“Your destination is on the left,” whispered the soft voice. “You will be safe here.”
Cally’s eyes flew open. “Shit shit shit!” She grabbed the steering wheel hard and pulled herself up in the seat. Her heart pounding in her ears blotted out the whine of tires on concrete, the rattle of boxes in the back seat. The highway still lay straight in front of her, unrolling dark and endless in her headlight beam. No lights, no signs, no exits broke the unending monotony of tall, dark pines marching along both sides of the highway. The only sign other humans ever used this road at all had been the occasional tractor trailer roaring up out of the night to pass by her, usually going in the other direction.
As her heartbeat gradually returned to normal, fatigue of body and spirit threatened to overtake her again. She opened the window and gulped in deep breaths of cool night air. It didn’t help. She hit the “skip” button on her MP3 player until she came to an old southern rock anthem (Green Grass and High Tides, for what must have been the tenth time that night) and sang along loudly, drumming on the steering wheel through the guitar solos to stop herself yawning – or was it to stop herself panicking?
A glance at the GPS on her phone, lying useless in the passenger seat, showed only the words “NO SIGNAL” astride a straight blue line between a town named Coppersmith, at the top of the screen, and Blackthorn at the bottom. So it could not have been the mechanical voice of the GPS that had awakened her, she realized. Maybe it had been a dream, or some tiny inner part of her that did not actually want her to die alone on the road in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. She wasn’t sure whether or not to be grateful. In any case, there was certainly no destination on the left, or on the right, or anywhere that she could see.
According to the equally useless printed directions she had received from Emerald, the exit to Woodley should be on the left, four miles south of Coppersmith, and “if you get to Blackthorn, you’ve gone too far.”
But Cally had already got to Blackthorn. She’d been there twice that night, had turned around and gone back to Coppersmith, and turned around again. She had pulled over and tried to text Emerald to explain her dilemma, but had been unable to get a signal. Sighing, she turned her red Corolla around in the median and headed back, again, toward Coppersmith, this time watching to the right for an exit, an opening, anything. Maybe, she thought, if she got out of the car and held her phone above her head, she could get a GPS signal. Maybe reception would be better at the crest of the rise just ahead. Maybe her car would sprout wings and fly.
Her breath caught in her throat when something ran through the headlight beam. She stepped on the brake and braced herself for the impact, but the white figure reached the other side of the road safely, then paused and turned to look at her, its eyes glowing blue in her headlights. Cally thought it might be a deer, but it was white and a little too large – a horse, maybe? She continued to slow down until she was abreast of it.
Then it was gone but, to her relief, she did see a dark gap in the trees where it had stood, and a glimpse of a blacktop road stretching away through a tunnel of overhanging branches. She pulled off the highway and stepped out of the car, staring down the dark road. She could hear hoofbeats on asphalt, fading away into the night. Could this be the elusive exit to Woodley? There was no sign, but the road did have yellow lines painted down the middle, which was reassuring somehow, and in the distance she could see lights glowing softly through the trees.
An eighteen-wheeler rushed past behind her, heading north, blowing her hair forward into her eyes. She shook it back and decided to take the little blacktop road, wherever it went. She didn’t dare hope she’d find anyone awake to ask for directions at this hour, but at least she might find someplace safe to take a quick nap.
She switched off the MP3 player and steered onto the dark asphalt. The sound of crickets floated in on the damp night air. In her headlight beam, the road sloped down a gentle grade to a narrow bridge over a creek, and then back up again. Cally thought she could see something white just this side of the bridge – that horse, probably. She slowed down in case it tried to play chicken with her car again. As she drew near, though, she realized it was not the horse at all, but a person standing next to the bridge, waving at her with one hand and clutching a white jacket closed with the other. Cally paused, and a young woman bent down to peer through the open window. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen.
“Hi!” she said.
“Are you OK?” Cally asked. “Was that your horse?”
The girl looked across the bridge and waved dismissively into the distance. “She has a mind of her own. I wish she would stay away from the highway!”
Cally wanted to ask where the road led, but was more concerned, at the moment, that a young woman was walking alone so late at night. “Are you OK?” she asked again. “Do you need a lift or something? I don’t think you’re going to catch that horse now.”
“There’s not a fence made that can hold her,” the girl said, peering into the interior of Cally’s car. Her mass of curls, bright red even in the dim light from the dashboard, nearly filled the entire window. Her large green eyes widened as they took stock of all the boxes and suitcases in the back seat.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
After an awkward moment, Cally asked, “Can you tell me where I am and how to get to Woodley?”
The girl seemed to make up her mind, then, and walked around the car to the passenger door. Cally reached across the seat and unlocked the door, and the girl got in, accompanied by the smell of wet leaves and moss. “I’m Errin,” she said, dropping Cally’s phone into the cup holder. “With a double ‘r’. That way,” she added, pointing forward through the windshield.
“Pleased to meet you, Errin. I’m Cally. So, is that Woodley up ahead? I’m afraid I’m completely lost.”
“It’s a nice little town,” Errin said, which was really not the answer Cally was looking for. But the girl smiled and gazed intently down the road, so Cally drove across the bridge and up the hill on the other side. The lights she had seen ahead came into view. They were street lights, standing outside a diner (“The Seven Forks”) and a gas station (“Gas.”) Both were closed for the night.
Errin continued smiling and gazing forward, so Cally passed these buildings and followed the road into another dark stand of trees. The girl glanced from side to side into the trees – looking for her stray horse, Cally assumed.
“Hopefully she’ll just go back to the barn on her own,” Cally suggested. “I understand horses tend to do that.” Errin laughed at this, and Cally didn’t bother asking her to explain why.
The road leveled out and exited the trees; here it became a quiet street with sidewalks on either side. None of the brick buildings was more than two stories high; most of them appeared to be small shops, all currently closed, some lit softly from inside. No other cars could be seen on the street.
“You can stop here,” Errin said as they came abreast of a storefront where a light over the door cast a soft half-moon on the sidewalk. A wooden sign reading “Dawes News” hung above the door. Cally pulled over to the curb.
“Are you sure you’re going to be OK from here?” she asked, pulling the parking brake and shutting off the engine. A “Closed” sign hung in the news store window and Cally despaired of finding anyone to give her some directions. She wished her passenger would be more helpful. “Dawes – is that the name of this town?”
She turned to see if Errin might be forthcoming with any useful information, but saw only an empty passenger seat. She had not heard the car door open or shut. She looked up and down the sidewalk, but did not see the girl walking away.
“Damn!” Something in the back of her mind tried to tell her she should feel alarmed, but this was overridden by the dismay of realizing she really wasn’t going to find out where she was, now.
Then she laughed. “It’s just like one of those stupid ghost stories!” she said to the empty car. She picked up her phone to see if there might be cell reception here. “Damn!” she said again.
Her phone’s GPS app was working again at last. It showed a little red car-shaped icon on a map indicating she was two miles east of Interstate 85, halfway between Blackthorn and Coppersmith. The map did not show anything around her car, though, not this little town, and not even the street on which she was currently parked. It was as if she had driven into the middle of an empty field.
That was not what had caused Cally to swear, however. Her dismay was due to the fact that while she had been out of cell phone range, she’d missed five incoming calls, all from the same number. “Oh, Gods, I’m in for it now,” she said, and resignedly called the number back.
“Mom!” Her daughter answered on the first ring. “Where are you? Gordon and I went by today and found your apartment completely cleaned out. We’ve been worried sick!”
“I’m fine, Kelleigh, “ Cally said. “I did text you.”
“I know, but...” An exasperated sigh sounded like loud static in Cally’s ear.” I didn’t think you’d actually do it! I’ve been going out of my mind! I haven’t been able to get any sleep. I haven’t even told Brandon yet. He would totally freak!”
“Well, now you know what you kids always used to put me through when you were teenagers,” Cally responded.
A long silence followed, during which Cally could picture her daughter mustering her “patient expression.” At length, Kelleigh said, “Okay, I get it. You’re a runner. It’s what you do. But... Dammit, Mom. You’re too old to go running off into the middle of nowhere, on the advice of someone you’ve never even met!”
“I’ve known Emerald for years,” Cally reminded her.
“Over the internet! You’ve never met her face to face. For all you know, she’s actually an old pervert living in his mother’s basement!” Kelleigh’s voice was uncomfortably loud in Cally’s ear and she had to hold the phone a few inches away from her head. “This is nuts!” Kelleigh was saying. “And completely unnecessary. I keep telling you, Gordon and I would love to have you come and stay with us. And Gordon knows several people who could set you up with a real job, and...”
“Look, sweetie, I solemnly promise you I will not just let myself die of exposure on a park bench somewhere. If this doesn’t work out, I will take you up on your offer.” She loved her daughter and son-in-law, but she had tried a thousand different ways to explain to them that dying of exposure on a park bench still seemed better, to her, than depending on someone else’s good graces, in someone else’s home, pursuing someone else’s career, living someone else’s life just to stay alive. She had broken out of that trap once. She would never go back into it willingly. “I promise I’ll call you when I get there.”
“You aren’t even there yet? Where are you?”
Cally looked through the windshield at the quiet street. “It’s a nice little town,” she said, taking a page from the girl Errin’s book of evasive answers. “I’m going to get some rest now. Get some sleep and stop worrying. I’m fine.”