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He points out the windshield, and I see a state trooper parked across the roadway ahead, blocking all traffic. There’s an arrangement of orange traffic cones in the distance with a temporary road closure sign, virtually barricading the path we need.
He slows the Jeep. “Crap. Our road is closed.”
I lean forward, squinting to read the sign through the downpour. “There’s a detour.” My eyes follow the makeshift arrows pointing the way.
Davis’s brows furrow. “We don’t want that detour. That’s going to take us in the opposite direction.” He picks up his phone, taps on its screen, and then tosses it back into the console. “My phone’s dead. My charger is…” He glances over his shoulder into the backseat. “Never mind. It’s at the bottom of my bag somewhere. Can you check your GPS for an alternate route?”
“Sure.” I swipe across my own phone screen. It only takes a few clicks before I discover it’s not working. “I don’t even have service now. I think the storm is taking out cell towers left and right.”
“Fuck…” he grumbles. He taps his fingers on the steering wheel and pulls to the shoulder near the barricades. “I’m going to turn around. There’s a paper map in the glove box. Can you find us a county highway to turn onto instead?”
I reach forward and pull the faded state map out of the glove box, unfolding the fragile paper across my lap. I blink at it.
What is this mumbo jumbo? “Is this even our state?”
Davis throws a quick glance at it. “It’s upside down,” he deadpans.
“Oh. Right.” Feeling silly, I try not to blush. But even after righting the map, I struggle to read the darn thing.
“Well?”he asks, his eyes on the road.
“Hmm. This blue road looks like it reconnects to the highway,” I say tentatively.
“Which one?”
“Theblueone,” I say, holding up the map.
He chuckles mirthlessly. “Does the blue one have an actual name?”
I shoot a dirty look at the side of his head and then study the map a bit longer. I finally find it in teeny tiny print and tell him the name.
But then a few miles later, the man zooms right past it.
“You missed it!” I squawk, twisting to look out the rear window.
“I didn’t like the look of that one,” Davis announces distrustingly.
Excuse me?
“Look for another,” he demands, squinting through the windshield.
I shake my head and study the map again. I give him another possible route. But he rejects this option, too. The stubborn man argues with me and does the exact opposite of what I instruct him to do.
He ends up turning down a random road of his own choosing while I grow more and more frustrated.I’m starting to suspect that we’re just driving around in circles.
Eventually, we find ourselves approaching a town. Starlight Falls, according to the highway sign flapping in the distance.
Hmm. Where have I heard that name before?
“Let’s stop for directions,” I suggest as we drive toward a sign for The Full Moon Motel, a dingy-looking motel and bar right before the off-ramp into town.
“The Full Moon Motel? That sounds like a bad omen.” He keeps on driving deeper into the little town.
“Are you serious right now?”
My anxiety ratchets up as we meander even further from the main highway. It doesn’t help that we can barely see the path in front of us, and it’s getting later and later into the evening.
“Oh, you should go left at this light,” I tell him, trying desperately to keep the panic out of my voice. “I think that’ll circle back to the main roadway.”
