And then there were the lights. They were all on, all bright and clear. None of them were busted. None of them were out, or blinking. Hell, none of them were even dim. The road was beautifully lighted.
After that, I began to notice other things. Like the traffic signs. Most places, the traffic signs are long gone, removed by souvenir hunters or antique collectors as a reminder of an older, slower America. No one replaces them—they aren’t needed. Once in a while you’ll come across one that’s been missed, but there’s never anything left but an oddly shaped, rusted hunk of metal.
But this highway had traffic signs. Real traffic signs. I mean, ones you could read. Speed limit signs, when no one’s observed a speed limit in years. Yield signs, when there’s seldom any other traffic to yield to. Turn signs, exit signs, caution signs—all kinds of signs. And all as good as new.
But the biggest shock was the lines. Paint fades fast, and I doubt that there’s a highway in America where you could still make out the white lines in a speeding car. But you could on this one. The lines were sharp and clear, the paint fresh, the eight lanes clearly marked.
Oh, it was a beautiful highway all right. The kind they had back in the old days. But it didn’t make sense. No road could stay in this condition all these years. Which meant someone had to be maintaining it. But who? Who would bother to maintain a highway that only a handful of people used each year? The cost would be enormous, with no return at all.
I was still trying to puzzle it out when I saw the other car.
I had just flashed by a big red sign marking Exit 76, the exit to San Breta, when I saw it. Just a white speck on the horizon, but I knew it had to be another motorist. It couldn’t be a hovertruck, since I was plainly gaining on it. And that meant another car, and a fellow aficionado.
It was a rare occasion. It’s damn seldom you meet another car on the open road. Oh, there are regular conventions, like the Fresno Festival on Wheels and the American Motoring Association’s Annual Trafficjam. But they’re too artificial for my tastes. Coming across another motorist on the highway is something else indeed.
I hit the gas, and speeded up to around one-twenty. The Jag could do better, but I’m not a nut on speed like some of my fellow drivers. And I was picking up ground fast. From the way I was gaining, the other car couldn’t have been doing better than seventy.
When I got within range, I let go with a blast on my horn, trying to attract his attention. But he didn’t seem to hear me. Or at least he didn’t show any sign. I honked again.
And then, suddenly, I recognized the make.
It was an Edsel.
I could hardly believe it. The Edsel is one of the real classics, right up there with the Stanley Steamer and the Model T.
The few that are left sell for a rather large fortune nowadays.
And this was one of the rarest, one of those original models with the funny noses. There were only three or four like it left in the world, and those were not for sale at any price. An automotive legend, and here it was on the highway in front of me, as classically ugly as the day it came off the Ford assembly line.
I pulled alongside, and slowed down to keep even with it. I couldn’t say that I thought much of the way the thing had been kept up. The white paint was chipped, the car was dirty, and there were signs of body rust on the lower part of the doors. But it was still an Edsel, and it could easily be restored. I honked again to get the attention of the driver, but he ignored me. There were five people in the car from what I could see, evidently a family on an outing. In the back, a heavy-set woman was trying to control two small kids who seemed to be fighting. Her husband appeared to be soundly asleep in the front seat, while a younger man, probably his son, was behind the wheel.
That burned me. The driver was very young, probably only in his late teens, and it irked me that a kid that age should have the chance to drive such a treasure. I wanted to be in his place.
I had read a lot about the Edsel; books of auto lore were full of it. There was never anything quite like it. It was the greatest disaster the field had ever known. The myths and legends that had grown up around its name were beyond number.
All over the nation, in the scattered dingy garages and gas depots where car nuts gather to tinker and talk, the tales of the Edsel are told to this day. They say they built the car too big to fit in most garages. They say it was all horsepower, and no brake. They call it the ugliest machine ever designed by man. They retell the old jokes about its name. And there’s one famous legend that when you got it going fast enough, the wind made a funny whistling noise as it rushed around that hood.
All the romance and mystery and tragedy of the old automobile was wrapped up in the Edsel. And the stories about it are remembered and retold long after its glittering contemporaries are so much scrap metal in the junkyards.
As I drove along beside it, all the old legends about the Edsel came flooding back to me, and I was lost in my own nostalgia. I tried a few more blasts on my horn, but the driver seemed intent on ignoring me, so I soon gave up. Besides, I was listening to see if the hood really did whistle in the wind.
I should have realized by then how peculiar the whole thing was—the road, the Edsel, the way they were ignoring me. But I was too enraptured to do much thinking. I was barely able to keep my eyes on the road.
I wanted to talk to the owners, of course. Maybe even borrow it for a little while. Since they were being so damned unfriendly about stopping, I decided to follow them for a bit, until they pulled in for gas or food. So I slowed and began to tail them. I wanted to stay fairly close without tailgating, so I kept to the lane on their immediate left.
As I trailed them, I remember thinking what a thorough collector the owner must be. Why, he had even taken the time to hunt up some rare, old-style license plates. The kind that haven’t been used in years. I was still mulling over that when we passed the sign announcing Exit 77.
The kid driving the Edsel suddenly looked agitated. He turned in his seat and looked back over his shoulder, almost as if he was trying to get another look at the sign we had already left behind. And then, with no warning, the Edsel swerved right into my lane.
I hit the brakes, but it was hopeless, of course. Everything seemed to happen at once. There was a horrible squealing noise, and I remember getting a brief glimpse of the kid’s terrified face just before the two cars made impact. Then came the shock of the crash.
The Jag hit the Edsel broadside, smashing into the driver’s compartment at seventy. Then it spun away into the guard rail, and came to a stop. The Edsel, hit straight on, flipped over on its back in the center of the road. I don’t recall unfastening my seat belt or scrambling out of my car, but I must have done so, because the next thing I remember I was crawling on the roadway, dazed but unhurt.
I should have tried to do something right away, to answer the cries for help that were coming from the Edsel. But I didn’t. I was still shaken, in shock. I don’t know how long I lay there before the Edsel exploded and began to burn. The cries suddenly became screams. And then there were no cries.
By the time I climbed to my feet, the fire had burned itself out, and it was too late to do anything. But I still wasn’t thinking very clearly. I could see lights in the distance, down the road that led from the exit ramp. I began to walk towards them.
That walk seemed to take forever. I couldn’t seem to get my bearings, and I kept stumbling. The road was very poorly lighted, and I could hardly see where I was going. My hands were scraped badly once when I fell down. It was the only injury I suffered in the entire accident.
The lights were from a small café, a dingy place that had marked off a section of the abandoned highway as its airlot. There were only three customers inside when I stumbled through the door, but one of them was a local cop.
“There’s been an accident,” I said from the doorway. “Somebody’s got to help them.”
The cop drained his coffee cup in a gulp, and rose from his chair. “A copter cra
sh, mister?” he said. “Where is it?”
I shook my head. “N-no. No. Cars. A crash, a highway accident. Out on the old interstate.” I pointed vaguely in the direction I had come.
Halfway across the room, the cop stopped suddenly and frowned. Everybody else laughed. “Hell, no one’s used that road in twenty years, you sot,” a fat man yelled from the corner of the room. “It’s got so many potholes we use it for a golf course,” he added, laughing loudly at his own joke.
The cop looked at me doubtfully. “Go home and sober up, mister,” he said. “I don’t want to have to run you in.” He started back towards his chair.
I took a step into the room. “Dammit, I’m telling the truth,” I said, angry now more than dazed. “And I’m not drunk. There’s been a collision on the interstate, and there’s people trapped up there in.…” My voice trailed off as it finally struck me that any help I could bring would be far too late.
The cop still looked dubious. “Maybe you ought to go check it out,” the waitress suggested from behind the counter. “He might be telling the truth. There was a highway accident last year, in Ohio somewhere. I remember seeing a story about it on 3V.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” the cop said at last. “Let’s go, buddy. And you better be telling the truth.”
We walked across the airlot in silence, and climbed into the four-man police copter. As he started up the blades, the cop looked at me and said, “You know, if you’re on the level, you and that other guy should get some kind of medal.”
I stared at him blankly.
“What I mean is, you’re probably the only two cars to use that road in ten years. And you still manage to collide. Now, that had to take some doing, didn’t it?” He shook his head ruefully. “Not everybody could pull off a stunt like that. Like I said, they ought to give you a medal.”
The interstate wasn’t nearly as far from the café as it had seemed when I was walking. Once airborne, we covered the distance in less than five minutes. But there was something wrong. The highway looked somehow different from the air.
And suddenly I realized why. It was darker. Much darker.
Most of the lights were out, and those that weren’t were dim and flickering.
As I sat there stunned, the copter came down with a thud in the middle of a pool of sickly yellow light thrown out by one of the fading lamps. I climbed out in a daze, and tripped as I accidentally stepped into one of the potholes that pockmarked the road. There was a big clump of weeds growing in the bottom of this one, and a lot more rooted in the jagged network of cracks that ran across the highway.
My head was starting to pound. This didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. I didn’t know what the hell was going on.
The cop came around from the other side of the copter, a portable med sensor slung over one shoulder on a leather strap. “Let’s move it,” he said. “Where’s this accident of yours?”
“Down the road, I think,” I mumbled, unsure of myself. There was no sign of my car, and I was beginning to think we might be on the wrong road altogether, although I didn’t see how that could be.
It was the right road, though. We found my car a few minutes later, sitting by the guard rail on a pitch black section of highway where all the lights had burnt out. Yes, we found my car all right.
Only there wasn’t a scratch on it. And there was no Edsel.
I remembered the Jaguar as I had left it. The windshield shattered. The entire front of the car in ruins. The right fender smashed up where it had scraped along the guard rail. And here it was, in mint condition.
The cop, scowling, played the med sensor over me as I stood there staring at my car. “Well, you’re not drunk,” he said at last, looking up. “So I’m not going to run you in, even though I should. Here’s what you’re going to do, mister—you’re going to get in that relic, and turn around, and get out of here as fast as you can. ’Cause if I ever see you around here again, you might have a real accident. Understand?”
I wanted to protest, but I couldn’t find the words. What could I say that would possibly make sense? Instead, I nodded weakly. The cop turned with disgust, muttering something about practical jokes, and stalked back to his copter.
When he was gone, I walked up to the Jaguar and felt the front of it incredulously, feeling like a fool. But it was real. And when I climbed in and turned the key in the ignition, the engine rumbled reassuringly, and the headlights speared out into the darkness. I sat there for a long time before I finally swung the car out into the middle of the road, and made a U-turn.
The drive back to San Breta was long and rough. I was constantly bouncing in and out of potholes. And thanks to the poor lighting and the treacherous road conditions, I had to keep my speed at a minimum.
The road was lousy. There was no doubt about that. Usually I went out of my way to avoid roads that were this bad. There was too much chance of blowing a tire.
I managed to make it to San Breta without incident, taking it slow and easy. It was two A.M. before I pulled into town. The exit ramp, like the rest of the road, was cracked and darkened. And there was no sign to mark it.
I recalled from previous trips through the area that San Breta boasted a large hobbyist garage and gas depot, so I headed there and checked my car with a bored young night attendant. Then I went straight to the nearest motel. A night’s sleep, I thought, would make everything make sense.
But it didn’t. I was every bit as confused when I woke up in the morning. More so, even. Now something in the back of my head kept telling me the whole thing had been a bad dream. I swatted down that tempting thought out of hand, and tried to puzzle it out.
I kept puzzling through a shower and breakfast, and the short walk back to the gas depot. But I wasn’t making any progress. Either my mind had been playing tricks on me, or something mighty funny had been going on last night. I didn’t want to believe the former, so I made up my mind to investigate the latter.
The owner, a spry old man in his eighties, was on duty at the gas depot when I returned. He was wearing an old-fashioned mechanic’s coverall, a quaint touch. He nodded amiably when I checked out the Jaguar.
“Good to see you again,” he said. “Where you headed this time?”
“L.A. I’m taking the interstate this time.”
His eyebrows rose a trifle at that. “The interstate? I thought you had more sense than that. That road’s a disaster. No way to treat a fine piece of machinery like that Jaguar of yours.”
I didn’t have the courage to try to explain, so I just grinned weakly and let him go get the car. The Jag had been washed, checked over, and gassed up. It was in prime shape.
I took a quick look for dents, but there were none to be found.
“How many regular customers you get around here?” I asked the old man as I was paying him. “Local collectors, I mean, not guys passing through.”
He shrugged. “Must be about a hundred in the state. We get most of their business. Got the best gas and the only decent service facilities in these parts.”
“Any decent collections?”
“Some,” he said. “One guy comes in all the time with a Pierce-Arrow. Another fellow specializes in the forties. He’s got a really fine collection. In good shape, too.”
I nodded. “Anybody around here own an Edsel?” I asked.
“Hardly,” he replied. “None of my customers have that kind of money. Why do you ask?”
I decided to throw caution on the road, so to speak. “I saw one last night on the road. Didn’t get to speak to the owner, though. Figured it might be somebody local.”
The old man’s expression was blank, so I turned to get into the Jag. “Nobody from around here,” he said as I shut the door. “Must’ve been another guy driving through. Funny meeting him on the road like that, though. Don’t often get—”
Then, just as I was turning the key in the ignition, his jaw dropped about six feet. “Wait a minute!” he yelled. “You said you were driving on the old intersta
te. You saw an Edsel on the interstate?”
I turned the motor off again. “That’s right,” I said.
“Christ,” he said. “I’d almost forgotten, it’s been so long. Was it a white Edsel? Five people in it?”
I opened the door and got out again. “Yeah,” I said. “Do you know something about it?”
The old man grabbed my shoulders with both hands. There was a funny look in his eyes. “You just saw it?” he said, shaking me. “Are you sure that’s all that happened?”
I hesitated a moment, feeling foolish. “No,” I finally admitted. “I had a collision with it. That is, I thought I had a collision with it. But then—” I gestured limply towards the Jaguar.
The old man took his hands off me, and laughed. “Again,” he muttered. “After all these years.”
“What do you know about this?” I demanded. “What the hell went on out there last night?”
He sighed. “C’mon,” he said. “I’ll tell you all about it.”
“It was over forty years ago,” he told me over a cup of coffee in a café across the street. “Back in the ’70s. They were a family on a vacation outing. The kid and his father were taking shifts behind the wheel. Anyway, they had hotel reservations at San Breta. But the kid was driving, and it was late at night, and somehow he missed his exit. Didn’t even notice it.
“Until he hit Exit 77, that is. He must’ve been really scared when he saw that sign. According to people who knew them, his father was a real bastard. The kind who’d give him a real hard time over something like that. We don’t know what happened, but they figure the kid panicked. He’d only had his license about two weeks. Of all things, he tried to make a U-turn and head back towards San Breta.
“The other car hit him broadside. The driver of that car didn’t have his seat belt on. He went through the windshield, hit the road, and was killed instantly. The people in the Edsel weren’t so lucky. The Edsel turned over and exploded, with them trapped inside. All five were burned to death.”
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