The Road Repeats

Mile marker 174. I remember it because the post was crooked, leaning about fifteen degrees to the right, and because there was a dead deer on the shoulder just past it. Big doe, freshly hit, blood still bright on the asphalt. I said something under my breath — sorry, probably, or Jesus — and kept driving.

I was hauling a load of refrigerated produce from Reno to Salt Lake. I-80 east, middle of Nevada, 2 AM. The kind of drive where the world shrinks to your headlight cone and the white noise of tires on pavement. I had a podcast playing, something about deep-sea creatures, but I'd stopped listening an hour ago. The desert was black and flat in every direction.

Mile marker 175. 176. 177.

I reached for my coffee. It was cold. I'd finished the hot stuff around Lovelock and hadn't stopped to refuel. The next truck stop was Battle Mountain, maybe forty minutes out.

Mile marker 178. 179.

Then 174 again.

The crooked post. Fifteen degrees to the right. And the deer — the same deer, same position, same bright blood. I felt a cold little click in my chest, the feeling you get when you miss a step on the stairs.

I checked my odometer. It had been climbing steadily. I checked my GPS. It showed me on I-80, east of Imlay, exactly where I should be. The blue dot was moving. The ETA was updating. Everything was normal except the mile marker I'd already passed.

I kept driving. What else do you do? You drive.

175. 176. 177. 178. 179.

174.

Same deer. Same blood. This time I slowed down, really looked at it. The doe's eye was open, glassy, reflecting my headlights. One of her legs was bent wrong. A tuft of fur lifted in the wind from my truck.

Three times now. I pulled over. Got out. The air was cold and thin and smelled like sage and something else, something metallic. The road stretched behind me and ahead of me in two perfectly straight lines that vanished into darkness.

I walked to the mile marker. 174. The metal was cold under my fingers. Real. I walked to the deer. Also real. Also cold. I touched her side, felt the stiffness of fresh death.

I got back in the cab. I drove.

---

The fourth time I passed mile marker 174, there was a hitchhiker.

She was standing just past the deer, on the shoulder, thumb out, wearing a red jacket and jeans. Early thirties, maybe. Dark hair pulled back. She looked cold.

I don't pick up hitchhikers. Company policy, personal policy, common sense policy. I drove past. Watched her shrink in my side mirror until the darkness swallowed her.

175. 176. 177. 178. 179.

174. Deer. Hitchhiker. Same woman, same red jacket, same position. She wasn't looking at me this time. She was looking at the deer.

I drove past again. Checked my mirrors. She didn't shrink this time. She stayed the same size, the same distance behind me, as if the mirror had frozen. Then she was gone.

The fifth loop, she was closer to the road. Sixth loop, she was standing in the right lane. I had to swerve into the left to avoid her. She didn't flinch. Didn't move. Her face was blank and patient.

Seventh loop. She was in the left lane.

I stopped the truck. Sat there, engine idling, staring through the windshield at the woman standing in my headlights. She stared back. Her eyes were dark, and her expression held nothing I could read — not menace, not desperation, not madness. Just patience. The patience of something that has been waiting a very long time.

"What do you want?" I said it out loud, inside the cab, knowing she couldn't hear me.

She raised her hand and pointed. Not at me. Past me. Behind me.

I looked in the side mirror. The road behind me was gone. Not dark — gone. The asphalt ended maybe fifty feet behind my trailer, and beyond it was nothing. Not desert, not sky. An absence. The kind of black that isn't a color but a condition, the black of a room that has never contained light.

I turned back to the windshield. The woman was gone. The deer was gone. Mile marker 174 was gone. The road ahead stretched into the distance, perfectly straight, perfectly normal.