Chapter 3
1431 Words
3
I pulled over into one of the blasted parking spots.
The cop car followed me, and we both shut off our engines. The officer stepped out and walked over to me. I rolled down my window and gave him a stupid, shaky smile. “What seems to be the problem, officer?” Yeah, nothing stupid about that cliche.
He leaned down and smiled at me. “I just wanted to tell you your license plate is loose. Did you want me to try to fix it?”
I blinked at him. “Seriously?”
He laughed. “Why not? I’ve got tools in my trunk. Shouldn’t take more than a few seconds.”
I nodded my head like a bobble-head. “T-then sure, work away.”
He returned to his car, and I stepped out to inspect the ‘damage.’ My license plate was indeed a little askew. The officer returned with a small, flat toolbox in one hand and knelt in front of the plate.
“Looks like just a loose screw,” he commented as he pulled out a ratchet with the right size head.
I snorted. “Story of my life. . .”
A quick couple of turns and he grinned at his job. “There. That should do her for another few thousand miles.”
I swept my eyes over the narrow canyon and furrowed my brow. “Do you know much about this area?”
“Yep,” he replied as he put away his tools and shut the toolbox. He stood and smiled at me. “Born and raised just ten miles down the road.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “Then you don’t happen to know any place called Greylock Manor, do you?”
He shook his head. “Nope, never heard of the place.”
My shoulders drooped. “I see… well, thanks for the help with the license plate.”
“No problem,” he returned as he followed me to the front of my car. I slipped inside, but he put one arm on the windowsill and looked me over. “If you don’t mind my asking, what brings you up here?”
Both of my eyebrows shot up. “What makes you think I’m not just passing through?”
“Because you’re not the first person asking for directions to that place,” he revealed with pursed lips. “I’ve been hailed five times today from people asking about it.”
A feather could have knocked me over, provided it was a very big one. “What did they say about it?”
He shook his head. “Not much. Just wanted to know a way to the place. I couldn’t help them, of course, but they seemed determined to search around, anyway.”
I stared ahead and pursed my lips. “You don’t happen to know if there’s an old hiking trail or road a few miles up ahead, do you? Sort of near the summit?”
He nodded. “Yep. Just up a ways and on the right. You might miss it, but there’s a small turn-off like this one just before the mouth where you can park.”
“Did it used to lead somewhere?”
He jerked his head in the general direction up one of the taller mountain peaks that hung above us. “To an old ski lodge, but that place hasn’t been used in years. It closed down about fifty years ago after some rich guy bought it for himself. I heard he still lives there, but nobody’s allowed up his private drive beyond the paved road.”
I nodded at the highway that stretched out before me. “And this leads to the private road?”
He shook his head. “Not exactly. That is, the trail you’re looking for doesn’t lead to the private road. It goes up the old road that folks used before the new one was punched in the fifties. You won’t get very far on that one, though. The park service closed it up about a mile off the highway. Too many people got to snooping around and getting lost up there.” He paused and studied me with that funny look again. “They said they saw wolves up there.”
The color drained from my face. “Were they right?”
He pushed off the window of my car and shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen one, but sometimes my headlights play tricks on me, and I see something dart across the road that I can’t explain. Anyway, it was nice meeting you.”
“Likewise,” I returned as he strode back to his car.
I started my vehicle but waved at him to go ahead. He passed by me with a wave and a honk, and I pulled out. The scenery was just as beautiful as ever, but I hardly saw any of it as I drove up the gentle slope toward my destination. But then, what was my destination? The trooper just told me there was no such place, so where was I going?
“For a nice, gentle woodland stroll,” I teased myself with a laugh.
Still, I couldn’t deny that there was a map in my head that I hadn’t put there, and the irresistible urge to follow it was still gnawing away inside me. With those two things spurring me on, along with my curiosity, I drove onward and soon arrived at the turn-off the officer had mentioned. It was a hollowed-out section of the rocky hillside in the shape of a half circle. The road turned to the left and allowed the forest to crowd in on the far side of the turn-off.
Much was my shock when I noticed a familiar mustang already parked there.
The space was large enough for both our cars, and I grabbed my bag and climbed out with my eyes on the mustang. The car turned out to be empty and the doors locked. I looked around but didn’t see any sign of the handsome stranger.
“Easy there, Alex…” I muttered to myself as I strapped on my bag. “You didn’t come here to fall in love with a wealthy guy.”
But I wouldn’t have said no to it, either.
Before I headed out, I pulled out my phone and looked at the reception. Deader than a full cemetery. I winced at my own joke and pocketed the phone.
“Not a good time to be mentioning a graveyard…” I scolded myself as I looked around.
I found the abandoned road among the trees on the far side of the turn-off. There were little more than two indents left of the road, but that was enough for me to follow up the somewhat steep incline. The stone walls of the mountains gave way to a thick mess of woods that surrounded me on both sides. The drop on my left grew higher with every step I took along the meandering road.
At a hundred feet I paused and looked over the steep side. The slope was so steep I would have had to crawl up it, and the drop was now two hundred feet to the bottom where a pile of rocks awaited any unwary traveler.
“Not today, Mother Nature,” I muttered as I continued my climb.
Just as the trooper mentioned, the road stopped around a sharp bend in the road some three hundred feet up from the highway. A tall pile of rocks and dirt had been bulldozed into place, but I scaled the fortification and found that my double-path had narrowed to a single one. The forest had reclaimed the rest, and only a narrow rut was evidence that any road had once been there. Even the flat ground had fallen away during countless rainstorms and fed the rocks far below me.
“It’s okay, Alex,” I murmured to myself as I adjusted the straps on my bag. “You’ve still got the rut.”
Me and my big mouth. The rut ended two corners further ahead and I found myself forced to walk along a narrow animal trail, complete with little nuggets of surprises placed every few steps. My little game of hopscotch with turds distracted me from the creeping fear that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Still, I had a bright sun above me and a bag full of clean clothes and some food behind me. Things could be worse.
- Writer
