One Wrong Turn

One Wrong Turn

By Paul McCann

He was always under the hammer never as ease , pumping pills to stay awake , driving too many hours , taking risks with the long hauls .

It left him over stretched behind the wheel and torn in two with living on the road and never at home with his wife who always ran the business from home and never complained . There were days when he felt ok , all depending on how he was able to handle the pressure .

Around the heart-breaking bends in some forsaken part of the country where at time he saw things he tried to forget like the people would purposely walk out in front of his truck in some dark dead-end zone in the middle of the night .

He always drove alone and it never felt right but that’s the only life he had ever had and he worked every minute of every hour holding on tight around those mind stretching bends going through gears and keeping up the revs you get there as fast as he could in one piece .

Some days were hard to get through like this night on the back road through the high country . Due to road works he was running behind time and as always stepped hard on the gas pedal to make up the lost time .

Over stressed and in need of rest Clyde had decided to take another road that looked quicker on the map . He had only six hours left to make the delivery .

and his decision to turn off the main road was a desperate attempt to make up time to get the delivery there on time . He pulled up at a rest area on the side of the road to have a coffee from his thermos and a sandwich he picked up earlier on at a service station .As he sat eating, he tried not to get too stressed about things . There wasn’t a light to be seen anywhere apart from the stars up above in the sky and then out of nowhere he noticed a small light shimmering up the road that was slowly getting closer to where he was parked. He suddenly got the shock of his life when a young lady appeared in front of the truck holding a candle . It freaked him out and he started up the engine and took off at fast as he could to get away from what he saw .

Up the road and down the hills and around those hand shakings bends he  flew . Clyde was out of control and took a wrong turn , now he was lost .

He pulled up beside a lake on the side of the road and sat there in silence for a few moments trying to regain his composure . Then he saw the most horrible sight any one would ever wish to see , this creature came from nowhere crawling all over his truck .

Clyde was terrified and started up the engine and put the pedal to the metal on the floor of the truck and drove like a man possessed Down the hills and around the nerve screaming bends and never once did he try to slow down as the truck made its way through the country like an unguided missile in the dead of night . Around every bend he saw things and red eyes reflecting back from his headlight all on full beam . His heart was thumping and the truck’s  engine was pumping as the tyres were screeching and squealing around the gear crunching bends . The he started to think of his wife at home on her own and began to miss her . Something deep inside began to change and he realised how much he really loved his wife . Being constantly on the road their relationship was almost non-existent and he got used to being by himself .

Trucking was a way of life for Clyde . Up and down the highways . along those lanes was like a straight and narrow path and around the slow frustrating hair pins never changed with his eyes on the road and his hands gripped tightly on the  wheel .

If he survived this night, he made a vow to never get back inside a truck ever again ,  He had no idea where he was going or what he was going to do .

The roads were strange and his mind was out of control like a madman with a  free ticket to hell or wherever this road  was taking him .

Thirty-two big wheels eating up the broken white line with eyes around every corner watching him drift from side to side in fear of something horrible chasing , He had seen something so horrible he couldn’t get it off his mind .

It was a long road through the night and the morning light out of sight on some strange road that seemed to be going nowhere . He passed the same signs several times and assumed he was going aro8und in circles.  

Mile after mile passed and he stopped at a railway track for a train passing by in front of him . Ghostly faces looked out of the windows in the carriages as the train passed by .

Clyde was in shock and seemed never . As the train disappeared out of sight he thought about his wife again and if he would ever see her again . More and more the feeling that he had lost his wife tortured him . He even began to think he had died and was on the highway to hell .

He came to a sign on the road which directed him to a weighbridge .

It was a manned weighbridge and the strange looking man handed him some paperwork . Looking out from these two black holes where his eyes should have been he said with a croaky deep voice .

“I’m sorry you lost your wife “

Clyde drove away as fast as he could in a state of panic .

Then he came to an  old wooden bridge over a river and slowly making his way across he wondered if the bridge would collapse . At least then the journey mover and his nightmare would be gone .

Clyde thought about the day when he and his where married .

He remembered every detail about that day .

As he crossed that bridge the sun rose and a new day had begun .Suddenly he knew the road he was on . It was just a short distance from where he had to deliver the load he had carried and a short distance away was the site .

His mind was scattered like a jigsaw with pieces all missing and still the picture of that journey was fresh in his mind . He told no one about the things he saw fand after  he was unloaded, he went home to his wife and made a promise that he would never drive again .Clyde was saying goodbye to the only life he had every known .

His wife was overjoyed when he told her he was retiring from driving .

Even though she noticed he was acting very strange she never questioned him and left it for him to share what was troubling him but he never did and he never told anyone until the day he died when a notepad with a journal of the events was found inside a notebook in his bedside drawers , His experience of that night became well known to many people in the truck driving industry and no one had any explanation of what actually happened . Rumour’s went around that he had taken to many pills to keep him awake  others said he . was deluded from lack of sleep .

The strange thing was after his death many trucks on that route had disappeared and all the drivers were never seen again .

As stories of the lost drivers were spread that road was closed and never reopened . Traffic was diverted through a bypass they called, The Lost Exit on the road between somewhere and nowhere on the Lake edge to Clyde gate province famous for a truck stop that served the best food in the state for long distance truck drivers . .

The End