DEPARTING

Darkness comes in fast at this time of year, and you got caught out, further along the beach than you’d planned to walk. The light faded almost with every step, and you had to be careful as you crossed a strand of rocks, not wanting to lose your footing and hurt yourself on a deserted beach. The sea is just a restless grey now, a cat pawing at the beach.
As you walk up through the dunes and onto the road that leads inland, headlights come your way. You step back from the road in case you’re not seen. A small green hatchback passes you, and there’s just enough light left to see the dark figure of a man inside. He doesn’t look at you as he passes, but pulls up soon after, where the road ends and the dunes begin. You expect him to get out, which makes you a little apprehensive, but he doesn’t.
The driver sits there motionless, staring out to sea. Enough, you think, this is creeping me out, or maybe he is troubled and wants solitude, so you are just about to turn away when it happens.
The interior of the car lights up, a brilliant blue-white that hurts your eyes. You squint at the car to see where it’s coming from, but it seems to have no obvious source. It comes from everywhere, and nowhere all at once, as if the air inside the car has been replaced with light, poured in like water.
Then abruptly as it started, it stops. You’re left with nothing but the afterimage, brilliant white windows drifting across your vision until they’re gone, and everything is dark again. Far out at sea there is a distant flash of brightness, like a flicker of lightning right at the horizon, but in a moment it is gone.
When your night vision returns, you peer at the car, and think you know what you have seen, but do not want to have seen it. You nearly walk away, but your curiosity gets the better of you. You have to know.
You were right. When you walk up to the car, there is no one in it.