No Turning Back

"I'm sorry. I know, I should've turned back miles ago. I just have this almost pathological compulsion to keep going forward. I simply despise having to retrace my steps. I'd rather take the long way around than go backward even a little. You remember when I forgot my bag on that work trip, and rather than drive the 20 minutes home, I opted to buy all new stuff, even a new bag?"

He looked at himself briefly in the rearview mirror and nodded.

"Thanks for understanding, Norman! You're welcome, Norman," he nodded to himself again and smirked.

It was one of the peculiar habits he'd picked up on his many, many solo work trips. When the silence was too stifling or the road too long and empty, he'd sometimes have a little chat with himself to diffuse the tension. Rarely did it work.

"This time, maybe I should have gone back," he added with a waiver. 

He looked out on the long stretch of open road where his car had stopped. Flat and perfectly straight. It faded off into a stifling darkness even his high beams couldn’t reach. Then he glanced in the mirror at the road behind him. It was much darker but just as straight and flat. He thought he could see the faintest speck off in the distance. The little sign catching a bit of moonlight, perhaps?

It had gleamed brightly in the headlights from his car. A crisp sheet of white paper tacked to a rotted, wooden post with an arrow and the word help scrawled beneath it. There were others too, many more, posted here and there along these desolate roads he'd been driving. Each scratched out as if written by a child.

He shuddered. It had reminded him of a news story he'd read. Arrows painted on the road that all lead to a dead body. A woman was found killed beside her car but there was no sign of anyone else, just a pile of ash beside the body. Police has searched the woods, but found nothing. Rumors spread of cults and cannibals, or creatures in amongst the trees. The thought made his heart race more than he would admit. 

That was far away, he reasoned, up North in a mountainous area of Vermont. And the arrows were painted on the road, not scrawled on pieces of paper. These signs were not that. But still, it was hard to ignore the similarity. 

He checked his phone for the hundredth time, wondering if, against all odds, it had found a signal. Of course not. The last time it had registered anything, he'd been following directions off the highway to a gas station marked "temporarily closed," which in his experience meant "forever closed," but he decided to check anyway. 

Indeed, the place was long gone, even boarded up. It was several miles from the highway so by the time he confirmed his suspicions, he was well and truly off course. He continued forward though, reasoning that there must be a town somewhere in this direction—anything but relenting and turning back. 

Each mile he drove brought him closer to the point of no return, where if he had finally decided to go back, he would have run out of gas before getting there. He’d given himself no other option, the only way out was through. So he forged on, watching the gas needle slip lower and lower. 

Over the years, he had driven many rental cars on his trips and found them all to be similar but different. They were all generic, domestic-made sedans in some innocuous color like slate gray or navy blue. The controls were all in relatively the same place. They were equally uncomfortable. But each had some little quirk, like a punchy accelerator or very touchy brakes. This one seemed to guzzle up the end of a tank of gas. 

Or was it just this place that guzzled up time? 

This area was broadly called the interior of a state that resided in what was also called the interior of the country, and he thought those descriptions seemed apt. It was landlocked and made up of endless flat planes of farmland stretching for miles in all directions. A patchwork of thousand-acre fields lined up perfectly like massive green tiles on a kitchen floor. There was something uncanny and disorienting about the repetition.

The few roads that bisected the fields were miles apart and flanked by sky-high rows of feed corn. It made the drive eerie and suffocating, like traveling down a long, empty hallway. It was an unsettling sensation, being in the open air but so closed in at the same time. 

Every few miles, he'd reach an intersection and strain his eyes looking for any sign of life, but nothing. Turn after turn and mile after mile, he had gone deeper and deeper into the green abyss as his rental sedan greedily drank up the precious fuel and his phone searched for a connection in vain.

Eventually, with little fanfare or ceremony, the car shuddered, lurched, and died. A little light with a gas pump blinked on the dash.

The silence closed in around the car to join the dark.

"Lucky it's a warm night, huh, Norman? Yes indeed, Norman," he said, looking all around again for any sign of an approaching car. He couldn't decide if he was genuinely hoping to see one or not.

He flicked on the hazard lights. They flashed red and yellow, lighting up the rows of corn and making the stalks twist into looming, emaciated figures encircling the car. His mind flashed back to the story about Vermont, and again, his heart began to race. 

He looked away and tried to calm himself, noticing his hands were also shaking. 

"It's okay, I'm sure someone will come along. And if not, it will be morning soon enough."

He checked his phone again and relented that morning was still a long way off. 

Norman leaned back in the chair and breathed deeply shutting his eyes. He thought to himself that the chair was more comfortable than he remembered and that his eyes were more tired than he had noticed. Driving on unfamiliar roads was surprisingly exhausting. He never realized it until he was done. It was both painfully monotonous and surprisingly tense. You were always on watch for something, anything.

Before he could recognize it was happening, Norman was asleep. 

He woke abruptly to the sound of screeching metal. The car was brightly lit, and for a moment, Norman thought it was daytime, but he quickly realized it was headlights behind him. They were old square lights spattered with mud. One of them was more dimly lit than the other. They were wide apart and relatively high, probably a truck or a van, he thought.

He heard the vehicle door slam shut, and a figure stepped out of the darkness, silhouetted by the light beams. Norman twisted in his seat to look over his shoulder rather than through the mirror. The man was big and walked like he was tired. His shoulders were crooked, and his arms and huge hands hung down like they were heavy and made of stone.

Norman stumbled out of the car and spun to face the approaching figure. "Uh, h- hello?" His voice quivered. 

"Broke down?" A slow, gravelly voice came from the massive silhouette. "Want me to take a look?"

"Oh… uh… okay. Thank you." He replied, backing away ever so slightly. 

The man stepped forward, his face finally being lit enough to see. His skin was lined and weathered, like old cowhide. His hair was short and disheveled. Norman could smell sweat and soil.

"I'm, uh, Norman."

"Hank."

"Hi, Han-"

"So, how'd you end up out here?" The large man grumbled.

"I - I got off the highway for gas back at exit 4B."

"That's the Ryann's place, been closed for years now. Too bad, it was the only spot for gas that side of the valley."

"Yeah, I realized that a bit too late."

"A bit, indeed. That's something like twenty miles from here."

"I kept hoping I'd find a town or something, but…"

"Nothing 'round these parts. Just land." He stepped around to the engine. "You gonna pop the hood?"

"Oh," Norman flustered, "I just ran out of gas."

"Ah, I see. I can help ya with that," the man said as he began lumbering back to his truck. "Well, come on," he added gruffly upon seeing Norman staying back. 

"Oh, uh, okay," he reluctantly agreed and followed. 

Hank pulled back a heavy canvas sheet caked in dirt lying across the truck bed. Beneath it was a tangle of metal, wood, and rusted tools. He began rummaging through the heap, huffing and grunting as he did, the tools scratching against the old metal truck. 

He stopped his search with is back to Norman and asked, "You seen those signs? Out on the roads, with the arrows?"

Norman froze. His eyes widened, and his body tensed. "Yes," he barely managed to say.

"Strange, huh?"

"Yes… strange."

They both went silent. Norman's frantic breathing was the only sound. 

"You know who put them there?" The older man asked darkly. 

"I believe I do," Norman said in almost a whisper.

Hank turned slowly to face the other man, who was standing closer than he had realized. 

"I did," said Norman as a thin smile crossed his face. 

The knife glinted once in the light before sinking into Hank's abdomen. Then again, frighteningly fast into his lung and several other places across his torso. Hank swung out at Norman but missed as he collapsed, his breathing ragged and the world going dark around him. 

He saw Norman's smiling face briefly once more before slipping away into shock. 

"Job well done, Norman! Why thank you, Norman." He said with an excited waiver in his voice.

He took some deep breaths and looked out over the expanse of dark emptiness. So alone in it again. He would give himself a moment to relish this. These trips didn't always prove so fruitful. The right conditions - somewhere remote, dark, and desolate with no phone service - often meant no one stumbled into his traps. 

His heart was still racing, and his hands still shaking, but he knew he should move quickly now. His signs were still out there directing prey to this spot, and there was always the slightest chance someone else would come before he could leave. 

That had happened once in Appalachia, but he'd been in a little parking lot off the road then. If the drivers had seen anything, they didn't stop to investigate. That area had been almost too easy. The murder didn't even make it beyond the local paper. 

He opened the trunk and took out a gas canister, then removed his shirt, splattered with Hank's blood, and tossed it on the road. He gathered some alcohol wipes from his bag, the one he'd bought as a replacement when he'd forgotten his, and wiped his hands and the knife, then his face and hair, dropping the used wipes on his bloody shirt.

He returned the knife to the bag and fished out a lighter instead. He quickly refilled the gas tank from the canister, saving the last bit for the pile of bloodied things in the road, which he liberally doused in fuel. He learned early on that the alcohol wipes are quite flammable, so only a good splash was necessary. No need to create a roaring beacon. 

Norman then ran through his checklist as he donned a fresh shirt. He'll return to the town where he swapped license plates. A bonus to being in a rental is that the make and model are usually surprisingly easy to find a substitute plate someplace inconspicuous. He'd added this as a new precaution with the rise in popularity of ring cams and the like. If he's caught on tape, the plate will match the car but not the driver. 

Drop the rental off with the night drop box and collect his car from around the block where he parked it, all getting him home by midday. 

He thought about the signs he posted again. Now that it was complete and they had delivered him Hank, he had to decide whether to leave them or not. He didn't need to worry about fingerprints or DNA; they were too hard to gather from paper, plus his weren't on file.

It will undoubtedly change the game if they connect them back to his work in Vermont or any of the other places, but that could be fun. He knew this was how they get caught, the others, but there was still something thrilling about that possibility.

His heart raced again like it did whenever he thought about Vermont. His first national story.

Regardless, he'll need to follow the signs back to the highway. He can decide as he goes. He had a thought then, leaving them might mean more press coverage. That would be nice. 

Ok, they would stay. He was giddy at the thought. 

He wished he could wait a bit longer and savor the moment, but he must start working on his next trip. He lit his clothes and the wipes on fire before returning the lighter to the bag and zipping it shut again. He closed the trunk and turned to look back at Hank once more. 

"Thanks, Hank."

Back in the car, he pulled away from the side of the road and back into the dark as he made an unfamiliar maneuver for him, a U-turn. 

"It doesn't count as turning back when the job is done. Right, Norman? Absolutely right, Norman." 

His drive to the highway was uneventful. He passed only one car along the way, several miles and several turns from Hank. He had kept his high beams on, a tactic he liked to use to blind the driver so they would be forced to look away as they passed.

He had a fleeting thought: Maybe he should go back? The moment the thought entered his head, though, he knew he would not.

If that driver found the body, and that was a big if, he would be long gone. No turning back.

----------

The other driver cursed as she struggled to keep her car on the road during the onslaught of blinding light. She was tired and in a bad mood. She hated night shifts at the hospital and just wanted to be home. 

The spots in her eyes had just cleared when she reached her next turn. She squinted. Across the intersection was a piece of paper pointing in the other direction. It read help. She looked down the road where it signaled and saw nothing. She turned for home. She had done enough today. 

Then she braked and cursed again but at herself this time. And she turned back. 

She followed the sign. It lead her to another and then another and finally to a horror. There was so much blood. She froze for a minute. Not because of the blood but because of what might have done it. Was it still there?

She suddenly recognized the truck and then the man. She leaped from the car and rushed out.

"Hank!?! Hank!" She looked for the source of all the blood, but it was too dark. What happened to you?" He was so cold—too cold. She didn't expect a response. 

She scrambled back to her feet, needing to get her trauma kit from the car, when she screamed. Something had grabbed her leg.

It was Hank, he wasn't dead.