Ghost Shadows (5 page)

As he covered his ears he was just entering the curve and the vehicle started to veer off the highway. He quickly grabbed the wheel, overcompensating in the process. The car went into an uncontrollable spin before skidding off the highway and slamming into the same cluster of trees at the exact same spot where Francis O'Halloran lost his life two years earlier.

The police who arrived to clean up the mess could not help but notice the look of complete terror that remained on the face of the battered corpse of Duke Wellington. Since a few of them had been on the job a long time and had been the very same officers who had been called to the original O'Halloran/Wellington accident, they looked at each other with amazement; understanding the strange, unspoken coincidence. Once again the local rumor mill filled with stories of ghostly vengeance and how the spirit of Francis O'Halloran had come back from the grave to claim the life of the person who had taken his.
 

Since that night, sightings of the mysterious stranger stopped. No one ever saw anything unusual at the site of the crashes again, no matter how many stories were told. And they never would. This was because the two cars were now a mile or more deeper in the woods decaying in the middle of a stack of cars; and each of those cars had their own terrible stories to tell.

If you were to stop by the weed-infested pile of rusting metal late at night and if you were to sit quietly and listen with an ear for the uncommon, you might hear the painful cries of a young man and the maniacal laughter of revenge coming from his torturer as the two sounds blend to form a mournful howl in the darkness of night.

 

It must be I thought, one of the race's most persistent and comforting hallucinations to trust that “it can't happen here”—that one's own time and place is beyond cataclysm.

—
John Wyndahm
, The Day of the Triffids
 

 

Wyatt drove robotically along the winding country two-lane road. It was the same one he had traveled daily for almost thirty years during his long commute to and from work. Little had changed with that particular stretch of highway during those many years save for the occasional resurfacing project, followed by the repainting of the white lines along the shoulders of the road as well as the solid double yellow lines down the center.

This was Wyatt's first day returning to work as a purchasing agent for a major corporation after being absent the entire previous week, suffering with a particularly nasty strain of some sort of flu bug that had apparently been making its rounds. He had started feeling poorly the previous Saturday morning and by evening he was sicker than he had been in a very long time; exploding from both ends as it were. Wyatt could imagine little that might be worse as he had sat on the toilet with a bucket on the floor in front of him just waiting for the next wave of sickness to strike, which it often did simultaneously.

By Sunday night the worst of his illness was over but he was feeling very weak, so Wyatt decided to take off Monday to rest and recover before making any attempt at returning to work. But when he discovered he felt no better Tuesday morning he once again stayed home and slept most of that day as well. Late Tuesday night he tried eating some clear soup broth, which his wife had made for him, hoping to feel well enough to return Wednesday. But as it turned out, he didn't make it in Wednesday either. After trying to do a few things around the house in a feeble attempt to get himself back to normal, he began to feel worse once again. So he took off Thursday and Friday as well.
 

He had decided it might be better to wait and start fresh on Monday. The weekend had gone fairly well and by Monday he was feeling about as good as he could be expected to feel after such an ordeal. Wyatt's wife suggested that what he really needed now was to get back into his daily routine and put the illness behind him. He was still a bit foggy in the brain but he guessed that was to be expected after being down for so long.

As he drove along the road in the early dawn darkness, Wyatt noticed the highway appeared somehow different than it had looked a week earlier. Something about it had changed. He could not quite determine what the difference was, however. At first he wondered if perhaps the state workers had resurfaced the two-lane while he was off, but he could see in the light from his high beams that the road had the same worn surface as previously. He always left for work before sunrise and arrived home after dark so he was accustomed to the way the road looked in his headlights. Yet still something definitely seemed different. He wondered what it might be. Then, he realized what it was: it was the lines.

That was it. Apparently someone must have repainted the traffic lines during his time away. The single white lines along the shoulders seemed much whiter and the solid double yellow lines down the center glowed with a sort of phosphorescence the likes of which Wyatt had not noticed before.

He wondered why anyone would have bothered to repaint the markings on a road that was in such dire need of resurfacing. It made no fiscal sense and the contrast between the lines and the worn highway surface was almost disturbing. Then Wyatt looked more closely at the lines and suspected he might have been incorrect and perhaps they had not been repainted after all. Yet the lines still did seem to stand out from the rest of the roadway for some unexplainable reason.

Maybe it was the result of some strange convergence of atmospheric conditions; the darkness of the predawn; the position of the moon and stars combined with the absence of clouds. Perhaps he was viewing the lines through a magnifying morning mist. Who knew? For whatever reason, the lines seemed to glow with an incredible iridescence. Then Wyatt noticed something else about the lines that he could not begin to explain—they suddenly made him feel very uncomfortable.

For the first time in all of his years of traveling along the same road, Wyatt felt as if he was a prisoner being held captive by the lines. Although he understood such a thought was illogical as well as completely irrational he couldn't seem to shake the sensation, which was beginning to feel almost claustrophobic. Perhaps he was still feeling the effects of his illness of the previous week and it was playing tricks with his mind. But whatever the reason, the feeling was extremely intense.

In his heart, Wyatt understood the lines were there for public safety. In fact, both sets of lines were accompanied by rumble strip grooves cut in the highway beneath them so if a driver started to doze at the wheel and his car began to cross the lines he would be awakened by the sound and feel of his tires on the grooves and it might prevent him from hurting himself or others. Like the lines themselves, the rumble strips were there to protect motorists and to help enforce traffic control regulations.

“Control,” Wyatt thought suddenly. Yes, wasn't that their real purpose? Wasn't that the true reason for the lines? To control the flow of traffic? To control the actions of the motorists? Or perhaps their purpose was much more sinister than that.

He began to question if just maybe the double yellow lines were just one more method the government might be using to manipulate him and his fellow motorists; to force them to adhere to yet another ridiculous bureaucratic regulation. Control simply for the sake of control.

“What if there were no lines?” he thought to himself. Then he wondered if he suddenly found himself on a blank roadway with no lines in sight, would he stupidly veer over into the opposite lane, into the path of oncoming traffic and be involved in a collision? Or would he go off the roadway to the right and smash into a tree or maybe drive over an embankment? He was quite certain he would not. The very thought was ridiculous. But then again, if it were really dark, foggy, raining, or snowing heavily, without the benefit of the brightly painted lines he might inadvertently do just that.
 

So he reluctantly accepted that the true purpose for the lines was nothing sinister, but that they were simply there for his own welfare. In fact, he was beginning to question the rationale of his own earlier thoughts and was wondering why he was becoming so foolishly fixated on something as mundane and trivial as double yellow highway lines in the first place. The lines kept him driving safely on his side of the road the oncoming traffic on their side. But then Wyatt began to wonder if the lines really did do their required job of keeping people on their respective sides of the roadway after all.

Now Wyatt's heart seemed to skip a beat when he realized the naivety of his last series of thoughts. The lines were just that; simply painted markings. They had no mystic or magical powers. In fact, they were not a real barrier in any true sense of the word. Even with the warning rumble strips cut into the road beneath the lines, they could do nothing to prevent someone from crossing over and slamming headlong into his car. Wyatt had read countless newspaper stories of drivers who had either passed out or had heart attacks while driving, then crossed the double yellow lines, crashing into the oncoming vehicles.

And how many accounts had he read of drunk drivers doing the same thing? Wyatt realized as if for the first time, the lines did absolutely nothing to protect him from the potential madness of the drivers in the oncoming lane. He was starting to realize what a game of Russian roulette it was to simply drive down the highway on a daily basis. Any driver he might encounter at any moment could be the bullet; the one destined to cross the lines, crash into him and take him out.

Then as if horribly on cue, a set of overly bright headlights appeared in the distance coming toward Wyatt in the opposite lane. At least he hoped the lights were still in the opposite lane. From his distance he couldn't tell for certain. The lights could just as easily have been in his own lane, heading straight for him. This could be it, he thought; the one potential fatality fate had chosen to attach his name to. Wyatt broke out in a cold sweat, thinking about how the only thing standing between him, the oncoming car, and imminent death was a double yellow line painted on the road surface. His hands began to tremble as the headlights got closer.
 

He imagined a deadly scenario in which the driver of the oncoming car might have been depressed over some personal tragedy; perhaps an unfaithful wife or girlfriend or perhaps the upsetting death of a loved one. If the driver were despondent enough, he might very easily decide to drive insanely into Wyatt's car in a sudden suicidal impulse. If that were to happen there would be no way Wyatt could get out of the vehicle's path in time.

As the car got closer Wyatt saw it was still on its proper side of the road, but he didn't feel in any way assured it would stay there. When the car got even closer Wyatt's hands became wet with sweat and he could feel rivulets of perspiration trickling down the center of his back. Then a moment later it was over. The car had passed by and its taillights were a mere shrinking memory in his rearview mirror.

Wyatt began to wonder what he would have done if the person in the other car actually had come over into his lane. He looked over to the right of the roadway and saw about a two feet wide shoulder, which dropped off into a deep culvert for water drainage. A few feet beyond that was a row of telephone poles. There was absolutely nowhere for him to safely go in that direction.

Then he looked to his left, thinking that if a car came most of the way over into his lane he might be able to squeeze through on that side, but he saw another short shoulder and an even steeper drop off, behind which was a slight embankment thick with trees. Perhaps if he made it to the culvert on that side his car might be totaled, but at least he had a chance of surviving. Then the strange stream of thoughts once again raced through his mind; he truly was trapped between the lines on the highway like a prisoner with no means of escape.
 

“What in the hell is wrong with me?” Wyatt asked aloud, suddenly realizing the potential problems that would be brought on by implications the unfortunate series of emotions he had just experienced. “Wyatt, you idiot. You have got to get a grip.”

He had no idea what was going on with his head or why the weird luminescent double-yellow lines had brought on such feelings of discomfort, if not almost crippling terror. But whatever it might have been he had to make it stop and quickly. Wyatt still had to drive an hour to work each way every day and unless he could find some method to suppress the horrified emotional state he suddenly found himself in, he would not be able to return to his job. And Wyatt knew that no job meant no money.

For a moment he seriously considered turning around and heading home, realizing perhaps he was not as well as he originally assumed. “Maybe if I stay home for another day or two things will work themselves out and then I'll be back to normal.” He had only traveled about ten of his fifty minute commute so he still had the majority of his trip ahead of him. But he knew the idea of turning around was impractical. What would he say to his wife? The terror he felt deep in the pit of his stomach was irrational, he was certain. He knew he felt fine physically, but it was his brain that for some reason seemed to be giving him all the trouble; that and those strange glowing double yellow lines.

As he cleared the top of a hill Wyatt could see the interstate out in the distance, not more than three or four miles away. He realized if he could make it to that major four-lane roadway with its guardrails and large grass-planted median strips separating the oncoming lanes he would be fine.

It can't be more than five minutes away. Wyatt thought. If I can just avoid other cars for the next few miles, I will be home safe. That was when he saw a new set of headlights in the distance coming toward him.

“Oh my God, no!” Wyatt said. “Not another one.” Once again he immediately broke out in an icy sweat. First his upper lip and forehead began to lightly bead with moisture. The other car was getting closer now, its headlights growing in size. Wyatt was certain that the car was slightly veering over toward his side of the road.