Maybe the rest of the world was staying in tonight. That was fine with Matt, were it the case. Just him and Lauren and the road all to themselves.
Okay, that’s the third time you’ve done something like, thought of the urn as her and not a thing, an object. Knock it off.
He looked at the urn, reached out to touch her—it, reached out to touch it—pulled his hand back at the last moment, and then touched it, anyway.
“Why’d didn’t you talk to me about how you were feeling?” he whispered. “I would’ve listened. Why didn’t you…?”
He stopped himself from finishing the question. Who was here to answer?
Then, two more signs: the first said Roadside Emergency, Dial *891.
The second: Merge Right.
What the—? Why did he need to merge again so soon? Now it was down to one lane on his side.
Checking the rear-view mirror to make sure no one was behind him, Matt pulled off onto the emergency lane, put the car in park, removed the TripTik from the driver’s-side door pocket, and leaned down for a better look at the map. Maybe he’d let himself drift off a little too much and had missed an exit or something…but, no, according to the map, he was right on track, and wouldn’t hit any construction for at least another hundred miles.
He looked up into the rear-view mirror once again. There was still no one behind him. How long ago had he passed that car? Forty, forty-five minutes, right? And he hadn’t passed any exits since then, so where was the other guy? Matt had driven enough road trips to know that, for a while, anyway, you tended to share your side of the highway with the same group of cars; not only had he not seen any other vehicles, but the guy that he passed back there should have caught up with him by now.
Oh, Jesus, he thought. What if the guy really was hurt, or sick, or having a heart attack? What if he really was lying across the front seat and that’s why you didn’t see him?
Folding the map back into place, he unplugged his cell phone, checked for the signal, and dialed *891. At least he knew where he was, and how far back the other guy had been.
There was a single ring on the other end, followed by a click!, and then…nothing. Just white noise, a soft static hiss that Matt imagined would be the voice of snow, if snow had a voice. He closed the phone, said, “Shit!”, and then opened it again and hit the “redial” button. This time it rang three times before the click! And white noise came in, and just as he was about to close the phone again, a voice came on and said, “If tin whistles are made of tin, then what do they make foghorns out of?”
“What?” said Matt. “Who the hell is this. Listen, I’ve got an emergency I need to report. I’m on I-271, about—”
“—the only way to get home is never to stop. Never to stop. Never to—”
Matt snapped closed the phone tossed it onto the dashboard. Screw this; he’d get off at the next exit, find a service station, and get his bearings once again. According to the TripTik, there was an exit less than four miles ahead. Hopefully the service station would have a CB or something, or a phone that worked.
He put the car in gear and pulled back out onto the highway. “Jesus Christ, baby!” he said to the urn. “I try to call for help and what do I get? ‘Weirdoes ‘R’ Us! I should’ve listened to you, Baby, I’m sorry.”
By now the snowfall was fairly steady; combined with the light wind, it looked as if he were driving on a sheet or slowly roiling fog.
“We’re fine, baby,” he said to the urn, not looking at it. “We’ll get you there, no worries. We just gotta make an extra stop, that’s all. Get that guy some help.” He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and leaned slightly forward, though why leaning forward would do anything to help visibility, he couldn’t say. He’d always done this when driving in bad weather. If nothing else, it lessened the distance between his skull and the windshield should anything happen.
Damn cheerful fellow you are.
Merge Right.
“Fuck!” he made a fist and hit the steering wheel. Less than half a mile since the last one, and still not an orange construction barrel in sight.
He merged, and the concrete divider came closer to his side.
“Sorry, baby,” he said. “I didn’t mean to swear like that. I know how you hate it.”
Three miles until the exit. No problem. He’d maintain, he had to maintain, he wanted to do this right, wanted to go to sleep later tonight knowing that he’d done the right thing, that he’d helped another human being before it was too late, and honored his wife’s last request. Maybe that would make it easier for him to sleep nights, easier to get up in the morning and face himself.
Two miles to go. He relaxed his grip on the steering wheel and even put in a new CD—Pat Metheny this time. Somehow, Metheny’s guitar playing always sounded joyous, and he needed to hear something joyous and optimistic right now. Damn, had his nerves gotten the better of him—and a lot sooner than he’d thought they would.
One mile to go, and he saw the blinking taillights in the emergency lane ahead. This time he would stop, if for no other reason than to see if the other driver was as confused by all the Merge Right signs as he was.
And to make sure he’s all right, said Lauren’s voice. To check and make sure he’s okay. Like you should have done when you realized how long I’d been up in the tub.
He looked at the urn. “That’s a lousy thing to say to me, baby. I always respected your privacy, y’know? I just thought—”
No, honey, you just knew, that’s all. You knew, and you just sat there.
“I’m sorry,” he said, a single tear slipping from his eye and streaming slowly down his face. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”
This time it was an SUV of some sort, and the windshield wipers were going so Matt had a decent view of the inside, but no sooner had he come to a stop alongside the other vehicle than the wind kicked into a higher gear and the snow became a churning mass of white, so it didn’t matter if the other vehicle’s wipers were going; the wet snow plastered itself against the passenger windows of Matt’s car and blocked his vision as much as did the tears.
He pressed his hands against his eyes and rubbed hard, pulling in his breath to steady himself. Get a grip, pal; just get a fucking grip already.
He looked over at the SUV, and then pulled back a bit and blinked his lights, hoping the other driver would see and blink is return; when that didn’t happen, Matt hit his horn three times. The driver of the SUV did the same. Matt didn’t want to approach the other vehicle without having given the driver some sort of warning.
Reaching into the back seat, Matt retrieved his coat and put it on, zipping up and covering his head with the hood. He dug out his gloves, put those on, took a deep breath, said, “I’ll be back in a minute, baby”, and climbed out.
The weather reports had called for a low of 27 degrees, but what Matt stepped out into felt damned near arctic. It was so cold that his breath turned to iron in his throat, the hairs in his nostrils webbed into instant ice, and his eyes watered and stung. In the faint starlight and bluish luminescence of the snow, everything beyond a few yards of his gaze swam deceptive and without depth, glimmering with things half seen or imagined. He listened beneath the low, mournful call of the winter-night wind and could detect no sounds save for those made by himself, the purring motors of the two vehicles, and the thunka-thunka-thunk of windshield wipers. Everything else in the world might have died out there in the cold.
He raised a hand to wave in greeting as he approached the driver’s-side of the SUV and realized that the driver had already lowered the window. Matt walked up to the door and offered his hand.
The SUV was empty. Not only that, but the window had been down for quite some time; a thin layer of snow covered a good portion of the front seats and part of the back. Despite the cold, the heater wasn’t running, and appeared not have been running for quite some time; the snow had frozen into clumps in places.
Matt opened the door and leaned in,
looking into the back seat where he saw a blanketed infant’s seat buckled into place. Scrambling inside, he reached back and pulled away the blanket to find that the infant’s seat was empty, as well. Jesus Christ—what kind of a moron would take a baby out into a night like this, especially when his or her car was in good working order? The taking-a-leak scenario didn’t hold up this time, because no one would leave a baby alone in a car on a night like this, regardless of how much they needed to go. Which meant that this person—whoever they were—was out there someplace with a baby.
Matt took a deep breath, feeling the cold slice into his throat, and tried to get a handle on the panic he felt rising in his gut. Okay, maybe they’d had some kind of car trouble—like the heater going out—and they’d decided that, rather than risk the baby’s health, they’d call AAA Roadside Assistance and get a ride into the next town. But why leave the vehicle running like this? Dammit, dammit, dammit—this made no sense.
He looked around the interior of the car for anything that might be a clue, checking the door pockets, under the visors, even opening the glove compartment, but found nothing to indicate why they’d left the vehicle—or, for that matter, who “they” even were. The glove compartment held no registration papers.
Then he saw the three square buttons over the driver’s visor: a GPS system. Sliding into the driver’s seat and closing the door, Matt then raised the window and pressed the button with the imprinted phone icon.
After a few seconds, a voice said, “UniStar, how may I assist you?”
“Thank God,” said Matt. “Listen, this isn’t my car, I found it abandoned a few minutes ago. Whoever was driving this took a baby with them and it’s snowing like crazy outside and—”
“One moment please while I confirm your location.”
The next five seconds seemed like fifty, but at last the voice came back: “You say you found the car abandoned?”
“Yes.”
“We have a fix on your location, Mr. Leigh, and will—”
“Hold on a second.”
“Yes, Mr. Leigh?”
“How do you know my name? I never told you what it was.”
“I apologize, sir. It’s something we do automatically. As soon as anyone calls in, their name, vehicle make, and location shows on the screen. I was just reading the name off the screen. Force of habit.”
“That still doesn’t answer my question.”
“Sir, the vehicle that you found is registered to a Matthew and Lauren Leigh.”
Matt stared at the button, then looked out at his own car. “Lady, there must be some kind of mistake. I’m Matthew Leigh, and I can assure you I’ve never owned an SUV.”
“Perhaps your wife—”
“My wife is dead. She’s been dead for several months.”
“Perhaps this is just one of those odd coincidences you hear about from time to time, Mr. Leigh. Perhaps the owners of this vehicle just happen to have the same names and yourself and your late wife.”
Matt didn’t like the flippant tone in the voice. “That’s not funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be, Mr. Leigh. Regardless, we’ll have assistance to your location shortly.”
Matt looked at the baby seat in the back and knew that, despite this bullshit about the names, he couldn’t just leave this vehicle if there were any possibility that he could do something to help find a missing infant. “How soon will someone be here?”
“Mr. Leigh?”
“What?”
“The only way to get home is never to stop. Never to stop. Never to—”
“Who the hell are you?”
There was no answer. He repeated the question twice more, and, receiving no reply, decided to wait it out in his own car. As he was climbing back out into the freezing night, the voice said, “Assistance will be there in five minutes.” Click.
The wind seemed determined to nail him to the spot—God, the temperature must have dropped at least eight more degrees while he was in the SUV—but he managed to make it back.
“Miss me?” he asked the urn as he climbed inside and closed the door. Removing his gloves, he reached down and turned up the heat, then grabbed his cell phone. Screw UniStar and their promises of assistance and their…whatever-in-the-hell it was that helped them to identify him; he was going to call the police. Punching in 911 he listened for a moment, heard nothing, then pulled back the phone and looked at the screen. No Available Signal.
“Horseshit!” he snapped, closing the phone and slowing his breathing. “You can’t drive a mile down any stretch of highway without passing a goddamn cell tower these days, and I’m supposed to believe that a little snowstorm kills the signal? I don’t think so.” He looked at Lauren’s urn. “I mean, c’mon, baby—for what we pay for this service every month, I damned well ought to get a signal. Isn’t that their guarantee? Christ, I’d settle for weirdoes again.”
He flipped open the phone once again and thumbed in 911. This time he got results.
“911. Please state the nature of your emergency.”
“I found an abandoned vehicle with an empty baby seat in the back. I think the driver and the baby might be lost in the snow.”
“What is your location, Mr. Leigh?”
Matt pulled the phone away and stared at the screen. Instead of displaying the time and the number he’d just called, the words Voice Mail Waiting were showing.
He brought the phone back and said, “How do you know my name? What the hell is going on?” His only answer was a burst of white noise from the other end. He disconnected the call and tossed down the phone, leaning back against the headrest and closing his eyes.
You’re stressing, honey, said Lauren’s voice.
“I know,” he whispered. “But, Jesus, baby…this is weird.”
No arguments here. Out of curiosity, how long had I been up there before you thought something might be wrong?
Matt opened his eyes and sat forward. The UniStar folks knew the location of the SUV and were sending assistance, so he’d done his good deed for the day. The 911 thing…okay, maybe he got one of those stations that automatically pulls up the cell number and the name of the person it’s registered to, maybe that was it.
He checked the time and saw that he was over an hour behind schedule. Reaching into his coat pocket, he removed the slip of paper with the name and number of the hotel. He’d call and tell them he was running late, that they were to hold the room. If it turned out there were any extra charges for this, so be it. (Part of him knew this was unnecessary, that he’d given them a credit card number to guarantee the room, but another part of him, the part that always worried, the part that always assumed the worst was going to happen, wouldn’t let him not call.)
He flipped open his cell phone and saw the Voice Mail Waiting message again, and so pressed OK, entered his password, and waited for the message to play.
“Sorry we’re not going to make it by midnight, baby,” he said to Lauren. “But we’ll get there. You just relax.”
“I’m not worried, honey,” came Lauren’s voice from the cell phone. “I know you’ll get us there eventually. Just remember, the best way to get there is never to stop.”
Everything inside Matt’s body locked up. For a moment, there was nothing more to the world than the echo of his dead wife’s voice.
“To replay this message,” came the electronic voice-prompt, “press ‘1’. To save it, press ‘7’. To delete it, press ‘9’.”
Matt pressed “1”.
“It’s really cold out here, Daddy,” said a child’s thin voice. “When you gonna get here for me an’ Mommy?”
Matt dropped the phone as if it were a hot coal and pressed his back up against the driver’s-side door, instinctively pulling his knees up and remembering something a Psych professor had said when he was in college, about how childhood and fear are forever connected in the mind, because even an adult, in the grip of fear, will resort to the fetal position.
On the floor, the cell ph
one’s screen blinked at him as the child’s voice kept speaking: “…at, Daddy? It’s so cold here. You have to come get me an’ Mommy. Please, Daddy?”
Matt pushed out one leg and closed the cell phone with his foot, then pulled his leg back so quickly he heard the bones in his knee crack.
A sudden bright light appeared in the rear-view mirror. Turning around in his seat (still keeping his knees pressed tightly against his chest), Matt saw the distant headlights closing in fast.
“Okay,” he said, but whether it was to himself or to Lauren, he didn’t know and didn’t care; for the moment, he need the sound of his own voice to fill the silence.
Silence?
He looked down at the CD player; the Metheny album had been playing when he’d gotten out of the car and he hadn’t stopped it.
I always hated Pat Metheny, said Lauren. All his stuff sounds the same to me after a couple of songs.
He leaned forward and saw the ejected disc, now snapped in two, lying on the floor in front of Lauren’s seat. As he reached down to pick it up, to make sure it was real and not just something brought on by the stress, his cell phone began ringing. He pulled back so quickly that he slammed his elbow against the steering wheel, right smack dead-bang on the funny bone, and the pain shot both up and down his arm as he grabbed his elbow and bent his arm, crying out.
The headlights down the highway were getting much closer now, and his cell phone—which should have switched over to voicemail after the fourth ring—was still going off, insistent, its volume growing louder and louder. He bent down—taking care to keep his throbbing arm a good distance from the steering wheel—snatched the phone from the floor, looked back to see how close the other vehicle was, and answered.
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