by J L Bryan
He slept, though—finally, as the night fell.
The night came early in the winter. It was dark by the time I reached Gallup.
I couldn't help slowing as I passed through the turn-off for Route 491, which ran north across the desert and into Utah. I'd read about that road countless times in my years of studying ghosts and haunted places. The road had been part of the Old Spanish Trail; more recently, and for most of the twentieth century, its designation had been Route 666, commonly called the Devil's Highway.
The road was reputed to be cursed, not just because of its Number-of-the-Beast route designation (which had begun innocently enough; the road was the sixth branch off the old Route 66). It was a treacherous stretch of road, with statistically higher crashes. A chapter in a book about haunted spots in the Southwest had mentioned strange sightings along the road, reported by nighttime travelers, from pale horses to ghostly hitchhikers, and even the phantasm of a fiery truck racing down the road at unnatural speeds.
The Devil's Highway traveled through Navajo land. When the road had been rededicated with a new route number, largely to erase the negative associations of the old ones, a Navajo medicine man had been on hand to bless the old road and hopefully lift its curse away.
All of this flickered through my mind in a moment as I crossed over the Devil's Highway. That's where people used to say you could meet the devil—at a crossroads at midnight. Good thing it was more of an exit ramp, and nowhere close to midnight yet.
My phone, mounted in the dashboard, lit up just when I crossed, like an omen of evil things to come.
It was just Stacey, though. I swiped the green phone icon to answer.
“Hey there,” I whispered, not wanting to wake up Michael. “How's Nacogdoches?”
“Yeah, we found the guy's house,” Stacey whispered. “I'm outside right now.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“Yeah, he's in there right now, getting some gear together. Um...Ellie? How sure are we about this guy?”
“Is there a problem?”
“Uh, well, for one thing, his house is this creepy shack in the woods. And a couple of rooms have their doors nailed shut and their windows boarded over. He says there's entities trapped inside.”
“So don't open their doors.”
“Yeah, I feel like I'm not getting across how weird this place is. These handmade stick-man sculptures hang from the ceiling in every room. He's got some scary-looking kachina dolls. And there's a scarecrow on every side of the house. And the scarecrows have weird symbols sewn on them. And, in case I didn't mention the creepy stick-men—”
“But Tucker is cooperating with us?”
“Yeah, I wish he'd cooperate with his own shower, though. Which, I think, is fed by a rain barrel outside. And I'm guessing it hasn't rained in a while. Good thing he's got plenty of sage burning around the place, or I don't know how it would smell in there—”
“Okay, I get the picture.”
“Plus his hair is long and puffed up, like he thinks he's a rock star from the 80's. He's definitely getting a separate hotel room. I don't care what it costs. I am not breathing in that much hairspray.”
“That's the spirit. How long until you're on the road?”
“I don't know, it depends on Stinky Nealon in there. But we'll catch up as soon as we can. I figure we can make it past Dallas before we stop for the night. Where are you?”
“Gallup, New Mexico,” I said. “I think we'll be almost to California before we stop. I'll let you know.”
“Okay, Jacob just stepped out,” Stacey said. “Hopefully that means we're about ready to go. I'll talk to you later.”
“Good luck,” I said.
Then I drove on in near-silence, keeping the music low so it didn't wake Michael.
By the time it was midnight, I found myself in the deep desert, under the stars, seemingly the only vehicle on the road for miles.
More stories about the Southwest desert rose unbidden. There were the old legends of skinwalkers, beings who could take on the forms of rattlesnakes, coyotes, or humans. I'd read a story about an oversized skeletal apparition that sometimes walked along the road in the moonlight, and others about strange monsters and demonic entities that could be found in the desert.
Obviously, some were probably just stories invented to scare people, but it was hard to know which ones contained a kernel of truth.
The desert was like another world, though, a wild place where strange things could certainly hide, and it was even more so at night. It was easy to believe in supernatural creatures lurking in the vast darkness stretching out on either side of the road.
It occurred to me that if we broke down out here, we'd be a long hike from civilization.
Eventually, a pair of headlights appeared behind me. I wasn't sure where they'd come from, and given my frayed state of mind, I immediately thought of the tale of the aggressive ghost car that may or may not have pursued drivers on the since-renamed Route 666.
This car kept its distance, though, and was soon joined by another pair of headlights. Then I caught up to a few tractor trailers hauling stuff through the night. I don't know if it was an actual convoy or just a few trucks that had randomly bunched up, but I was glad to be around other human beings.
As traffic increased, bright, strange lights appeared on the horizon ahead. Las Vegas. We'd be driving through the center of it.
I woke Michael up. He'd slept a long time, long enough to leave me jumpy and imagining roadside ghosts.
“Huh?” Michael said, gaping out at the glowing city, the Goofy Golf versions of Egypt and Paris.
“This is the afterlife, Michael,” I said. “It's weirder than anyone thought.”
“What?” He blinked a few times, then looked out at the glowing scenery. “Okay, so we're on the last leg.”
“Yeah, but if we drive straight through, we'll be at your dad's house at 4 a.m.,” I said. “So maybe we should stop here in Vegas, get a bite and some rest, wait for Stacey and Jacob to catch up with us—”
“Or we could keep going.”
“With no exorcist and no backup,” I said. “You don't want to go running into a situation like this unprepared. I made that mistake at the monster museum. And I almost got killed.” I shuddered, thinking of how Davey Bawden's disheveled, dirty-looking ghost had appeared in the passenger seat of the van and tried to slash me to death with a knife that looked as filthy as the rest of him.
“And if we sit around here, delaying when we don't have to, that's more time for something terrible to happen to my sister. Something an exorcist can't reverse.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but nothing convincing came to mind. I knew he had a point. It was hard to leave someone you cared about in danger.
Maybe we were unprepared for a confrontation with Anton Clay, but maybe all we would find in California was another crumb on the trail. Or a dead end; maybe we would simply learn that Melissa/Clay hadn't been there at all. Maybe Clay had carefully lured us into this side trip to California while he laid plans elsewhere. Or another possibility: Melissa had been genuinely interested in finding her missing father, before Clay had fully taken over...which would also mean California was a dead end.
Regardless, it looked like my fantasy of a hotel room and a hot shower wasn't going to be coming true anytime in the near future.
Michael looked increasingly agitated as we left Vegas behind and headed into the dark desert beyond, following a sparsely populated ribbon of highway that only grew more sparsely populated as the glowing city retreated behind us. Most of the westward traffic had gone south, along the interstate to Los Angeles.
The highway we followed led to no major city, but rather through desert towns and up into the Sierra Nevada mountains, where there would at last be full-grown trees fed by rivers and streams. Michael's father lived in a small town up there.
The emptiness and the early-morning darkness made it tempting to speed, but I kept it reasonable, assuming there wo
uld be small-town cops hiding somewhere in search of ticket revenue. Michael kept urging me to go faster. We skirted Death Valley, which is sometimes one of the hottest places on Earth, but it sure isn't that way in January. I had the heat going in the van so we didn't freeze. That's probably not how I would have imagined a drive through the desert.
In time, we reached the foothills of the mountains. The road snaked between them rather than over them, so there weren't as many of the dreaded high-altitude hairpin turns that I'd dealt with on the twisting roads of the Appalachians.
As we approached the town, though, it was hard not to notice the strange red glow in the sky above the mountains.
“What's that?” I asked Michael. “It can't be sunrise yet. And the sun kind of rises in the east, not the west—”
“It's a fire. A really big one.” Michael switched off the van's heat, which had been recirculating the same warmed air, and he dropped his window.
Freezing air gushed in, along with the smell of wood smoke.
“I'll see what I can find out about it.” Michael started tapping at his phone.
Before he could summon any news about the fire, though, we rounded a curve and had to stop.
The right lane of the road leading out to Brent Holly's address was blocked off with bright orange barriers.
A police car was parked beside it, blue lights flashing.
I stopped, and the cop came up to my window. He was young, blond, tanned, very California-looking, though we'd only just barely crossed the line into California. He could have been part of the official California Welcoming Committee, if such a thing existed.
“This road's closed, ma'am,” he said. “You'll have to turn around.”
“Where's the fire?” I asked the cop, which felt a little weird, since that's a question I'd normally think of a cop asking, sarcastically, after pulling someone over for speeding.
“Inyo National Forest. Cropped up fast last night. You'll have to turn around.”
“I don't think there's another road we can use...” Michael said, looking at his phone.
“Sir, do not challenge me,” the cop said, his voice getting hard and official fast. He may have had the laid-back California look, but definitely not the laid-back California attitude to go with it.
“There isn't,” Michael said. “Look, officer, my father lives up this way. How do we know he's safe? We can't get him on the phone. Any chance you could let us—”
“Sir, this area has already been evacuated. The Bishop fairground is the designated evac point for all residents. I'd advise you to check for him there. Now, you'll have to turn around or I'll have to issue a citation.”
“We're going,” I said. “Thanks for your help.”
The policeman walked back to his car. I put the van into reverse and began to maneuver the slow, cumbersome vehicle around so we could drive away.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The smell of smoke grew stronger as we parked at the Bishop fairgrounds, which was a hive of activity with a few emergency vehicles and many more civilian ones.
Most of the people were gathered in a heated auditorium building. A few small kids and babies were awake and crying despite the late hour. Their parents tried to comfort them. I hoped none of them had lost their homes in the fire.
Scores of people were there, most of them huddled in little family groups.
“Do you see him anywhere?” I murmured as we walked among the tables where the evacuees were seated.
“I'm not even sure I'd recognize him, honestly,” Michael whispered. “It's been about fifteen years. He could have changed. Sometimes I have trouble remembering his face. It's not like we keep pictures of him around.”
“Yeah, I guess you wouldn't,” I said.
“And I don't know whether he'd be alone, or with...with a new family or something.” He cleared his throat.
We walked a lap around the auditorium, but didn't see Michael's father, as far as he could tell. So we started asking whether anyone knew Brent Holly.
After a few people shook their heads, one middle-aged lady named Rosa said she knew him.
“Brent is my neighbor,” Rosa said. “At High Pines Trailer Court. I don't know him too well, but he helped me start my car once. I haven't seen him since they ordered the evacuation.”
“Do you think he could still be at home?” Michael asked.
“I don't know. I hope not.”
“Okay, thank you,” I said, ready to move on and avoid troubling the lady too much. Michael didn't move when I took a couple of steps away. He kept looking at Rosa.
“What's he like?” Michael asked. “My father?”
Rosa's brow furrowed. “I don't understand. You are asking what your own father is like?”
“Yeah, I don't know him well.”
“Oh.” Rosa frowned and fell silent for a minute. “I...do not know him very much, like I said. Just see him coming and going.” She gave an apologetic smile. “I'm sorry, I really don't know more than that.”
“Does he live alone?” Michael asked.
“I think so,” Rosa said. “As far as I have seen. But again, I don't really know.”
Michael nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”
“I am sorry. I hope you find him.”
As we walked away, it occurred to me that I didn't know whether she meant she was sorry that Michael couldn't find his father during the current wildfire, or sorry that Michael knew so little about the man.
We made another pass, but couldn't find many people who knew Michael's father, and nobody could tell us where he was.
“He sure doesn't have a lot of friends here,” Michael muttered at one point.
“We don't know how long he's lived in Bishop,” I said. “Though it does seem like the kind of place where you might move if you want to get away from people.”
“Getting away from people is one thing he definitely knows about.”
I gave Michael a hug. “Let's find a place to stay for now. The auditorium floor looks nice and cozy, but maybe there's a cheap hotel in town.”
“Let me look...” Michael pulled out his phone and began tapping at it.
A minute passed, then two, as he quietly swiped and clicked on his screen.
“Anything look available?” I finally asked, by way of reminding him that I was waiting.
“Huh?”
“Hotel? Motel? Cabin? Yurt?”
“Oh, a room. Yeah, I'll check in a minute.”
“So what are you—”
“I'm thinking we can cut through the woods,” Michael said. His phone showed a satellite view of the tree-lined mountains around us. “Get to his place that way.”
“What now?” I asked. “It sounds like you're saying you want to walk into the evacuated area. Into the wildfire. And that would be a ridiculous thing to suggest. I guess you want to make sure he's okay, but—”
“I don't care if he's dead already,” Michael said, his voice about as cold I'd ever heard it. “But he's missing, and there's a big fire that sprang up last night. Doesn't it sound like Clay could be in the middle of that?”
“Yeah, but—”
“And that means Melissa's in the middle of it. Stay here if you want, or find a hotel room or a yurt to rent or whatever you like. I'm going up to this ridge.” He pointed at a patch on his map labeled HIGH PINES TRAILER COURT.
“Those woods could be on fire.”
“I'm not going to walk right into them if they are.” He waved his phone. “But the wildfire reports so far say it's concentrated about half a mile away from the trailer park. I think I can make it up there.”
“This is a really, really bad idea, Michael,” I said. “And I'm saying this as someone who has intentionally walked into the haunted basements of abandoned mental asylums. I'm the queen of really, really bad ideas.”
“I hear you,” he said. “So where do you want to wait for me?”
“Like I would let you go up there, into every kind of danger, all by yourself,”
I said. “That would show a complete lack of chivalry on my part, wouldn't it?”
“I don't think women are really expected to be chivalrous, Ellie.”
“Well, that doesn't mean we aren't.”
“The closest place we can park is this strip mall,” Michael said, pointing on his map. “As long as the road in front of that hasn't been closed, too. From there, it's less than a mile hike. But it might be smoky, which could mean poor visibility and low oxygen, even if we don't walk into an active fire along the way.”
“Sounds like a dream vacation,” I said.
“You don't have to come.”
“I'll stay away from the wildfire if you will. Seriously, Michael. We can at least wait until daylight. We could get lost in those woods.”
“We've got flashlights and a compass in the van, right?”
I sighed. “Yep. We have them.”
So that was how we ended up parking the van at a strip mall on the edge of town, in front of a vape shop and a tattoo parlor. Every business in the strip mall was closed, which wasn't shocking at four-thirty in the morning.
The air tasted like thick smoke as we stepped out of the van. We each put on backpacks, and Michael crammed the van's small first-aid kit into his. I carried water and other supplies in mine, including a couple of Michael's t-shirts that we could soak and hold over our faces if the fire got too bad.
Of course, if we found ourselves walking through that kind of extreme infernal situation, I hoped we'd turn back and head for safety.
The grim, determined look on Michael's face made that seem doubtful. I knew he'd keep going until he found his sister.
We walked to the edge of the parking lot, where a little foot path led through weeds and scrubby plants, into taller, older trees. The woods weren't particularly dense, but a thick haze of smoke drifted through them. From a distance, they might have looked pleasantly foggy, but up close, with the hot, acrid smoke filling your nostrils, there was nothing pleasant about it.
The fire made the sky glow ahead, but it didn't provide much in the way of useful illumination. We relied on our flashlights, and even those mostly revealed smoke-encircled trees. Good thing Michael had grabbed the compass.
