Late Night Drive

It was dark. It was half-past nine o’clock and Carolyn was dead to the world, there was no doubt about that. All she wanted was to get home and get into the comfort of her own bed. It felt like she was on autopilot, driving down the back roads in her rural town. The scenery passing by was nothing but a blur so how was the incident so clear? 

 Her old 1998 Chevy Cavalier was roaming freely down the bumpy potholed road. She barely heard the screaming over the classic rock playing on the radio, but she heard it. The old car instantly slowed down as she pushed her foot against the brakes. Her hand was busy turning the rock ballad down while the other rolled down her window the rest of the way. The wind blew her blonde hair back as she looked out into the night. It was silent for only a second until she heard the screaming again.

Carolyn finally brought the Cavalier to a stop on the dead road. The night brought nothing to her sight other than the illuminating lantern out into the field. The lantern’s light swayed side to side until it was dropped to the ground. 

With help from the light, Carolyn could see two figures out in the field. One was definitely a big man. She was unable to see fine details but could see the long country-man beard coming down from his face. He was standing over another figure, hidden in his own shadow. From the screams she heard earlier though, she could assume the hidden figure was a woman. 

“Help! Someone help me! I just wanna go home!” The woman screamed. “Hey! Hey, wait!’ Carolyn watched as the figure fought her way past his shadow, dragging herself across the hard ground into the lantern’s light. She was coming for the road. 

“Shut the hell up!” The man had caught up to her and sent her foot into the side of her ribs. The woman cried out in pain. She curled into herself but tilted her head back to look at the road.

"Please! My name is Mary! Please get help! I can't go back!"

Panicked, Carolyn quickly pulled her cell phone from her pocket and dialed 911 only to find there was no service on this backroad. 

“Fuck,” she cursed at her phone and looked back out the window. She stepped out of her car, leaving the door wide open, and walked toward the side of the street. “Hey! Leave her alone!” she called out. “The cops are on their way!”

The big man, who now had a hold of the woman’s hair and was facing the road, stared Carolyn down. It wasn’t until then she noticed the blood everywhere on his shirt and the blood on her face. He also had a shotgun in his other hand. He shoved the woman’s head down roughly to the ground then lifted the shotgun up into both of his hands. The gun aimed directly at Carolyn.

Would the bullets have made it? She wasn’t so sure. She never owned a gun in her life let alone seen one in person. The thought of being a hero that night disappeared as fear carried her back to her car. She moved quicker than she ever had.

A husky laugh came from the man in the field. It was loud and boomed like speakers. The victim’s cries were muffled as her face stayed in the ground. Carolyn quickly got back into her car and sped off. She only looked for a second to see him lower the shotgun down to the victim’s body. Fear forced her to look away. The sound of one last pitiful scream and then a shotgun firing off, cutting the scream short, was the last thing she could hear. 

Guilt instantly overtook her mind while tears ran down her face. She squeezed the steering wheel tightly, causing her knuckles to become ghostly white. If she had tightened her fists anymore, her bones would have broken through her skin. 

She checked her phone every few seconds as she drove, waiting to find a signal. When that signal finally appeared on her screen, she stopped the Cavalier and called 911. The ringing seemed to last an eternity. 

“Hello this is 911, what is your emergency?” 

“Huh-Hell..Hello,” Carolyn struggled to speak, only now noticing how dry her tongue was. “I think there has just been a murder. I’m- um, I’m calling from uhh...Hoods Mill”

“You said there has just been a murder?”

“Yes! Yes I- I believe so! There was this...this man with a shotgun! And a woman, oh god I think she’s dead. Oh my god”

“Alright, please try to remain calm. Are you in a safe place?”

“I’m down the road from where I saw them. Oh god, oh my god”

“Alright, ma’am. What is your name?”

“Carolyn...Carolyn Woods. Please tell me someone’s on the way!”

“Yes, yes I have sent out your location and there are police on the way. Carolyn, what I need you to do is stay calm. The police will ask you questions once they get there. How far along the road did you drive?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m only ten, maybe fifteen minutes, away”

“And where was this incident?”

“Just in a field. The big open field. I-I’m not really sure” Carolyn saw the flashing lights before she heard the sirens. Her breathing steadied and she finally felt maybe she was safe. “They’re here! They’re here”

Without the approval of the woman on the line, Carolyn hung up, tossed her phone onto the passenger seat, and got out of her car. She waved her hands quickly and waited for the cruisers to pull up beside her. A cop was out of the car in minutes, asking her questions. With her help, they were able to find the location where she had just seen the man and the woman together in the field. But this time, there was nobody to be found.

“You said there was a gunshot, correct?” Officer Davis had asked. Carolyn nodded with tears in her eyes. He exchanged a look with an officer then returned his look to her. She was instructed to follow a cruiser down to the station for further questions while the rest of the officers continued their investigation. 

Half an hour later, she was sitting at a table on a hard, uncomfortable, chair. She held the coffee an officer had brought in for her. She had taken a few hot sips and was enjoying the newly given heat. Another officer, one she hadn’t met, entered the room, and sat across from her with a folder, notepads, and a recorder. What had she gotten herself into?

He greeted himself as Officer Nichols and turned the recorder on. He then flipped his pen between his fingers, preparing it to write. “Tell me what happened tonight,” 

She went off on a whole rant. She started with the moment she heard the first scream, just loud enough to hear over the car’s engine and the speakers playing her music. She also mentioned the drop of the lantern, the female’s cries for help, how big the man really was, and how bushy his beard looked in the dim lighting. She was panicked but thorough with her response. As she spoke, the officer took notes, nodded his head, and stayed quiet other than a noting grunt to show he was listening from time to time.

When she had finished her story, he gave her a long gaze. The look in his eyes made her question every word she had just spewed. He gave a heavy sigh and leaned forward against the table with his hands resting in front of him.

“Ma’am, I don’t mean to discredit anything you have just told me. But you claim you seen a man, big husky lookin’ man, out in that field with a woman named Mary. We round our time, with the amount of time between you seeing the crime and actually gettin’ a call through to our dispatcher maybe about twenty-five minutes. You see, you heard a gunshot. A, uh, shotgun correct?”

“Yes sir,”

“Yes, you claim you heard a shotgun but we didn’t find no shells out there. None. My men are still out there searchin’ to find nothin’ and the grass looks untouched out there too. Also, there ain’t a woman named Mary on the missing peoples list either”

“Then you must be in the wrong part of the field. I’m telling you, he shot that shotgun! She told me her name! She just wanted to go home!”

“Don’t you raise your voice now. I understand you’ve had a hard night. But I’m not too sure the night you told us is the night you been in”

She argued. She swore up and down she had seen what she had seen. The way the cop looked at her though, told her she was a liar. How could a crime that drastic be shrugged off so easily? After Officer Nichols promised they would continue their search, they sent her off out of the station after getting her contact information. 

She drove home but didn’t sleep as she had so desperately wanted just a few hours ago. She tossed and turned until she couldn’t take it anymore and found something else to do until the sun came up the next morning. She had some more coffee and stared out the window, tapping her class ring against the side of her porcelain mug. 

She wasn’t a liar. Or was she? Could she have been tired enough to have been half asleep while driving? Hell, was she crazy? No...No she couldn't have been. She saw what she saw and she would bet her whole life on the incident. She wasn’t settling for the officer’s word. Maybe she was crazy but she had to see it for herself. She set the mug down on the nearest counter and returned to her car to return to the location she feared.

Upon arrival, she noticed the road was back to being as dead as she had seen it was the night before. She pulled herself out of the car and stared at the exact spot she had seen the husky man. The cops were right. The place didn’t look disturbed or touched at all, other than the tracks the cops had left behind when driving through the field. 

With her arms crossed over her chest to keep warm, she carefully walked across the road and down into the grass. Her eyes scanned the grass underneath her as she walked to the spot she remembered the pair being in. 

“No blood,” she noted. She crouched down and ran her fingers through the tall grass. “No bullets” the police were correct in their investigation but how was this possible? Carolyn ran her fingers through her messy hair and took a shaky breath. "Get ahold of yourself"

She rubbed her face and sighed heavily. Maybe she was crazy. She had been so damn tired and still drove, she could have killed herself in an accident while dreaming up murders. With a shake of her head, she stood to her feet and turned back to the road. She took one step and she froze to the sound of metal clinking together as a gun was reloaded.

“So...ya came back,”