Ted drove late into the night. He nearly fell asleep several times, but in each instance snapped awake after his head dropped.

“This is dangerous,” he thought. If I don’t find a motel soon, I’m going get into an accident.”

He drove on, but the road was very rural and no businesses of any sort could be found. After dozing off and nearly crashing into a tree he pulled over and parked. He hadn’t seen any houses for miles and didn’t want to drive any more anyway. He decided he would find a way to sleep right where he was. His car was old and small and impossible to lay down in, so Ted got out and looked about. The sky was clear and it wasn’t too cold. He gathered dry pine needles dropped from the many trees to serve as a mattress. Just as he was about to lie down, he saw a tiny light a few hundred feet back away from the road.

“I’m in luck,” he thought and walked through the trees toward the source. He found a little one-room shack with a dim light bulb hanging from its wire in the center of the ceiling. The door was open, so Ted stepped in.

“Hello!” he called out as a precaution, but he could already see no-one was there. There wasn’t any furniture either. There was only a window, a door and the dim light bulb. On the floor was an unrolled sleeping bag and beside it sat a pair of folded up eye-glasses. Nothing else.

“Hmmm…” Ted thought. “Someone must plan on sleeping here tonight. But who? There were no other cars parked on the road and no other houses for miles. And where was this person? It was extremely late.”

He looked around outside the little building, but found nothing and no-one. He decided whoever had left his glasses and sleeping bag certainly wasn’t coming back tonight. Ted would sleep for a few hours and be gone before anyone was the wiser. He went back inside and locked the door. Then he took his shoes off and crawled in the bag.

It was warm and cozy. Clearly a well made sleeping bag. It was so well padded he couldn’t even feel the hard floor beneath him. Ted fell fast asleep in less than a minute.

He dreamed he was driving down the same road he had been on that evening. It was raining. He lost control and crashed. An ambulance arrived and rushed him to the hospital. A doctor leaned over Ted with a creased brow.

“It’s too late,” the doctor said. “He’s dead.”

A nurse grabbed a zipper near Ted’s chest and began zipping it up over his head. Ted realized he was in a body bag and was being sealed inside it.

Ted woke with a start. The dim bulb hanging above him was visible only for a second then the zipper for the sleeping bag zipped up over his head. He thrust his arms upward and back to throw the bag off his face, but he was fully closed inside.

“Hey, that’s not funny!” he shouted and fumbled for the zipper. Nobody answered and he didn’t hear anyone else inside the room. He slid his fingers along the inside liner, but could not find any break where the zipper’s teeth had come together.

“Don’t panic,” he told himself. Unfortunately he didn’t have time to listen. The bag flattened and then twisted, squeezing down on his face and body.

Ted panicked. He fought and screamed, but the bag got tighter. It didn’t feel like a person or people were pressing or holding from the outside. He wished it did, because it would have given him a target to punch or kick or knee. The sleeping bag felt like it was alive.

He wiggled and tried to scream again, but the bag was pressed so tightly against his mouth and nose, barely a whisper escaped. He was out of air. Ted tried to fight on, however, his energy was gone. He passed out and a few minutes later died.

The sleeping bag relaxed. A small powerful mouth at the bottom bit off one of Ted’s toes and chewed it up. Then another. And another. Through the night it ate. In the morning Ted was gone. All that was left was an unrolled sleeping bag, a pair of folded up eye-glasses nearby, and a pair of shoes.