Dreamrail

The Shawnee National Forest covers southern Illinois like a blanket, only broken up by the scattering of towns that lie along the interstate highway system converging on the grandest merging of rivers to be found anywhere in the country. My frequent travels to and from St. Louis originating at my home city of Paducah, Kentucky take me through this forest. With every trip, my plan is always to cross this large patch of territory before nightfall. On the day of our second major snowfall of the year, the twenty-second day of February, I lost this race with daylight.

As Interstate Fifty-seven intersects with Twenty-four, the final stretch to Paducah begins. This land where the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers flow into the Mississippi provides a beautiful terrain with hills and valleys, the type of land where the roads are cut into rock ledges creating onyx cliffs rising high above the vehicles speeding to places beyond it’s boundary. Twenty-four starts at this intersection, and goes southwest toward the bridge that crosses the Ohio, a full mile expanse of metal and concrete, leaving Illinois and entering Kentucky at the gates of Paducah.

Common sense had always told me to use the light of day to guide my progress along this trail. It didn’t take the sixth sense with which I’m blessed or cursed to heighten my concern about the dangers that linger through these woods, but Tragadar sounded its alarm on this cold February night.

Tragadar, my combination of tragedy and radar that foreshadows woeful events, revealing only to me a hint of the inevitable peril ahead had my full attention as I moved down this road, then just twenty miles from home.

As I’ve learned through the years that nobody wants to hear of these warning, no one pays heed, I see and I feel, but I keep to myself. Holding tight to the wheel I realized for the first time that I too am guilty of the same neglect. Increasing my speed to arrive home sooner, rather than stopping to get there at all, I all but denied the existence of the problem obviously boding ahead. I had traveled too far and was too close to turn back. Besides, the night along this stretch is too dark to simply pull to the curb and let the time carrying the bad deed slide into the past without me.

The speedometer told that my Audi was traveling at ninety miles per hour, occasionally passing another vehicle controlled by a driver unaware of my concern. My solid German made car propelled me along, providing a sense of safety. I looked into my rearview mirror and saw several sets of headlights in the distance causing a silhouette of the three headrests that rise above the back seats behind me. A brief shadow caught my eye before I looked back to the road ahead, carefully watching for deer on the edge of the highway.

The shadow lingered in my mind, causing the sensation of an impossible hand tugging at my right shoulder, pulling me, compelling me to turn around or simply look into the mirror again. Nineteen miles from the river, looking straight ahead, still speeding through the night, fighting with all my might the fingers of temptation that beckon me to yield to the warning, to give in to my new-found fright.

I looked to the mirror.

There was a shape concealing the center headrest. Shoulders, narrowly built, the neck and the head of a man with his face hidden by darkness presented an undeniable conclusion that I was not alone in my car. I looked back to the highway, refusing to lessen my grip on the wheel or my pressure on the accelerator; I chose to move forward in silence. I wished the radio had been on, blaring the music that would consume some of the essence that had filled my space with a thickness of clammy bitter fog. I considered reaching out to turn it on, but at only eighteen miles to go I decided to continue my silent form of denial, wanting just to get home.

There was no sound, no fanfare announcing this surreal event. There never is with Tragadar, but I know that there is a meaning I need to comprehend, a message being sent. We rode in silence for several more miles and the pressure ringing in my ears started to ease. I knew that my comfort could be shattered at any moment, my control over my mind and nerves, in the hands of this uninvited rider in my back seat.

I occasionally glanced in the mirror, more out of need than desire, and saw the silhouetted shape facing straight ahead, unmoving and silent. The tension in my skull pounded with the horrid anticipation of seeing his eyes or hearing his voice. My mind wandered to the Inn where I stayed in St. Louis, somebody’s idea of a pleasant retreat with the country décor and antique furnishing. Next to the tub, where I bathed alone, stood on the floor, a cherub. Looking at eye level at this angel two mornings in a row caused me to dwell on the thoughts of a person secluded from others, where things impossible seem almost probable, and this same aching in my mind that I feel tonight expected her to move, if only a slight tilt of her head.

A tear ran down my cheek, obliterating my last shred of bravery. Only eight miles from the bridge, home almost within my grasp, I knew in my deepest recesses that my denial could not last.

“You’ll need to pull over,” he said.

I looked in the mirror without thinking and saw for the first time, the deep blue eyes of my mysterious invader. Looking back and forth, from the road to his face, I did not stop. I pressed the pedal further, till it reached the floor. He did not speak again, and I convinced myself he never really did.

Three miles from the border, passing every car in sight, I began to believe I would make it.

“Very soon now, you must pull over.”

That time he did reach forward to touch my right shoulder. “Slow us down, and pull to the side,” he said.

I couldn’t deny he was there. I looked in the mirror and he was leaning close. I could see his features, those deep-set dark eyes, jet-black hair, and the pronounced cheekbones surrounding the slender nose of a man who takes little worldly relish and concerns himself little with nutrition.

“Now, before the bridge, pull over.” His voice was deep and that time slightly stern.

“Who are you?” I asked, aware that I’m responding to a ghost. I’ve seen many things during my years. Tragadar has seen to that. However, I’ve never had direct communication with anyone outside the realm of reality, until that night.

“I’m with you. Now please pull over.”

“I’m almost home. Can’t I cross the bridge first?”

“No. I want you to pull over.”

“I’m really not in the habit of pulling to the brim of an interstate unless I have some major problem. I can’t believe I’m speaking to you, and I certainly won’t start taking driving advice from you.”

“You know I can make you.”

We can almost see the bridge. It is no more than a half-mile away. I sensed that he could make me pull over any time he wants, and chose not to display his skill. I slowed down and pulled to the side of the road.

“Now what?” I ask.

“We wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“It’s not about that.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The waiting is all that is important. We wait until I know you won’t be the fourth.”

He got out of the car before I could question him any further. He stood by a guardrail. I never saw the door open. He simply became outside the car. I thought about leaving, realizing that this may be my chance, but then it occurred that getting back in would not really be a problem for him. I opened my door, and got out of the car.

I could see him facing away, looking toward the lights of Metropolis, Illinois, the last town before crossing into Kentucky. I walked around the car and approached him.

“Who are you?” I asked again.

“I’m really no one,” he replied.

“You say that like it’s true. Not like something people say.”

He turned to face me, and had a wry smile on his face. “You know it is true. I am no one. I only exist for this.”

“This what?”

“Just a short time of waiting, a delay of sorts.”

“Then what?” I ask.

“Then? Well then I won’t exist. It’ll be over.”

“What will be over?”

“The waiting.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“Maybe you never will, but still it happened. It’s your own sense, but do you know where it comes from, why it happens to you?”

“Do you mean Tragadar?”

“Yeah, if that’s what you call it. You can’t explain it, can you? But still it happens. However, nobody ever listens. Maybe, you shouldn’t even try to tell them anymore. You should just affect their timing.”

“I try to warn people of the tragedies that are shown to me. Even those that I can’t see, but know they’re near, nobody will ever listen. It never changed a damn thing. You aren’t warning me of anything.”

“I am nobody. This is you, and I am gone. I’m sorry about the three. You’ll try, but like you said, they won’t listen.”

He vanished. I can’t say that I actually saw this occur. I must have looked away, and what I saw was simply that he was no more, just like he had said. He was gone.

I got back into my car, and drove toward the bridge. There could be no doubt that something was about to happen, but this time, like many, I didn’t have a clue how it would manifest. I reached the bridge, which on a cold night such as this is always a concern due to freezing cold air, snow, and the moisture from the river.

Taking it slow, I had no problem crossing. In the darkness, only fleeting reflections of lights from Paducah were visible. I arrived without problem, and proceeded to drive home. Once across the bridge, that took only about five minutes.

Lights were on in my house as I pulled into the driveway. I got out, opened the trunk and lifted my suitcase. As I went inside, my wife stood there to greet me with a hug.

“What a night for that drive,” she said. “Are you tired?”

“Yeah, it was a strange ride. I’m glad to be home. Do you have a television on?”

“No. Why?”

“I just wanted to see if anything has happened.”

“Oh, you’ve seen something?”

“Well no. I mean yes. I haven’t seen any event, but I know something is going to happen.”

“Go check the news. Are you hungry?” She went off to the kitchen.

“No,” I yelled her way, as I walked to the den.

“Oh,” she said coming back. “Bill just stopped by. They’re going over to the boat, and he wanted you to go. You just missed him.” She referred to the casino boat in Metropolis.

“He’s going by himself?”

“No, Tom and Ed were in the car.”

“Oh my god. How long ago?”

“What?”

“How long ago were they here?”

“You missed them by about one minute.”

“Bill’s got a cell phone. I’m going to call him.”

I found the number on the list tacked to the board in the kitchen, and called him.

“Hello,” he answered.

“Bill, where are you?”

“We just got on twenty-four. Where have you been?”

“Come on back, ok?”

“You want to go?”

“No, but come on back. I need you to turn around.”

“What? Are you home yet?”

“Yes. I’m calling from home. Where are you now?”

“Getting ready to cross. Why?”

“Stop! Turn around!”

“Alright, enough. We’ll be at your house in a few minutes.”

“Good, just get off the interstate.”

“Fine. As soon as we’re across, I’ll turn around and come back.”

“No!”

He had hung up. I tried calling back, but he never answered his phone after that. We went to the den, sat down and watched the television. It was about fifteen minutes before the news broadcast on the local Paducah station announced the late breaking report of an auto accident on the route twenty-four eastbound bridge. Ice was being blamed for an accident, involving a jack-knifed truck and a vehicle caught by the trailer and pushed over the side of the bridge, into the Ohio River.

I knew that three men were inside that car.

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The End