The Truth Hurts

79 │dead end

With his hand gripped tightly onto the steering wheel, Marc takes a left on the street up ahead as he follows the directions Taylor had given him earlier. Although he already has a strong feeling that he knows the answer to the question he's about to ask, he decides to toss it out there anyway. "Where are we going?"

"You know where." She says, peering over at him from the passenger seat.

His cell phone lights up, for about the tenth time now, and vibrates in the cup holder between the two of them. She leans over to glance at the screen and takes in a heavy sigh before turning to look out of the passenger window.

"Morgan again?"

Her silence is enough to answer Marc's question. He glances over at her before turning back to the windshield, spinning the steering wheel of the car to turn onto Shady Grove Blvd. This time he didn't ask for the directions.

He attempts, yet again, to break the silence. "So, how did you even know that was in the trunk?"

"Millie told me that most officers keep one in the trunk." She glances down at the shotgun leaning on the floorboard between her legs. Its barrel points up at the roof of the car and she gulps, finding just the sight of the large weapon rather intimidating. The closest thing resembling a gun that she ever held was a Nerf gun, and even using that her aim was terrible. She remembers the many times, when she and Morgan were just children, they would have these little battles in her front yard. Each time she'd attempt to shoot the darts at him, for some reason or another, the foam bullets were always drawn her parent's direction. Needless to say, that was the last time they were ever bought a set of toy guns on Christmas. "That... and I always see it in the movies."

The two laugh, mostly from nerves building up, and—at the mention of her old friend's name—Taylor's smile fades and she glances back out the window on her car door to watch as they quickly pass by a lot of trees and overgrown acres of land. A small dirt road is up ahead on the right, a moldering wooden gate blocking its entrance with a rusted No Trespassing sign hanging from small chains in between its doors. She recognizes it immediately, knowing that they're getting close.

"We're almost there." He says, confirming that he does in fact know where they're heading.

As Taylor continues to stare out the window, watching as the once small lot of trees begin to stretch into miles of seemingly endless woods, she begins to contemplate on how she is going to tell Marc the truth about that night. She certainly can't bring it up now, as their main focus needs to be on finding Millie and bringing her back to safety.

But, after that, how should she go about telling him?

An old windmill can be seen in the distance, past acres of trees tucked away just behind the incline of a hill. It has been standing, yet falling apart, for as long as she could remember. Before she was born, before her parents or grandparents were born, these lands used to be nothing but farms. The windmill was once a well structured building used to mill grain and pump water for the locals south of the interstate. Now, it's nothing but broken remnants of a simpler time. As they continue to drive further down Shady Grove Blvd, its deteriorating blades begin to slip behind the outline of the hill until the windmill completely falls out of sight.

She can see the trees passing by at a slower, steadier pace as Marc easies on the brakes and the car comes to a stop. Turning to look at the windshield, she immediately feels her skin growing cold at the sight of the long strip of pavement in front of her. At first glance, it looks like just another section of the road. But, after witnessing what she did that one night, she will never forget this area. The trees, the gravel, the sky overlooking them. Glancing in the small mirror hanging from the side of the door, she half expects to see a flipped school bus behind them. Red and orange lights flashing from its extended stop sign. Smoke rising from its bloody grill as a hand, its burnt flesh smoldering, slams against the cracked windshield.