We finally had two weeks off at the same time, Richard and I.
“Let’s go on a road trip! Somewhere random, somewhere we haven’t been yet. What do you think?” I wanted to leave enough mystery for this idea to be intriguing, and win out over the desire to spend our hard-earned vacation time at home doing spring cleaning.
“Well…” Richard pursed his lips as he weighed his options. I was the spontaneous one, while he tended to opt for more responsible ways to spend time. I put on my best combination of alluring smile and pleading eyes.
“Come on, please? I promise when we come back we can spend the entire rest of the time cleaning every nook and cranny of this place.”
“How about up to Maine?” Richard cracked a grin.
Three days later we had an Air BnB booked and the SUV packed. It had been so long since we had been able to take a trip like this together. I was determined to make the most of it; I spent the better part of the work day after the decision to go researching small seaside towns and activities.
The drive was estimated to be just over 7 hours according to Google maps. While we had a bunch of podcasts and games ready to go, I knew I was going to succumb to my desire to nap on long car rides. There is something about the sound of tires on the highway and the purr of the engine that soothes me. Just as expected, I fell asleep about 4 hours in.
A blaring horn startled me awake, with a semi trailer flying past my window to confirm the source. I rubbed my eyes.
“How long was I out?” I looked for the sun to see if I could estimate the time. “I learned in Girl Scouts how to tell the time from the stars, but I can’t seem to find the Sun. Must be about to set, huh?” My stomach growled so I turned my attention to my purse at my feet.
“Are you hungry?” I asked as I dug around in search of a snack. “All I have in here are mentos and I have no idea how old these are. Is there an exit soon? We can pull off for some food.” I looked back out my window to check for one of those huge blue signs listing restaurants or rest stops.
“Hon? What do you-“ I hadn’t looked at Richard yet. When I glanced at him just then I noticed he was staring at me. Right at me. Just his head was turned 90 degrees, a smile frozen on his face.
“What?” I asked, a smirk creeping to the side of my mouth. We used to do this all the time, playing driver’s chicken. It didn’t take long for my smile to wear away, though. This wasn’t chicken. Normally whoever was driving would always glance back at the road or give up after about 5 seconds.
Richard wasn’t giving up.
“Richard, look at the road!” I whipped my head from his eerie smiling face to the road in front of us.
“You’re going 80 miles an hour! This isn’t funny! You’re going to get us killed!”
I screamed as a red Honda changed lanes right in front of us.
Somehow, Richard smoothly changed lanes right around the car and back. I was looking right into his eyes that whole time. He hadn’t turned away from me, not to look in the rear view mirror, not out the front windshield, not even a little to the side. His eyes were locked onto mine, his smile never faltering. The weirdest thing was how his eyes looked. They were always my favorite feature of Richard’s. Deep mossy green, with perfectly long eyelashes. But now, they seemed darker somehow. It took me a few moments to realize that it was his pupils. They were slowly dilating, swallowing more and more of his iris into darkness.
That was an hour ago. No matter what I did he would not look back at the road. I tried to turn his head, scream, plead, cry, I even slapped him at one point hoping to break him out of whatever trance this was. The only time he moved was when I tried to grab the wheel from him. I won’t try that again.
Even though Richard won’t look at the road, he never hits anything or anyone. We’re still driving north, and I don’t know if he’s going to stop when we reach our vacation town. I don’t know if he is even my Richard anymore. I don’t know if I can call the cops, will they believe me? I’ll sound insane telling them my husband, whose eyes are completely black now, won’t stop driving the car and is just staring at me. Maybe I should try that anyway, I don’t know.
I do know one thing, though. We have to run out of gas eventually.