Swayback (Intro)

A very rough draft intro to my first western-horror novella

Late 1956 - Austin, Texas

The bloodred summer sun spilled across the unfinished overpasses.

The hum of progress was everywhere. Surveyor stakes hammered into the soil. Bulldozers squatted on the dimming horizon like giant iron insects with open jaws. The crews had all left at the first sign of dusk, leaving the path of the new highway empty except for a lone rider wearing a slouched hat, a rifle resting across his saddle.

He trudged along the raw earth, gouged into long, skeletal trenches. The smell of mesquite roots torn from the ground lingered in the air. Piles of limestone glinted under the fading sun. The wind threaded through barbed wire and rebar, whistling like a ghostly cattle call.

The rider’s horse grew uneasy. Where the new asphalt skeleton crossed old cattle ruts, the air felt wrong–cooler, heavier. The animal snorted, refusing to step onto certain patches as though they concealed pits or graves.

Each time they crested a new hill, the road continued, seemingly eternal. An occasional clang from abandoned machinery rang like a church bell in an empty town. The rider was determined to follow it to the end, this godforsaken project of promised prosperity and connection.

As the world grew dark, the rider felt he was no longer following the road’s construction, but that the road was leading him, drawing him deeper into a place where the city’s past and future collapsed together. He dug in his heels, but the animal refused.

Somewhere ahead, the road curved into nothing at all.