I just looked out the window and it’s there, just down the street. It’s been there all day. The old familiar dread has been slowly building in the base of my testicles.
The first time I noticed the sign was between Boulder and Denver. My then-wife’s father was driving us to the airport after we’d paid her parents a quick visit. It was my first time driving through mountains, so I was zoned out and enjoying the view before we headed back to the flat lands of east Texas.
I’m the kind of person that has to read every sign they see. So when I saw the reflective blue rectangle flash in my father-in-law’s headlights, my eyes were immediately drawn to it. It wouldn’t have stood out at all except for two things: I thought it was funny that there was a roadside attractions sign announcing that there were zero attractions in rural Colorado, and I felt a vague uneasiness that built to an irrational, overwhelming feeling of existential dread as we sped toward the sign.
ATTRACTIONS 0
That was all that was printed on the sign, white letters centered at the top. The bulk of the blue body was covered in squiggles and splashes of graffiti in black and white and red spray paint, undistinguishable at the speed we were traveling. The same kind of signs I’d seen all over the south, but the ones down there had an exit number on them. I didn’t know how they did things in Colorado though. We passed it and it was gone from my mind just as fast as it disappeared into the gloom behind us. Even the bizarre feeling of my skin crawling on my flesh, as if to escape my body and slink into the dark creases in the old sedan’s seats, faded into less than an afterthought.
The second time I saw it, the then-wife and I were driving from Denver to Telluride for her parents’ 30th anniversary. When I saw it flash past as we sped along I-70 my only conscious acknowledgement of it was a fleeting recognition of the strange graffiti-covered sign and the intense dread it inspired, and an urge to steer the car straight into it at 80 mph. I had some thought about being confused on where I’d seen it before, but the sign and the thought were gone before I’d even had time to process the feelings I was having. If that had been the last time I’d seen the sign, I doubt I’d have ever thought about it again.
The third time I saw it, I was driving from Lake Charles to New Orleans. I’d been in Louisiana for my aunt’s funeral and I wanted to take the opportunity to see a couple of friends from college. This was about 10 years ago, just before I got out of the Army. I had separated from my wife by then, so I was solo on this trip. The funeral was a shit-show of Cajun proportions, which was only fitting for a woman whose wedding had ended in a brawl 3 out of 4 times. She was like a second Mom to me though, closer in a lot of ways than my bio Mom. She’d taught me how to get nectar from a honeysuckle, took me to Hanna Barbera Land all the way in Houston because I loved The Jetsons so much, taught me how to catch a bee and spit on my shirt, then rub his butt on the little spit-spot to remove its stinger. She lived next door for most of my childhood, until she married and moved away to Washington state.
Being that this was the first time I’d seen most of my extended family in several years and I was in a pretty messy state over the loss of my aunt, I celebrated her life to an embarrassing extreme. I was on a 7-day bereavement bender leave and I’d spent the first 3 in Lake Charles.
After the short, bittersweet reunion I was supposed to drive my Aunt’s old Camry to N.O. for a few days, then finish taking it to Baton Rouge to leave at my Grandpa’s place. I said goodbye to everyone early in the afternoon of my fourth day on leave, stopped at a gas station for a top-aff and a cheap bottle of vodka, and I hit I-10 east.
Before I continue, I need to impress something on you, because I could easily be discredited as what you would call an unreliable narrator based on my history.
The only time I drink is when I’m lying, and the only time I lie is when I’m drinking.
I say this because I do have a history of trauma, mental illness and substance abuse. But I also have done a lot of work to change the person that I was into the person that I am, and I am an honest, decent person now. I’m not proud to say that I wasn’t honest or decent until a few years ago. But if I’m gonna tell the story, I need to be able to tell all of it, and I need you to believe me. I thought I was going crazy, too, at first.
I knew the second I saw it that it was the same sign. The sense of dread that washed over me wasn’t vague this time, it hit me like a sock full of angsty quarters.
ATTRACTIONS 1
Why was it different this time? And it sure as shit wasn’t in Colorado, this wasn’t some misremembering. There was nothing else new on the sign, no sticker announcing a burger joint or chicken chain, no directions, no miles to go. But I knew it was the same sign immediately, and I knew that it wanted me to follow it. Where did it want me to go?
I slowed the car to a crawl and swung a wide u-turn, and again once more, then stopped facing the sign. It was all I could do to make myself look at it, the existential dread shooting tendrils of electricity through me, settling in my heart and making it beat erratically, and in my balls, making them shrivel up as though they wanted to crawl inside me. I couldn’t bring myself to get out of the car, but I was plenty close enough to see the sign clearly. The graffiti was mostly nonsense, names that had no meaning to me. On the left side, however, just a few inches from the edge of the sign, scrawled in cursive, as familiar to me as my own signature, was my aunt’s name.
I suddenly knew exactly which turns to take in order to find the Attraction. I took a heavy slug from the already quarter-empty bottle of vodka to steel my nerves and put the car in drive. I drove on auto-pilot for about half an hour, long enough that the sun was starting to dip beneath the horizon and the sky was a brilliant bruised purple and orange by the time I reached my destination, such as it was. I pulled off of the wooded country highway and onto a narrow dirt road that wound a short way through the trees to a clearing that had been invisible from the highway. I didn’t know what I was expecting to find, but I was somewhat disappointed to pull up to a simple roadside rest stop setup. No clear parking spots, just a small dirt lot next to the usual red-brick bathroom building, vending machine encased in a grated metal exoskeleton, and a small information booth, in the middle of fucking nowhere.
The sense of dread I’d been feeling had been drowned by alcohol and unbridled curiosity, so I got out of the car to explore. The bathroom was clearly only large enough to house one toilet on each side, and had two doors, one on the left and one on the right. They were both made of metal that was painted state park green and were both covered in rust spots and dents of various sizes, even a couple of what looked like bullet holes. Both were locked tight. Too bad, since I had to pee like a… well like a guy that had been day-drinking. I walked the ten feet or so to the information booth and tried the door, but it too was locked. I cupped my hands against the window and tried to look in, but the lack of light in the lot and thick layer of dust on the inside made it impossible to make anything out. The vending machine stood next to the booth and clearly had no power. I unzipped my pants and took a piss on the corner of the vending machine. I finished, shook twice, and was zipping up when I noticed that there was a moldering, ancient brochure tucked a few slots back on the bottom row. I bent closer to look at the brochure and could just barely make out the logo at the top through the blooms of blue and green and brown decay.
Han arber L
Hanna Barberra Land.
The skin-crawling dread came flooding back and I lost my balance, fell into the puddle of my own piss. I don’t remember much after that. I remember going back to the car and taking another slug on the vodka. I remember grabbing a hammer and smashing the glass out of the vending machine. As drunk as I was, it took a while to get a good hit in between the metal bars and then fish the brochure out. I remember trying to smash the window of the info booth, but I didn’t make so much as a scratch. The next thing I remember, I was waking up on an airplane that had flown me back to Fairbanks, Alaska, where I was stationed at the time.
I know I went to New Orleans because my friends posted pictures on Facebook and Insta and I was there in a lot of them. I had a text from my grandpa saying thanks for bringing the car to Baton Rouge, and another telling me that he understood how much my aunt’s death had affected me, that he hoped I would find someone to talk to, that it was okay to ask for help. And in my duffel, when I unpacked, I found a resealable plastic pouch that had been emptied of its original dried beef contents. Inside the pouch was a decaying brochure.
I wish I could say that blacking out for 4 days would have been the impetus for my change into an honest, decent man, but it wasn’t. I was still several years, a stint in rehab, a divorce and another marriage away from that.
Now I know that was a lot of talky-talky for not a lot of payoff, but you need some sort of context, because I had all but forgotten the sign until a few days ago. I still think about the sign occasionally, usually when I have a dream about my aunt, but it’s been just a weird memory that occasionally stirs up some weird feelings. I live in Texas now, there’s been a lot of time and a lot of living in the last decade, and a lot of drinking for most of it. I’ve been trying to figure out how to write this for a few days now, trying to remember details about something I’d barely ever thought about.
Three nights ago, I was driving home from town, and I felt it before I saw it.
ATTRACTIONS 1.
The feeling of insane, irrational terror was stronger than ever, so strong that I thought my intestines would implode from the pressure of squeezing themselves into such a tight knot. My brain went into a fight-or-flight panic, sending conflicting signals to my body to brake, speed away, jump from the car, steer into the ditch, claw my eyes and pull my hair out. What I did was speed up and cut across the highway into a wide open field, truck bouncing and shaking with bone-rattling force. I had no control over my actions as I careened towards a grove of trees about a football field’s length away. I closed my eyes and waited for the violent crash that was sure to happen any moment, but I could feel my hands moving the wheel as though independent of my body. I opened my eyes only when I felt the truck come to a complete stop.
I was looking directly at a caged vending machine with a broken glass front. I could see something small and vaguely triangular in it but I couldn’t tell what it was. I sat there for a moment, trying to collect myself and waiting for my intestines and testicles to unwind themselves. I got out of my truck and slowly walked to the vending machine. I bent down and reached a hand between two metal slats, grabbed the object with the tips of two fingers and pulled it out. Similar to the brochure from years ago, this too was covered in mold and dirt decay, but I knew what it was as soon as I pulled it out. I’d seen it every day for 18 months. It was the unit patch of my last duty station, the one everyone on base wore on their left shoulder. I felt wrong, dazed, like I’d been in a wreck and was just stumbling, concussed, around the scene of the accident. I wanted to sit down and I wanted to throw up and I wanted to punch myself to make sure I was still real. I had half a thought that I actually had hit one of those trees, and this was my nightmare before I saw the light.
Part of me wishes I had hit a tree.
My legs didn’t seem to understand that they were supposed to work as a unit, my arms hung limp and useless, I could feel a ball of primal terror growing in my chest as I fought to regain control of my body. I just wanted to leave that place as fast as possible, but my will was useless. Even my eyes seemed to move of their own accord, and I found myself focusing on a dim shape inside the darkened info booth. It was impossible to see who or what it was through the grime, and I didn’t want to find out.
Seeing that figure broke something else in my already broken brain, and I blacked out.
I’m writing this hoping that someone out there has seen the sign, has experience with this… whatever the fuck this is. Hoping that someone knows what I should do. Why it changes. Because after I blacked out, I woke up in my truck, sitting in my driveway. I only lost a few hours. I don’t know how I got home, but I don’t think I came alone. I haven’t been able to sleep for three days. My wife hasn’t noticed anything yet, but it won’t be long before she notices that I’m acting weird. Then I’ll have to tell her about ATTRACTIONS 0 and the figure that I’ve been seeing since. I haven’t been able to get a good look at it yet, it always seems to be in the periphery, but I know it’s the figure from the info booth. And I know it wants to talk to me.
I can see the sign from my front window now. It’s on the corner just up the street. I’m going to do some more research and get some gear together. I’m not gonna wait for this fucker to get to me, I’m gonna take the fight to it. I’ll update when I’m back from my next drive.