Road To Nowhere

Copyright © 2020 by Fallton Havenstonne

All rights reserved.

Road To Nowhere

By Fallton Havenstonne

Locke and Martha stirred awake, blinking at the dark road before them. Martha lifted up her glasses and rubbed her eyes. After she wore them on, she noticed that there was nothing in front of the car. 

The headlights illuminated an empty road that receded into a vast stretch of darkness. There weren’t any cars, street lamps nor signs. Just an endless road that went on and on for miles until it disappeared.

Martha recalled that they were driving on Interstate 495. Now it was like they were in the backcountry—a deserted road.

“Do you know where we are?” Martha asked.

“No,” Locke said, checking his body to see if he was injured—if there had been an accident. “The last thing I remember was a deer.”

“Standing in the middle of the road, right?”

“Yes,” Locke said. “It didn’t even move.”

“Did you hit it?”

“No.” 

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. There would’ve been damage to the car and—”

“We should check the road,” Martha said. “See if the deer is—”

“I didn’t hit it,” Locke said in a defensive tone. 

“Can we just check the road, Locke?” 

“Yeah. Fine.”

They unfastened their seatbelts and went outside into the cold October night. Martha looked up at the sky and didn’t see the moon or any stars. There weren’t any clouds either. 

They moved to the front of the car, but didn’t see a deer on the road. The car wasn’t damaged either. Martha stood there gazing at the asphalt, trying to recall what had happened before they woke up.

“See. There’s no deer,” Locke said. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his sport coat. “There’s not even a scratch on the car,” he added.

“Where did it go?”

“It probably ran off somewhere,” he said, looking off into the forest.

Martha zipped up her green jacket. Her curly brunette hair rippled against the wind. She adjusted her glasses again so that they were even now. “What do you last remember before we woke up?” 

“We were at Daryl’s housewarming party in Maryland—stayed for a couple of hours. Then you said you were tired, so I took you home. I think we left around eight.”

“I thought it was seven.”

“Right. Seven. And I took Route 50 after we left Daryl’s. Then I got on 495, which was the fastest way to Arlington.” 

“I had fallen asleep after you got on 495,” Martha mentioned. “Then I woke up because you slammed on the brake.” 

“The deer was standing about a hundred feet from us. It didn’t even move. It just stared at us.”

“I remember,” Martha said. “It was like it wasn’t afraid.”

“It must’ve darted away before . . .”

She glanced around at the shadowy trees and felt like they were being watched by someone—something. “Can you take me home?”

“Sure. Get in.”

They got in the car, and once inside, Locke turned on the engine and cranked up the heat. He drove straight for miles and didn’t see any cars on the road. Martha kept an eye out for any deer that might be grazing, but the forest seemed devoid of life. 

The gas tank was half full, and Locke hoped that he could find a gas station before the needle went down to a quarter. He drove straight for ten miles until the road veered left. After a couple of miles, the road straightened out again, but in all that time, they didn’t see a single vehicle.

Martha noticed that there were no turn offs or road signs. There wasn’t even a speed limit. The road just went on and on without end. Locke sped up to eighty-five miles per hour. He was desperate to find a turnoff or an exit. After ten miles, the road veered left again. After two miles, it straightened out as it did before. 

“It’s like we’re going in a loop,” he said eerily.

Martha said, “Why haven’t we seen any cars or traffic lights?”

“I don’t know,” Locke said uneasily. “It’s like we’re driving on some unmarked road in Virginia. None of this looks familiar.”

“Wait. I have an idea. I’ll use my GPS!”

“Of course,” Locke beamed. 

“I’ll find out where we are and get us out of here.”

Martha urgently drew out her cellphone and opened the map app. She waited for her phone to find a signal, but it couldn’t find one. When that didn’t work, she tried calling her sister, as well as five other people, but couldn’t get through to anyone.

“Any luck?” Locke said.

“No. There’s no cell tower out here,” Martha said, her voice trembling.

“It’ll be okay, Martha.”

She sniffled. “Where are we? Why are we lost?” she said in a panic-stricken tone.

“We’ll find a way out,” Locke assured. “I promise.”

“I just want to go home,” she said.

“You will. First, let’s think and figure out where we are.”

Suddenly, the road lit up with a blanket of white light. It flooded the landscape as if signal flares had shone in the sky. Locke stopped the car, and they both got out, standing in the middle of the road. 

They gazed up at the sky as if the light were shining directly on them. A horn blared, echoing across the landscape. It sounded like the horn of a train or a semi. The light grew brighter until they could no longer look at it and had to turn away.

After a moment, the light disappeared, and the sky was dark once again. 

“What was that?” Martha said.

“I don’t know.”

“Was it a plane?”

“I don’t think so. It was like something opened up in the sky,” Locke said speculatively. 

“Locke. Over there!”

About a hundred yards out, they saw a semi with its headlights glaring at them. It was parked on the road as if the driver had stopped to look at the white light too.

Martha’s heart leapt with joy.  “Maybe the driver knows a way out of here.”

“All right. Get in.”

Locke turned the car around and sped toward the semi. He parked beside it, and they both leapt out of the car. A trailer was hitched to the semi, and they could see the driver inside the cabin. His head was down on the steering wheel as if he had fallen asleep.

Martha beat Locke to the driver-side door of the semi. She knocked on it repeatedly until the driver woke up. The driver lifted his head and looked around confusedly, his startled expression matching theirs when they first woke up on the road. 

The driver lowered the window and said, “Is something wrong?”

“We need your help,” Martha said.

“What happened?” 

“We’re lost, and we can’t find a way out.”

The driver scanned the forest and the long stretch of road. The situation dawned on him all of a sudden. He realized what she meant now.

“Where is everyone?” the driver said. “Where’s the highway . . . all the cars?”

“They’re gone,” Martha said.

“We showed up here just like you did,” Locke chimed in. “It’s like the highway just disappeared.”

The driver opened the door and hopped down onto the asphalt. He was burley and had on a leather jacket. He took off his cap and scratched his short brown hair. He put the cap back on and said, “This is one strange pickle we’re in. My name’s Bob by the way.”

“I’m Martha.”

“And I’m Locke.”

They shook hands with him.

“Is it just you all out here?” Bob said.

“Yes,” Martha said. 

“What road is this?”

“We don’t know,” Martha said.

Locke added, “It’s not marked. And there are no signs around here either.”

“Well, that ain’t right,” Bob said, peering at both sides of the road. “There’s gotta be someone that knows what’s going on.”

“What’s the last you remember?” Martha asked.

“Well,” Bob started, scratching his neck, “I remember seeing a deer. It stood there in the road . . . didn’t even move.”

“That was the last thing we saw too,” Locke said. 

“Did you hit it?” Martha said hesitantly.

“I don’t think so,” Bob said, taking off his cap again. “If I did, its body should be here, right?”

***

The deer grazed on the grass alongside the highway as the asphalt rumbled and the vehicles zoomed passed it with a wild rush of wind. The deer wasn’t afraid, and it waited for the road to clear before crossing it. Sometimes the deer would step right in front of an oncoming vehicle. It happened twice this evening, but it didn’t even get a scratch from the incidents.

It all started when the deer had drunken from a greenish pool outside of a power plant. The plant had been dumping radioactive waste into a manmade pool. Despite the pollution it caused, which seeped into the groundwater, they kept it under wraps so that not even the media got wind of it. 

But something was living inside the radioactive pool, and when the deer drank from it, it lurched up and bonded with the deer in a symbiotic way. 

The deer sprinted across the highway despite the oncoming pickup that was barreling down at seventy miles per hour. The pickup honked, and the deer froze in the middle of the road. The deer gazed at the glaring headlights—its hooves rooted to the ground as if it were paralyzed from the neck down. 

In the seconds that passed, it hoped that the pickup would miraculously disappear. Lucky for the deer, the radioactive thing inside it sprang into action. It zapped a beam of light at the pickup, reducing it to particles, and swallowed it through the eyes of the deer.

After it was over and the pickup was gone, the deer continued on its path, crossing to the other side of the highway. Inside the radioactive thing, a new guest found itself on a dark road.