Chloe Carter's Arc

Chapter 8 of 12

The logging road ran downhill between the pines. Chloe drove slow, both hands on the wheel. The sedan rocked over frozen ruts. She kept looking for the fork where the plowed grade cut left toward the valley. It should have been close. She had come up this way an hour ago. Maybe two. She could not remember now. The light was going. The sky above the pines had turned a flat gray. The trunks on either side of the road blurred into one dark wall. She flicked on the headlights. The beams jumped over the ruts and lost themselves in the trees. She reached a split. She stopped the car. She did not remember a split here. One track bent left and downhill. The other ran flat into deeper timber. Neither showed her tire marks. Snow had drifted over the road since she came up. She stared at both tracks and tried to think. Downhill was the valley. Downhill was the highway. She took the left. The road narrowed. Branches scraped the roof. The ruts under the tires got shallower, then vanished. The sedan bumped over bare dirt and pine needles. This was not the road she had come up. This was something older. She stopped again. The engine idled. She looked in the mirror. The way back was already dark. If she reversed now she would have to feel her way in the mirrors with no light behind her. If she went forward she did not know where forward went. She hit the wheel with the flat of her hand. She hit it again. Her eyes filled and she wiped them hard with the back of her glove. Then she stopped. Crying would not turn the car around. She made herself breathe. She put the sedan in reverse and backed up until the road widened enough to turn. She swung the nose around in three pulls. She drove back to the split and stopped. The other track ran into the timber. She did not trust it either. She killed the engine. The quiet came in fast. She listened. No wind. No engines. Nothing that sounded like a highway. She was somewhere on the mountain, on a spur she did not know, and the dusk had closed the door behind her. She locked the doors. She reached under the passenger seat and found the knife and set it in her lap. The heater was still warm. The gas gauge sat a hair above a quarter tank. She could run the engine in bursts through the night and keep from freezing. She pulled her coat tighter and watched the last gray drain out of the sky between the pines. She would find the highway in the morning. Tonight the car was the cabin. Tonight she stayed put.