Aiden has never been out in what he calls the country before. Visiting my family in Western North Carolina is a whole new world for him, and we’ve ducked into downtown Asheville more than once just to make him a little more comfortable, but today, I’m taking him into my world. I lived in the woods when I was in high school. We partied out here, studied out here, and many of us had our first sexual experiences out here, especially those of us who weren’t looked upon kindly for our dating choices.
“Alright, Mitch, where exactly are we going again?”
I know this trip has been alot for him, meeting and staying with my parents is big on its own, and then we add on the culture shock, “I just thought you and I could spend a day to ourselves?”
“And we had to do that in the wilderness? We couldn’t do a little lunch and nice shopping?”
I can’t help but laugh. He’s nothing if not predictable, “Trust me, honey. It’ll be worth it. The photos alone will have you thanking me by the end of the day.”
“Alright, fine,” he smiles at me and puts on his shades, ‘I’ll do it for the gram.”
So far, we’ve been in tree cover, but we’re driving up to the top of the range. The views are insane, and I know it’ll be a totally unique experience for him, but as we drive uphill, I see the first tunnel and realize that’s something I forgot. I feel him tense up next to me; he’s mostly got his claustrophobia under control, but it’s best when he can prepare, and I completely forgot about the tunnels.
I take his hand, “I’m so sorry, babe. I forgot about these. There are a few, but none of them are too long; it’s not like taking a subway ride. You got this?”
“I’ll make it work.”
I flick on my lights as we drive in. There’s two cars coming the other way, and we can already see the exit, “Just focus on the light.”
And then we’re out, and he takes in a deep breath, releasing the tension his body created.
He tries to find something on the radio, but the signal is fuzzy up here, and he hates static. So he tries to pull up streaming on his phone, “Do I even have service up here?”
“It’s probably spotty.”
“What if we get hurt or the car breaks down?”
“I said it’s spotty, not absent, and do you see all these people?” There’s tourists and locals driving past and most of the overlooks are full, “Someone has service.” He doesn’t argue, but he certainly doesn’t like it. It doesn’t matter though because his attention is diverted to the next tunnel in front of us.
I reach over and slide my hand into his. He isn’t exactly holding it at first. I can tell he’s concentrating on his breathing, but his grip increases as we get further into the tunnel. There’s a car a ways ahead of us, a few a bit behind us, and a couple that pass by, and I’m thankful. Like elevators, these things are always a little easier for him when there are other people inside. This tunnel is longer, so i comfort him as best I can, “I promise these views are worth it.”
“They better be, and if there’s another way down, can we please take it?”
I’m thinking about the exits we could take. It would add time onto our trip, but we would listen to music and stop for coffee, certainly nothing to complain about. His grip tightens when light pops up at the end of the concrete encircled curve. I can feel him holding his breath, and I can hear it release when we break into the light. It’s several breaths in and out this time, and I can tell that he’s having trouble shaking it off..
He pulls his hand away from mine as we enter the third tunnel. Our day has taken a definite turn towards difficulty, and I decide to find somewhere to stop before we reach the next tunnel. The views won’t be as good, but his mood won’t be as sour either. There aren’t as many cars in this one, and it seems darker, longer. I’m trying to find the balance between driving a safe speed and getting us out of here as quickly as possible.
My knuckles are going white on the steering wheel when a truck horn blares and we both jump. The tunnel is curved, and we see the truck coming towards us a moment later, teens shouting as they drive through the darkness. I used to do this in high school, but I didn’t have an anxiety-rich boyfriend with me at the time. I know laughing would help me shake it off, but I don’t want Aiden to think I’m being disrespectful, so I don’t. I don’t know what to say, so I just drive, waiting for the end of the tunnel, which definitely seems to be further away than I remember.
We drive in silence for another ten minutes. This can’t be right, and I can feel Aiden tighten with each tick of the clock. He’s checked his phone at least five times now, but there’s no way he’ll have service in here. I wish I could turn the damn thing off so he wouldn’t keep checking it. Am I sure I went the right way? “This is the last one, I promise.”
“Is it supposed to be this long,” his voice is small, terrified, and when he speaks the tears start, I can only imagine how long he’s been holding them back.
“Aw, love,” my poor sweetheart, “It’s a tunnel; they end.” I don’t want to dismiss his fears, but I need to reassure myself right now. One of us has to remain level headed.
“Stop the car.” He sounds hurt, irrational.
“What? Are you okay? I can’t just stop in a tunnel; it’s not safe.”
He’s crying now, and his voice jumps between breaths, “Why is there no one else here?”
“We just passed those kids,” I try to keep my voice soothing. How am I supposed to comfort him right now?
“That was more than ten minutes ago,” I want to help him, but he has the same information I do, and it’s strange at best, “Stop The Car!” He lunges to grab the steering wheel. I grip tightly and push my elbow into his chest.
“Aiden stop,” I manage to keep us from hitting the walls, but we veer into the other lane, and I’m thankful for the lack of traffic. I push him back into his seat, where he crumples in on himself, sobbing into his hands. I decide to take the risk, and when I’ve brought the car back into our lane, I bring it to a stop. I click on the hazard lights and turn to him.
I want to scream. I want to ask him what the hell he’s thinking, but it’s not about thinking, it’s about feeling, and he’s feeling too much fear right now for anything I say to make an impact. I feel horrible for bringing him here, so I unclip my seat belt and lean as far over to his side of the car as I can, hugging him to me and hoping it helps.
I rub his hair the way I do when he wakes from nightmares, and after a few minutes, his breathing slows; hiccups keeping it from returning entirely to normal. I begin to worry about cars coming up behind us and look behind us through the glass. Surely I’ll see lights before anyone gets too close.
I can’t hear what he says when he whispers into my chest, so I pull back and look into his face, “What?”
He’s quiet but serious, “We have to turn around.” His eyes are wider than I’ve ever seen them. I’ve seen him in therapy, around homophobes; I saw him the day his old roommate pulled a knife, and I have never seen this level of fear. There’s no way I’m telling him no.
“Okay.” He leans back into his seat and leans his forehead against the glass of the window. His breath continues to hitch as I work us through a six point turn, praying now that no cars approach from either side.
It’s been an hour. Aiden fell asleep shortly after we turned. Fear exhausts him, and I’m sure that felt like a moment of reprieve. We’d only been driving in the tunnel for twenty minutes when we turned around. What do I tell him when he wakes up? How is this possible?
I try to think through explanations, but I can’t find anything that will work, and when I hear Aiden start to wake up. He doesn’t say anything, but I’m sure he sees the clock because he starts to cry again. It’s subdued this time, quiet, his head hanging over his chest. I reach out to take his hand, but I have no idea what to say.
And then there’s light, a soft glow ahead of us. It’s incredibly faint, bouncing off the walls at first, and I don’t point it out for fear that I’m imagining it, but when Aiden looks up, his crying stops. We don’t say anything, but we smile, and he closes his eyes. He’s not a very religious person, but I’m sure he’s praying, and if I didn’t need to see to drive, I might be too.
The lights are coming from a car, but as we approach, there’s a distinct lack of movement. The car is parked, and the doors are open. By the time we stop next to it, we can hear the ding of open door alarm.
I’m not sure how long we sit there, looking at the other car, listening to the sound asking us to close the doors. It’s Aiden who reaches out first. He places his hand on mine, still on the steering wheel, “Should we check it out?”
He doesn’t sound like him. He doesn’t sound curious or excited or even upset. I don’t know what he sounds like, but I nod, and turn off our car. Dear God, I hope it starts back up again.
There’s a sweater in the front passengers seat and a purse in the back. I don’t know if going through it will help anything, but I do, and it’s just the essentials: some tissues, a pen, a collection of makeup and mints and gum. I pull out a dead phone and in a pocket on the back is a license. A brunette woman named Rebecca owned these things, owns these things.
I tuck the purse back in the car and look over the top to Aiden, “Should we keep going?”
“I’m hungry.” He says it matter of factly, whatever piece of him that was hoping this car would be helpful, crushed into submission.
I walk over to our car. I have a back pack of snacks and water in the back seat. He sits on the hood of the other car. I put hummus and crackers and sliced apples on a cloth napkin next to him. The doors are closed, but we’ve left the interior light on. It almost looks like candle light. If I took a photo, and he were smiling, it would look romantic, but he isn’t, and I won’t.
I save the protein bars, and I don’t drink as much water as I want to. I can’t bring the thoughts of how long we might be here into the forefront of my brain, but they’re definitely affecting my actions.
Aiden doesn’t say anything as he puts the food back into the bag and walks back to our car. I follow him, climb in, breathe a sigh of relief when she cranks, and drive forward.
I try to keep my acceleration down because there are curves that creep up on you in this tunnel. I try to chug along a steady safe pace because the last thing we need is to do is crash, but all I want to do is get out of here before we have to sleep. I try to find zen in the driving. I hum to keep myself awake. I would gladly take the static radio at this point or some conversation, but Aiden hasn’t spoken since we found Rebecca’s car, and I don’t know what to say to him. It’s my fault we’re here.
I drive until my eyelids won’t stay open, and I’ve jerked awake enough to jostle the wheel three times before I finally stop, “I have to sleep.” Aiden reaches into the back seat. He pulls the picnic blanket out of the back pack and hands it to me. I tell him I love him, and he tries to smile.
Drip
Drip
The air smells musty,
Drip
like camping,
Drip
and I smile,
Drip
But then I remember.
I sit up fully with a start. Aiden is gone. I’m sure he just had to use the bathroom, and didn’t want to wake me, so I wait. I fold up the blanket and take a drink of water. Our interior light is on, but it doesn’t penetrate very far into the darkness.
Then I see Aiden’s phone on his seat. What is he using for light? I slide the phone into my pocket as I step out of the car, closing the door behind me, “Aiden?” I sound like a child. I can hear the shaking in my own voice, and I speak again to cover it up, “Aiden, where are you?”
I hear the drip of the water down the wall next to the car, and if I listen carefully, I can hear wind finding its way into the tunnel somewhere, but I don’t hear footsteps or a voice or breathing.
Even my own breath goes still as I listen more closely to my surroundings than I have ever tried to before. I close my eyes and listen down my heartbeat.
There’s nothing. I sit by the car and wait.
I tell myself to move forward. If I get out, then I can bring help back.
I tell myself to wait because there’s no way Aiden would’ve wandered too far away.
I tell myself there’s no way Aiden would’ve wandered off on his own at all.
I tell myself not to cry, but I do. I cry until I’m exhausted enough to sleep again, and I lean my head onto the wheel behind me, waiting for him to come back.
But he isn’t there when I wake up, a crick in my neck from the angle of my sleep, if I can call it that. I stand up and I walk forward in the tunnel, hoping to catch a glimpse of something related to Aiden, but as I follow the curve, the light from the car gets further away, and I can’t bring myself to leave it.
I walk back and go the opposite direction. There’s nothing, and before the light of the car is out of view, I return. My hand is shaking as I reach into my pocket, acting instead of thinking. I open the door. I start the car, and I drive.
I drive until the engine starts to sputter. I’ve never let my car get so low, let any car I’ve driven run on fumes, but I will keep my foot on the pedal until even pressing it to the floor doesn’t give me an inch.
The engine makes noises as it runs dry, and I can’t help but think of it as dying. It’s being asked to work while it’s starving, and I’m the one asking it. There’s a death rattle before it finally stops, and the last few feet are just momentum. We roll to stop after we’ve stopped driving, the car and I.
I take the bag from the back seat and put both straps on my shoulders. I never wear both straps, but I don’t know how long I’ll be walking. I leave Aiden’s phone in the car, in case he makes it here, in case he needs it.
I turn the flashlight app on on mine. There’s no more headlights to show me the way. The light only gives me a few feet, just enough so I won’t trip, if there were anything to trip on, but the tunnel is maintained. It looks like every part of the parkway I’ve ever driven, smooth and regularly trafficked.
I put the phone in my pocket when the battery hits four percent. It’ll probably die in there, but at least I wont feel like I wasted it for a light that isn’t showing me anything. I run my hand along the wall. Some areas are smooth concrete. Some areas are rough rock, but the ground stays solid under my feet, and I follow it until I can no longer stand.
I lay myself on the ground in darkness, fumbling blindly for my supplies. I manage to drink the rest of one of the water bottles, eat half of a protein bar, and wrap myself in the blanket, the last thing Aiden handed me. I picture him tucking me in as I fall into sleep.
It’s silent when I wake up, and there is no confusion about where I am, no lovely moment of reprieve or abstraction. I sit up and find the phone in my pocket. Dead. I find the last water bottle and drink the smallest amount possible, even though my throat is begging for more. I pack up and eat the second half of my second to last protein bar with my right hand while I follow the wall with my left.
I occasionally switch sides. If the walls are rough for a while and my fingers become sensitive, I will walk to the other side of the tunnel to switch hands. I would run if I had the energy because when I’m in the middle, when the only thing that exists around me is the floor, all I can picture is an endless expanse of darkness. I hold my breath until the hand in front me hits something solid, something I can follow. My hands hit harder than I mean to as fear quickens my steps. The scraped knuckles hurt worse than the ever used fingers, but at least they get breaks.
I’m contemplating sleeping again as I cross the expanse, and I see the wall before I touch it. I’m imagining things. I press my palm to the surface, and I can see that it’s rocky before I can feel it. I can see the shape of my hand, five fingers pointing up, against the stone behind it. I sway and catch myself before looking to my right.
It’s like the idea of light. There’s not a source exactly, but there’s something that is helping me see, and I walk towards it.
The walls aren’t as dark as they seem, the color of cement rather than asphalt. I calm my steps. I’ll fall if I run, and I need to keep my eyes up. I need to keep my gaze forward until I see the light. I’m turning a corner when I see white. It’s not just light; it’s the opposite of the blackness I’ve been walking through.
The white is growing, and I can’t stop myself; I run. I drop the backpack and dig into the last reserves of energy I didn’t know I had. I run towards the light, and my eyes burn as white overtakes my view until I think we will become one, and then in a moment, the picture changes.
There are trees and sunshine. There is wind on my face, and I can hear birds. I drop to the ground and I feel my body overtaken by something like joy, a relief I have never been afraid enough to feel. I’m shaking and crying when a new noise hits my ears, a car.
I look up and see a hatchback driving towards me, towards the tunnel. I stand and run towards it. I can see the faces inside, concerned at first, but frightened as they draw closer.
I can only imagine what I look like, sleep and light deprived, running frantic around the middle of a road, but I have to stop them.
I see them roll up the windows and lock the doors, and I understand why they’re afraid, but they don’t know.
I throw myself at the car as they drive by, rolling off the hood and landing on the ground. They slow, but they don’t stop, and I hope they have enough signal to make a call right now, to let someone know I’m here before they are lost.
I raise my head to watch them drive into the darkness, and they do. They turn on their headlights and drive into the tunnel, but I can still see them. I see them drive past my car, doors open and around the slight curve, and out the other side of the tunnel, light and airy like this one.
Veronica Carol is a weekend writer who enjoys seeing the creepy side of our beautiful mountains. Having lived in Asheville since 2006, the view of the mountain on the horizon gives them a sense of home and sets their imagination spinning.
