The Long Drive Home
The Short and Scary Series
First Story
The Long Drive Home
By Cathy Pace Matthews
Copyright 2019 by Cathy Matthews
Published at Smashwords
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This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to anyone, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Dedicated to
Chris Sanders for making me think outside the box.
Content
Short story – The Long Drive Home
About the Author
Books by Cathy Pace Matthews
Introduction to Blood Lines, The Curse – Prologue
Connect with Cathy
The Long Drive Home
Karen was a little late leaving work and it was already dark when she unlocked her car and settled inside for the drive home. She had felt a little uneasy while walking to her car because hers was the only car left in the parking lot. She had felt as if something was off all day long. The phone had been unnaturally quiet and over half the scheduled patients hadn’t showed up for their appointments. Patient’s appointments had been scheduled back to back, but they had spent most of the day trying to fill their time with busy work. The fact that a third of their employees hadn’t showed up for work, didn’t even call in for that matter, had made things even more odd.
The parking area seemed to have an eerie sense of quiet stillness that she had never noticed before. There were other businesses in the office area but like the place where Karen worked, business seemed to have been off as well. She guessed she shouldn’t be really surprised that everyone had already gone home, after all it was Halloween. She couldn’t remember however, anytime when Halloween had resulted in this kind of quick exit from work.
The eeriness of the night only seemed to grow as she traveled the streets and roads to her house. At first, she had seen one or two cars along the way but now fifteen minutes into her forty-minute drive home there didn’t seem to be any cars on the road. At one point she passed a wreck where two cars had collided. There was heavy smoke rising from one of the cars and the doors were open on both cars, but she saw no one in the area. There was also no emergency vehicles or personnel on the scene. She had started to stop but something inside her urged her to keep driving. Don’t stop. She was a nurse and that went against everything she believed in but that inner voice that seemed to be screaming at her in a panicked voice kept her moving.
Living as far out as she did you didn’t expect to see a lot of other people, but you did expect to see some. There was no one. Part of her drive was on an interstate highway and even there she saw maybe one car and then nothing. Even on Halloween there should have been eighteen-wheelers making their runs but again, no sign of any in sight. It dawned on her that when she had driven through the couple of neighborhoods that she had to navigate through after leaving work she hadn’t seen one trick-or-treater out either. The unease she had felt earlier managed to take a tighter grip on her now.
Karen began to notice that there were no lights on in any of the houses she passed, no lit-up Halloween decorations, no movement anywhere. That might not have been quite true. A couple of times she thought she saw someone slip back into the shadows when the lights of her car passed by them, but it had happened so fast she couldn’t be sure. She felt like she was suddenly in some bad end-of-days movie where all the people had disappeared except her. She turned on her radio hoping the background noise of some music would help calm her now very rattled nerves.
Static.
What the Hell was going on here? Pressing the little buttons on her steering wheel she tried to find a station she could pick up. Nothing. It was all the same. Everything was dead silent. All she wanted now was to get home and into the clam quiet safety of her own home. She was sure that tomorrow morning this would all seem like a bad dream.
She breathed a sigh of relief as she finally pulled into her drive but that was short lived. Why wasn’t her front porch light on? She distinctly remembered leaving it on this morning before she had left the house. She did, didn’t she? Of course she did. She never left her house in the morning with the front porch light off on work days, at least after the days got shorter and they went back to Standard Daylight Time. She was never quite sure when she might get home and she didn’t like coming home to a dark house. Surely, she didn’t forget this morning?
Turning off her car and before opening her door she tried to get a look into the shadows surrounding her house. Convincing herself she was being silly she opened her car door and got out. Once more she tried to get a better look into the shadowy places caused by the bushes and trees around her yard before she made her way to her front porch. She did this in a mad dash which didn’t help the pounding in her chest.
Unlocking the front door, she stepped inside to find nothing but darkness. One thing she did know she always left a light on in the hall and in the kitchen when she left for work. She lived alone now and rarely were those two lights turned off. She reached over to turn on the lamp close to the door but when she tried to turn it on, nothing happened. When she tried the light switch by the door hoping to get a better reaction it only resulted in the same thing, dashing those hopes and her spirit. Nothing. Was it possible there had been some major power outage in the area while she was at work and she hadn’t heard about it?
Karen stood in the hallway looking down the hall wondering if she should continue toward the kitchen. Instead she stood frozen in place trying to decide if she should turn around and go back to her car and call for assistance. Shaking herself she tried to pull herself from the nightmarish thoughts running through her head.
She sat her things down on the table next to the door and pulled her phone from her purse. Pushing the one button that should connect her to her daughter who lived over two hundred miles away she placed the phone next to her ear. All she got for her efforts was a strange beeping sound that served to set her even more on edge. Between the fact that the first thing she did was call her daughter who lived to far away to be of any help and the crazy things going through her head, the silliness of the situation wasn’t lost on Karen. What was silly, was the one thing she hadn’t done with all those thoughts going through her head.
Karen hadn’t realized she had left the front door open until she heard the low bloodcurdling snarl behind her. She turned around and in one quick moment she knew that calling her daughter wasn’t necessary. Her daughter was standing in front of her. At least now, she knew she wasn’t alone. It was the last thing she knew.
About the Author
Cathy lives in Tennessee with her wonderful husband and together they have three beautiful daughters who all live close to them. They are a tight knit family, but things can get a little hectic during the holidays and on special occasions with the girls and their families.
Cathy and Buddy have a 1963 4106 Greyhound bus that has been converted and they love to travel in it. A lot of what Cathy is inspired by are the people she meets on the road and the places they go.
More than anything outside of her family Cathy loves to write. She came to it a little later than most but like in real life she loves to take adventures in her own mind and her books are the result of that.
Other books by Cathy Pace Matthews
Blood Lines The Curse
Blood Li
nes Buried Treasure
Blood Lines Family Ties
Journey into Nightmares
Nightmare Express
Laugh, Cry, Die
Cold Encounters
The Short and Scary Series
The Long Drive Home
There Will Be More
The World of Pretty Colors
The Darkest Shadow
Locked Away
Contract Killer
Excerpt from
Blood Lines
The Curse
Prologue
Cathryn looked at the time on the screen of her laptop when her phone rang. It was ten thirty at night and she had been about to shut down her computer and try to get some sleep. When she reached for her phone and saw who it was, she became excited.
“Hello.”
“Cathryn it’s me, Gary.” The man on the other end sounded hesitant.
“What is it Gary?”
“I think I found what you’re looking for but the person who may have your answers doesn’t want to talk to me. You may have to come up here. I think she would be a lot more likely to talk to you than me.”
“Gary do you really think this woman may hold the answers?” Cathryn didn’t want to get her hopes up. This was too important, and she had been led down the wrong road before.
“Cathryn from everything I have been able to find out about this woman; yes, I think she might have the answers. She ninety-two years old and lives in the same house that her parents lived in all their lives. It is also the same house her grandparents lived in. People I’ve talked to say she and her family have been here for about as long as the town has been here. Cathryn, I think she may be the one you’ve been looking for.” Gary didn’t want his client going out on a wild goose chase any more than she wanted to go on one.
“Gary, I know when I first came to see you that you thought I was some kind of nutcase but over time you’ve done enough digging to know that there is something to my story. If this woman knows anything about the past, I need to get that information.”
“Cathryn, I don’t think she just knows, I think she may actually be a part of it. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Gary held his breath hoping she would catch on. He was sitting in the middle of an all-night diner and he didn’t want to have to spell it out for her where he was, surprisingly enough the place was pretty full at the moment.
“Are you telling me this woman may honestly be one…?” Cathryn was cut short by the man.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. She just won’t talk to me. I guess I asked the wrong question of the wrong person and it got back to her.” Gary should have been more careful, but he really hadn’t expected this to get this far. He certainly hadn’t expected to come across anyone who might be connected to what Cathryn was looking for.
“You’re about three hours away from me. I’m going to pack an overnight bag and head in your direction as soon as I can get up and get dressed. Can you get me a room where you’re staying for a couple of days?” Cathryn had already thrown the covers off and was heading to the bathroom to grab what she would need from out of there.
“Sure, the room next to mine is vacant so that shouldn’t be a problem.” Gary hated that she had to start out this time of night but the sooner she could talk to this lady the better.
“OK, I’ll see you in a few hours.” Cathryn hung up the phone and finished dressing.
After she finished packing a bag, she stopped a minute and wondered if she should call her daughter and then decided against it. She would call her tomorrow and tell her she got called out of town on business. If she called her now, she would only be met with a hundred questions and Cathryn wasn’t in the mood to try and dodge them right now.
Cathryn got the remainder of the things she needed and stepped out into her garage. Shutting and locking the door behind her she carried the overnight bag and her backpack that held her laptop and notebook with all her notes in it to the car and put them in the trunk. She hoped that what was in that notebook would help convince the woman that Gary had found to talk to her.
Cathryn prayed for what to her was a miracle. To know that her only child would be safe from whatever it was that hung over her head was all she asked. Cathryn had been chasing ghost now for nearly twenty years trying to find a way to save her daughter’s life. Emma didn’t know about the dark history that haunted her father’s family for generations. Maybe Emma would never have to know any of it if she could confirm what she had begun to suspect. What Cathryn prayed for was that she could find the answers and stop her daughter from being claimed by the Rodger’s family curse. Right now, the only thing she could do was hope.
Cathryn made her way out of Memphis and on to the two-lane highway that was the most direct route. She could have taken the expressway but that would have taken her further out of the way and would have only ending up costing her more time.
She settled back in the driver’s seat making herself comfortable in anticipation of the long drive ahead. Cathryn really liked being out on country roads at night. You generally had them to yourself and if you didn’t get to lead footed the locals would usually tolerate you going five and maybe even ten miles over the speed limit. Tonight however, she was sticking to the speed limit. She wasn’t going to take any chance of getting stopped by some local police officer and ending up losing a lot of time.
Throughout her drive Cathryn made great time and was only a little over an hour from her destination. She thought about what this might mean for Emma. It might not be any guarantee of growing to a nice old age, but it definitely improved her chances. To know that her daughter might actually be able to have a long and full life when no Rogers had managed that since the mid eighteen eighties made Cathryn smile.
Cathryn had driven about a hundred and twenty miles out from the city when she topped a hill. She never had time to take evasive action because the car coming at her was going way too fast. It had crossed over the center lines and was headed right for her. Cathryn tried to find a way around, but he was on her before she could even turn her steering wheel. The other car hit her head on. Not even her seat belt and air bag was enough to help her when the other car had been traveling at over ninety miles an hour. Between its speed and her fifty-five miles an hour the front end of her car flew into pieces ramming the engine into the fire wall of the car and the steering wheel into her chest when the airbag ripped.
Just before the two cars collided Cathryn screamed. The last thing she thought of before she passed into oblivion was of her daughter Emma.
***
When Cathryn hadn’t shown up by morning Gary tried to call her. When he got no answer after the third try he began to worry. It was at that moment a story that had popped up on the morning news playing in the background on the TV got his attention. A woman had been killed in a serious auto accident sometime well before dawn. The accident had happened about sixty miles from where Gary was. They weren’t releasing the woman’s name yet because her family hadn’t been notified but they did tell the reporters that the woman was from Memphis. Gary knew that the woman was Cathryn.
He would of course have to confirm that but deep down he knew. What he didn’t know was what to do now. The one thing that Cathryn had always been adamant about was making sure that Emma never knew what she had been doing.
Gary put his phone away and sat there on the side of the bed in the motel room. Tears started rolling down his cheeks and him hoping he was wrong and that that lovely woman would soon knock on his door. Cathryn had been his client for almost as long as she had been searching herself and they had become friends and would even on occasion share a meal and even been the others plus one once or twice. He thought about going to the old woman again and see if she would talk to him, but he knew she wouldn’t.
Maybe in a couple of months when things had settled down, he would get in touch with the Cathryn’s daughter and talk to her then. Hopefully the old woman wouldn’t up and die on him before that. He would go a
gainst the agreement he made with Cathryn but not now, now wasn’t the time. If he had known at that moment what would happen in the very near future, he would have gone immediately to Emma and told her. Unfortunately, by the time he did get around to it, it would be too late. Emma would have found the answers for herself, the hard way.
Connect to Cathy
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/ch…/UCGpW8kzDQSpPIEG9xaxUXVw/videos…
Website:
https://www.cathypacematthews.com
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/cathypacematthews/...
Cathy Pace Matthews, The Long Drive Home
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