The Trouble on Highway One

by Anne McClane

  Noxious was in her head on Monday morning, as she walked Ambrose around the grounds. The air was still, and the smell of sulfur permeated everything. Ambrose had already made friends with nearly every staff member, but even he seemed less sociable than usual. He passed them all up, giving each a slight nod of the head but no further greeting. Lacey couldn’t tell if the staff wasn’t in a friendly mood, either, or if it was her own foul humor that colored everything.

  Ambrose seemed to be on a mission. With little pausing to sniff, he dragged Lacey up the hill. He was better with the steep inclines than her. Maybe it was because his breed was born in the Alps. For Lacey, having lived her whole life in the flat land (except for sinkholes and potholes) of southern Louisiana, the hillside retreat posed a challenge.

  Out of breath and out of sorts, Lacey wasn’t paying attention to where Ambrose was leading her. By the time he finally stopped, the sulfur smell was so strong, her stomach was in her throat. And they were back at the hot tub furthest up the hill, the one where Eli had attempted his “training.” She didn’t remember the smell being that strong before.

  “Why here, Bro? What has you all amped up for this spot?”

  Things got even weirder when he started barking. Not his usual, single acknowledgment kind of bark, but a prolonged, stream-of-consciousness bark. Like a clarion call.

  “Ambrose! Hush! You might lose all the friends you’ve made here with all that ruckus.”

  He stopped and tilted his head toward her, as if to say, “I’ve got my reasons. Go figure them out, dummy.”

  Ambrose went down to his haunches, then all the way down to the ground. He stretched his massive chin out on the pine-needled ground before him.

  “Well, I guess you’re done then, huh?”

  He let out a high-pitched yawn.

  What the hell is going on, here? What is it about this place?

  Lacey made a few steps in each direction, not sure what she should do. Suddenly, she was overwhelmed with déjà vu. She had reached the place she saw when she was on Christine’s massage table. A wooded area at the top of the ridge, near the hot tub.

  When she motioned as if she was headed to the crest of the hill, like in her vision, Ambrose perked his head up and let out a low, “Woof.”

  “So I should go, eh?” she replied sarcastically.

  He tilted his head the other way this time, and returned his head to the ground.

  She stopped when she thought she heard something nearby. Voices, or a low murmur that sounded like voices. A seed of fear lodged in her throat, just above where her stomach had seemed to take permanent residence. She took a few more steps forward, hoping that the rise in the ground before her would keep her hidden from view.

  That’s when she realized it wasn’t voices. It was a buzz inside her head.

  She took a few more steps forward, so she could see over the rise. She didn’t see anything except a ray of sunlight spotlighting a patch of earth, about ten yards away and down the hill.

  Curiosity fought with her fear. She looked back to Ambrose, whose head was still resting on the ground. He raised his eyes up to her but didn’t move.

  “Okay, I guess I’m going it alone.”

  The buzzing in her head grew stronger the closer she came to the patch of earth. It couldn’t be called a meadow, just a small clearing in between a few trees. Suddenly, she felt a presence nearby. More than one presence. She turned her head sharply, scouring a 360-degree view, but didn’t see anyone. Not even a shadow.

  “Don’t get spooked,” she said quietly. She wasn’t sure who she was saying it to. It had little effect on herself. While she wanted to turn around and hightail it back over the rise, a stronger compulsion drove her forward.

  Her legs felt weighted with lead on the last few steps to the sunlit patch. When she reached it, and stepped inside the circle it created on the ground, she could hear the peaceful hum of cicadas in the distance. It did nothing to lift her unease. She took a deep breath, but her muscles remained tense. She looked all around her again. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, nothing that would explain why she felt so frightened.

  Except . . . except all around her, outside the circle, the trees seemed to move. A slow slide, all in unison. Was it another earthquake?

  But they weren’t sliding-falling, they were sliding . . . dancing?

  A sharp pain struck Lacey’s temples. Completely lateral, as if the two grip ends of a vice were ratcheting down onto her skull. Instant nausea welled up, and her hands flew to her head. She was surprised to find nothing there—nothing external causing the pain. It felt that real.

  She doubled over, hands still clutching her head, unable to propel herself out of this cursed place. The dancing trees vanished, and a flood of images began to swirl around her. She squeezed her eyes shut, but that only made the images clearer.

  What the fuck is happening? She wanted to scream the words, but she couldn’t form them. The vice had moved to her throat.

  The flood of everything around her slowed, and channeled into one rectangle at the center of her vision. It was like watching a video on your phone in the dark, with inky blackness all around you.

  She watched a woman driving a truck. Suddenly, the frame expanded, so it was as if Lacey was in the passenger seat. The dials on the radio, the song that was playing, the cracked leather on the dash, the clothes the woman was wearing. It had to be at least sixty years in the past. She looked at the woman. It was obvious she didn’t know Lacey was there, she didn’t acknowledge her. Lacey studied the woman’s features. She knew her. She knew her, because she had seen her picture at the Becnel’s house in Golden Meadow.

  It was Birdie. Lacey looked out to the road. A one-lane highway; a dark, moonless night. The truck’s headlights the only thing penetrating the darkness. The stars were veiled by a thick swath of hazy clouds. Lacey knew what was about to happen. She remembered what Tonti had told her about how Birdie died. The pain in her temples intensified.

  She wanted to scream at Birdie, “Stop the truck! Pull over!” But the words wouldn’t form, and she knew Birdie couldn’t hear her anyway. Lacey tried to calm herself, to tell herself that it was a dream, it wasn’t really happening to her. But nothing would quell her rising panic.

  Then Birdie began to sing. A quiet, low melody escaped her. Lacey’s panic subsided as she listened. Pay attention—the words resonated in her mind. She studied Birdie’s profile as she tried to identify the melody. Lacey caught it after just a few notes. It was one of her favorites, a song that had seen her through many a dark nights. “Amazing Grace.” Lacey felt tears well in her eyes.

  Lacey realized she may never get another chance to see Birdie this way. She wasn’t sure in which way she was seeing her, but there she was, plain as day—or dark, moonless night—before her. Lit by the glow of the dashboard lights, Birdie was beautiful. High cheekbones, perfect skin, luminous eyes. But her beauty was more than outward appearance. Something about the expression she wore, the sound of the notes she sang, Lacey thought of the kind of beauty they say is “inside and out.” Lacey ached in a way she had never felt before. She wished she could learn about her power from Birdie. She sensed she would certainly have been kinder than Eli, at least.

  Birdie finished the refrain from “Amazing Grace.” She turned her head slightly, keeping her eyes on the road, and smiled. Lacey would swear she was smiling at her.

  Then everything went bright. A tremendous flash, a bone-crushing impact. Lacey felt it all happening to her for an instant, and then all pain was gone. The vice grip on her temples was replaced by a sense of water flowing around her head, as if she was swimming.

  The frame shrunk back to phone size, she was back in the clearing, but something was happening at the site of Birdie’s crash. Lacey strained to see. Birdie was slumped over the steering wheel, there was blood pouring from her head. She must still be alive, Lace
y thought. It was almost reflexive now, her instinct to heal—if it was actually happening now, and not in some distant past she wasn’t sure why she was witnessing—Lacey might have been able to save her. When blood still flowed, there was hope.

  The image continued to shrink. There was someone at the window. A person dressed in white. A linen suit, a man’s suit. The vision was tiny, but the sense of foreboding encompassed all. A man’s hand reached out, placing it on the driver’s side window. Birdie let out an ungodly scream. A death rattle followed. Primal fear lodged in Lacey’s gut—she knew she was not witnessing an angel, or Death, visiting Birdie in her final moments. She knew the person at the window was human. Maybe not a normal human being, but a living, corporeal, mortal being all the same. And she knew who it was, too. It was someone she knew, who she had just met in the flesh recently. She knew it because this all matched the vision she had with Christine.

  The man who visited Birdie in her dying moment was Gus Savin. He had been feeding on something in Lacey’s vision. Now she knew what—who—he’d consumed. It hadn’t been Birdie’s flesh, or blood. It was something more intangible. Her soul? Or her power?

  A cloud overhead obscured the sunbeam, the circle in the clearing disappeared, and everything around Lacey was cast in a late afternoon pall.

  She didn’t let herself hesitate this time. She sprinted out of the clearing, out of the woods, and back over the ridge to Ambrose.

  25

  Lacey spent the evening watching movies on her laptop, and longing desperately for days without horrifying visions, and car crashes, and a hilltop rife with “spooky action at a distance.” Ambrose laid his head in her lap for most of Beethoven, but opted for his doggie bed when she started Legally Blonde.

  She’d tried to reach Eli for two hours, calling consistently every fifteen minutes. The only worry she had when she’d still received no response after the eighth time, was that he’d scold her for her insistence. Figuring he’d be in touch in “Eli time,” she just gave up.

  There was no one else here that she felt comfortable with, not comfortable enough to talk about what she saw. And what she sensed. She didn’t know how to get in touch with Christine, and didn’t want to bother her and Rosie, anyway.

  And there was an owl outside her window who was driving her insane. Ambrose slept heavily, to the point of snoring. Apparently, the constant hooting didn’t bother him at all. She cranked up the movie volume to her headphones, and wished she wasn’t in the wilderness anymore.

  She could go back to her rental in San Luis Obispo, but she knew that would do nothing to quell her alienation. What she really wanted was to be home, and to have something to do, and have someplace familiar to feel alone and confused in.

  Lacey fell asleep a few minutes before Elle Woods made her brilliant defense of Brooke Taylor Windham.

  A loud hammering at the door to her cottage woke her. She checked the time—what the hell? It was 5:30 a.m. She made sure she still had clothes on—she did—and rushed to the door. Ambrose stood beside her.

  It was Eli, looking more serene than his incessant knocking would indicate. The smooth profile of his skull was backlit by the sun, just beginning to peek above the horizon.

  “Eli, what is it?” the words came out groggy, but she was terrified that something else horrible had happened.

  “They’ve cast a new lead. Everybody’s on their way here, we’ll be filming here at the resort, call time in two hours.”

  “Wait, what? I haven’t heard anything from Kandace. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Kandace is off the picture. You’re still the production accountant. I’ll need your help today.”

  What the hell? “Okay. Give me a half hour?”

  “Can’t,” he said. “May I come in?”

  “Uh, sure?”

  He stepped over the threshold and grabbed Ambrose’s lead, which was hanging just inside the door. He called the dog over, hooked up his leash, and said, “I’ll take care of him. Be ready to go when we get back. Wear long sleeves, long pants, and closed-toed shoes.”

  Lacey couldn’t make sense of anything. Why had Eli just shown up with this news, instead of calling or texting? What had happened to Kandace? How long had the new lead been cast?

  She scrambled to wash her face, brush her teeth, and find a long-sleeved shirt. She really wanted coffee. And she really wanted to know about Kandace. What does off the picture mean? Did she choose to leave? Or was she fired? That seemed the more likely scenario.

  She found herself feeling something unexpected: sympathy for Kandace. Yes, she was a pain in the ass, but she was just beginning to figure out how to deal with her. And her intentions always seemed good. It was just her execution that left something to be desired.

  And she was beyond angry with Eli. Why had he ignored all her calls? Why did he just show up without any warning? And why was he always so damn cryptic about everything?

  Lacey was grateful for the immediacy of all these questions and feelings. It pushed the vision in the clearing further back in her head. And now, at least, she’d have something to do.

  She was ready to go when Eli and Ambrose returned. She reached out for Eli’s forearm, stopping him when he let Ambrose back in the cabin.

  “Eli, did you not see any of my calls?”

  “I’m sorry, Lacey. I was not in a place where I could have really listened to you.”

  “You could have texted, ‘sorry, can’t talk,’ or something like that.”

  “I’m sorry, you’re right, I should have done that.”

  How am I supposed to answer that?

  He removed her hand from his forearm. “We’ll be able to talk later. But now, we must go.”

  She followed Eli to the parking lot.

  “I will need you to drive into town, to pick up a piece of equipment from the studio.”

  “How will I know what you need?” she asked, still frustrated. “Where is it? And why am I even agreeing to do this?”

  Eli stopped. “Lacey. I will apologize again. I’m sorry I’m not able to help you right now. But I need your help, with a very simple task. That needs to be performed in a short window of time. Can you do this?”

  Lacey huffed. He sounded sincere. Even a little sad. “Fine. Where is it?” she repeated.

  “It’s in the edit bay. It’s marked. You’ll know.”

  “Okay.”

  “Be back here by seven o’clock.”

  “Fine. But, Eli? I really need to speak with you later. I’m serious.”

  Eli looked at her a moment and gave her sharp nod of assent. “Later, after filming.”

  A short-lived trickle of satisfaction went through Lacey. She held it together until she was seated in the driver seat of her Accord, and Eli was out of sight. She banged her fists repeatedly on the steering wheel and let out an exasperated cry. She was still furious but she was also finally validated. He’d help her sort out all these things later.

  Nine hours of running around is a good cure for frustration and restlessness. By the time Lacey had made it back to the resort (by 6:53 a.m.—she was very proud of herself for that), the parking lot was full with trucks and crewmembers running about. Some she recognized, but many were new faces.

  I’m going to need to get these people’s names eventually. Or else payroll’s gonna be a bitch.

  At the studio, she had taken a moment to peek into Kandace’s office. It appeared untouched. Coffee mug with straw sat near the monitor, and a faint syrupy smell led Lacey to believe it must still contain some Diet Dr. Pepper.

  They didn’t even let her get her stuff?

  Her sympathy for Kandace grew.

  The equipment in the edit bay was indeed marked—with a tag looped through the handle of the canvas bag that read “Lacy.” Lacey wondered if it was Eli who didn’t know how to spell her name. The thought made
her want to punch him.

  But throughout the course of the day, she managed to talk herself off the ledge. It had to be someone at the soundstage who marked the bag. It was a very minor thing, but it still made her feel better. And Eli must not have responded last night because he was busy getting everything ready for today.

  But how hard could it have been to just send a quick text?

  She was curious about the new lead. She wondered if he’d have one-tenth the charisma of Kevin Horner. And then felt immediately guilty about thinking of his wattage and star power. He was a human being, with parents, and a sister, and other people who loved him, and he was gone.

  Lacey caught her first glimpse of the new actor when she emerged from the brush, power cable in hand. Eli had told her to place some cable to run something—he had told her what it was, but she didn’t retain it. She had been careful about placing it far enough out of the way, and marking it so that no one would trip on it. After twenty minutes of this effort, she received a text from Eli telling her that they’d chosen a different location on the other side of the road. And to pull up the cable.

  I don’t have the time to even be frustrated by this.

  She brushed her hands on her jeans and saw Marco talking to someone she could only assume was the new lead. He was taller and leaner than Kevin Horner. Prettier, too—that was the word that first came to Lacey’s head. Later, she’d learn his name was Jason Booker.

  She wiped her hands against each other, looped one arm through the cable, and kept a respectful distance from Marco and Jason as she headed to the new site. She couldn’t hear anything they said, but Jason’s eyes were like a young buck’s, caught in oncoming headlights.

  Eli and a new guy—Lacey assumed he was the new A.D.—had everything ready to go across the road. Lacey wondered if Eli had known this all along, and had sent her on a fool’s errand. She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips as she approached Eli.

  “Lacey, this is Hunter,” he said. Hunter responded by nodding his head slightly in Lacey’s direction and shouting “Wilson! Don’t fuck this up!” to someone Lacey couldn’t see.