Dead Road

Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. Today's story is about a man who tries to hold on to what's gone, and that includes a decommissioned road. My name is Edwin, and here's a scary story. I lowered down the volume of the radio static as I made the first turn into the valley. The roads were dark, and somehow the quieter sounds but not quite the silence, helped me navigate. The place had been decommissioned for several years. A dead road, we used to call it back in my day, where the scars on the pavement turned to cracks and then gashes before they start to show the dirt underneath once again, no one around to fix them, no important place to go between them anymore. The place is a connected barely survived, hard to tell which one caused the other. I used to turn off my head lights while I was there, but I stopped doing that once I almost drove off the side of a cliff. It was a moonless night then, and the road blended in with the dark pit just feet away from the tires of my old truck. Luckily I was paying attention and managed to stop. But I know my mind was and has been somewhere else. It was the reason why I took those roads. I didn't have to follow someone else's pace or be somewhere by a certain time. Plus no one was expecting me. Do you ever wonder how long it would take for people to notice you were missing? I measure my time in years. It wasn't always this way though. This road wasn't like this either. If you got here on a weekend when people went down to camp by Baseline Road or to climb and stay by the lake, this place would be packed. I mean, it was not enough to get the county to continue the road all the way there. It ended somewhere by Pine Point, where I would turn right and it would take me straight home. But people like that. They enjoy the bumpy roads and they feel like they're out there doing their own thing, depending on wooden signs that are made to look old in order to guide them. Today people will take the main highway. Technically I'm not allowed to take this road. No one is, but the sheriff. Let's it go. I always put the barriers and cones back where they belong. It connected me with home, my wife, are two children, and the amazing place we were building now it connects me to just another empty wooden structure. I never quite let go of it, you see, I've always had a tough time doing that. I sometimes imagine Annie and Jamie in the back of the truck, laughing with their paper airplanes, Tracy watching them, making sure they didn't get too close to the edge of the bed of the truck, and keeping an eye out for the cookies from the grocery store hall from that day, I hear her looking at the receipts, saying, how we say so much on this thing or the other for proud moments. My proud moments too. But I'm not the only one. I know many others that become attached to people or places that keeps them returning in hopes to see something different while chasing the same thing. And all they hope to get in return is another day, another chance to try out their luck again. It would be the same thing that night, I could tell. Just around the second turn, I saw his familiar shape. He didn't notice me and never did, and so I pulled up right next to him. Must have been his age. Hey, Ojoe, where are you going? The road only takes you to one place, I joked. He knew my line. Ooh, I got a head up to the lake. Joe, how fast can this thing go? He started how he usually did, always the same story, but it was good we actually met there. Seeing another person roaming around the dead road on foot was strange enough, but the county was full of these types of people, independent, not afraid to walk in the dark for long stretches at a time. He'd get off by the egg, a large oval stone by the end of the patch of trees near the long stretch of road, and continue on his own from there. He was a salesman, barely making ends meet and always selling one thing or another. When he met another guy rich, he would call him rich in name and in bank, he would say. His eyes never quite lit up, but his voice did when he started talking about the deal. They wanted to build a hotel out there, one of them investing in it and the other one him in charge of the commissions to get the customers and make the connections. He would go into detail, the percentages and costs, the struggles, and if I drove slow enough, he'd actually start telling me how everything went, but would never finish. He always got to the park where they were having an important meeting with another group from a county out of state. Changes were about to be made, regulations, tourism board, and changes that will let them turn the lake and the area into an attraction. The plays used to freeze up sometimes in the winter, and they had a plan for skiing, then water sports in the summer, mountain biking, and luxury resorts. And I don't know why he always ignored my questions about this, but I was curious as to what he would do in all of this. I never wanted to offend the man, but he didn't look like the type to have important connections. But hey, looks can be deceiving and it goes both ways. He had his arm out the window and tapped on the door with the palm of his hand when we got to the egg, although it wasn't necessary. They were picking him up there in a bit. He would say things and climb out, his white shirt reflecting this time around against the moonlight, until I lost him with the next turn among the trees. I always thought there was something wrong with him, and the very first time I picked him up, I offered to wait with him for his ride, but he refused. Part of me actually thought that he had something to do with the shutting down of the road I drove on, or that he was using it for something illegal, along with this rich guy and the others involved. Since that first night, I never asked too many questions, and whenever I took the road, I would see him. He would get in the truck with the same story get off at the same place. I got to the house where I slept and shut off the truck and wondered for how much longer I would be doing this driving the dead road. The house was as sad as you can imagine it. I used to take care of what I could, but there were rooms that, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't cross the threshold of photographs and boxes of memories were in there. I needed to go inside sometimes to find receipts for the hospital and other stuff the lawyers wanted. I think it was that visit, the very first one, that ruined it all for me. I shouldn't have gone in there. One time I was leaving the town to go back home a little later than normal. One of the guys from the hardware store needed help with carrying a couple of things. Who had been friends for such a long time, it was weird to have him ask for a favor. Back just two years ago, he probably would have just taken the keys out of my hands and told me that he was borrowing the truck for the night, asking me where I wanted him to drop me off. But he didn't know what to say. Nobody knew what to say to me when I lost my family. He got to talking for a bit. A coffee from the donut shop was enough to get us yapping over old times. He asked how I was doing, and I forgot how to answer that. He stayed quiet, and he nodded, jesting, as usual, let's go fishing sometime. I'd always noted back and he would get what I meant. Being the only one left is a strange feeling, And it wasn't about the loneliness, but about the waiting, the patience I needed to get through the days watching over a house with very few neighbors. The smart ones knew when to get out, and the others, like me, stayed behind. Plus I guess we were all trying to figure out where to go from there. If the lake project worked, we could be sitting in million dollar properties. But it felt like they were waiting for us to die out. I don't think any of the remaining property owners had anyone to inherit their land, myself included. It was almost midnight when I was on that road, the usual static of the radio in the background, the same turns, and the dark tad rode ahead. The moon was gone, reminding me of the day I almost fell off that cliff. But my headlights were on now my mind was paying attention to the cracks and potholes up ahead. That must have been too late to catch Bill on the side of the road this time, but I turned my head and stopped for a bit, just to make sure I knew he was there somewhere. I just didn't want to miss him, and so I kept driving. But it wasn't long until I saw another figure ahead of the truck, a woman standing looking out over the darkness by the edge of what remained of the pavement. I knew who she was. I'd seen her before, could never figure out what she wanted. It would play out the same way. I would get closer to her silhouette, and with any sudden shadow or odd reflection of my headlights, she would vanish. I was used to it by that point, although I won't say that it ever stopped creeping me out. I called her Joanna. I don't know, it just seemed to fit. As I would drive another five minutes or so, she would be at one of the only remaining mile markers, number forty two, no longer with reflective paint, and again, as I would get closer, she would disappear unreachable. It was that about her that kept me wondering, who was she, what was she doing, and why was she here. Images of Tracy, my wife, came to my mind again. The safety in her smile when I would get home, and the ring and her voice whenever she would call our kids' names. They could hear her calling my name. Sometimes, you know, in the early morning, it would wake me up, and although I knew the truth, my body would get out of bed and my feet would hit the floor before I realized that she was gone. Just then, the static from the radio got a little bit louder on its own. The call from the sheriff was playing. Whether in my head or on the radio, I didn't know. Get to the police station. Your wife has been in an accident. Why the police station, Why not the hospital? Played on repeat, why the police station, Why the police station. The silence on the other end answered everything for me. Part two of Dead Road is coming up right after this. Stay with me. I remember everything about that day, that phone call. We'll go get you right now. Don't move, even if I wanted to. I knew I wouldn't be able to move. Two seconds or two hours passed before I saw the police car pulling up to my driveway. The pressure felt like two hands pressing against both sides of my head, legs moving on their own. As I walked up to the cold room area just outside of the police station, stretchers were being wiped fleen, filling the air with alcohol and disinfectant. Those memories were clear. I made another turn on the road and saw the woman again, my head lights directly on her as she turned her head toward me, the black hair and pale skin, mouth wide open. My truck kept going straight toward her, too close to the edge of the road, but just as expected, she vanished right in front of me. Just then I thought I saw Bill, the man I would pick up somewhere near the base of the road. This time he was by the large rock the egg It was crouching down by the rock and then vanished. The tail lights barely did anything to help see behind me on that dark road, but I knew there were more like the little old woman from the town next to ours, the delivery man, and the Hulbert winds. The headlights kept shining down those roads until I got to the clearing the long stretch of road. Just before it ended. I turned up the radio static in the truck to see if I could hear more conversations, hints as to where they go and what they look for. We salvage their cars and bury their bodies. Sometimes we honor them with crosses on the side of the road, and yet they still remained. But I couldn't help to feel that anger to never see my family again, forcing me to drive down that dead road as often as I could, wondering where they could be. Another goes with the story, like Bill and his failed deal at the top of the mountain by the lake. If only he would answer one question, just one, Where are you going? I got past a long stretch of road and onto the dirt one toward the house where I lived and stayed in the truck. The sun was rising when I stepped out and got to see the front. An envelope was taped just above the doorknob. I ripped it off and stepped into the living room couch. Even with just a dim sunrise from the outside, I could see it land acquisition offer written on the front. Someone was buying out the land. The deal for the place closed not long after that. I managed to keep most of the things I was afraid of seeing again, still kept in boxes and still ignored every single day. Last thing I heard about the project where the house used to be was that they constructed another road nearby to get to it. It worked, and it now has tourists coming up from all over the state to spend weekends there. As for the Dead Road, it still remains closed. Some say they were trying to rebuild it for the project, but it proved to be too dangerous, too many deaths, they said. They were talking about the county records. And although it's partially blocked by bushes and trees near the base of the hills, I still know how to get through to the Dead Road whenever I want to search again. Bill, Joanna and the rest of them are still there, trying to get somewhere, just like me. Scary story podcast is written and produced by me edwin Kovarugyez. To find me, head on over to scarystorypodcast dot com or search for my username on TikTok and Instagram. It's at edwin Cove. That's E. Dwincov. This podcast has a YouTube channel. You can find it with links in the description of this episode. And to support the stories, you can try out scary plus over on scaryplus dot com. If you have questions about it or just want to get in touch, fel free to email me. I'll leave my contact information and the description of this episode. Thank you very much for listening. Keep it scary everyone, See you soon.