didn't leave room for hope).

Monday dawned, clear and cruelly bright. The sky was a mocking, perfect blue. Ken found his father sitting at the kitchen table, staring at a single sheet of paper – the loan agreement with Metzger. Tom's hands were trembling violently.

"Pa?" Ken asked softly, pulling out a chair opposite him.

Tom didn't look up. His voice, when it came, was a dry and unfamiliar. "Gotta go into town, Ken, to See Henderson, One last time, I'll have to try." He swallowed hard, the sound painful. "Then, maybe see if Joe Hayes, Sharon's Pa, if he knows anyone needs a hand short-term, Anything." The effort of speaking seemed to exhaust him. The idea of begging Joe Hayes, a man struggling himself, for a loan was a measure of his utter desperation.

Helen came out of the bedroom, her face was pale but composed. She placed a hand on Tom's shoulder. "I'll come with you, Tom. We'll face it together."

Ken stood up. "I'll come too." He couldn't let them face Henderson, or the humiliation of asking Joe Hayes, alone.

Tom finally looked up, his eyes bloodshot and hollow. "No, son. You... you stay. Tend the place, we won't be long." He pushed himself up, his movements stiff and old. "Just... just need the motorcycle, Faster than the truck." Their old pickup was unreliable.

Ken wanted to argue, to insist, but the way his father's shoulders dropped silenced him. He watched them prepare in grim silence. Helen tied a faded scarf over her hair. Tom pulled on his worn jacket, the one he'd worn for years. Ken fetched the keys to the aging Honda motorcycle from a hook by the door, the metal was cold in his hand, He handed them to his father. Tom's skin felt papery and cold.

"Be careful, Pa," Ken said, the words thick in his throat. "The roads... they might still be rough from the storm runoff."

Tom just nodded, a jerky movement. He didn't meet Ken's eyes. Helen climbed, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist. The motorcycle got turned on, the sound loud in the tense yard. Ken watched them drive away, pulling up a small cloud of dust on the track leading to the main road. His throat tightened, he didn't know why, but be felt like he was watching them leave and maybe, they wouldn't return.

He tried to shake off that thought. "They'll be back", he told himself. "They have to be back". He got busy by cleaning the chicken house. He kept glancing towards the road. An hour passed, then another. The sun climbed higher, beating down. He thought of Henderson's smug face, of Joe Hayes's likely embarrassed refusal. He thought of Metzger's chilling deadline: 'Tuesday'.

He was raking loose straw when he heard it. Not the familiar sputter of the motorcycle, but a different sound – a distant, high-pitched screech of tires, followed by a sickening, thunderous 'CRUNCH' of metal impacting metal.

Ken froze, the rake slipping out of his hands. His heart beat faster; That sound, it came from the direction of the main road, The direction his parents had taken.

'No.' The denial screamed silently in his head. 'No, no, no', It could be anything. A coyote, An old metal collapsing, Anything.

But the quietness that followed the crash was profound and terrifying. It wasn't the silence of nothing happening; it was the silence of something terrible, has happened.

He started running, not in the direction of the house, his Instinct which was raw and primal, propelled him towards the direction of the sound. He hit himself at the edge of the gate of their house, ignoring the metal thorns tearing his clothes, he tried to slip due to the muds in the path. He jumped over a low fence, breathing heavily. He finally got to the main road.

He looked left, towards town, Nothing. He looked right.

Time stopped.

About a hundred yards down the road, just past the bend where the Miller land met the Carson's fallow field, lay a tangled nightmare of metal. The Honda motorcycle was unrecognizable – a twisted, crumpled wreck shoved violently onto the shoulder, half-buried in the ditch. Near it, sprawled like broken dolls on the unforgiving asphalt, were two figures in familiar denim. His mother's faded scarf lay a few feet away, a splash of color on the grey.

And there, slewed diagonally across the road, its front end a concertinaed ruin of chrome and broken glass, was a large, dark-colored pickup truck. Ken vaguely registered the logo on the dented door panel – a stylized, coiled snake. Sterling Haulage. The engine was still ticking, a morbid counterpoint to the awful silence.

Ken's legs gave way. He stumbled, fell to his knees on the hot road, it should have hurt him, but at that point, he didn't feel it. A sharp ringing took over his ears, blocking out every other sound. His vision narrowed, zeroing in on what was happening like it was the only thing that existed.

He saw his father, Tom, lying with his face down, one arm twisted at a tight angle beneath him, a dark, as his head was already filled with blood.

He saw his mom. Her eyes were wide open, as though she was staring at him. She wasn't moving, neither was she breathing.

He couldn't believe what was happening. The ringing in his ears got worse, like it was getting into his skull. He tried to move, tried to crawl, but he couldn't feel his arms moving. He couldn't breathe, Couldn't even scream. All that came out was a raw, broken sound, as though he was between a cry and a scream, like his body was crying out without him.

"Mom, Pa, No, Please. No!"

He didn't know how long he knelt there, paralyzed by shock, staring at the impossible horror. The smell hit him then – gasoline, hot metal, and something else, coppery and thick blood.

From the driver's side of the wrecked Sterling Haulage truck. The door, grotesquely bent and opened. A Tall, broad-shouldered man, wearing dark work pants and a stained t-shirt came out. He staggered, one of his hands on his head,as he fought to stay upright. He looked towards the carnage he'd caused, towards the two still forms on the road. His face was pale, slack with shock or... something else.

Their eyes met across the short, horrific distance. Ken saw no remorse in the man's eyes. No panic, Just a dazed confusion that rapidly sharpened into a chilling, calculating alertness. The man looked at Ken, kneeling helplessly in the road, then back at his truck, then down at Tom and Helen Miller. He didn't rush to help, neither did he call out.

Instead, he turned. He started walking, Not towards Ken, not towards the farmhouse for help. He walked away; Stiffly at first, then with increasing speed, along the shoulder of the road, away from the scene, away from Flynn's Creek, towards the open fields beyond the Carson property. He didn't look back.

Ken watched him walk away, he could hardly see the man again, as the tears finally broke loose, He couldn't hold them back anymore. The sobs were hard, rough and ugly sounds that filled the quietness around him. He dropped to his hands and knees and started crawling, the road had no mercy as it burnt his palms as he moved toward his parents.

He reached his mother first. He touched her arm. It was Cold, so cold. He saw the unnatural angle of her neck. He saw the stillness. He reached his father. The dark stain was larger now, sticky and wet. He touched his father's shoulder. There was no response, there was no breath.

The reality crashed over him with the force of a second collision. They were gone, Both of them, snatched away in an instant on a sunny Monday afternoon. The crushing debt, Metzger's threats, the ruined farm – all of it was suddenly meaningless, dwarfed by this unimaginable void. The world he knew, the fragile foundation of his life, had been obliterated as completely as the cornfield.

He laid between their bodies, bent his forehead on the hot asphalt that had stolen them from him. He wrapped his arms around himself, feeling overwhelmed. The smell of blood and gasoline filled the place, the taste of salt from his tears filled his mouth. He was utterly alone.

It was the sound of another engine that finally caught his attention. A car approached from the direction of town, halted as it got to the scene. It was Sheriff Dale Peterson's cruiser. The Sheriff got out, his face grim as he took in the scene – the wrecked bike, the bodies, the abandoned Sterling truck, and the broken teenager kneeling in the road.

Ken looked up as the Sheriff approached, his vision swimming with tears. He tried to speak, to point towards the fields where the driver had vanished. "He... he ran..." he choked out, his voice barely recognizable. "The driver... he just... walked away..."

Sheriff Peterson knelt beside him, he laid his hands on Ken's shoulder. His expression was sober, pitying, but his eyes held a professional detachment as they investigated the scene. He looked at the abandoned Sterling truck, then back towards the empty fields where Ken had pointed. He sighed, a weary sound.

"Easy, son. Easy," the Sheriff murmured, pulling out his radio. "Dispatch, this is Peterson. County Road 7, mile marker 13. Code 10-50, fatality. Two victims. Vehicle versus motorcycle. Requesting coroner and tow." He paused, glancing again at the abandoned truck. "Driver appears to have fled the scene on foot. Male, approximately six foot, dark clothing. Initiate search grid west of Carson property." He released the button, then looked down at Ken, his gaze lingering for a moment on the Sterling Haulage logo visible on the truck's door.

Ken clung to the Sheriff's words. 'Fled the scene. Search grid.' They would find him. They had to find him. There had to be justice.

Hours blurred into a nightmare of flashing lights, grim-faced paramedics confirming the obvious, the arrival of the coroner's van – a sight that made Ken vomit into the ditch. Sheriff Peterson asked questions in a low, steady voice. Ken answered mechanically, describing the sound, finding them, the driver walking away. He mentioned the Sterling Haulage truck, the coiled snake logo.

Through it all, one thought pierced the fog of shock and grief: Sharon, He needed her, He couldn't do this alone. As the coroner's attendants carefully, respectfully, covered his parents with stark white sheets, Ken stumbled towards the Sheriff's cruiser parked on the shoulder.

"Sheriff..." Ken's voice was a raw scrape. "My phone... at the house... I need... I need to call Sharon, Please."

Sheriff Peterson looked at him, his face etched with sympathy. "Okay, son. We'll get you home. We'll get you taken care of." He guided Ken gently towards the passenger seat of the cruiser.

The ride back to the silent, empty farmhouse was a blur. The Sheriff helped him inside, sat him at the kitchen table, the same table where Metzger had delivered his threat, where his father had sat broken. The Sheriff found Ken's phone and handed it to him. Ken's fingers trembled violently as he scrolled to Sharon's number. He couldn't form the words, He just pressed the call button.

She answered on the second ring. "Ken? Hey, is everything okay? Did your folks talk to Henderson?" Her voice was bright and hopeful.

The moment he heard her voice, something in him broke. He let out a strangled sob he couldn't hold back.

"Shari..." he gasped, the word mangled by tears. "It's... it's Mom and Pa... accident... on the road..."

Silence on the other end. Then, a sharp intake of breath. "Ken? What? What happened? Are they...?"

"They're gone, Shari," Ken whispered, the words ripped out of him, tearing his throat raw. "They're gone." Unable to hold the phone, He quietly dropped it on the table, buried his face in his palms as he bagan crying uncontrollably.

He heard her tiny and frantic voice through the speaker. "Ken? KEN! I'm coming! I'm coming right now! Hold on! I'm coming!"

He didn't know how long he sat there, lost in the abyss, before he became aware that Sheriff Peterson was still in the room, quietly speaking through his radio. Ken lifted his head, his eyes were already swollen and burning. The Sheriff was frowning, listening to the crackling response.

"Copy that," Peterson said, his voice tight. He lowered the radio and turned to Ken. His expression was grim, apologetic. "Son... about the driver... the search team. They swept the fields west of the Carson place. Checked the ditches, the old barn..." He hesitated. "No sign of him, Ken. Not a trace, And..." He paused again, choosing his words carefully. "There was no driver registration logged for that Sterling Haulage truck number in the system today. Dispatch can't find any active assignment for that vehicle on this route. It's... it's like it wasn't meant to be there"

Ken looked at him confused, like the words were taking a moment to sink in. No sign, Not a trace, Not meant to be there. The implication seeped in slowly, cold and sinister, cutting through the fog of grief. The man who had killed his parents hadn't just fled. He'd vanished, And the truck... it was a ghost.

The Sheriff placed a hand on Ken's shoulder. "We'll keep looking, Ken. We'll file the report, But right now..." He glanced towards the door, where headlights were approaching – Sharon's beat-up sedan screeching to a halt in the yard. "Right now, you focus on getting through this."

But Ken barely heard him. He was staring past the Sheriff, out the window where the dust from Sharon's car hung in the headlights like smoke. The grief was a physical agony, a black hole in his chest. But beneath it, ignited by the Sheriff's words, something else began to smolder. A cold, hard kernel of disbelief, No sign. The accident was horrific, senseless. But the disappearance? The missing driver? The unregistered truck? That felt like something else,That felt deliberate, that felt like murder.

As Sharon burst through the door, her face white with shock and tears already streaming, rushing towards him, Ken met her eyes. In that shared moment of utter devastation, amidst the overwhelming grief, a new, terrifying certainty took root: His parents hadn't just died, They'd been erased, And the hand that did it had vanished into thin air. The fight for the farm was over. A new, darker fight had just begun.