Follow the White Rabbit (Beautiful Madness #1)
Kellie Sheridan
Headlights illuminated the road ahead, flickering with each bump and crack in the pavement as I drove across the countryside. The road I’d turned onto in an attempt to find coffee had taken me farther away from civilization instead of back towards it, all in the name of a shortcut. That was what I got for trusting some third-party GPS app, but if it got me to Chicago faster it would be well worth the somewhat sketchy detour. There wasn’t a Starbucks in sight, but my phone insisted I was headed in the right direction, so I drove on into the night.
I should have stopped at the last motel I’d passed like I’d promised my parents. They had even given me cash to pay for a room, which was a small miracle, but the place looked so rundown that I couldn’t make myself go in. At the very least I would have left with a dozen bedbug bites, which would have made the last six hours of the trip an absolute nightmare. I shuddered just imagining the itchy red welts. My time would be better spent driving, and a little extra cash could always come in handy.
If I pressed through the night, I’d cross the state line by sunrise and be enjoying the Windy City by lunchtime. It was supposed to be the summer of opportunity—sleep wasn’t on my to-do list.
If I was ever going to make it in the music industry I needed to get some real experience and start making connections. Top priority. While my friends were all drinking away their last summer of high school, I’d be living with my Aunt Elenor and taking on an internship usually reserved for university students.
I flicked the radio on, turning the dial until I found something other than static. Where the hell was I that the only available stations were playing country music? And bad country music at that. I must have been even farther off track than I’d thought, but turning around would only add time to my trip. I was willing to trust that eventually I would hit a highway or at least a recognizable landmark.
I eased my foot down onto the gas pedal. Turning back was not an option.
The first time I saw her happened so quickly that I dismissed the whole thing as the result of an overactive imagination.
I glanced back at the road after popping in my Coldplay CD and for an instant saw a figure in my peripheral vision. I could have sworn there was someone standing right outside the driver’s side door of my moving car. Not possible, or at least insanely dangerous, especially as it was already well past midnight, and this area wasn’t exactly meant for pedestrians.
My heart rate doubled, but within the span of a blink there was no one there. I checked my rearview mirror, but there was nothing behind me. I was definitely still alone on the road. And in the middle of nowhere. Where all kinds of horrible, gruesome things happened. Crazed wanderers. Car thieves. Serial killers.
Focus.
I kept going, trying to force the brief distraction out of my mind. There was no point even thinking about it. I had obviously imagined the whole thing and there were signs of civilization up ahead.
My eyes were just beginning to droop when I passed through a small rural town. Small as in one stop sign and no streetlights. It was reassuring to know I hadn’t traveled too far off the beaten path.
Every house was completely dark, but a sign outside of the Clarkson Community Church was there to welcome visitors. Flowering bushes lined the road, and I even spotted a white picket fence. It would have been a nice place to stop and stretch my legs had their one diner actually been open. There were no night owls in this part of rural America, apparently.
Too soon, the last house—a beautiful Victorian era manor—was behind me as another sign thanked me for visiting. Already nostalgic for civilization, I glanced back towards the town for one last peek. Instead, my eyes locked briefly with someone else's.
Standing near the back of the ‘thank you’ sign was a girl. A girl who had not been there only a moment before. Yet there she was, impossible to miss. Dressed in a cropped black vest, with long nearly white hair, she stood out dramatically from the colors of country life. I turned my head back to look at the road as my brain thrashed back and forth between slamming on the breaks in shock and putting my foot on the gas in panic. Unable to react at all, I continued down the road as though I hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. When my eyes flicked to my passenger side mirror, she was still there, standing in the grass. Her head turned slightly, following the path of my car as the road curved away from the town of Clarkson.
I watched her from my rearview mirror until she faded into the darkness. I had zero interest in stepping on the breaks. Stopping in the middle of nowhere to help a lone traveler could only end in the kinds of stories that are told around campfires. I knew I was over-thinking her appearance, and picturing my own demise wasn’t helping to push back the feeling of dread that clenched in the pit of my stomach. She was probably just a local, out because there was literally nothing else to do. A teenager—not a deranged, murderous hitchhiker.
If the lack of sleep didn’t manage to ruin this road trip for me, my own imagination would do the trick. I needed to get back to bright lights and big cities as soon as possible.
I forced myself to inhale and exhale slowly. In less than a week I would be the newest intern at 92.2 FM, KRNX. It was not the time to dwell on pale, creepy girls and all the things that could go wrong between that moment and my arrival in Chicago. I told myself repeatedly that I would be fine. That there was literally nothing dangerous for miles. There were people around, and they were just asleep. And probably too far away to help me if anything happened.