Semiochophobia

Uncle Adam innocently called the abandon logging truck a ‘man-eater.’ This, after the third accident, the chassis and cab were left in a field off the main road.

At five or maybe six, I developed a fear of that truck. Every time we drove by, I watched, afraid it would jump up and devour me.

Uncle mistook my attentiveness for curiosity, and one day he pulled up in front of it. He lead me to the cab and with some effort popped the bent driver’s door open.

So afraid was I that I couldn’t even cry out as he lifted me into the cab and onto the rotted seat. It smelled old, dusty, and hot and in fear I gripped the sun-fractured steering wheel.

I was certain the door would slam shut and I’d be swallowed alive.

Then I lost sight of Uncle, but found my voice. He’d stepped away to light a cigarette, and my scream brought him quickly.

He lifted me down and held me all the way to the Jeep, cooing softly, ‘It’s alright, Tommy. You’re okay.”

It was another three or four years later, when driving by the field, I saw the truck was no longer there. This time my Aunt Barbara and two of my cousins were with me and Uncle.

Seeing it gone, my earlier trauma came out. I breathlessly balled and blew snot-bubbles as I explained how the truck scared me and now I didn’t know where it was and that it could be anywhere and could get me at anytime.

Both my Aunt and Uncle did their best to calm me. Uncle explained that the City of Fortuna hauled off to a scrapyard, where it was be melted down to be reused.

“Reused?” I asked, “How?”

“Anything,” Aunt Barbara answered, “A refrigerator, a toaster, even a coffee pot.”

Another fear was born, deeper than the first. I was certain that truck was going to become something innocent-looking, sneak up on me and that would be it.

This fear slipped away, like the first, but resurfaced a couple of years later, when the Wallace’s moved in next door with their father’s logging truck. For a long time I avoided walking by the truck and every morning, when Mr. Wallace turned the engine over, I hid beneath my covers, shaking, hot and sweaty.

abandoned rust
rotting in an open field
preying on young minds