To

* This story uses some lyrics from Road To Nowhere by Talking Heads

Well, we know where we’re going

We set off after lunch and we drove all day and we drove into the night and we kept on going because that was the plan. Occasionally we stopped to switch drivers. One time, Ryan and I even switched as we drove, stretching and shuffling and twisting our limbs as we crossed over each other while the girls screamed at us from the back seat to just, for the love of god, stop.

        We were going up to spend a week in the lakes with Kim and Rich, in Rich’s parents’ house which they weren’t using for the summer because they’d gone skiing somewhere or other. It was hot, and the drive was long, and then at night it suddenly got cold. Really cold. Winter cold. We hadn’t expected to have to turn the heating on, but it wasn’t like it was a big problem.

        The boot was loaded up with beer and snacks and bags of clothes, so we pulled over and put on extra layers to keep warm. “Maybe we should stop next time we see somewhere and find somewhere to sleep,” Amanda said. “We can set off fresh in the morning.”

        “No way,” said Ryan, who was behind the wheel now. “I can go all night.”

        “Ha!” Amanda snorted and Becky giggled.

But we don't know where we've been

Some time very early on the morning of the second day, Amanda said we were lost.

        “Don’t be stupid,” said Ryan. “We’re using the app.”

        “I’m not being stupid you dick,” Amanda responded. “We’ve been driving through the middle of nowhere forever.”

        “That’s the countryside for you,” Ryan said, laughing. “You’re going to see all sorts of wildlife.”

        “But it’s so weird,” she said. “Like, can you even remember when the road wasn’t just a straight line all the way in front and behind?”

        “What do you mean?” asked Becky, who I hadn’t realized had woken up.

        “I mean, when was the last time you saw a bend in the road?”

        Ryan looked at me and I shrugged. “Maybe it’s just been bending slowly?”

        “It’s been a straight line for hours and hours,” she said. “And there’s no traffic. At all.”

        “You said it yourself,” I told her. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

         “But where are we exactly?”

        “We’re on the way,” said Ryan.

        I changed the music and turned up the volume and Ryan cheered. His window was open and he stuck his arm out and pointed the way forwards. In the mirror, I saw Becky wrap her arms around Amanda and pull her across the seat towards her. Despite herself, Amanda started to laugh and the two girls sang along while I drummed on the steering wheel. I was nodding my head, but also, I was starting to have a little nagging doubt.

And we know what we're knowin'

I lay across the back with my head and Becky’s lap and smoked with her. She took a draw and blew it out the window, then put it to my lips and then took it back to hers. I closed my eyes and she ran her fingers through my hair.

        “I can’t wait to get into that lake,” she said.

        “Me neither,” I mumbled, feeling sleepy.

        “Can you drive a boat?” she asked.

        “You don’t drive boats,” I told her.

        “Then what do you do?”

        I opened one eye and squinted up at her while I considered it. She had her hair tied back because it had been blowing around too much. “I think it depends what type of boat it is,” I told her.

        “You don’t know, do you?”

        “I can learn,” I told her.

I guess I dozed off, because the next thing I knew, Amanda was swearing and Ryan was laughing.

        It turned out that he hadn’t been using the app for hours because his phone had died. Amanda was really going to town on the insults, and this only got worse when she realized that she had no reception on her phone. I wriggled and twisted, my head burrowing into Becky’s lap, until I got mine out of my pocket and, sure enough, zero bars.

        “I already told you my love,” said Ryan with a wide grin. “We’re in the countryside.”

        “Just shut and drive,” she said. “I want to get there before enrollment starts.”

        “Your wish is my command,” said Ryan and put his foot right down.

        I jolted back into Becky and she patted me on the forehead. “Nice sleep?” she asked.

        “I dreamed of you,” I told her.

        She leaned in close and kissed my nose. “What did you dream?” she asked.

        “I’ll tell you later.”

But we can't say what we've seen

“I used to be scared of clowns,” said Ryan.

        He was holding one of the two oversized shoes that was lying there in the middle of the road. He tipped it upside down as if he expected something to come out of it. Like there was some kind of contortionist clown curled up inside and all the rest was just for show.

        “It?” I asked him.

        He shook his head. “I never saw it,” he said.

        “Neither version?”

        “Nope.”

        “You should.”

        “Man,” he said, pushing me. “Didn’t I already tell you I was scared of clowns?”

        “You said you used to be.”

        “Yeah… well…”

        “So?”

        “So why would I watch a film about a terrifying clown when I’m already scared of them?”

        He had a point.

        “What is wrong with you two?” asked Amanda, stomping up and planting herself in front of us.

        “What do you mean?” I asked.

        “Focus on the shit in hand,” she said, pointing behind her at the road.

        She had a point. It was not right. Not right at all.

        “So… what do you think?” I asked. “He just, like, decided to take his clothes off and drive away naked.”

        “I’m sure he had other clothes in his car,” Ryan said, thoughtfully.

        “Yeah,” I said. “You can get a lot in those cars.”

        “Oh my god!” screamed Amanda. She grabbed the shoe out of Ryan’s hand and started hitting us with it while we stumbled backwards laughing.

After we’d calmed down, we went and sat on the bonnet and looked at the clown costume, all laid out on the road in front of us, like the clown had been squashed pancake flat like in a cartoon, and it would just start to giggle and curl up at any moment. I mean, whoever had done this had even drawn the makeup on the road.

        “Can’t we just drive around it?” I asked.

        “I don’t know,” said Becky, who was sitting sideways in the driver’s seat with her feet on the road. “There’s something not right about this. It’s creepy, right?”

        “So why are we staying here looking at it?” asked Ryan. “What if the naked clown suddenly comes back out from behind a rock or something wanting to get dressed and grab a lift?”

        “Shut up Ryan!” said Amanda.

        “As long as that’s all he wants,” I said and laughed.

        “Can we just go?” Becky asked. “We’ve been sat here for ages. I want to find somewhere with a shower.”

        “What should we do about that?” Amanda asked, pointing at the two dimensional clown in the road.

        “Leave it,” I said. “What else can we do?”

And we're not little children

On the third day of driving, Ryan and I had to concede that Amanda was right. We were lost and this was one never-ending road.

        To make matters worse, at some point in the night, it had started to rain. Heavily. The windows were closed and the wipers were going full tilt. It was starting to feel a bit stuffy in the car and the visibility and conditions on the road meant we had to drive more slowly.

        “Pull over at the next petrol station,” Amanda said. “I want to stop and get out.”

        “I will if I see one,” said Ryan.

        “Just look,” she said. “There has to be one soon, doesn’t there.”

        “I don’t know,” said Ryan, pausing before he spoke again, more slowly and thoughtfully. “Can you remember the last time you saw one?”

        I wasn’t sure and, looking around, I could see that nobody else was either. “How much fuel do we have left?” I asked.

        “About three quarters,” Ryan said. “Just over.”

        This seemed to make everyone feel better.

        “So, when was the last time you filled up?” Becky asked.

        I looked at Ryan and he looked at me, then we both turned back and looked at Amanda. “What?” she asked.

        “When did you fill up?” Ryan asked her.

        “I didn’t,” she said.

        “Me neither,” he said.

        I shook my head.

        “Shut up,” said Amanda.

        Ryan looked at Becky. “Did you fill up?”

        “I can’t even drive,” she said, folding her arms defensively.

        At this point, Becky had failed her test, I think, five times. It was a sore point that I never brought up.

        “You guys aren’t funny,” said Amanda. “Just find us somewhere to stop with some shelter and a shop, ok?”

        “And a bathroom,” said Becky.

        “Yeah,” said Amanda. “And a bathroom.”

        Ryan and I exchanged looks. I raised my eyebrows, trying to get him to give me some kind of confirmation that he was messing with the girls, but he looked like he really didn’t know what was going on.

And we know what we want

It kept on raining and then it rained some more. It was torrential. It was hard to tell what time of day it is through the grey downpour and then, before we knew it, it was night. Our headlights formed a weird bubbling yellow patch of light that we aimed towards.

        We crawled onwards.

        After some hours of darkness, Ryan reached across and hit me on the arm to wake me up. “I need you to drive,” he said.

        He could barely keep his eyes open. I reached into the back where the girls were sleeping and took a magazine off the floor and, holding it over my head, ran around the outside, skidding and splashing in front of the headlights, and around to the driver’s side, while Ryan shuffled across into the passenger seat.

        The magazine was saturated and so was I. “Crap,” I said.

        “Turn the heating up,” he told me.

        “I’ll end up shrunk,” I told him, and we both burst out laughing.

        “What’s going on?” asked Becky drowsily.

        “Your boyfriend’s been taking a shower,” Ryan said.

        She opened her eyes wide at this. “You found somewhere to stop?”

        Ryan reached up and flicked the overhead light on and she saw the state of me.

        “Oh my god,” she said. “What happened.”

        “Nothing,” I told her. “we had to swap seats.”

        “You’ll get sick,” she said.

        “It’ll be alright for now,” I assured her. “I just have to wait until the rain stops.”

And the future is certain

But the rain didn’t stop. If anything, it got heavier while the other three slept, drumming on the windscreen and the roof so loud I felt like I was hunkered down in a trench while machine guns pounded the air around me. It got harder and harder to even hold the wheel in place as the road became wetter and I started to feel dizzy. Maybe I should have listened to Becky.

        I turned the heating off and the fan on and blasted it in my face to wake me up and focus me. It helped for a while but then I was sneezing. “Shut up Doris,” Ryan murmured in his sleep.

        I filed that away to ask him later.

        I had to keep the music low because the others were sleeping, but I kept it going and I mouthed the words as a distraction. None of it worked though. After a while I had to give up. I just didn’t seem to be getting anywhere and everything felt like a struggle. I put the hazards on and pulled as far to the side as I dared, not knowing what was on either side of the road. I put on the handbrake and turned the key and I was probably asleep before the engine was.

Give us time to work it out

It’s hard sometimes to tell when you’re sleeping and when you’re not. Like when you fall asleep watching a movie and you dream an ending for it and don’t even realize you didn’t see the real ending until much later.

        A gentle rocking woke me. It wasn’t Ryan, because he wouldn’t be so soft. I stretched and opened my eyes to see Becky.

        But it wasn’t her.

        Ryan and the girls were pressed against their windows looking out. They looked like dogs in a pet shop window.

        I shuffled up and looked out of my own window.

        It was bright and sunny. The rain had finally stopped.

        Still I rocked softly.

        “What do we do now?” Becky asked.

        Around us, as far as the could see, was water. We bobbed easily enough on top of it, but where we were going was another matter.

        “Try turning the engine on,” Ryan said.

        I reached for the key but stopped myself and looked at him. “Is that a good idea?” I asked.

        “How the hell should I know?” he asked back. “What’s your plan.”

        “I don’t have a plan,” I told him. “I just woke up.”

        “Exactly,” he said. “You were supposed to be driving.”

        “Do you think driving would have helped?”

        “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t even know where we are.”

        “I think we’re lost,” said Becky, winding down her window a way and putting her hand in the water.

        I started to laugh at this and I wanted, more than I’ve ever wanted anything ever, to take her in my arms and hold her and roll in a blanket until we’re bundled up so tightly we could be one person.

        “Shut up,” said Amanda. “It’s not funny. Look where we are?”

        “Where are we?” I asked.

        “I don’t know,” she said. “What’s out there?”

        She started to move across the backseat to look out of Becky’s window, but the car started to tip as she did so.

        “Get back on your side,” I told her. “It seems like we need to keep balance.”

        I looked back at Amanda and she looked suddenly pale. I stretched my hand out backwards to where she was, twisting and shifting it until I found hers. I took it in mine and squeezed it. “Thanks,” she whispered.

        I let go and lifted my hand slightly, waving a thumbs up behind my back, vaguely in her direction.

        I shifted and sat up and stretched the sleep out as best I could without really being able to move. All the while, I looked out the front window and the one to my side. It seemed to be horizon everywhere, as far as the eye could see. “What do we do now?” I asked.

        “I don’t know,” said Ryan, very softly, his face pressed against his window. “But I think I just saw a shark.”

        I looked at Ryan and he turned and looked at me. He was kind of smiling but kid of not. He wiped his mouth and licked his lips and sat back into his seat, facing straight ahead.

        I couldn’t tell if he was joking.