“Are you coming, or are you going to make me wait all day?” she asked.
In her mind, the time packing and racing around was nothing. The few seconds she stood by the door, waiting for me to finish my bread, was a lifetime. Time is relative. I noticed it more and more after that moment. The trip to get to the beach took a century. The return home to my mundane life was over in a blink.
I wake up to the sound of the truck’s horn. It sounds distant, almost sounding like a train horn in the fog. As I blink and push back from the steering wheel, it stops. I yawn and pop my ears.
The tapping starts almost immediately.
I nearly turn to look at the source, and then I remember.
It all comes flooding back.
I backed up fast, perhaps turning too far before I pushed the shifter into first. Then I must have overshot the driveway and crashed into the culvert. Without my seatbelt on, I had cracked my head against the hard plastic steering wheel and then slumped into the horn.
I can feel a lump rising on my forehead.
There’s another tapping coming from the right side now.
At least two of them are tapping.
I put the shifter back in reverse, push the clutch, and start the engine again. It rolls back into life. The rear wheels pull the truck back a foot or two and then spin. Something is caught. The front wheel could be stuck on the culvert, or maybe the remnants of the old fence. I spin the steering wheel left and then right, trying to get free.
There’s not enough traction to build up any momentum. When I press in the clutch, I feel the truck roll forward again. I try to rock it back and forth to spring loose. One time, my uncle used this technique to get the front tire over a rock when he got stuck behind the barn. It worked for him, but I can’t seem to get the rhythm right.
The tapping is getting stronger and stronger.
Maybe they’re not trying to echolocate me—maybe it’s just an effort to draw my attention so I’ll look into their hypnotic eyes. It almost works. I want to see what’s making that sound. When I open my eyes, looking straight forward, I can see the glow in my peripheral vision. They’re definitely on either side of the truck. There may be more than two.
I let the gearshift settle into neutral and I take my foot off the gas. I’m idling in the ditch.
The tapping matches the speed of my thudding heart.
I take a breath and try to hold it, imagining myself running three strides before I let it out.
An image takes shape in my head. It’s Mr. Engel’s house. There are two trees flanking the building and two windows on either side of the front door. On the second floor, I see three windows across the face. One of those windows belongs to Mr. Engel’s bedroom. I’ve been up there. The third floor has just the one window and it’s smaller than the others—four panes over four panes.
Four by four.
Four…
“Wheel drive,” I whisper. My eyes fly open and I fumble for the switch on the dashboard that controls the lights. When they come on, I focus on the green glow of the radio and then carefully study the knobs and switches below that.
It’s not a switch I’m looking for though. If the truck were more recent, maybe it would be, but I’m looking for the second shift lever—the one I’ve ignored all these years. I never drove up here in the winter time, so I never had cause to touch it. I guess that over time my eyes grew accustomed to skipping right over it.
It’s pushed all the way forward into two-wheel drive. I push the clutch and clunk it back into four high.
This time when I close my eyes, I’m praying that four-wheel drive will get me out of the ditch. I put the truck into reverse and ease into the gas.
The front hangs up again and the back wheels spin.
The answer pops into my head immediately.
I haven’t switched the hubs yet. Uncle Walt had to get out and engage the locking hubs on the front wheels before four-wheel drive would work. I had a really good look at those the other day when I was changing the flat.
I bang my head back against the headrest and let out a disgusted sigh.
Listening to the engine idle, something occurs to me—there’s no tapping.
When did they stop?
I have an idea.
I reach forward and shut off the lights, holding my breath and waiting.
Before I hear it, my lungs are burning and I have to breathe again.
By my best guess, it takes almost a full thirty seconds for the tapping to return. But, like I said, time is relative. Is that enough time for me to engage the locking hubs? What if I just do the one on the left side? What if the lights don’t actually drive them away? What if my conjecture is completely wrong?
When I turn on the lights again, the tapping stops immediately. I count to thirty anyway.
My hand finds the lock and I gather my courage.
There’s no other way, right? I have to get out of here and getting the four-wheel drive engaged is my only hope.
The image of Mr. Engel’s house appears in my head again. It’s a perfect New England house, flanked by perfect trees. It could be on a jigsaw puzzle—that’s how perfect it is. I don’t know why someone chose to build it in the middle of nowhere. The house would be right at home in the center of town, on Main Street.
In my imagination, the sun is directly overhead. This time of year, the front of the house would face the rising sun at…
“Dawn,” I whisper.
What was I thinking? I don’t have to blunder out into the night and try to
