A Normal Rest Stop

“Welcome” the place seems to say as you drive off the highway into the wooded rest stop. Nothing overly exciting, just simple. A bit of nature that makes you feel like you can still hold on to your break from life, from work, just a bit longer on your journey back. Today there is a small layer of fog hovering just above the ground and sneaking its way through the trees that line the drive and the walking paths.  

Our person of interest is, well, not that interesting frankly. She is your average middle class, run-of-the-mill 9-5 working, light-brown haired millennial who enjoys her late ‘90s and early ‘00s playlist. Nostalgia is about all that keeps her functioning in her completely thrill-less job. Wow, data analysis has really given her something to not think about, at all, while away from her paying job. This, of course, is preferable. Who wants to think about their job while away from it. Yuck. Go live. 

She is returning from an extended weekend with 5 of her girlfriends who no longer live in the same city. She was not the one who lived the furthest away, but her 94 minute drive from her apartment to their Vrbo was long enough for her, thank you very much. Now going back, naturally, she wished the drive was longer. Who ever wants to return to work? Certainly not anyone who also has a boring, not-really existent life outside of work. She does have a pet fish; that’s got to count for some excitement. (Note: this is what she tells herself.) In order to extend her time away from her, not-quite all boring life –because: pet fish, obviously, (this equals some –minimal–  excitement: again, this is what she tells herself), she intends to not just use the bathroom, but take a walk around the whole of the rest stop. Maybe she will even go for a swing on the playground? This is going to be a lovely time-extending stop.  

The bathrooms are quite clean. Thankfully this one has paper towels, and not the hand-dryer only. The sound, no matter which kind or what brand, has always unnerved her. There’s even a vending machine with her favorite, for a little treat! Does she have $1.25 in quarters to pay? Unfortunately she is a quarter short, so she exits the modern plumbing bathroom building to start on her walk. When she arrived there was only one other car here. Now there were 4 cars. That means 2 other cars had come while she was relieving her bladder. Hoping that it didn’t mean the cars were full, nor that the drivers or passengers would be joining her on the walking trails, she set off.    

The sky was blue, when you could see it through the leaves of the trees. Odd, since there was also fog. At least, she thought that combination was odd. There was chittering of creatures. An almost imperceptible breeze. She took a deep breath in. She held it for a few seconds and slowly let it out. She was going to enjoy this. Every last minute. The sights. The smells. The sounds. Even the grunting. “Wait. What?” Our uninteresting person of interest suddenly thought.  

Her eyes opened just a little wider and scanned the path and wooded area. “Grunting?” She thought. Surely, she was not hearing grunting. When she looked around she saw nothing. So she waited a bit. She did hear some more grunting, but could see nothing. After waiting a little longer, she finally decided that it was probably normal rest stop sounds that she was just ignorant about. So, though she found it strange, she continued on and enjoyed the rest of her walk.  

When she finally looped her way back and was walking to her car, one car was already gone, another just on it’s way back to the freeway, and another car coming in to make use of the free public stop. The one car that had been here when she arrived, she noticed, was still here. “Huh,” she thought, “That’s odd. Also odd of me to notice.”  

She climbed into her car, turned the car on and went back to her nostalgic playlist. The iconic piano of “A Thousand Miles” and voice of Vanessa Carlton filled the air. Such a classic. This playlist, about the only thing she now has to look forward to, leaving the extended weekend behind. Back to the highway and her uneventful, plain, simple, not all boring life it was.  

“If I could just see you,” she began to sing and fill the car with her own voice. The song was already half way over. By the time she was back on the highway at full speed –or, you know, 4 miles over the limit if she were totally honest, the next song was already playing. “...Baby One More Time” by the absolute queen of the Millennial music throne, Brittany Spears.  

And that’s when she saw it. The car. The one that was at the rest stop when she had pulled in. The one that was still there when she left. It was passing her. And her whole body went cold. Did the air temperature drop 20 degrees? Was that even possible to do in a matter of seconds? Sure felt real. Because what she saw was not, could not be, real. Was that HAIR... spilling out of the trunk? And, and... dear god! was she seeing FINGERS?? Were those fingers sticking out from the trunk also? Did all the blood in her body cease to move? Did her blood stop flowing? Was she going to freeze right then and there? Surely, she was not seeing what she thought she was seeing.  

Time was paused, for what seemed like an eternity, that somehow also was short. In that moment, there was no coherent thought, just panic. What was our uninteresting person of interest going to do? Their life was relatively boring. Nothing of great consequence ever really happened. Yet, this seemed to be pretty consequential. Then all the sudden time was unpaused and everything seemed to move at warp speed. Was the earth spinning faster? She realized she was dizzy. She pulled over to the side of the road, to avoid an accident.  

Thoughts catching up to her, she breathed. Had she been holding her breath? She had not realized she was holding her breath. Turn down the music, get out your phone, dial! She was telling herself as she attempted, successfully, to comply with her self-given tasks. 9-1-1.  

“Yes, hello. I think I may have just been passed by some murderers on the highway.”  

This is how she opened the conversation with the dispatcher. Her breathing began to pick up. She found herself speaking lightning fast. And then all the details she had were said. There was no more she had to offer. When the conversation was over, she continued to sit there, on the side of the road. She was somewhere between an extended weekend and a mostly boring life at home. Stuck. Hands now glued to her steering wheel. Eyes as wide as they could be. Realizing she may have just been close to murderers. There is nothing else she can do. Time has stopped. She is frozen. That was a normal rest stop. Except, now, it will never be a normal rest stop, it will always be anything but a normal rest stop.