The Road To Nowhere Leads To Me Novels & Stories

Katarina. Now she’d see the ending. My phone buzzed. I flicked it open. UNKNOWN NUMBER. The message was short. “Half a mile out. No tricks. No guns. Everyoone Lives .” I smiled. Too late for that, sweetheart. They think I’ll follow their rules? I leaned back in my seat, chuckling. “Mikey better have those boys ready.” The road narrowed. Hills on both sides. Dust kicked up as our wheels crunched gravel.

The sun, relentless and unforgiving, beat down on the dusty path leading from the servants’ quarters to the main house. I was ten, and the path was etched into my memory, every pebble, every crack. It was a route I knew intimately, yet one I was rarely allowed to fully explore. My world was largely confined to the small, neat rooms behind the imposing mansion, a world of hushed conversations and the ever-present scent of cleaning products and warm food.

They were just money’s way of gesturing at nature and saying: I have tamed you. She left the house before nine, which was unusual. She drove herself, which was more unusual still. She drove not toward the city and her office at the Ashford Foundation, not toward the club or the gallery opening she was meant to attend that afternoon, but north, up the river road, without any destination at all. She ran out of gas in a town called Millhaven. The gas station on Route 9 was the kind of place that hadn’t updated its signage since the Carter administration. A hand-painted board advertised WORMS – COLD BEER – PROPANE with equal enthusiasm, as if these were equally essential to the human condition.

Occasionally Aiys notices Juna, who is still calm in driving. I'm still trying. Trying to open, Opening a new Eid Enough, me and you Without him!

The next day the bus followed him down Beartown Road . stalked . . . and afterward he’d found a clearing in the woods near the intersection, with its strangely-shaped fire pit. At night he’d dreamed of Martin Spencer . . . he takes us the ones no one wants to His court . . . near Lake Hyades . . . in far off Carcosa

I need to ask him. Before I let him go, I gather my strength and courage to ask him the way on Director’s office. “Uhh, wait” I said. “Hmm? Do you need something?” he asks. “Uhh, do you know where the director’s office is?” I asks shyly. I am an introvert person. And I need a lot of courage to gather before asking a stranger. “Director’s office? You mean the University’s director and not the department director?” he asks. Huh? There is a department director too?

It didn’t work. Finally, I said, “You’re driving like someone’s following us.” He didn’t look at me. “Someone probably is.” I swallowed hard. “Well… That’s comforting.” He ignored the statement. We turned off the main road, cutting through the quieter side of the city. The hum of the tires changed as the pavement gave way to gravel. The glow of the skyline faded behind us. Whatever direction he was taking, it wasn’t anywhere I recognized. “How far is this place?” I asked.

“Take me somewhere quiet. Anywhere.” He nods without question and leads the way. I follow and I don’t look back. Not even once. We drive for over an hour. Out of the city, past the noise and buildings, toward the edge of the countryside where the trees grow wild and the roads narrow. The sky is soft and pale, the kind of gray that holds its breath before it rains. Marcus pulls into a small, private parkland. Empty. Silent. The kind of place no one would think to look for someone like me.

Unknown number. Old Mill Road. Truth awaits.

Rex leans slightly toward the passenger side window, angling toward the light. The keys to the Hollow feel heavy in my pocket. I pull out my map again. There’s a road that leads west from here that matches the road on the attendant’s map. But then there’s another road that isn’t. It’s narrow, and winding off the main road to a little X near the bottom of the page that calls to me like a heartbeat. Hucow Hollow. Even the name hums in the back of my throat now, like something half-remembered and just out of reach.