The Pit Stop

The overhead fluorescent buzzed, flickered, and then came on full. A moth flew from the windowsill, battered around the light a few times and then landed on it. No heat. Rachel had warned him that the mosquitoes swarmed up in the evening from the salt marshes around the cottage, so intense at night that the screened porch was the only place outside they could be avoided. But even here, miles inland, the shrill sounds of insects filled the night air, louder even than the buzzing light. Strange bird calls echoed from the pine forests around the marsh.

Sounds like a jungle, Jake thought, this swampland near the Chesapeake Bay. Just like a jungle.

He looked into the rust spotted mirror, hoped it was the fluorescent lighting that made his face look so drawn, pale like the blood had drained away. He’d left straight after work and driven two hours, following the directions Rachel had given him. From the well-lit interstate to a poorly lit divided rural highway, and for the past half hour he’d followed a winding two-lane road into the night, no streetlights. No lights at all.

Jake had forgotten just how dark the countryside was at night; even the Milky Way’s meandering path through the stars could be seen. Struggling to read road signs and spot landmarks Jake had begun to wonder just how much farther he had to go when he saw the old gas station where he’d make another turn toward the cottage. Rachel had warned him it was a narrow road, not even wide enough for a line down the center. Jake was to watch for a sign that read Shadow, where a Post Office had once been, and where the paved road ended, to follow the raised road through the marsh to the island. The cottage would be the second on the right.

He stopped at the station to check his appearance before meeting Rachel’s father. Retired Navy, her father demanded a high standard of those who would be close to his “girls”, Rachel and her mother.

Jake thought the weekend invite was probably the old man’s way of testing him, to see if he was suitable for his little girl. Rachel insisted he just wanted help putting his boat in at Mobjack Bay, but Jake knew her father did not need him for that. There would always be plenty of people at the dock ready to help a retired Navy man. But Jake never could refuse Rachel, so ignoring his trepidation, he’d agreed to join them for the weekend.

He had gotten a short new haircut, and while in the bathroom and he changed out of his work clothes and put on the stupid Polo shirt Rachel got for him to wear. He splashed cold water on his face, rinsed his mouth. The water smelled and tasted of brine. Rachel had told him they only drank bottled water at the cottage because the well water there wasn’t good. Now he understood. He wouldn’t drink that water either. He took a coarse brown paper towel from the stack on the sink and wiped it across the front of his teeth. Eye-drops cleared the redness from his eyes, then he crushed a wintergreen breath mint between his teeth, savored the clean coldness of it.

The insects and bird calls grew louder, saturated the air and the moth still sat on the cold, flickering light. Before he walked back out into the darkness of the night Jake took one last look in the mirror and hoped the lighting was better at the cottage.

~ ~ ~

This story was originally posted on Medium.

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