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Intersection

Eric Bonholtzer

    Paul’s head swam, his eyes burning from the dust. Disorientated, he touched his head, his hands coming away sticky, as if coated in glue. When he saw the blood coating them, he screamed. Then he remembered. The bright lights. The Mack truck. Suddenly he glanced around, still aware of imminent danger, but found himself alone, lying on the ground without another soul in sight. Suddenly, a new fear knotted in Paul’s stomach. Why hasn’t someone come to help me? he wondered, shaking his head, trying to make sense of things. His muscles ached, screaming in protest as he tried to rise.
    The town around him seemed deserted, a ghost town, and the absence of life was unsettling. No one really knows what makes people quit a town, just up and leave, Paul thought sullenly, reminiscing about all the towns he’d seen in his travels, places that just seemed abandoned. But no one really wants to find out To Paul, it just reeked of something bad, something sinister. What happened here?
    Blinking back dried blood from his eyelids, Paul surveyed his surroundings. Desolate would not even begin to describe it. And the semi? he thought. Where is the hell is the semi? He remembered the bright lights, and the crash. The girl... he thought, then stifled it. The Big Rig was gone now and he was alone. What he needed to find out was why. Paul took in his surroundings, the dead town seeming like stereotypical Main Street USA. It could have been any small town in America, were it not for the dark windows and stores now fallen into disrepair. Still, something about it struck a chord deep in the recesses of his memory that he just couldn’t shake. A traffic signal hung overhead, suspended from two intersecting wires, like the way they used to do it in the old days, the light faded out long ago. How the hell did I wind up here? Paul wondered. He would have sworn that he’d never set foot in this place before, but somehow it seemed oddly familiar. Shadows seemed to leer at him from windows, as darkened doors hung from their hinges in mute protest. The buildings seemed lifeless, Paul couldn’t help but feel a pervading stab of unease.
    A faint wisp flickered in the distance down the street, and Paul fixed on it. Looking closer, it appeared to be a woman, dressed in white, and she seemed to be searching for something, her hands outstretched and her eyes wide with fear. Paul averted his own eyes for a second, the vision seeming blindingly bright, and when he was finally able to turn his stare back, the woman was gone. It felt like he’d seen a ghost. And the atmosphere seemed just right for it. I must have hit my head a little too hard, he thought and checked himself over with his hands, finding a few minor scrapes and some swelling in one of his legs. Other than that, Paul figured he’d fared quite well, considering. There was a nasty gash below his hairline, but the bleeding had stopped, leaving a mass of red ooze. It could have been worse, he thought, much worse. But somehow the optimistic idea didn’t lift his spirits, the fact that he couldn’t remember what had happened frightening him in a profound way. Paul lurched as he rose, trying to keep his balance. Strained something. Probably the ankle. Paul straightened up and took a tentative step. His ankle buckled, but held. Strained, not broken.
    Paul tried to orientate himself before going on. His head still reeling, he took the time to tear some makeshift bandages from his shirt, wrapping his injured ankle for support in case he needed to run. Paul didn’t like not knowing what was going on, the notion of trauma-related amnesia coming to mind, but he was always one who liked to be prepared. Ankle wrapped, Paul found a large piece of the metal on the ground, from what he assumed had been the accident. It would make a good weapon, a cudgel, and Paul once again felt the intangible frustration that he couldn’t remember more about what had happened in the crash.
    Hobbling, Paul started forward. The night seemed absolute, few stars lighting the skyline, their absence making the darkness more enveloping. It was almost as if the night air was palpable, coating the cilia in Paul’s lungs, making his breath come short. He listened intently, trying to hear something, any sound that could lead him, but knowing deep down that he was really looking for the woman he’d seen. He felt a strange connection to her, a sense that they shared something, and that perhaps she might have some answers. He had no tangible reason to believe it, but inexpiably, at the gut level, it seemed to be right. As he listened, he was finally able to pick up something, a whisper calling softly for someone. The woman in white? he wondered, then chided himself, Stop jumping at shadows. It’s just your imagination.
    Suddenly, he found himself grateful for his makeshift weapon, feeling a sense of danger interceding. The accident...he thought and found himself wondering where the idea had come from. He couldn’t remember any accident specifically, but he knew that there had to have been one.
    Paul started walking, knowing he was getting nothing solved standing there, and it that was as good a solution as any. Waking up in this place in the middle of nowhere with no memory of how he’d gotten there had terrified him indescribably and he reasoned that the only way to make some sense of things was to get moving. Something else seemed to tug at his mind as he surveyed the seemingly abandoned town, the buildings appearing to shift ever so slightly as he watched. It wasn’t ten paces later when he realized just what it was that had nagged him. Laurel.
    This town is Laurel, he thought. Not exactly, but close. God, how long has it been since I thought of that place? Five years? Ten? He glanced about nervously, but there was nothing except for flecked paint on structures and weather-worn sidings.
    Paul knew he had to find a phone. A phone call would help him make sense of it all. He’d call a cab. Did cabs pick up in the middle of nowhere? He didn’t know, and for that matter, he wondered what would he tell them, sorry pal but I really don’t know the street address here, you’ll just have to drive down a dirt road until you hit what looks like a dead town and then look for the crazy guy waving his arms in the middle of the street. He stifled that line of thought. He needed to make a phone call to get back in touch with reality.
    Peering into doorways as he passed, Paul searched for anything moving, any sign of life. His footsteps echoed in his ears. He glanced into a tailor’s shop which sat situated next to an old-fashioned bait shop. Mannequins, like posed bodies, seemed to beckon with their static gestures, invitingly deceptive in their moth-eaten attire. A glimpse of something out of the corner of Paul’s eye caused him to turn, hoping it was the woman and not something else. He was greeted only by a vacant street. Trying to distract himself more than anything, Paul turned his attention to resuming his search for a phone booth. He already knew he wouldn’t find one. Towns like this didn’t have phone booths, and most of the businesses that even had phones were the rotary-dial type. That’s why they still had the message about phones other than touch-tones on the operator line, because of towns like these. Another intersection led him to a street as desolate as the first.
    “Where is this place?” he said aloud, his voice sounding awkward in the silent night. Deciding that one road was as good as the next, Paul turned the corner and realized one other odd thing. All along the street, and in the whole town, he’d witnessed a distinctive lack of technology, not just phones, but an absence of cars and street lights as well. In a hi-tech world where everyone seemed to be carrying a cell phone or a lap top, it was strangely suspicious. How long ago did this town die? he wondered, moving forward.
    After a few more minutes of walking, Paul finally spotted a car, the first one he’d seen the whole time since awakening. Its appearance was made even stranger still by the fact it was sitting in the middle of an intersection. Paul, however, figured he still had to try his luck, heading in the vehicle’s direction. What Paul saw as he approached made him recoil. He was still a distance away, but he could already tell something was off about the car, and his grip on the makeshift truncheon tightened. It was a late-seventies model, and Paul’s growing trepidation turned to terror as he got close enough to glance in the window, seeing the crushed-in driver’s side door and the thin filmy membrane of blood coating the clutch and steering wheel. The windshield was cracked in places, soaked in a mass of blood and what looked like fragments of metal. Paul took a step backward. There was definitely something wrong with this town, and it was more than just this. It was everything. This town looks like it gave up the will to live in the fifties and this car sticks out like a sore thumb, he thought, remarking on the vehicle’s strangely anachronistic presence.
    Another backward step and Paul saw something in the car window. He scrambled away unaware that he was actually getting closer to the reflection he’d glimpsed. Suddenly, Paul’s ankle gave, and he tumbled. The last sight he remembered as a cloud of blackness enveloped him, a sharp pain dully throbbing in the back of his head, was a face, her face, that of the ghostly woman in white. It was pretty, soothing, with flowing locks of blonde, but he could make out nothing more as his world faded away.

    A faint lapping sound brought Paul from the darkness. His eyes seemed to bulge in a skull that seemed too small, and for the second time in a short period he found himself coming to with only faint pieces of what had happened sticking in his mind. Suddenly, as his memory returned to him, Paul turned his head, looking for her, and discovered the source of the lapping sound. It was a dog, sitting obediently beside his head, tenderly licking the blood from his wound. The mutt’s appearance was strange, but Paul was just grateful to find another living being. The woman was nowhere to be found, and for some strange reason, Paul had doubts about her existence. But at least there was the dog. Paul was already beginning to feel slightly better, knowing he was no longer alone. But as he stood up woozily grabbing his weapon from where he’d dropped it, he took a look at the animal and an overwhelming sense of dread filled him. Realization struck like a lightning bolt and Paul placed the dog instantly. “Webster..Web?” The words fell from his mouth lifelessly, knowing that what he was seeing was impossible. Turning his back on the dog and all its implications, he hastened down the street, taking corners slowly at first then escalating to a full-on heedless run when he heard the dog’s footfalls behind him, running almost playfully at his heels. Paul wanted to put as much space between himself and the dog as possible, cringing at the insanity of it all. It couldn’t be Web, Paul knew, because he’d buried the dog ten years ago. Webster, nicknamed Web, had been Paul’s dog, but he’d died, and yet he was trailing Paul just the same. Terror gripped him and he felt had to get out of there in a hurry, had to get away. He took two corners quickly, afraid to look behind. A crash that sounded like thunder split the night air and made Paul jump, startling him to the point of faltering in his run. Paul swore it sounded like barking, and he dodged into a darkened alley, fearful of what may lurk there, but more afraid of having another encounter with Web, or whatever it was that looked like Web, following him. Paul dodged down one alley after another, wary of every discarded box and cracked window, each recess seeming a perfect hiding spot for an attacker. Paul’s grip on his cudgel tightened. Panic pounded in his heart and he heard more loud barking, the noises seeming to get closer, fear fueling his steps.
    Glancing behind as he fled into one alleyway, Paul crashed headlong into a chain link fence. Bouncing back, he cursed violently beneath his breath. Paul was careful not to put too much weight on his ankle, as he hopped the chest-high partition. Emerging from the alleyway, Paul couldn’t believe his eyes. Sitting before him was the car. The same dead 70’s-era car he’d encountered before. Paul tried not to think about it as the barks seemed to get farther away, man’s best friend losing the trail or giving up, and Paul wondered if he hadn’t been a little too paranoid, letting the strangeness of his surroundings play on his imagination. After all I’ve been through, I might have been over-reacting a little, he thought, feeling a little better as he did, wondering if it really was Web at all or just some dog who looked enough like him to get Paul’s already weary mind thrown into overdrive. Paul locked in on that line of thinking because it helped put his mind at ease somewhat.
    With the cudgel still gripped tightly in hand, Paul started walking, trying a different road, ignoring the strange car and its bloody interior. He turned down Maple Street and smiled a little. At least I don’t see any dogs, he thought, and blessed his mother for teaching him to be thankful for small favors.
    Paul knew he still had to find a phone. Things were out of control and he had to find a lifeline back to sanity. He passed a broken window with a remaining painted portion proclaiming ‘...iller Brother’s General’, which seemed a promising place to begin the search. The inside was a cobweb-coated veneer of dust and neglect. Canned goods that seemed to have been around since old Ike was President were still standing strong on the shelves, displaying a proud layer of rust. Fat chance of finding a working phone, he thought, knowing he still had to try. A shudder coursed through his body, his grip tightening on his makeshift weapon as he saw two mannequins in the corner, a tarp partially obscuring them, tendrils of webbing providing a gossamer shroud over them. Paul’s unease increased tenfold when he realized from the exposed portions that they were supposed to be hunters. Paul gave them a wide berth.
    Walking around the counter, the store having the old-fashioned banister type of partition that separated the customers from the help, Paul found the cash register. Just when he was about to give up his search and try somewhere else, he caught a glimpse of a phone resting on the other side of the till. Carefully, almost reverently lifting the receiver from the cradle, he placed it against his ear, praying for a live line. There was a dial tone and it was music to Paul’s ears. A broad smile split his face, and he used the rotary, with what seemed to be agonizing slowness and clumsy ineptness, but finally he was able to dial the number for help. Time seemed to slow as he heard one ring and then another. He was too excited to realize something was wrong when someone picked up but there was no response.
    “Hello?” Paul said, relief coursing through his veins. “Hello? Can you hear me?” There was no direct reply, but he could hear something, faint and far off, indistinguishable. Paul didn’t care what it was, knowing that at least it was something. “Hello, listen my name Paul Hedges. I’m stuck. I don’t know where I am or how I got here, but listen, there must have been an accident and...” There was still no answer. It sounded like people were talking, like he was listening to a phone that was off the hook. Someone was prattling on about how they’d been so close. Someone else was very upset, asking what they could do. But it was far off, impossibly distant. He figured it had to be a crossed line. “HELLO!?” Paul screamed and then cursed, trying to hold back tears as he replaced the phone in the cradle. His hopes were so high. Picking up the receiver again, Paul dropped it when he realized the line was dead.
    Spirits crushed, Paul sank away. He’d taken five steps when he heard the ringing. Glancing at the phone, knowing that things were getting stranger by the second, he shivered as he noticed that the phone wasn’t even on the hook. Still, some faint hope drew him to answer, his steps heavy and hesitant, the ringing seeming terrifying loud. Receiver in hand, Paul cautiously put it to his ear. “Hello?” His voice was a harsh whisper.
    “Paul.” The voice was unmistakable with its drawl and it all rang home when he heard it, Paul’s skin pocking with goose flesh. “Paul, is that you m’boy? So good t’hear yer voice. Now what is it yer doin’ back in my shop after all these years. I mean, it’s good ta have ya back an’ all, son, after all this time. But yer needed elsewhere...” Paul knew the voice. It was a voice from Laurel. Old Man Miller, owner of Laurel’s only General Store. That was what the sign on the broken front window had said, “Miller Brother’s General Store”. Paul’s head was reeling.
    “NO!” Paul didn’t realize he was screaming. “No that’s just not possible. This can’t be happening. You’re dead, Mr. Miller. I went to your funeral. You died when your car flipped on that road outside of town.”
    “Calm down, son, I’m just tryin’ to help ya out from this side ta git home, we’re all rooting for ya, and I gotta tell ya...” Paul slammed the receiver down cutting off the words, not knowing what was happening, just knowing that he had to get out of there, and fast. Those all-too-lifelike mannequins seemed to be stirring beneath their tarps, but Paul wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination. Not wanting to find out, Paul quickly ran out of the store, feeling an overwhelming sense of movement as he did, as if he were being herded into something. The feeling was not pleasant. A quick glance back at the store showed only shadows.
    Paul didn’t care where he was going, only knowing that he had to get away. He made a quick dodge down one street and then another, each move he made seeming strangely as if it was going along some set path, as if he were being forced in some predetermined direction, no matter which way he turned. Four more blocks, each step more hurried than the last, and Paul found himself at his destination. It was the same car, but things were different this time. He didn’t have long to register it all, things happening too fast, a sense of déjà vu striking him, only this time stronger than ever before. As he approached the car, he stopped abruptly, feeling as if he had hit an invisible wall, his muscles freezing up. Paul saw the woman in white, beautiful as she ever was, sitting in the car with tears in her eyes. The car was dead, its battery had given its last final heave, bringing the car to the center of the intersection. The woman in white seemed to be in a panic, and Paul’s heart ached to help her. Beside her in the car sat a little girl, barely more than a newborn. They’re in danger, Paul thought, instinctively knowing it was true. They both seemed panicked, and the beautiful woman was trying desperately to get her daughter free from her safety seat, refusing to leave without her. Suddenly, things became clear for Paul. What he was seeing was the accident, a memory coming into focus now and somehow transposed into reality. That was when he heard the sound of the semi truck, close now, so ominous and overwhelming that he didn’t know how he could have missed it in the first place. Paul turned and he saw the semi that was the source of the noise, barreling down on the intersection, one tire shredded and lurching out of control. It was how it had been, Paul knew. The crash. The freak accident.
    Panic gripped Paul as he watched the semi continue on a collision course with the trapped mother and daughter. An icy stab of terror sliced through Paul’s ribs as he willed his unresponsive body into motion but they would not budge and he could only watch helplessly, trapped in a state of déjà vu, as the out-of-control Big Rig sped ever closer.
    Paul willed his extremities into motion and in an instant he was at the car’s door, throwing it open as the truck drew ever closer. The sickening sense of repeating the same action over and over again filled his head, everything seeming so familiar, so wrong, as if he had tried to save this woman and her child a million times and failed a million times. The woman was still screaming as the truck leered closer. Paul pushed himself over the woman in a desperate attempt to free the daughter only to feel his bad ankle give with a sickening crunch as he went. Pain seared up his leg and the excruciating agony nearly drove him to collapse, knowing the same thing had happened countless times before and he had always succumbed. He could feel his world swimming away, and with it all hope of saving the woman and her daughter.

*    *    *

    “It’s just not working,” the woman said, with an obvious tremor of disappointment. “I felt like I was so close. Twice. The first time I could truly visualize me reaching out to him, and the second, well, I felt like I could touch him.” She shook her head trying to keep the tears from coming. “I was so close and he was ripped away.” She tried to look at the other people in the room, one man, another woman, her daughter and the doctor, but she found she couldn’t meet their eyes. It was as if she had let them all down.
    The doctor’s white coat was dingy with wear, and he looked tired, but despite it all trying to keep a bright outlook. “Look, what we’re attempting here is extremely experimental. You can’t expect miracle results the first time we try it, Heather.”
    Heather glanced up at him, her eyes red-rimmed. “I know that, but it just, well, when you approached us with the idea it seemed so right, like it was a sign or something. I know we’ve all prayed separately, but I thought that we could reach him if we all were together, joining our energy.”
    The doctor would not be dissuaded. “I think it will work. This patient has been under my care for weeks now and he’s fully healed, physically. It’s mentally that he’s damaged.”
    At this Heather started crying again. “And it’s all my fault,” she lamented.
    The man who’d been praying with them, reached out his hand again, placing it on Heather’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault. My brother, Paul,” he gestured to the patient lying still in the hospital bed, his body sound but his mind trapped in a coma, “was doing what anyone with a spark of humanity would do. He was trying to help you and your daughter. And he did.”
    But Heather didn’t find it that easy to be persuaded. “Yeah, and how is he repaid. He’s stuck in some kind of limbo and my daughter and I are fine.”
    At this, the doctor interrupted, impatient to try again. “Listen. Like I said before, Paul has been under my care for weeks now. His body is healed, but he can’t come back to this world because he’s trapped in his own mind, wrapped with guilt. I’m sure with the magnitude of the accident he’s tormenting himself because he thinks that he was too late, that you and your daughter died in the crash. So what we’ve got to do is convince him of the truth, that you two escaped and it was his doing that enabled it. That, I think, is the only way he’s going to be able to come out of his coma.”
    Heather burst into a new round of tears. “But that’s what we’ve been trying to do and it’s not working.”
    The doctor fixed her with a stern look. “That sounds like you’re giving up. Did Paul Hedges give up on you when he saw a Mack truck barreling down on your stalled car? No. He ran to the rescue, freeing your daughter from her car seat. And we owe it to him to keep trying to reach him. I’m almost positive that Paul is trapped in a place of limbo, a place of memory, a loop if you will. I heard Paul repeatedly say ‘Laurel’.”
    “That’s the town we grew up in,” Paul’s brother chimed in.
    “Yeah,” the doctor continued, “I checked it out after I heard him say that and found out it was where he was born. That’s when I thought about the possibilities. In a lot of cases like these, where there is severe trauma, the mind reverts back to some place where it feels safe, like some childhood memory, only, judging from what I’ve heard Paul scream during the worst of things, I think his version of memory may be tainted because he feels guilty. The truck impacted right as Heather and her daughter got free, according to Heather’s account, so Paul probably didn’t even realize he’d saved their lives. He thought he was too late. Western medicine has never been too focused on the science of the mind, but Eastern medicine has been specializing in it for centuries, and when a case like this presents itself, where someone is healed, miraculously, in body and it’s their mind that’s damaged, it’s time to turn to alternative treatment. So I read up on journals and I’ve been leading you through meditations to try to reach him. And now you’re giving up before we’ve even truly started.” Heather tried to speak up, to deny it, but the doctor continued on, fire in his eyes. “We’re going to try again right now, get our energy as focused as we can on reaching Paul, and we’re going to bring him back.” They all held hands again, believing. They sank back into their meditative state, the doctor leading them along the way as they tried, through sheer will to send their collective will toward Paul. There was no guarantee, nor even a good possibility that what they were attempting would work, but sometimes when it came down to it, all that was left was hope, and faith.

*    *    *

    Paul felt a strange sensation, a tingling, almost like a direction of energy infusing him with strength and purpose. He felt as if he was being prodded onward, back into consciousness, and Paul seized on that imperceptible tremor of warmth. Suddenly, the world snapped back into focus and the sense of déjà vu left him instantly. This was uncharted territory. The woman in white, Heather, was yelling something, but Paul couldn’t hear it over the sound of the thundering semi. Instinctively he knew what she was saying. Using his cudgel for leverage, Paul popped the stuck safety harness on the car seat and freed the woman’s daughter. Heather grabbed the newborn and dove to safety, avoiding the out-of-control Mack’s impact. The sound of the crash was deafening but through it all Paul could see something different, feel something different, a sense that the mother and daughter had survived, that everything was all right, and then there was nothing at all but light.

*    *    *

    Paul’s eyelids began flicker before finally opening, the light of the hospital room so bright. One hand came up to wipe away tears, as he was greeted, after all this time, by the sight of his brother. Heather and the doctor both had smiles on their faces. Realization set in instantly, and though Paul’s voice was weak, his words were unmistakable. “Thank you.”
    Heather smiled through her tears. “No, thank you,” she said, warmth filling everyone in the room.

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