Far and North

Danny had been driving for days. Guardian pine trees line the horizon, lone green sentinels atop strands of mountains. The sky stretched on, spotted with puffy grey clouds, the temperature steadily dropping everyday.

The morning after he left, days before, he’d woken up on the side of the road, his car resting in a shallow ditch. He’d managed to put it in park before passing out, but to his disappointment, hadn’t taken the key out of the ignition. A weakly lit halo remained glowing above his head and the fading headlights found sparkling dew-filled grass in the mud-ridden ditch. The culprit, a half-empty bottle of bourbon in his lap. He quickly turned the engine on, pulling back onto the highway, knowing he may have just slipped a dagger into his truck’s half-life.

Each day he thought about work, where he likely would’ve been at any given time or what he’d have been doing: eight in the morning, watching cullet being fed into the glowing maw of the furnace, at nine he would’ve been checking the forming machines and then the annealing oven. Lunch breaks, smoke breaks, bathroom breaks. For twenty years. And now there were only trees, mountains, and the sky.

He’d been sleeping in empty parking lots, charging his phone at gas stations, and already eaten the loaf of bread brought from his house. His phone’s internet connection was leaving him drop by drop as he traveled further away from home, the towns were getting smaller, the roads thinner.

The sun begins to set, bright pink clouds rolling over distant peaks. A green sign flashes from his Chevy's weak headlights, Arkan Population: 100. The sign states people live here but he sees no one: a rusted tractor buried in weeds, a few homes with peeling paint, and wooden boards nailed to windows. He pulls into a small parking lot, a deserted gas station greets him with broken windows and stripped pumps. The pink clouds disappear into twilight, he reclines his seat watching while tearing into plastic bags full of plastic food. He sips from the emptying bourbon bottle and drifts to sleep.

When he wakes, it’s still dark. Stars shine overhead by the thousands. He hears something large rustling close by. Scanning the area he sees a creature, bigger than his car, grazing in the grass only a dozen paces away.

“What…?” Danny asks, quietly to the darkness.

Long shadowy legs higher than the roof of his pickup approach, a moose bends down peering at the windshield. It snorts hot air onto the glass, condensing immediately into white fog. He watches, mystified by the bigone creature: A crown of bone and massive size, like something spared from an ice age. It pauses briefly and then lumbers away, back into the forest and memory.

Hours later, between a map purchased along the way and whatever service his cellphone can still provide, he arrives at a dirt road, diverging from the asphalt highway and snaking into deep woods.

He plows the 95’ pickup onto the bumpy path, bouncing in his seat he can hear the old, metal bones of his car creaking from the newly added stress. A tire plops into a muddy pit and catches. Alcohol ridden sweat blankets Danny as he presses onto the gas pedal to fight. A wall of mud splashes from behind, the car doesn’t move, he lays his foot on the accelerator and lurches forward, continuing on the backwoods road.

“Bad start.” He murmurs to himself, his hands cold and clammy. The forest looking suddenly different, the picturesque scenery now a foreboding hood. An unsettling realization: he could’ve become stuck back there.

He stops the truck, letting it hum. What am I doing out here? He thinks, What do I do if I get stuck? Who can I call? His mind runs with the car’s engine, he looks in the rear view mirror at the highway behind him, I could go back, get some cell service, call John, maybe he’d still give me my job back. He suddenly feels very silly out here, alone. Leaving his career for a chance to die in the woods.

Thoughts spin like a carousel as he considers the many options in front of him. He reads the faded letter from his father, set gingerly on his pile of stuff in the passenger seat. A flash in his mind and he sees the messenger at his mother’s funeral, silver hair and slender body, dark eyes with stars in them.

Immortality. Follow the green light.

The familiar pain in his chest flares, spurred on by the recent infusement of adrenaline, he coughs deeply.

He sighs. “Damn it,” and pulls the gear shift into drive.

The truck continues on, a strained sound now coming from under the hood. He shakes his head, knowing something is wrong with the timing belt. The highway disappears from the rear view mirror, the pine trees feel closer.

He drives for miles. Hours. A cold, shocking wind develops from the north. He rolls down his windows, listening to the trees coming to life.

The path narrows more, thinned from civilization. The dirt road morphs into two muddy, rock-filled tracks, occasionally, they vanish into tall grass causing the tires to struggle. The strained belt whines up a higher octave with each patch of grass the tires tread over. The struggling noise is now louder than the engine when he crosses a grassy crest, at the base of it an iron gate hangs ajar from a crumbling wooden fence. The truck inches down the hill and stops at the base, revving loudly as it shifts into park. He gets out and pushes the gate back, it groans folding against the fence.

Suddenly, there’s silence in the woods. He turns around abruptly staring at the car, the revving has stopped, the engine is quiet.

“Shit.”

He tries to start the pickup again. Dead. Quickly, he pops the hood, the belt is in pieces, a cable running from the battery is ripped, small white bubbles pour out of the engine.

“Christ.” He drops the hood down and sprawls his palms across it, leaning over the metal, almost praying to it. He says goodbye in a hushed voice that only the Chevy could hear and proceeds to move to the passenger side door, opening it to the grotesque bachelor pile that was his life now. He grabs the backpack provided by his work, a few improperly labeled glass bottles clink at the bottom of it, he stuffs the rest of it with beef jerky, clothes, a flashlight, and anything else that looks remotely useful. The bourbon bottle, squeezed into the driver side cup holder, has only a splash of brown liquid left; he takes one last pull and tosses it to the floor.

He walks away from the pickup, leaving it at the base of the hill, at the opening of this fence, unable to cross the threshold with him. With great effort he turns back only once, seeing his vehicle of so many years now resigned to become a relic in the woods. Briefly, he thinks back to the last time he saw the highway he came here from, in the rear view mirror of the truck he was now leaving.

The wind picks up, blowing through him like a knife, goosebumps form on his back and the forest sings a lonely dirge. The sun is well past noon and night is coming.

His head drooping, he walks for miles on legs stiffened from the long drive. His back is in pain, chest is burning, and sweat is soaking through his clothes. The backpack gets heavier every hour; he stops to sit on a fallen tree; the sunlight waning. He wonders how cold it gets here at night.

Please come.

He rereads the letter, conjuring images of the messenger and his father. He’d wanted it all to be real so badly but now he was alone, away from civilization, and stranded in the wild. He was going to die because of this stupid letter.

“Damn it!” Danny rips it in half, shredding it to pieces. He claws at them on the ground, pounding them into the dirt. “No! No!” He’s wailing now, screaming into the trees, tears and drool falling from his face.

Sunlight fades, the air is colder than before.

He tries to collect himself. Maybe he could hike back, get to the highway, find a passing car; not freeze. It was all he could do now.

With labored effort he stands up and wipes his face, shivering. He retrieves the flashlight from his pack, it blinks on with life, a spark of hope still left.

As he turns from the path to go back, a haze of green light hangs in the darkening air. He flips the flashlight off letting his eyes adjust; the green horizon is still there, barely visible through the tree line. He dashes forward, a new spring of energy carries him over another hill, the green light grows stronger in the distance.

...follow the green light.

The destroyed letter rings in his mind again. He runs, his body is trembling from pain. Burgeoning light the closer he gets.

The sky is navy blue now, dusk is settling. A steep hill forces him to his hands and knees, he crawls and climbs over the top. Before him is a small lake, the size of several swimming pools; under the water, something from its depths glows a brilliant green. It’s irradiating, mesmerizing. He stands looking at it, feeling its warmth. An innate attraction; a moth to a flame, primitive man to a campfire. When he finally looks away from the emerald light, he sees a wooden dock stretching over the water on the opposite shore, above that a steep path leads to a cabin overlooking it all; a makeshift bastion inside the heart of the wilderness.

He sits down at the water’s edge, tears falling down his cheeks, his fingers dug into the black dirt.