“The way back home is southeast.”
The monotonous tone combined with the expressionless face of the innkeeper gave way to an almost indescribable feeling. One that’s hard to place. Perhaps akin to the feeling you get when you’re standing on the brink of a place you’re never supposed to go.
Surreal. That’s what I was feeling.
“Come again?” I asked, the wind whipped my face so hard the words felt like they were inaudible as they caught in my throat.
“The way back home is southeast,” he repeated in the same robotic voice, unblinking.
I cleared my eyes with my near-numb hands, to get a closer look at him. He was an older man, with swarthy dark skin and slicked back white-black peppered hair. He didn’t look like he was from the area, given the tan of his sunkissed skin compared to the chill of the rural Oregon winter, but he had the look of a kindly grandfather, which made the prolonged, lifeless stare feel even stranger.
He never blinked at all. He was still as a statue, his right arm to his side and left arm holding the door knob. The stillness was inhuman.
I shuddered involuntarily, most likely from the chill outside.
Self-consciously, I looked down at my clothing to see if some thrifted item I was wearing invoked the response he was giving. Maybe he was quoting a reference to some old sitcom I had never seen that was somehow related to my hoodie. But when I looked down, I was just wearing some jeans and a ratty Salem Red Sox hoodie that was three sizes too big for me.
Did I look like I was a homeless guy from Salem or something?
I composed myself.
“Hey sorry, if I came off the wrong way. I was just wondering if I could get a room for tonight. I’m from Atlanta. I’m traveling up to Alas–”
My off-beat ramble was cut short by the heavy door slamming in my face. The volume and complete abruptness of it made me jump back, and I almost tripped on the icy steps below in the process. But I quickly regained my composure.
The fuck.
I started walking back to where I came from; thouroughly confused, and even colder than I was before. The hair on the back of my neck stood up too, probably from the freezing air around me.
I trudged down the dark road, the one I took from my rental car to the strange little Inn. The dimlit was surrounded by thick groves of pine trees taller than most houses; really signifying that I was in the middle of nowhere.
The entire walk back, I replayed the short “conversation” in my head, trying to find some explanation for the man’s behavior. Although it was strange, I eventually came to the conclusion that he must have been drunk or high on something. I mean, who could blame him? I would’ve drunk too if I were forced to run a lonely hotel in the middle of nowhere for a living–especially in a winter like that.
At some point, after what seemed like hours of walking, I saw the dull-gleam of my red Subaru glint off my phone’s flashlight which was illuminating my trek. I unlocked the car and got in, shivering many for minutes, even long after the heat started running.
I contemplated driving down the road awhile longer. Now that I knew the Inn wasn’t an option, I wasn’t held back by sleeping locations. But after some deliberation, I decided that where I parked was as good a place as any to get some rest.
At least I’m not gonna freeze I thought but still, damn everything.
Fortunately, the car I rented was pretty nice for sleeping in, at least as far as cars went. Although, I will admit, a real bed sure would’ve been nice in the rapidly dropping 15-degree weather.
My flight to Fairbanks, Alaska was already scheduled at 5:00 pm sharp the next day, so driving farther away to find another Inn was practically a non-question. Even if there were any remotely close.
I sighed as I reluctantly reclined my seat back until I was almost parallel to the floor. My back hurt, and I silently cursed whatever drug was making me wake up to sores for the second night in a row instead of a warm white sheet and pillows. Whatever it was, I vowed to myself that I would never take it.
The soft light of the car illuminated the surrounding area pretty well, but it was not bright enough to obscure the dazzling stars overhead, whcih I looked at through my sunroof window. I admired the beauty of it for a few moments, watching the view slowly get covered up by snowflakes piling up on it. The soft pitter-patter of the snow falling, and the quiet ambiance of the surrounding woods eventually lulled me into a short-lived, but deep and peaceful sleep.
.
What seemed like mere minutes later, I was loudly awoken by the screeching, the crashing of some vehicle outside. Startled, I quickly jumped up.
It sounded like it came from the front of my car. I squinted hard and scanned outside the windshield for the cause of the noise. But it was pitch-black, and my half-asleep brain couldn’t make out anything beside softly falling white snow.
I attempted to adjust my eyes to the darkness, but the car was too bright; it was like staring outside into a forest after sitting near a campfire for too long. I quickly turned off my engine, and with it, the lights.
Moments later, after several seconds of squinting and scanning, I could faintly make out something far ahead, to the left of the road. It was a blue blob, a car, I assumed, that was half on the road, and half buried in a cluster of pine trees off of it. A wreck.
My God.
With bated breath, I frantically switched my car back on, and drove the distance between me and the wreckage, but slowly. The ice had grown thicker since I fell asleep, and I didn’t want to meet the same fate as the car ahead of me.
As I got closer, I quickly came to realize the severity of the crash. The car, some kind of off-road vehicle, was almost completely obliterated in the front. Everything up to the frontdoor looked like it had been crushed by a hydraulic press, folded like an pancake. It was a horrible wreck, but I still had baseless hope that whoever in it survived.
As I pulled within twenty feet of it, I still couldn’t make out a body. The windows were heavily tinted, and the car was a foot and a half off the ground, making the angle nearly impossible to see if a someone was slumped over inside.
I turned off my engine and hopped out of my car. I knew I had to be quick. I’d heard horror stories in the past of cases where people in car wrecks, who typically would have lived, died from the surrounding people now knowing how to perform CPR.
Do I even remember how to do CPR?
As my door flung open, the absolute chill instantly hit me. it was probably well into the negatives at that point. I shivered uncontrollably as I pushed through toward the wreck.
“HELLO?” I shouted against the cold as I got within a few feet. “ARE YOU ALRIGHT?”
When no answer came, I stopped.
Despite the dire situation–the pressing needs of whoever might be in the car, I couldn’t bring myself to get closer. Something I can’t begin to describe had hit me. Something just felt off about the whole scene. The wreck, the dark road, the still and silent forest surrounding it.
Something I couldn’t quite place made me want to run back to my car and leave this for someone else to stumble upon. But I couldn’t just leave someone here, potentially dying without any help.
You’re selfish–and a bad person to boot, Marcus I told myself just open the damn car door and find out what the hell is going on, then you can leave.
Mustering my remaining reserves of willpower, I marched up to the front of the car and attempted to open the door.
The latch was colder then I expected. Much colder.
Opening the door was much harder than I expected, something must have been jammed in it–despite the fact that the door was relatively untouched by the wreck.
Exerting all my force, I swung the damn thing open.
The first and only thing I saw was a body. Lying in the front seat was a young woman with pale skin and brown hair, maybe 20ish. She was slumped over on the now inflated airbag, completely unconscious. I rubbed my hands until I could feel them again, then rapidly checked her pulse.
I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I found out she was alive.
After rubbing my arms together to stave off the piercing cold, I pulled out my phone to call 911. But there were no bars. No service at all, even for emergency calls, which shouldn’t have surprised me, given where I was.
Looking back at the slumped over girl, I cursed under my breath, realizing that I was gonna have to carry her to my car and then drive her to a hospital, or some kind of civilization with reception, at least.
I looked back at my car, estimating the distance I would have to carry her when suddenly, I heard quiet movement behind me.
I whipped around, not processing what I was seeing for a moment.
The girl’s pale, motionless face was now mere inches from mine. She was standing in the snow, right in front of me, in bare fee. The suddenness and speed at which she was able to get out of her seat, after being unconscious, then stand on the road in front of me made me jump back in a mixture of surprise and fear.
“What in the hell-“ I began.
“Where are you going?” She asked in a dazed voice. Her tone was so even that it didn’t even sound like a question, more like a command.
“I don’t understand-“
“Where are you going?” She repeated, motionless.
“That’s not important, you were just in a fucking wreck lady.” Something in her voice made me answer her, though. “I’m heading up to Alaska, I can give you a ride to a–”
“The way back home is southeast.” She cut me off, repeating the exact same lifeless mantra as the innkeeper.
My blood completely drained. I knew, at that moment, I wasn’t dealing with some ordinary wreck. And this time, instinct won.
I turned back around like lightning and took off in the opposite direction of the girl, towards my car, running faster than I had ever run in my entire life. I’m pretty sure more adrenaline pumped through my veins than blood did.
Within seconds of my feet pounding across the ice-laden road, I reached my car door.
I jumped inside, fear taking over me as I fumbled with the keys for a second before igniting the engine. I jerked my car into reverse, not checking to see if the girl was following me. I manage to spin my car around, barely missing the surrounding grove of trees, before speeding off 40 MPH faster than the speed limit to get the hell away from whatever just happened.
I didn’t think or breathe much the entire drive. I have no idea how long it was. All I could remember was the swishing of my window wipers fighting the wind and snow, as I gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles and tried to comprehend what the hell was happening to me.
Eventually, I sw lights ahead of me on the road. A sign ahead told me I had made it to a small town of about 300 people. Isped through it, and quickly found the small police station, which I breathlessly banged on until an officer let me in; ignoring the extreme cold I was constantly feeling outside.
The conversation I had with the police was a blur. He was obviously annoyed at having to file out paperwork at 3 am, right before his shift ended, and I don’t think he exactly believed my story, either, but he was obligated to listen.
I probably rambled for over thirty minutes to him, detailing the whole night, even the strange things that happened to me that I wasn’t completely sure were related. But I told them anyway.
The whole account I gave was longer then necessary, but I needed him to know I was telling the truth by going over every detail of the night. There was still a car out there that had crashed, which had to count for something for the police.
But the thing that made my blood run cold, the reason I’m spending the time to write this to you all as I sit in my car, far away from that God-forsaken area, was what the police officer said to me after my testimony concluded.
“Where are you from again?” The officer asked, getting up from his seat with a slight groan.
Something started churning inside me, I wasn’t sure why. It was a pretty standard question as far a I was aware.
“I’m from Atlanta, but I’m making my way to Alaska for–”
His expression went totally dead, and his head locked with mine, and dread filled me beyond anything I had ever felt before.
“The way back home is southeast.” he said.