A Fork in the Road: Part One

A Fork in the Road

Alison drove home late. The dinner party was boring and the letch that she’d been put next to was at risk of serious damage to his testicles had she not cried, headache, and run. If he‘d accidentally run his hand along her thigh just once more… Her thoughts tailed away as civilisation petered out. She’d reached decision time.

She could continue along the well-lit bypass but it would add another forty miles and half an hour to her journey time.

She eyed her petrol gauge. Why the hell hadn't she remembered to fill up before she set out that evening? It was hovering just above the empty mark. How big was the reserve on a Peugeot 405?

The other option was to take a short cut through The Mosses. She shuddered at the thought. It was a fifteen-mile stretch of road, beautiful through daylight hours but a place of darkness, shadow and legend after nightfall.

Sitting at the fork in the road all of her sensibilities told her to stay in the right hand lane and to continue along the bypass. The left-hand fork led to… she looked down and saw goose pimples standing along her forearm despite the car's excellent heater.

The locals wouldn’t dream of taking on The Mosses at night but Alison was left with little option. Leaning over, she locked all the car doors, sealing herself against the hostile night. She glanced down at the kitchen knife that she kept in the driver's door caddy.

Carrying the knife was illegal, but her friend had been dragged from her car by thugs, beaten and had had her car stolen. She wasn’t going to let that happen to her. She’d be okay.

Indicating left, she turned from sleek, black hardcore onto a rough-hewn road that jolted her and made the car groan. The few scattered houses hid their light behind drawn curtains. She imagined the occupants sipping cocoa by the warmth of their country fires and she felt a deep and intense longing for her bed. Soon even the scant houses had dwindled to nothing and the narrow road was blanketed on both sides by dense forest.

The moon was swollen and only days away from full. But far from giving light, it only served to lengthen the shadows that moved around her. The moon was only bright enough to reveal the night's secrets and her main-beam highlighted the skeletal trees either side of the road, behind whose thick trunks anyone—or anything—could have been lurking.
She turned the music up good and loud and Bonnie Tyler's, Holding out for a Hero, made her feel better.

And couldn't we all do with one of those? she thought as she listened to the throaty lyrics.
Alison sang along with the music but her voice sounded unnaturally hollow in the car's interior. She shut up and just listened, trying hard not to remember the stories that were pushing to the front of her mind.

The Mosses were famous for more than the beautiful Stately Home that owned the rich countryside for twenty miles around. They were renowned as one of the most haunted sites in England.

The story went that late at night, when good people should be tucked up in their beds, a lone man walked The Mosses hoping for a lift. He held out his thumb to any drivers who were stupid enough to be on the road at night. There were many accounts of people stopping to give the stranger a lift within the first five miles of the run. He would sit silently throughout the journey.

When the car drew to a halt at the other end, the hitcher would vanish before their eyes.

Surely somebody must know who he was and how he came to be haunting the road, but Alison didn’t want to know anymore of the story.

Picking up speed, she dipped into a downward slope and roared up the other side. The speed of the car combined with Bonny's voice made her feel better by the second. Tomorrow she'd tease her mates about having met the phantom hitcher.

She almost hit the man.

As she crested the rise of the hill, there he was, walking along the roadside with his thumb out. She was driving too fast along the twisty road. All that she wanted was to get home quickly. She swerved to avoid hitting him and the car screamed as it flew out of control.

She allowed the wheel to play out in her hands and the car careered towards the ditch; at the last second before impact she swung sharply right and it corrected. With her heart beating wildly she gunned the accelerator and shot off into the night.

When there was a hundred yards distance between her and the late night hitchhiker, she risked a look in her rear-view mirror. The man was staring after the car.

Alison gripped the steering wheel between both fists to try and stem her trembling. She was picking up speed and she’d left the stranger behind. Her heart hammered and her temples throbbed with the whoosh of blood that had rushed into them. It fueled an adrenaline rush that was sheer and absolute terror.

All she wanted was to get away from there as fast as the car would go.

She put her foot on the clutch and drove it to the floor, ramming the car from second into third. The gears ground and refused to align. Keeping the clutch depressed she tried again but they didn’t connect with the correct slot on the gearbox. The seconds passed and the engine screamed, losing speed and making the car lurch along the road. Panicking, Alison tried to take the stick to the fourth position. It wouldn't mesh in that gear either.

She tried to get a grip on her mounting hysteria. The sensible thing would be to put the car back into second gear, build up more speed and then try to engage third again. She’d just missed the correct position in her panic, that's all.

She went through every gear position on the box, with the car slowing all the time. It wouldn't engage in any of them. Slowly the Peugeot ground to a halt in a rut at the side of the road. The engine died, Bonny was cut off and blackness filled the car as the lights flickered once and then also left her alone in the darkness.

Okay, okay, stay calm, it'll be all right, she told herself. Just let the car rest for one minute and then we'll try again.

Slowly, and more as a relaxation exercise than a measurement of time, she counted to sixty. She turned the key in the ignition; the car roared into life and Bonny resumed where she had left off. The sudden noise in the total stillness made Alison start violently and she turned the music off with an irritated tut. She tried to put the car in gear but the box was locked in all five positions.

What now? Oh Jesus Christ, what now? Don't do this to me.

She glanced in the rear-view mirror; the road behind was lit by the heavy moon and she saw a shadow walking towards her out of the darkness. In that moment Alison knew the true meaning of the word Fear.