Tunnel Vision

84

About a dozen miles beyond the gas station, Zack slowed the car. The thick wall of trees on either side made of the road an unbroken, darkening corridor. Since their stop, he had counted only one other vehicle on the road, coming from the opposite direction.

“Is this it?” Sarah asked, the fear audible in her voice.

He didn’t answer, but his chest was pounding so hard that his breath came short. After half a minute more, he pulled over. In the heavy scrub was an opening to an unmarked dirt road, nearly indistinguishable but for the narrow cut through towering pines, oaks, and dense brush. Zack pulled the car into the lane. No other cars were on the road, which faded into gloom in either direction.

“What are we doing?”

“We’re here.”

Zack turned on the headlights. The rutted dirt lane was one car wide, with weeds growing down the center line, some spilling into the tire troughs. It hadn’t been used much and brooded ahead of them as it disappeared into the depths. Zack checked that the doors were locked. “I just want to go in a little way, then we’ll come right out.”

“I don’t like this.”

“We’ll be fine.” His brain was humming like a hive of hornets. He inched his way down the lane as brush scratched against the car, and the overhang of trees made a tunnel of the path, closing down on them as they moved deeper. Something really weird was about to happen.

“Zack, please turn back. I want to get out of here.”

“Okay. We’ll find a clearing to turn around.”

“Just back out.”

But he paid her no attention and rolled a few more yards ahead until it was clear that they had reached the end, the headlights falling on a wall of trees with no opening wide enough to accommodate a car. “See?”

“See what? There’s no room to turn around.”

He had no idea how far they had come—maybe a hundred yards. But she was right. He had only two or three feet on either side of the car to turn around. And no easy way to back out with only the backup lights.

Sarah seethed to herself while he worked the shift from drive to reverse, advancing a foot or so each time. The sides were scraped, and he’d have a handsome bill to cover the scratches. But after several minutes, he had the car pointed the way they had come down. Sweat poured down his face and back.

“What’s that?” gasped Sarah.

He turned toward her, thinking she had spotted something in the woods. But she was staring straight ahead.

Through the windshield he could see nothing but the dirt road and wall of trees. Then he flicked on the high beams. Something flashed back at him, and his guts knotted. Maybe thirty yards ahead, filling the width of the road, was a black van.

“Who is that?” Sarah whispered.

“I don’t know.”

The van’s lights were off, and in the high beams Zack could see no one behind the windshield.

“We’re trapped.”

Whoever had followed them did so in scant light, because Zack had come down this road with one eye ahead and the other in the rearview mirror. Without lights, the driver had to have followed them in near total darkness. And given the time it took Zack to turn the car around, whoever it was either knew the way or could see in the dark.

If the van was empty, the driver could be anywhere watching them.

“We’re sitting ducks,” she said.

Zack undid his seat belt.

“No, don’t get out.”

“Just getting something in the back.”

“No.” She was beginning to panic and grabbed his arm. “Don’t get out, please.”

“Then come with me.” He got out, and she climbed over the center and got out beside him. He led her to the hatch, where he grabbed his backpack and pulled out two flashlights. He didn’t turn them on but handed one to Sarah. He slipped on his backpack, pulled up the carpet, and raised the false floor over the spare tire. In the repair pouch was a foot-long crowbar. It would have to do. He closed the hatch, gripping the black torch in one hand, the iron in the other. In a flash, his saw himself smashing Mitchell Gretch’s skull.

Sarah pulled him around the side to get back. “Let’s get inside.”

The woods were dark and full-throated with the chittering of bugs. What there was of sky had turned opaque, with a few stars blazing through the thick canopy. “What for?”

“Maybe we can push it off the road.”

“Too many trees.” They grew right up to the road, with no opening to shove the van.

Sarah was trembling. “What are we going to do?”

Zack had no idea who drove the van, no psychic familiarity. His heart was pounding, but he wasn’t afraid. He opened the driver’s door. “Okay, get in. Lock the doors and start the car.”

“What?”

“Just do as I say. Please.”

“No, Zack. Don’t.”

He nudged her inside, closed her door, and moved up the dirt path in the Murano’s high beams, gripping the crowbar in his right hand, the torch in his left. As he approached the van, he saw no one in the front seats but couldn’t see into the rear. He sprayed the surrounding trees with the torch but saw nobody.

He reached the van, an old beaten-up VW with no front license plate and a two-year-old Maine inspection sticker. The engine was warm. He held his breath and gripped the crowbar. Then he pressed the torch against the windshield. The van was empty. The doors were locked. No key in the ignition. Nothing in the front seat. In the rear he could make out some nondescript boxes and plastic jugs on their sides. Some piles of clothes or rags, he couldn’t tell which. But his heart made a little surge when his light fell on a gun rack mounted on the ceiling behind the driver. It was empty.

He flashed around, knowing he was being watched. As he started toward the van’s rear to look for markings, Sarah screamed.

He tore back to the Murano, barely registering his feet contacting the ground. He could see no one at the vehicle, just the whited face of Sarah inside. When he reached the driver’s door, she unlocked it.

“Someone’s out there,” she said, barely able to catch her breath. “I saw him.”

“Where?”

“My window.”

“Did you see his face?”

She shook her head. “Just a flash.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“No. It was too fast.”

“What did he look like?”

“I don’t know. Just a dark shape.”

“He say anything?”

“No. What are we going to do?”

The engine was purring, and in the headlights they could just make out the van up ahead. “Probably locals out to spook Massachusetts folks.”

“The gas station guys?”

“Yeah. Backwoods version of Friday night fun.”

“It’s moving,” she said.

Zack flicked the lights. The van was moving, but not toward them. It was backing up. In a moment it receded without lights into the black as the trees closed around it like a drawn curtain.

“Get going,” she said.

Instead, he turned off the headlights. The woods were a solid black. No receding light from the van. No distant lights from the road. Nothing but uncompromising black. He turned off the car’s engine.

“What’re you doing?” she squealed. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“They’re gone.” He opened his door.

“Zach, get back in and take me home.”

“That’s not what we came for.” He snatched the keys and got out.

“Goddamn it, get in.”

As she continued protesting, he said nothing and sauntered to the end of the lane where he had turned the car around.

Above, the stars still winked through the treetops. But he could see a thin layer of cloud begin to haze the light. He could also feel a drop in temperature as the wind picked up, laced with the scent of rain.

Sarah got out of the car and slammed the door. “What the hell are you doing?” she said, coming up to him.

“We’re not finished.” He felt the crowbar pulse in his grip.

Suddenly the woods filled with a hideous otherworldly cry that raised a yelp from Sarah and nearly stopped Zack’s heart.

“What’s that?” she cried.

“Only a loon.” Someplace else, another answered in the same hysterical warble.

She grabbed the front of his shirt. “I want to get out of here. Now!”

“Then go.” He dangled the car keys in front of her. “Take the car and leave. You’re free, the road’s clear. I’m not turning back.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Tell me, Sarah, what exactly do you believe in, huh? Is everything serotonin and God lobes?”

“What?”

“Isn’t it possible that there are things unseen in this world?”

“Zack, please…”

“I’m asking you a real question. Isn’t it possible you could be wrong? You want hard evidence? Well, you’re looking at it: me.”

“But…”

“But what? I’m delusional? Psychotic? Crazy?”

“I didn’t say that.”

He put the keys in her hand. “Go home, Sarah. Go back to clean, well-lighted Cambridge.” Then he turned and walked away, his head filling with the musky, piney odor from the trees and decaying leaf mash. And something else.

Man sweat.

And something else.

Wood smoke.

Zack froze in place and turned his head as if it were an antenna looking for a signal.

They were surrounded by a continuous wall of trees making a chiaroscuro thicket around them against fading starlight. He slipped the crowbar into his belt and moved into the tiny clearing where he had turned the car.

“I’m not leaving,” Sarah said.

He said nothing but stopped in his tracks. Then, inexplicably, something in the depth of his brain made a click. He turned to his left and stared at the black ground.

“I can’t see a thing,” she muttered.

He aimed the light at a spot on the ground. “This way.”