“Goddammit!” I shout. I get out of the car, and I kick the Welcome to Lost sign. It doesn’t even sway. I take a cathartic breath so deep that it would please a yoga instructor, and I climb back into my car.
I slam the door.
I check my cell phone.
Still no damn signal.
I look down at the gas gauge. It’s brushing against the red.
What the hell kind of middle of nowhere town doesn’t have a gas station? Isn’t that the whole point of the entire goddamn town, to service people who drive out here in a futile bid to avoid the inevitable?
I have enough gas for one more try.
There has to be an entrance ramp somewhere. It’s the dust storm that’s fouling up my sense of direction. If I could see more than three feet ahead of me, I’d be fine. I’ll wait for the dust to die down, and then... And then if I fail, I’ll use the motel phone to call AAA to bring me gas from the next town. I am reasonably sure that I renewed my AAA membership when Mom reminded, aka nagged, me to.
I sit in the car, engine off, while I think about Mom and wait for the dust to die.
I know I should have used the motel phone to call her before I checked out. I’m certain Mom has tried to call me already, probably multiple times. She wouldn’t be panicking yet, at least not visibly, because we’d had a conversation about boundaries and how I need space, especially now that she’s moved in with me. But she will be checking her phone regularly by now.
I’m coming, Mom, I think.
It is silent here, in a way that L.A. never is. So silent that it feels like a pressure inside my ears as I strain to hear the hum of another car, the honk of a horn, the bark of a dog, even the cry of a bird. I only hear the wind. I reach for the radio again and then stop. I don’t want to know if it’s continuing to play the same unfamiliar song.
I turn the car on, ignore the low-gas beep, and drive down the road—directly into the dust storm. This time, I’m in the storm for much longer. It begins to feel as if the dust will never end. I can feel it in my lungs as it leaches into the car. My skin is gritty. I had to have missed the highway entrance, but I continue to drive because this road must lead to another town! Construction workers spent time constructing this. It can’t be a road to nowhere.
After an hour, the car sputters. I look at the gas gauge, and the needle is at the bottom of the red zone. I press down on the gas pedal. But the car runs slower and slower.
Soon, it stops. Dust swirls all around me. I lay my forehead on the steering wheel. This is how I will die, lost in a storm in the desert, choked by dust, dehydrated, and starved...
A knock on the window.
Shrieking, I jump. My head smacks hard against the headrest. “Ow!” I rub the back of my head as I look out the window. I see only dust, though I swear I’d heard a knock. The wind must have blown something against it.
It works as a wake-up call, though.
Option one: I can sit here, wait for a kindly soul to drive by, flag them down, and beg for help. Problem is that I haven’t seen a car go by in...well, ever. I’m not even on the main highway, just a road to nowheresville.
Option two: I can walk through the storm back to town. Problem is that I drove for an hour to reach this delightful spot of nothing, and that’s a damn long walk through air thick enough to chew. At best, it will be uncomfortable with the dust flying in my eyes and nose and mouth. At worst...it’s freaky how shrouded and hidden the world is. I can’t see more than a few feet in any direction. The idea of walking into that nothingness makes me feel like I will dissipate into the dust.
I wonder what a horror-movie heroine would do, stay in the car or get out. Girl Scout training says stay put and someone will find me. But that only works if anyone has a clue where I am. As far as anyone knows, I could be home on a sick day or off on a spontaneous beach vacation or away on an impromptu business trip. I doubt anyone would guess I’m here.
Yesterday was not a terrible day. I woke up, brushed my teeth, showered, and dressed. I had a slice of cinnamon bread for breakfast as I dashed out of the apartment. I locked the door, shoved the bills in the mailbox, and sidestepped the pile of dog poo left by the neighbor’s evil yap-yap dog that I had twice threatened (under my breath) to drown when it decided to take up operatic howling at 4:00 a.m. Then I got into my car. It started with its usual not-quite-dead-yet lurch, and I drove toward work. I hit two red lights and at the second, when I should have turned left, I didn’t.
I simply didn’t.
That was all.
I skipped three nonessential meetings, the usual lunch with my coworkers Angie and Kristyn, and dinner with Mom after her doctor’s appointment, which may or may not have included positive or negative test results. There was nothing that would give anyone any hint that I would have driven east for hours, and no reason for anyone to guess that I would ever do this, even on a bad day. I don’t even have a reason to tell myself. Just...a hunch that the day was going to turn bad.
I was a particle of dust that a breath pushed eastward, and so here I am inside dust. If I step outside the solid car, I’m afraid I’ll dissolve into the air and float forever, shifting across the desert... Stop with the bullshit, Lauren, I tell myself.
I fling the car door open. The town is back the way I came, unless I’ve mysteriously circled toward it again. I don’t know which is the quickest way, but I can’t stay here and stew in my own melodramatic miasma. Swinging my purse over my shoulder, I step out of the car. The dust pricks my eyes. Coughing, I hold my sleeve over my mouth. I turn to shut the car door behind me. And I scream.
A man dressed in black crouches on the roof of my car.
Screaming, I retreat so fast that I stumble off the road and onto the dirt. I keep backing up until I smack into a fence post. The barbed wire snags my clothes.
It’s the man from the dust storm yesterday. He wears the same black trench coat, open in front to display a bare chest with black feather tattoos. His hair and eyes are black as well, and he has a claw-shaped earring curled against one ear. He is so beautiful that he looks like artwork posed on top of my car, and for an instant, I am convinced that he is a sculpture.
He grins at me.
And my nerve breaks completely. I run. My feet slap the pavement. I hear my breath loud in my ears. I feel my heart thud in my chest. Dust swirls around me, stinging my eyes and drying my mouth. It feels as if the dust is tightening around me, even coiling.
I see a shape ahead of me. It hulks, monsterlike, a shadow in the dust.
I skid to a stop as the shape of a car emerges. My car, impossibly. The man is no longer on its roof. The door is still open. I slow to a walk, my heart fast, and approach the car slowly, nearly tiptoeing. I peer through the windows. He could be inside, hiding in the backseat, waiting for me to jump inside to apparent safety—
“You’re lost,” a voice says behind me.
I scream again and spin around to face the voice.
The man stands in the center of the road. He doesn’t move toward me. He isn’t grinning anymore. “Lost your keys. Lost your shoes. Lost your memories. Lost your mind. You look so very scared. Lost your nerve? Such a pity.”
“Ran out of gas.” I point to the car. My lungs feel tight, and I can taste the dust that fills the air. It swirls around him, stirring his coat. I put my sleeve back over my mouth.
He darts past me, climbs over the hood of my car, and stands on the roof. “Poor little Gretel, lost your way and the birds ate the bread crumbs.” He crouches as he considers me. “Or are you Little Red Riding Hood? You have the clothes for it.” I hug my arms over my chest, across my red shirt. “Of course, that would make me your wolf.”
He disappears over the