Paul’s fingers were slick around the smooth leather of the wheel.
Nothing is wrong, he thought, as he passed Exit 218 for the umpteenth time. He fixed on the rolling tarmac, his heart thudding in sync with every bump of the faded highway. There would be a rest stop or town anytime now. That was what he needed. A stretch, a bathroom break, and a cigarette. Then this never-ending desert would finally yield to civilization, and he’d pull up at Nedi Transport with a funny story to tell and a sign-on bonus to make all this worth it.
The dash in his rig rattled with disapproval, which he quickly silenced with a smack. The long hours were getting to him. That’s all this was. It didn’t matter that the odometer read two hundred miles ahead of where it should be. It didn’t mean anything that the last vehicle he saw was a green sedan some three hours ago. Nothing is wrong.
Paul turned on the radio, filling the silence with the stale collection of rock that most stations ran on loop. The latest jams the announcer chimed, as if there hadn’t been music since 1982. He scoffed. Mary would argue otherwise, he knew. In all likelihood, she was listening to this very station, unpacking their belongings at her leisure and taking breaks to scroll on her phone in the hopes he’d message.
Not for the first time, he wished he could be there instead of glued to this seat, resigned to whittle away his consciousness on a stream of interchanges and passing landscapes. A life on repeat, always with his eye on the miles, counting down to the moment when the engine whined to a stop and he’d step free of the semi and into her embrace.
He turned the volume up, daydreaming of how he’d make this next break worth it. A vacation, perhaps. Something new. Something spontaneous. Anything other than… this.
The arid desert road wound to the left and over a ridge. As he crested, a green rectangle glinted in the afternoon sun, punctuated by dots of sagebrush. Finally, something, he thought. He adjusted in his seat, his shirt stuck on his back.
The indicator clicked, and the sign came into focus.
Exit 218.
Paul swore and stomped on the brakes. The truck screeched to a halt on the shoulder, half off the road. He threw it in park and dropped from the cab, forcing stiff legs to carry him to within a foot of the sign. Defiant, he glowered at the numbers. He dared them to change, peering about their reflective edges for any evidence of tampering. It was kids with stickers, he assumed. You could order anything off the internet — so why not? Boredom and a tank of gas is all it would take to mess with hundreds of miles of signage.
The sign disagreed. Paul bit his lip and slipped his phone from his pocket, staring at the NO SIGNAL stretching across the top. He cursed and stared down the branching road. Exit or no, both roads faded into the distance, flanked by sage, tumbleweeds, and dust. Both led to nowhere.
He looked from the exit to his truck and back. Something was a ways down the road. Using one hand, he blocked the sun and squinted. A formless blur, right in the middle. A whispering draft whipped at his shirt, carrying with it a faint clicking. A crawling curiosity tingled up his arms and neck, entreating him. Paul stepped back.
“What —”
A horn blasted into his ears, air buffeting him as a loaded semi rumbled by. Paul clapped a hand on his chest and chuckled. The spell was broken. He was not lost; he was simply on a lonely stretch of U.S. soil wasting time falling hook, line, and sinker to a prank. He hoisted himself back into his rig and went on his way, certain that the real exit would come soon enough.
Curiosity nipped at his ear, though, the clicking resonating deep inside. He flicked a glance at the rear-view mirror, seeing a dog barking beside the sign. He blinked, and it was gone. With a shaking hand, he grabbed his cigarettes from the glove box and lit a smoke.
Then ninety more minutes passed.
Paul was about to pull his hair out. He’d crossed two Exit 218s, seen zero vehicles, and was now, if his vehicle was truthful, nearing three hundred miles farther down this road than he should be. He had dusted off a map twenty minutes ago and tracked his route to no avail. There should have been gas stations, rest stops, merging roads, and country lanes. There was no possible way that he could go this far without encountering at least one of those. He would even welcome roadworks at this point.
He craned his neck, staring skyward at a sun that was refusing to move. Everything else he could convince himself had an explanation. The signs were a prank, he had gotten lost, and the odometer was busted. But the flipping sun?
He drummed the wheel with one hand and chewed his cuticles with the other.
What was going on? What should he do? He thought of Mary once more, cursing in hindsight that he’d brushed off her suggestion to go on an extended trip last month. They needed that money to get settled, he’d reasoned. Paul pressed the accelerator flat, thinking about all manner of things he’d rather have done. The radio repeated its track selection, and Paul slammed the off button. In its wake, the clicking returned. Or rather, it intensified. Since he’d gotten out of the truck, it was insistent. He turned the radio back on, but the sound wasn’t shaken. Click-click, click-click, click-click, click-click…
Paul burned down another cigarette and paused while reaching for another. A green rectangle dotted the horizon. His heart raced faster the closer it came. Under his breath, he muttered, “Exit 219, Exit 219…”
As badly as he needed to know, he feared that bold white text. He didn’t know what he’d do if it heralded 218 once more. His pulse bounced in his boots. The text came into focus with the sign a half mile off. Exit… 2… 1… Paul blinked. He tried to ignore it. Pretend he didn’t see. But his heart dropped to his stomach. 218. Always, 218.
Paul screamed. He crushed his forehead under one palm, crumbling at last under the stress. He laughed. What else could he do? This was ridiculous. He raised his gaze. His breath seized. There it was again. The dog in the road.
He spun the wheel. The rubber screeched, his vehicle careening off the highway and down Exit 218. The truck tilted, tires bounced over rough earth, and the world exploded in a flash of light. Then it all went black.
He heard the rattle of a cart and a barking dog. A shock ripped through him, then another. He tasted ash and iron. Then he lifted, leaving behind something that was once important. He drifted, the white fading to the cloudy blue sky above. Paul turned and stared down at the smoldering wreckage surrounded by flashing lights.
A familiar form rested on a gurney, while a white-shirted woman shook her head.
“Time of death, 2:18pm.”
Thomas Holland is a writer crafting fiction shorts while on the path to completing a novel. Find him at www.thomasholland.me
