Getting Lost on the Way to the Burger Shack (Sort of on Purpose)

“We are lost.” James was tapping his finger against the window in time with the song on the radio.

“No, we aren’t,” Milena said, tightening her grip on the steering wheel. She frowned. In front of them was a long stretch of road with no end in sight, lined with expanses of sod farms. There was a significant lack of people. And civilization.

The GPS embedded in the dashboard of the car was on the fritz. They figured that one out about twenty minutes into a journey that should’ve been ten minutes long. Milena didn’t want to admit it, but they’d been driving for forty-five minutes and she had no idea where they were. Everything on Long Island looked the same after a while.

“There’s only half a tank left in the car, so driving aimlessly until we find something isn’t much of an option.”

She sighed. “Didn’t the website say that the Burger Shack was next to the Garden Department?” The AC vents were pointed toward her face and the cold air was making her feel drained.

James shifted in his seat. “I think the Garden Department doesn’t actually exist.”

“That’s pretty unfortunate, considering that we’re supposed to be looking for it.”

In the distance, a few buildings began to pop up on the right side of the road. Beneath the sun, they wavered in the heat. As they got closer, it was revealed to be a dilapidated strip mall. Most of the stores were boarded up and nearly all of them had letters missing from the signs. Only one appeared to be open for business, a 99-cent store with a single car parked out front.

“Pull over here, we can ask whoever’s in that store for directions. If they can’t give us that, we can at least ask what town we’re in.” Milena’s mouth twisted downward. James’ suggestion was valid. She was perfectly aware of the fact that it made sense. As she flicked her turning signal, she reflected on that fact that she would have preferred to drive aimlessly and then breakdown on the side of the road before she approached a random stranger for help.

Milena pulled into a spot right in front of the store. The front door was propped open with a wooden wedge, an OPEN sign dangling in the window. The display glass was foggy. Her fingers flexed around the steering wheel.

“Here’s an idea,” she suggested, forcing a flippant air into her voice, “you can go in, ask the nice store owner, and I can wait in the car and make sure no one attempts to steal it.”

James turned and looked at her, his gaze challenging. His hand was on the car door handle. He pursed his lips. “Or, we can go together and you can make sure I won’t be abducted.”

They had a minor staredown for about thirty seconds before Milena’s eyes began to water and she caved.

“Fine! I’ll go.” Milena put the car into park and pulled the keys out of the ignition, making a show of getting out of the car and slamming the door shut. James grinned at her. She shoved the keys into her purse.

The inside of the 99-cent store did not look much better than the outside. Many of the shelves were empty, a fine layer of dust coating the surface. Signs advertising old products were peeling off the walls, leaving behind a gummy, sticky residue. There seemed to be plenty of paddle balls, though. As well as other cheap toys that were usually reserved for birthday party gift bags. Milena briefly contemplated the priorities of the store owner.

“Is there anything I can help you two with?” A tiny and rather sweaty man seemed to appear out of nowhere, balling up a rag in his hands and using it to dab at the rivers running down his temples. He stood behind the sole cash register. She looked for a name tag on his shirt but found nothing.

Milena smiled, though it was slightly pained, and answered the man’s question. “Yes, actually. We were looking for the Burger Shack but got lost on the way there. Do you know where it is?”

The man appeared to be puzzled. He dabbed a few more times around his face with the rag, which was more yellow than its originally intended white. Milena scrunched her nose.

“Sorry, can’t say I’ve ever heard of it.” He said finally. “Are you sure you kids got the right town?”

Milena scowled and James audibly groaned, mumbling something that sounded suspiciously like “Could this even be considered a town?”

James approached the man, turning his head to give Milena a pointed look. She rolled her eyes. “Have you heard of the Garden Department?”

“Does that exist?”

James turned around and whooped victoriously before running out of the store. The store owner was visibly bewildered. Milena apologized for him and followed James out, pulling at her collar because she wasn’t sure if it was the heat or the embarrassment that was burning her alive.

James was leaning against the hood of the car when she reached him, a smug grin on his face. Milena wanted to punch him.

She stopped right in front of him. Looked him up and down. “You’re an idiot.”

He shrugged. “An idiot who was right.”

Milena dug her keys out of the depths of her bag and unlocked the car, climbing into the driver’s seat. She stuck the key into the ignition and turned it.

Nothing happened.

Her brow furrowed and she tried the key again. The car made a sputtering noise before ultimately failing to do anything at all. She sighed and looked over at James, who had managed to find himself in the passenger seat.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” He said, burying his face in his hands and leaning on the dashboard.

“Our luck has been pretty terrible today,” Milena agreed. Her gaze shifted over to the open doorway of the 99-cent store. She could see the store owner puttering around inside holding a broom, alternating between sweeping and rubbing the yellowed rag on his face. “Should we ask that guy for help?”

“I’ll open the hood and see what’s wrong first,” James replied, opening the door and hurrying around to the front of the car.

It was a long five minutes before he said anything.

“I think the battery is dead.” The statement was more of a formality than an actual contribution to their problem-solving efforts.

“How do you know which part is the battery?” She shouted from the driver’s seat, rolling down the window and sticking her head out.

“I don’t!” He called back.

Milena fiddled with the key a few more times before officially determining that there was nothing she could do from inside the car to get it to move.

“I’m not sure if it’s the battery, but something is definitely dead.”

“Well,” James began unhelpfully, “how do we get it undead?” He finished unhelpfully as well.

“We have to shock it, or something. Like hospitals do with almost-dead patients. With the cable things.” Maybe that explanation wasn’t the best.

Milena left the driver’s seat and walked to stand by James at the front of the car. He had the hood open, but she was unsure as to what he was looking at, and was certain he didn’t know either.

“Jumper cables?” He asked. “Are we lucky enough to have had the foresight to keep those in the car?”

Milena shook her head, because they weren’t.

He put the hood down and leaned against the car. “You know, driver’s ed lecture told us to prepare for this. Triple A came and showed us an example of an emergency pack and everything.”

“The day Triple A came was the only day you were awake in driver’s ed lecture.”

James looked mortally wounded. “I was not asleep--”

Milena raised an eyebrow, effectively silencing him. “You snored. You were lucky that our lecturer had to scream just to hear himself.”

“I can’t believe you’re accusing me of all this. Aren’t we supposed to be friends?”

“No.”

From the corner of her eye, Milena saw something shift in the doorway of the shop.

“Do you kids need any help?” The store owner asked, leaning against the doorframe and squinting into the sunlight. His hair was matted against his head, forming a greasy halo around a bald spot you could tell he desperately tried to comb over.

“We think the battery in our car died, do you have jumper cables?”

He answered too quickly for Milena’s liking. “No, sorry. If you want, I can give you a ride down to the gas station while your friend stays with the car. It’s only a few miles.” The store owner pointed to their right, where the road disappeared hazily into the horizon. His eyes were dark, like slicks of oil embedded into his face.

Milena plastered a smile on her face and moved back a step. The air suddenly felt too hot against her skin, hot coals pressed against the back of her neck. “No thanks! I think we can handle it. We appreciate the offer, though!” Before the bile rose up in her throat, she nearly sprinted back into the car and without speaking, James stood at the front of the car and pushed while she steered out of the parking lot.

The strip mall was beginning to waver when they finally stopped. Milena stuck her head out of the window and blinked against the sun. There seemed to be nothing in the general vicinity that would have been remotely helpful to their cause. Just a lot of dead grass and potholes and broken dreams.

“How far do you think the nearest gas station is?” She called out, and smothered a laugh when she saw the color leech out of James’ sweaty face.

“I am not pushing this godforsaken car all the way to that gas station. Did you hear what the creep said? A few miles. Not a few feet, or inches, because that means something would have gone right for us today. A few miles.” James proceeded to collapse to the ground, dramatically throwing an arm over his eyes.

She rolled her eyes and got out of the car, walking over to his prone figure lounged out on the pavement.

“You didn’t object to it before.”

“That’s because we were on the run from the creep.”

Milena tapped his arm with her foot. “Are you sure you can’t survive the rest of the way to the gas station?”

He cracked open an eyelid. One eyebrow was raised, and she knew he was trying his best to look both skeptical and annoyed, but he was looking into the sun and his face just looked scrunched up, the same way a pug’s does. “No.”

“You know, I could just leave you here to die,” Milena added, hoping that a possibly imminent death would be enough incentive.

James sat up immediately, looking scandalized. “But you wouldn’t, because how would you tell your mother? She loves me. She calls me mijo. At this point, I’m basically a member of your family. I deserve your last name more than you do.”

“My mom doesn’t have to know everything.”

“I’m not sure that murder exactly falls under things your mom doesn’t need to know about?” Milena reached out a hand and pulled him to his feet. He bent down to brush the dirt from his jeans.

“I don’t think it’d be murder. Maybe voluntary manslaughter?”

James glared at her. “You took one law class by accident and all of the sudden you’re an expert--” Milena cut him off.

“Is it me or did that building over there literally appear out of nowhere?” She pointed to their right, where a little ways away, a large warehouse seemed to pop up from the ground. She had been entirely certain five minutes ago that there had been nothing there. Was it heat stroke? Were they going to die on this empty stretch of road?

“That definitely was not there before.” James stated, lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the glare. He rubbed them too, for good measure.

“Should we go... check it out? Maybe there are people there?” Milena suggested. “It doesn’t look that far, we could leave the car here and come back for it later.”

“How do we know that we’re not hallucinating a building? If you haven’t noticed, it’s like ninety degrees and we’ve been without air condition for at least forty-five minutes. We are indoor creatures. We are meant to stay inside. This is exactly the same thing as seeing an oasis in a desert.”

Milena’s brow furrowed. “I don’t think it is? Anyway, what other options do we have? This is a dead zone and that guy back at a store was a creep and I’d rather die here than go back and ask him for help.”

James shrugged. “Alright, then. It’s not like we have anything to lose. Maybe our lives, but that’s kind of arbitrary in the grand scheme of things.”

Milena swatted his arm and they began the trek to the building, desperately hoping that it wouldn’t disappear in a cloud of dust the second they got too close.

It was about five minutes before they began to feel a physical pull from the exhaustion, dragging their feet and filling them with lead. Milena’s mouth was dry; she felt as if her tongue was going to shrivel up. She could taste the heat, feel it crawling beneath her skin and making a nest in her blown out capillaries and the flush gathering on her cheeks. She suddenly wished that she had listened to her mom when she told them to wear sunscreen. Milena and James had made their escape in the middle of her “Melanoma doesn’t care if you don’t get sunburn!” speech.

“I can’t believe we’re going through all of this for the Burger Shack.” James muttered, pulling at his collar before gathering up the bottom of his shirt to wipe away the sweat pooling around his eyes.

Milena opened her mouth but found very little ability left in her to speak. She settled for nodding. The dreamy image of a chocolate shake wasn’t enough to spur any further movement.

They reached the building in another fifteen minutes, the faded sign staked into the ground, the letters that weren’t missing weeping rusty tears. Rosswell Conservatory, it read.

“Our luck is on a roll today,” James said dismally. He looked ready to collapse. Milena wondered how long it would take the vultures to find them if they were both to die in this very spot.

Rosswell Conservatory was evidently abandoned.

The parking lot was traced with cracks, weeds poking out in places. Faded lines for parking spots were visible, but barely. A fairly new-looking truck was parked all the way at the other end, the sun glinting off the hood.

They approached the car, peeking inside. A purse sat in the passenger seat beside a pair of flip-flops, well-worn with feet imprints. The interior seemed clean enough, the truck left with the intent of being returned to.

Milena turned and faced the building. It was at least three stories tall, throwing shadow over half of the parking lot. The doors and windows weren’t boarded up, and the brick wasn’t covered in graffiti. Everything appeared to be oddly… pristine.

“Should we wait here or go inside?” She asked James.

“That looks like the shadiest building I have ever seen. What kind of person voluntarily spends their time in abandoned conservatories in the middle of nowhere?” It was a good question, but James ruined it when he widened his eyes and spoke with loud gesticulations for dramatic effect.

“Hopefully someone who doesn’t plan on abducting and then murdering us in cold blood.”

“Cold blood would definitely cool us down, though.”

Together, they walked over to the door and Milena jiggled the handle, assuming it was locked until the knob came away in her hand. The door fell open, the hinges squeaking loud enough to wake the dead.

“This is definitely suspect,” Milena whispered, the atmosphere of the room pressing heavily against her shoulders. She didn’t want to speak too loud for fear of someone hearing her.

“Can you imagine what people will say when they find out we died trying to find the Burger Shack?” James said, passing over the threshold and straight into a spider web.

“They might say that we died for an honorable cause. Statues could be erected in our honor.”

James only scoffed in response.

The Rosswell Conservatory was filled with boxes. Stacks upon stacks of them, precariously perched on shelves and scattered on the floor. A light tap against any of them could send up a choking cloud of dust. Milena thought it looked like the time her dad said he was going to clean out the garage, which he did for approximately two hours before giving up. Her father was the King of Unfinished Projects and her mom was the Queen of Reminding Him Of It.

James wandered off in a different direction while Milena chose to stay, rooted in her spot in the center of the room.

The windows were thick with grime; clean in some places, obscured in others, a yellowish light filtering in. It patterned the room in stripes, reminding her of when her mom opened the blinds in her room on Saturday mornings to clean, because her mother seemed to be a fervent supporter of corporal punishment.

“Milena!” James shocked her out of her daze, materializing beside her out of seemingly nowhere.

“How many times,” Milena huffed, tugging a hair tie from her wrist and pulling her hair from her face, “do I have to tell you not to scare me like that? Especially right now? Like, are we not in a tense situation or--”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, professionalism or whatever, but I think I found the right room.” A grin spread across his face.

Milena raised an eyebrow, slightly suspicious. “The right room? I wasn’t aware that a right room existed?”

He only chuckled. “Of course there’s a right room. I’ll be damned if we don’t have a properly dramatic entrance.”

Despite herself, a smile began to tug up the corners of her mouth. Finally.

James led her to a room near the back, where a door was leaning sideways off the hinges. Almost immediately, Milena began to cough.

She was literally breathing in dust. More boxes were stacked around the room, the air filled with so much dust that sunlight had trouble filtering through the swirling particles in the air. She could feel it sticking to the insides of her lungs, and was fairly certain she was going to develop smoker’s lung without ever having smoked.

“You know,” James began, wiping a streak through some dust with his index finger, “I thought they would have shown up by now.” He sat on a stack of boxes, lounged out. Milena pulled the door shut behind her, doing her best to right it. She leaned against the part of the wall that wasn’t exposed drywall.

A few minutes passed.

Milena coughed again.

The wall beside her head exploded.