A wandering, hungry dog.

A hamburger in the middle of the road.

A truck speeding through the night.

You can probably guess how it ends, but the end is only the beginning.

"Roadkill," the debut short story by Leonard Kirke, is the tale of four friends on a perfectly normal errand: going out for a late-night snack.

Less normal is the fact that all four are the spirits of dead animals, inexplicably able to think, talk, and feel just like humans. Even less normal is the fact that fast food might just be their only hope of continued existence. When they're pursued by a mysterious hooded figure, things start to get really weird.

Described by one reader as "what the movie 'Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle' would be if it was written by David Lynch," Leonard Kirke's "Roadkill" exists somewhere between the realm of classic on-the-road stories and the surrealism of Franz Kafka. Fans of the strange, the bizarre, the amusing, and the occasionally heartwarming will find themselves right at home.