Part II - The End Of The Road
The wind was cool against my face as I gave the engine gas and we accelerated away from my house. Natalie had a tight hold around my waist and I kept the speed down to thirty, knowing how powerful and fast the bike was and not wanting to scare her. I also stayed slow so I could see everything that was around me. I'd ridden this stretch of road thousands of times and yet on that morning it seemed like it was my first time. It seemed like I was looking at Woodford for the first time as well. I'd never seen the place I called home deserted, and yet that's exactly what it was. There wasn't a soul.
It was less than a quarter mile to when properties ended and the open country began, and the road dipped down a long, gradual decline, a strip of perfect black tarmac stretching out before us with a white broken line running the centre. Away to the right was the Mackenzie farm which virtually marked the boundary of this end of the village. The three-story farm building was Dutch-colonial, whitewashed timber almost luminous in the morning light, with a collection of barns and outbuildings spread around it. I slowed as we passed but saw no-one working in the yard or moving around the sheds, thought about going up to the house and then picked up speed again. The next time I saw people I needed it to be a lot of them, and Shelby would be able to offer that.
I noted that the fields were empty as we hit the bottom of the incline and started back up the other side. Crops were still wilting in the heat, acres of corn were ready for harvesting and the pasture land was as lush as the summer allowed, but nothing grazed in the meadows. Pete Mackenzie kept five hundred-plus milking cattle, but not one of them was to be seen. I took a look back over my shoulder to see if Natalie was okay. Her hair whipped around her face and she gave me an unconvincing smile, gripped on to me even harder, and like me continued to scan the surrounding area for anything moving.
Out of the small valley we'd descended the road rose sharply, and I gunned the throttle, picking up momentum as the exhaust of the bike chugged behind us. At the top of the bank was a small wood, really nothing more than thick groups of trees for a few hundred yards, but the sun was blotted out behind the canopies as we approached and first the road and then we were smothered in shadows. Just before the road plunged through the natural tunnel of foliage I drew the Harley to a stop, swung it off the road onto the dusty earth at the edge and turned ninety degrees so we were across the tarmac. If a car had come speeding out over the crest of the hill we'd have been sitting in the firing line, but I didn't really care. I'd be more than happy to dive for safety if someone decided to pay us a visit.
I balanced the bike and looked back along where we'd just come from. At the few houses, the many fields, the single main road that led into and through Woodford Bridge. I could even see the meadow that bordered the back of my house. Above the rooftops peeked the spire of the church that was at the centre of the village.
'There's no one there,' said Natalie, her voice in my ear.
'We've only seen one side of it,' I replied. 'We can only see one side of it from here. There must be eighty, maybe a hundred houses in total, plus the store and the little school.' I looked over my shoulder directly at her. 'We're here. Others will be too.' I tried to sound convincing and probably failed, judging by the look on her face.
'Why hasn't a car come past us, Dave?' she asked, although I don't really think she was looking for or even expecting an answer. Just as well, because I had no idea. But I did know that as every minute passed I started to feel an increasing swell of dread spiraling in my stomach.
'Let's keep going,' I said, and she held me tightly once more as I wheeled the bike back onto the road and headed into the trees. The sun left us completely as we passed under the canopies of tightly knit branches, although here and there shafts of light burst through like golden fountains and dappled the road like torch beams. The gloom of the wood seemed to be a little disconcerting, probably for no other reason than it matched the mood I was in, and I hit the throttle, eager to be back in the brightness of the morning. I also knew that when we emerged the country opened up before us, and on a day like this the view could be seen for many miles. The open road, farmland, a gas station a mile or so on, and then clearly in view, the town of Shelby. Few thousand population, a handful of bars, a rundown bowling alley and a cinema with one screen run by a manager who still wore a dinner jacket and dicky bow. Small town USA, to be sure. But surely filled with people.
The light increased as the trees thinned and the tunnel-like wood came to an end. I squinted as the sun hit me full in the face as we emerged, and wish I'd had the sense to wear shades. My vision adjusted as I blinked, and then I thought that the light was playing tricks on me. I blinked again, rapidly trying to clear the mist that must have been clouding my sight, but when nothing happened I realized I was actually seeing what was there. I backed-off on the throttle instantly and applied the brakes, perhaps a little harder than I meant to, and I felt Natalie's fingers dig into me as she held on while the back wheel drifted away from us. And then we were stopped, and her hands continued to hold me, and I knew that she was seeing exactly what I was.
'What is that?' Said Natalie, her breath fast on the back of my neck.
We should have easily been able to see Shelby from our vantage point. It was close, just a few miles away as I've said. At night from the crest of this bank the town lights looked like a hundred stars had dropped from the sky and settled on the earth. Now though, it wasn't there. Well, that wasn't strictly true. I couldn't swear that it wasn't there, because I couldn't see it. I Couldn't see past the shimmering haze that filled the view. It looked like a bank of mist had settled across the land in a line, from as far left to right as I could see, blocking land, road, everything.
'What is that?' Natalie repeated.
'I don't know. It looks like Fog, or a heat haze.' That was more than possible. The weather had been scorching hot for the last few weeks, and I'd often seen the air wobble and distort as the heat affected the atmospheric pressure. It's the kind of effect that at extreme conditions causes a mirage in the desert. You read old stories of explorers running towards a lake in the middle of the Sahara and diving into nothing more than sand. But this was no desert, this was middle-America, and I'd never heard of a haze that was so big, or that blocked whatever was behind it.
I got the bike moving again but this time kept the speed well below twenty, the engine virtually ticking over in first gear. The shimmering air was at least two miles in front of us, and didn't appear to be getting closer, but I still wanted to be cautious. We passed a field of yellow rapeseed, the flowers in full bloom, brilliant and heavy with pollen, and then we came upon the gas station. A typical country place, independently owned and proud of it, fighting off the global corporations that would have loved to replace it's ramshackled old pumps and workshop with a modern overhaul. It was run by one family and Jim Callan and his son Jeff still worked there everyday, and they were good people. Jim suffered with arthritis and mostly kept himself behind the counter in the little store, selling brake fluid and passing the time with whoever was passing, and Jeff pumped gas and worked on whatever was up on ramps in the shop. Last year I'd had a problem with the bike and Jeff had fixed it within hours, got her purring better than ever, and the charge was very reasonable. He had a lopsided grin and a string of bad jokes, and everyone instantly took a liking to him.
This time of the morning the station would have been alive with activity, a radio blaring out across the dirt forecourt, Jeff wandering around in his faded overalls. But the place was deserted, even though the workshop doors were open and I could see tools scattered around the back wheels of a Ford pickup that had seen better days. Through the dusty windows of the store I could see shelves, coffee machine, even a calendar on the back wall, but no Jim. I stopped the bike and looked for a minute, then called both of their names, but neither of them appeared around a corner or stepped from the shadows. I sighed, pulled back onto the road and kept going.
I glanced back over my shoulder, and Natalie gave me the sweetest smile, full of hope and sadness, and I yearned to find someone just to make her feel better, let alone myself. The thought of-
'Car!'
I jumped as she shouted in my ear. 'Where? I don't-'
'There, look! Infront of us.'
And she was right. The road was flat and straight before us, leading directly to the shimmering air, and I'd been so preoccupied with thoughts about what it could be that I hadn't seen the vehicle that was parked at an angle in the middle of the road. I looked harder and saw another one, a four-by-four, again parked at a weird angle. And then, although I had no idea who it was, I saw someone. A figure moved around the car. I didn't know if it was man or woman, and I didn't care. I heard Natalie's breath quicken against me and I knew she had seen it as well.
'Hold on,' I said, and twisted the throttle back towards me. The bike roared and leapt forward, eating up the road markings like a hungry wolf, and Natalie's hands clutched against my stomach. The vehicles quickly enlarged themselves in my vision, and I saw a third car, and then mercifully a couple more people. I'd had this horrible, doom-laden feeling that the two of us were the only people left on Earth, but now that wasn't true. Everything was going to be all right.
Except, even as I thought it, I knew it wasn't true. Because although there were people, living and breathing, there was also that huge bank of heat haze. I slowed the bike as we approached, and it was obvious even from the initial view that this was no mirage, no hot air. I didn't have a clue what it was. Infact I don't think I'd ever seen anything like it before in my life.
We were close to the three cars and what looked like five people who stood solidly in the middle of the road, and at the sound of the bike's engine first one and then all of them looked around at us. There was Marcia, a middle-aged, plumpish woman who lived up the street from me and who I never usually saw out without a crowd of small dogs around her stocky ankles. Two guys both wearing shirts and ties stood next to each other. One was Steve Marsellus, around my age but with hair buzzed short against his scalp which made him look about eighteen. The other guy I didn't recognize, but his tie was pulled loose against his open collar and he was the colour of rain clouds. Jeff from the garage was there, wearing his usual trademark overalls. His permanent grin was nowhere to be seen, but he raised his hand as I pulled the bike to a stop behind the four-by-four. The fifth member of the group, Jessie Phillips, a nice kid in her late teens who lived almost opposite my house, saw me and gave a small wave. She was leaning on the hood of the car. Her arms were folded around herself in some form of thin embrace and her hair was tied back and away from her pretty face. Her eyes were as brown and wet as riverbed stones, and I could see streaks of tears against her cheeks.
I kicked the Harley up onto the stand and climbed off quickly, feeling the shaking in my legs as I did so, before helping Natalie off. She kept her grip on my hand as she stood next to me.
'You okay?' I said.
She shook her head. 'No, I'm not. What is that?' Her voice was trembling.
Together we took a few slow steps towards what was blocking the road and then stopped. Jeff watched us for a moment, possibly to gauge our reaction, and then he turned back to look at it. Trouble was, I didn't really know what I was looking at.
It looked almost like a waterfall that had been put into reverse. It rippled as it rose up straight from the Earth, a huge wall that went up towards the ultramarine sky. It was clear yet you couldn't really see through it, looked a little like clear paste or gelatine in a bowl. I could make out shapes behind it, but they were so blurred I couldn't see what they were. The best way I can describe it is a bank of Energy that rippled and wobbled. I say a waterfall, because it looked like flowing water, and yet there wasn't any dampness over the road before it, and there was no sound. That was probably the most disconcerting thing. Something on this scale, curving away from us as far as the eye could see and reaching perhaps a height of one hundred feet, the noise should have been tremendous. The power used to push this thing skywards should have been deafening. Yet as the seven of us stood looking at it you could have heard a pin drop.
Natalie's hand gripped mine tightly, and I could feel a layer of sweat between our palms. I took a couple of steps forward until I was standing beside Jeff, and I looked at his deeply tanned face. His cap was pushed back on his head as he leant back and stared at the wall. When he spoke he didn't look at me. 'Any ideas?'
I shook my head. 'No. I've never-' my voice faltered and I stopped. 'I don't know what I'm even looking at. How long have you been here?'
