Lost Highways: Dark Fictions From the Road Read online

  “Tracie!” I screamed, and we both found each other staring at growing headlights, eyes wide, and I sprang like a deer to the ditch and tried pulling Tracie with me but our fingers failed to intertwine and the car struck her, Tracie bent in half by the bumper before rolling over the hood and smashing against the windshield, her body flung what seemed a hundred feet away and flopped over the car and smashed against the asphalt, tumbling and tumbling and finally still. And then not so still, the mass in the road reaching out, quivering.

  The car finally stopped on the side of the road, taillights glowing like the eyes of a beast, and then the eyes blinked to a softer red, the driver inside taking her foot off the brakes. It was Tracie’s car, or so I thought at first. I ran up the stretch of road.

  The body in the road wore mostly black—the same body in the road as the one we’d hit, a silver mood ring on one hand with whatever mood it portrayed now black under the moonlight, and the other hand clenched around what I knew would be a small glass vial.

  Up ahead, the car was indeed Tracie’s, and I found myself stepping away from the road and watching another version of Tracie and another version of me assess the situation, both smoking, like the front end of the car. It’s still alive, the other me was saying to the other Tracie, who turned around and was then asking, What is it?

  I ran into the woods, then, until my lungs caught fire and a dagger pierced my side and I collapsed. There were other versions of us out there, and all I could do was run. I sat on a log for what seemed hours but was probably only minutes, and then I heard a rustling. I stood behind the trunk of a pine tree and hid there, knowing what made the noise.

  I watched the other version of me and the other version of Tracie pull Tracie’s mangled body into the woods. They covered her body in pine needles and branches under the light of a cell phone screen until the other version of Tracie screamed.

  “She has the same ring as me.”

  “Everyone has mood rings.”

  “I need to get out of here,” the other version of Tracie said, her words convincing the other me to follow. “I need to get out of here, get me out of here!”

  I stepped back and snapped a branch, and this got them moving.

  The night seemed to stretch indefinitely, and when I finally made my way back to the road, the white line kept on going as far as I could see in either direction. I walked all night, the moon never moving in front of me, its light masking the world in grayscale, and the white line I followed went on and on and on. I’d had too much to drink, I knew, the road a blur.

  An engine and the sound of gravel under tires turned me around and I found myself squinting into headlights. I went around to the passenger door and inside was Tracie, high as fuck, her nose red, and her eyes black discs.

  “Need a ride?” she said, and I said I did and hopped inside.

  We drove forever that night, had sex in the car, under a streetlamp, and I found myself thinking about the bra on the floorboard, her torn underwear on the middle console. She’d used me, I knew, had finished and climbed off before I could and slid naked into her jeans, and then she drove, and we talked about dead things and dolls.

  I shook my head no when she offered me the vial of coke. I’d only drank.

  “The long white line,” she said, batting her hands against the steering wheel. The radio was off, but she had some song in her head. The song was in my head, too, so I played along.

  What you do you want to do when we graduate? I wanted to ask.

  SOME DAY, SOON

  Luke Spooner

  JIM’S MEATS

  KELLI OWEN

  Janet reached over and gripped his knee, shaking it as she spoke. “Brad. Brad?” She didn’t look away from the dark Michigan highway as her tone grew an edge of both urgency and annoyance. She’d been trying to wake him for several minutes and was starting to panic, her anxiety apparent as her volume suddenly matched her tone. “Brad!”

  He bolted upright in the passenger seat and shot both hands to the dash in a reflexively defensive move, as if they were about to crash. When they didn’t, he looked around at the black night and then to Janet’s face, illuminated by the dim green of dash lights. “What the hell is wrong?”

  She swallowed hard enough for him to hear but didn’t look toward him, “I was wondering how much farther you can go after the Low Fuel light comes on . . . ” Her voice trailed off, the panic on her face did not.

  “Oh no. No no, baby. Don’t say—” He leaned toward her to look at the gauges on the dash, stopping when the seatbelt tightened against him. “Ah shit, hon.” He scanned the lonely stretch of empty highway and found nothing. No lights in the distance. No soft glow of a town at the horizon.

  “Where the hell are we?”

  “Lower Michigan. The last town I went through was a while ago. There were gas stations back there, but I didn’t realize we were that low. If I had . . . ” She swallowed again and gave him a sheepish glance. “I’m sorry.”

  “Well, there’s got to be something out here. And there’s gas left after the light comes on.” Brad popped open the glove box and pushed around a stack of outdated registrations and insurance card printouts. “Don’t we have a manual?”

  Janet shrugged. “I don’t remember one.”

  “Well damn.” He sighed and leaned back in his seat. His head against the side window, he willed something to appear on the horizon.

  Janet pushed the INFO button on the dash and cycled past the coolant temperature and oil life before arriving at the average mileage: twenty-two.

  “We gotta have about twenty miles, right?” She worked through the math out loud. “Average gallon worth? Well, fifteen miles now, because the light came on before I woke you.”

  “Probably . . . Let’s see what the closest option is.” Brad retrieved his phone from the center console and pushed the button to bring it to life. “Shit. No signal. Not even roaming or data.” He opened the Road Ninja app anyway, hoping it had loaded their entire route. It scanned for a moment before boldly announcing No Signal. He sighed, the heat of disappointment beginning to fester toward anger in his mind.

  Janet squinted and leaned forward. “There!” Janet smiled. “It’s all good. Sorry I panicked you. See? There’s something coming up. What’s the sign say?”

  They read the road sign in silence and kept driving without discussing it. The sign had been green rather than blue. Instead of promising food and gas or lodging, it instead told them it was forty-eight miles to the next town.

  They didn’t have forty-eight miles worth of gas.

  Brad looked around. “How can it be so black out here? No nothing. I mean, the stars look great, but my God, don’t people live in this state?”

  “Welcome to the great Midwest—all trees and fields and farms and crap. Worst case scenario, we go until we’re out, then we walk until we find a gas station or a house. There’s got to be something.”

  “Walk? Out here?” Brad stared at her as if she’d suggested he light himself on fire. “They’ll capture me and make me a pet!”

  “Oh Christ, please. This isn’t Deliverance, it’s Michigan.” Janet laughed uncomfortably at his snark, knowing it was anxiety and not serious, but worried herself about walking in the pitch black of the dark highway.

  “Hey!” Brad yelled, and she snapped out of her thought. “Slow down. There’s something. An exit? Exits are for a reason, right? Crossroads. Small towns. Might not have signs for travelers but they have to have amenities for residents, right?”

  Janet squinted at the dark strip of road splitting off from the highway. The sign didn’t claim a mile marker number, it simply read: EXIT. She exhaled heavily, puffing her cheeks out like a chipmunk, and turned the wheel. The off ramp rose slowly for several hundred feet before coming to a stop at an intersecting gravel road. They looked left and saw nothing but darkness. To the right, the same. Below the faded stop sign a long piece of weathered board, which may have once been white, was tied to the post with wir
e. Homemade stenciling declared JIM’S MEATS, with an arrow pointing toward the dark road on the right. Scrawled underneath someone had added “and gas.”

  Janet shook her head, eyes wide and mouth open.

  “Oh hell no.” Brad once again opened his phone. He huffed as he held his phone up against the roof of the car.

  “Seriously?” Janet’s gaze moved from the handwritten sign to Brad’s hand above his head. “You understand the signals come from towers and satellites thousands of miles above us, but yeah, raising it sixteen inches will absolutely help you get a signal.”

  He pulled his hand down and turned off the phone. “I do not need your snarky logic right now.” He pointed down the road indicated by the arrow, “Wanna check that out?”

  “Nope.” She crossed the intersecting road and returned to the highway. “Even the locals need to have better options than that, right?”

  “There’s got to be something . . . ” Brad tried to sound hopeful but heard his own doubts hang in the stale recycled air of the SUV’s interior.

  Three more miles of nothing and the darkness started to feel oppressive, as if fate were hugging them tight against their will. Panic had become a backseat driver. The hot invisible breath of personified fear blew on their necks, its fingers tracing their nerves in a jittery caress. Their own breath became an alternating dance of jumping panicked staccato, and forcibly controlled breaths designed to calm the mind and outward appearance.

  It didn’t work.

  “I’m sorry.” Janet offered, as she listened to his breathing become agitated.

  “Well, I’m not saying it’s your fault, but—.”

  “Wait, you’re going to actually throw blame around right now? How about, why weren’t you driving? We were an hour past time to switch, but you couldn’t be bothered to wake up.”

  Ignoring her attempt to make it his fault, he continued. “How do you drive for hours and hours and not watch the gas gauge? Who does that?”

  “I do, okay! Apparently, I do. And we can’t change that right now. So how about you be a little less of a dick about it.”

  He could see the moisture in her eyes as tears of rage, fear and guilt built up and threatened to spill.

  “I’m not . . . ” He stopped, pursed his lips for a moment and reworded his thoughts. “I said I wasn’t blaming you.”

  “But you are . . . ”

  They swallowed arguments and excuses alike. Unspoken tension filled the Explorer as silence became yet another passenger. She kept an eye on the gauges as they traveled. He studied the road ahead. As the trip odometer ticked off another mile and Janet mentally noted it marked the seventeenth mile, Brad screamed and made her jump.

  “There!”

  “What? Where?” Janet looked around and saw the faint outline of a large square sign. The town signs were small. The bigger ones were reserved for lodging, food, and gas. She smiled as she saw this one said the most important thing: GAS. She slowed as she steered the SUV onto the off ramp. At the stop sign, another marker informed them GAS was two miles to the left and she inhaled with trepidation.

  The red Low Fuel light flashed in a cry for attention, as if they could forget they’d been staring at it for almost twenty miles. And to really grind the point home, a triple beep repeated itself several times as a warning. Brad pointed down the road, “We don’t have a choice.”

  She turned the blinker on and sat for a few beats before easing the car into the turn. “Two miles though?”

  “Sure. Not all towns are built on the highway, right?”

  “I suppose.” Janet sighed.

  Two miles felt like twenty by the time they saw the first signs of life—a small forgotten single-story home. They didn’t voice their worries, but each presumed the other must be thinking the same thing. Ghost town? Outdated sign? And now they were two miles off the highway in the middle of nowhere. They’d have to walk back there before they could even begin to hitchhike or find help.

  Before either could voice their concerns, a bright white two-story home loomed out of the darkness. Then another. And another. And they found themselves in a full-fledged neighborhood.

  “Oh, thank God.”

  Janet slowed the SUV and crept along the road until she found a side street and stopped. In front of them the road continued with a smattering of homes, to the right it appeared to be a plotted neighborhood.

  “Maybe go down there and see?”

  Janet turned without a word.

  The street was lined with simple homes, all of which seemed to be of similar design, with trees of all sizes speckling the boulevards and dark yards. There seemed to be no porch lights turned on, no interior glow of lamps or televisions as proof of life, and no streetlights to shoo away the shadows of the neighborhood.

  Janet glanced at the clock on the dash, “The whole town goes to sleep by 9pm?”

  Other than the lack of life and light, the small town seemed clean and well kept. Preserved. Brad squinted in the dim light, his gaze flitting from home to home. There were no cars on the road and he guessed they must be in garages or carports behind the houses. One lone house sported a swing set, tilted with age and neglect, marring the otherwise picturesque village.

  After another block they came to a T-intersection. A brick building on the right declared POST AND GROCERY above the door. The dead-end in front of them housed a gravel lot with a small garage and gas station.

  Hope.

  Janet and Brad sighed in relief and smiled at each other.

  The building had an office on the left marked by a full picture window, and a single raised garage door on the right. In front of the building was a small, simple gas pump with two handles. The flickering yellow light above it was hidden until you were close enough to see its meager, sickly glow. Its reach wasn’t much, but it was enough to see the pump was modern, digital. Brad smiled, even if the place was closed, it might still take their credit card for gas.

  Janet pulled into the parking lot and circled around toward the pump. The SUV sputtered as if to announce their arrival and lurched the final few yards.

  “Is this place even open?” Janet looked around.

  “Hopefully it doesn’t matter.” Brad held up his VISA card as he opened the car door.

  Brad stepped out and examined the darkness. With the headlights off, the small town was swallowed by the starry night. The flickering bulb above him barely illuminated the SUV and pump. And the slight promise of light from somewhere in the back of the garage felt more like a forgotten flashlight than anything else in the pitch black the night had become. He walked around the Explorer and inspected the pump. It was digital. It was apparently working. And it did indeed take credit cards—at some point. Unfortunately, the credit card slot was covered with a strip of duct tape on which someone had used marker to write PAY INSIDE. Brad felt his shoulders slump.

  He turned toward the little building in time to see a man emerge from the darkness of the garage.

  “Evening,” Brad called out to the man, who immediately reacted as if he’d been bit—flinching and shaking his head before putting a finger to his lips.

  As he got closer, Brad watched the man wipe his hands on a rag and tuck the soiled cloth into his pocket. The man looked around the intersection and town itself as he briskly approached Brad. His dark pants and uniform style mechanic shirt were as filthy as his hands had been, the nametag on his shirt identifying him as FRANK.

  He held a hand out to Brad, “Name’s Everett, but most just call me Rett. Let’s get you inside with that card. I got a machine on the counter.”

  Brad squinted an unspoken question as he looked between the man’s face and his nametag. Borrowed shirt?

  “Come on now.” He looked at Janet through the car window, “We should get you two back on the road.” Rett turned and headed toward the office, leaving Brad no choice but to follow.

  Setting his credit card down on the counter for the man, Brad looked around the tiny office. Snack sized bags of ou
tdated chips and pretzels hung from a metal rack next to a small refrigerator. A paper taped to the front of the grease stained refrigerator stated fifty cents a can. He opened it, saw several flavors of some off-brand soda, and grabbed one each of the orange and cola options. Setting the sodas down, he spotted another snack option and had to stop himself from snickering. In a basket next to the register, a handful of handmade labels were stapled to bags declaring JIM’S MEATS: Local Game.

  Rett punched buttons on the register and swiped the card.

  Brad wasn’t opposed to jerky, liked it actually. He picked a bag from the basket out of curiosity, “Local game?”

  “Sure. Deer, moose, turkey, whatever’s in season. You wouldn’t like it.” Rett handed the card back and took the jerky from Brad, tossing it into the basket. “I charged you for twenty. That’ll get you up to Saginaw and you can fill up there. Now let’s hurry up and get you back on the road.”

  Rett walked out from behind the counter, his movements were as rushed as his words. He held the door open for Brad, “Don’t forget your sodas there.”

  Janet met them halfway to the SUV. “Is there a bathroom inside?”

  Rett sounded annoyed, “No. It’s ‘round back. Hurry up though.” His tone almost shooed her on like a stalling child.

  Janet walked around to the back of the building, tightening her muscles and holding it in the best she could. The urge had struck out of nowhere when she stood to stretch and now she prayed to get there in time. She rounded the back corner of the building and night swallowed the paltry light from the flickering gas pump. Her eyes adjusted and she saw a small overgrown lot separating the garage property from the backyards of several homes. The silhouettes of trees and—

  Those aren’t trees.

  She squinted—allowing the shapes to become only slightly more focused—and she realized there were several people standing there. She couldn’t gauge their sex or age in the dark, but spaced several car lengths apart she counted four. No, six.

  Seven.

  They were coming closer. Coming from the houses.