Road to Hell

"Sherry, I swear to God if you don't get your ass in this car in the next minute, I'm leaving without you!"

"Fat chance, you wouldn't be able to do the job without me!"

I glowered at my twin, who was upstairs with her head hanging out the window. I was leaning against the car bonnet waiting for her as she packed the last of her stuff. Typical. It was the same every road trip, I was left waiting for her and we always ended up off schedule. One time I did try driving off without her, but I ended up driving back to find her sitting on the porch munching on a Pop Tart. Damn girl knows me too well.

I opened the boot on Dodge, my car. She'd been a gift from a friend for my eighteenth. Well, to get technically it had been a gift for both me and Sherry, but seeing as my sister nearly always made me drive and I was the one who knew how to maintain a 1969 Dodge Charger RT. Sherry was only interested if it could turn into a computer. Speaking of which...

"Shauna! Where the fuck did you put my laptop and the charger?"

"Already in the back of the car," I rolled my eyes as she appeared at the front door, two huge hulking bags in each hand. The boot was lying open and I helped Sherry load the last of the stuff in and closed it over, patting the blue paintwork as I did. She was an ancient car, but she'd got us back and forth across the country, so we owed her. "Now come on, I have a schedule and for once I want us to follow it."

"You act so organized, but I've seen your room. You have a floordrobe. You're as scatterbrained as the rest of us," Sherry smirked as she slid into the passenger seat. As I sat next to her I made sure to punch her arm hard enough for her to shout out and rub at it. "Bitch, you know I bruise like a peach. That's gonna take ages to cover up with make-up!"

"Deal with it," I muttered, then stuck my tongue out at her so she knew I wasn't actually mad at her. I reversed out the parking spot and we were off down the street towards the highway. "And we're off!"

"See you, Elyria! We'll miss you!" Sherry shouted out her wound down window, startling an early morning dog walker. We both laughed and slid a CD on to bop along to as we drove. We loved our town, but it was good to be back on the road again.



Sherry was fast asleep when I pulled in at our third stop at a truck station. We were maybe a little under halfway to Idaho Falls and the rain was bucketing down and a thunder storm was brewing. Both of us hated driving in this kind of weather, so I did what I ended up doing every road trip. Sighing, crumpling up my shoddily written schedule and shoving it in the glove compartment.

"Sher, wake up," I shook my twin gently and she twitched violently, flailing and kicking and shouting in a manner really unlike her. "Sher?"

She stilled, wide eyes turning on me. They were filled with fear and dread and tears. I did a double take- my sister never cries. Like, seriously never. The last time I'd seen her cry out of sadness was when we were seventeen. It was creepy seeing her blinking rapidly and wiping away tears, and it shook me to the core.

"I'm okay Shaunie," she smiled weakly. "Just a bad dream, that's all. Probably too much time spent playing stupid video games and watching horror films."

"Would a sugary snack make things better?" I tried to act normal, cracking a lame joke but my heart wasn't really in it. Nonetheless, Sherry nodded and we exited the car, running to the greasy spoon cafe for cover. We were only in the rain for a few seconds but by the time we were inside we were soaked; our hair hung down in rats tails and when I touched a finger to my eyes they came away black so no doubt my 'waterproof' mascara was halfway down my face.

Despite that, nobody gave us a second glance.

We slid into an empty booth and the waitress took our order before coming back shortly with two Diet Cola's and a stack of pancakes. We tucked in, occasionally glancing out at the storm raging outside. The sunny day we'd seen when leaving Elyria was long gone.

"So whereabouts are we anyway?" Sherry asked after draining her drink.

"Somewhere in Nebraska, I think," I muttered, shoving the last of the pancake in my mouth, muffling my words. "I got a little lost, but we can still get there from here, we just need to take some back roads, that’s all."

"You're useless with directions," she rolled her eyes at me, then asked the waitress as she brought us more Cola- "Excuse me, what town in this?"

"Well, you're in Diller, hon. How come you don't know where you're at?"

"My sister got us lost."

"Where you headed to?"

"Idaho Falls," I jumped in, before Sherry could make any more little remarks about me. "We have work there."

The waitress' sunny face suddenly closed off and her smile vanished. She pursed her lips, placing our glasses of juice down a little harder than necessary.

"Well. You have a nice day. We'll be closing soon, so you better finish up."

"Do you... Do you have a motel or hotel or anything we can stay the night in?" Sherry asked hesitantly, obviously as shaken as I was by the woman's sudden change.

"Nope. We're a small town, we don't have much. You're gonna have to just drive on."

Without saying another word she stomped off, leaving me and Sherry to stare at each other in confusion. Within ten minutes we were hustled out the door and back to our cars, though we noticed none of the other customers were being rushed to leave. I started the car and sped off, despite the fact the weather wasn't improving and fog was rolling fast.

"Something weird's going on in that town," Sherry muttered after we'd been driving a while.

"Yep," I agreed. "Let's hope we don't end up in any more crazy ass places. But it's almost midnight, we're either gonna have to find a town fast or sleep in the car."

"Well I vote-"

Before my sister could tell me what her vote was, there was a small bang, Dodge's headlights went out and we rolled to a complete stop.