The Light

One I glanced at the rearview mirror: a wall of darkness followed us. My gaze moved to the clock on the dash. The small red numbers read twelve twenty-nine. I hadn’t seen another car for almost half an hour. Josh sat behind me, his arm around Blaise. Her black hair against his white, long-sleeved T-shirt made a striking contrast. They wrapped up in a blanket and were asleep within minutes after our last stop. They’d barely moved in the last hundred miles or so. Sara sat in the passenger seat beside me. She was quiet for the moment, looking down at her phone. She’d been talking or texting almost nonstop since we left the city. She’d never been good with silence. She put her phone in her lap. “How long until we stop, Bria?” “You know patience is a virtue,” I answered, turning to glance in her direction, her curly black hair almost disappearing against the dark window. “Yeah, yeah, I know. And you’re as bad at it as I am.” She twisted toward me in her seat. “You’ve got a point,” I said. “I can go another three hundred miles or so before I need gas.” Sara lifted her head and then dropped it again in her usual dramatic style. “Ugh, that is so long. Let’s stop and get a coffee.” “Sara, look out your window. What do you see?” She turned her head. “Trees.” “Let me know when you see a coffee shop, and I’ll stop,” I said as I watched the trees become illuminated and then disappear into the darkness. “Just stop at the next gas station. Any coffee is better than no coffee.” She clicked her phone on and then off again. “I’ll stop as soon as I see something,” I said. “I could use a break, anyway.” “Thanks,” she said, looking out the window. Her phone went from dark to bright every other second or so. When it lit up, the night outside became darker and harder to see. It was irritating, but I didn’t say anything. This trip was for her, to help her get over her newest broken heart ... but I knew it was also about me. The trees seemed to be getting denser. The highway was narrow and the woods vast. I used to spend time among trees. But these memories were fuzzy. My mom had loved being outside. When she died, my time in nature died too. My father moved us from North Carolina up to DC, and I hadn’t been in the woods since. I brushed a tear from my eye. Eighteen years later and it still hurt every time I thought of her. I tried hard never to think of her. “You okay?” Sara asked. I hadn’t noticed she was watching me. I wiped my eyes with the back of my left hand. “Yeah, I guess I’m more tired than I thought,” I answered. Sara and I had been friends for a long time. She knew me well enough to know that when I cried it was because of my mom. She also knew I didn’t want to talk about it. She nodded, but continued to watch me from the corner of her eyes. Putting her phone down, she asked, “Didn’t you grow up near here?” I looked at the GPS on my dash. “I don’t remember. We lived in North Carolina, that’s all I know.” “Do you remember the address? I could find it on my phone.” She picked up her phone, clicking it on. “Why?” I asked. “I don’t know. If we’re going to be near it, we could take a small detour and check it out.” She placed her phone face down on her jeans. A pale light escaped from all sides of it. “You know there’s nothing left,” I said, feeling the anger rise. “Oh yeah, I forgot. Sorry,” she said, twisting forward in her seat and looking away from me. After a moment of silence, she said, “Are you getting tired? Do you want me to drive?” “No, I’m fine,” I said. At least, driving offered me some distraction. Sitting in a dark car with nothing to do, going down roads that reminded me of home—that would not be good. “Okay. I didn’t really want to, but I was trying to be nice,” she said. I knew her feelings were hurt. My tone had been harsher than I meant it to be. She went back to messing with her phone. I loved Sara, but she was always on her phone. She never had actual silence. There might not be noise, but there was never quiet. We were alike in that way. I wasn’t as addicted to screens as she was, but I did what I could to avoid silence. In the silence my thoughts came—thoughts I didn’t want to have. I glanced in the mirror. Blaise and Josh were the opposite of Sara and me. They loved silence. When we were going out at night, they’d be going to sleep. They were content just being. Sara and I, if we were being honest, were never content. The four of us made an unlikely group; still, we were the best of friends. I met Blaise and Sara my freshman year. Blaise and I were roommates. We hated each other for the first semester. Well, I hated her. She had said she just didn’t like me. Sara and I had class together and were instantly drawn to each other. Blaise says we are too alike for our own good. Eventually Sara and Blaise became friends, and then I let go of my hatred and realized Blaise was amazing. A year later she met Josh. He was nothing like any guy Sara or I had ever dated. He was good to his core. When he proposed, I was almost as excited as Blaise. The wedding is set for the day after we all graduate. They will be young newlyweds, only twenty-two. Normally I would make fun of someone getting married that young, or assume they were pregnant. But with Blaise and Josh it all made sense, and they couldn’t be pregnant. They were both virgins. Tears welled as I pushed down the choices of my past. Headlights appeared behind us. “Happy Thanksgiving, Bria,” Sara said, turning her head toward me. “Happy Thanks—” In an instant the night sky became brighter than day. My right hand flew up to keep the light from piercing my eyes. I blinked, forcing my eyes open. A moment later complete darkness overtook the false daylight. Just as the light had been artificial, so too was the dark. My eyes hurt and I could see nothing. “What’s going on?” Sara’s voice sounded shaken. “I don’t know.” I realized the car was suddenly silent. The engine was no longer working. The brake pedal was hard to push and did almost nothing to slow us. I breathed deeply, trying to control the panic threatening to overtake me. “I can’t control the car,” I said. I blinked again and again, trying to clear my eyes. Shadows started to appear. I exhaled. I wasn’t blind. “What?” she asked, her voice higher pitched than normal. I stomped on the pedals, one after the other. Nothing happened. “I can’t do anything. The gas pedal, the brake, they aren’t working.” I heard the thump-thump-thump of the serrated edge of the road. I tried hard to pull us back into the lane. “The steering wheel isn’t working. Help me!” I screamed, losing all ability to control my surging panic. Sara put both hands on the steering wheel, and we both pulled as hard as we could to stay on the road. “Thanks,” I said, as we got centered on the highway. “What’s going on?” Blaise asked, her voice groggy and scared. Sara turned to face her. “There was a bright light, and the car stopped working,” she said. “What do you mean?” Josh said, his voice scratchy from sleep. “Just what I said. There was a light, and now the car is dead.” Sara reached for the phone in her lap. “It’s not working,” she said, as if she couldn’t believe her own words. I heard Blaise and Josh digging to find their phones. “Ours are dead too,” Blaise said with the same unbelief Sara had. I picked mine up as we rolled to a stop. I pushed the button ... nothing happened. I tried again and again. “Nothing,” I said, putting it back in the cup holder. Blaise whispered, “What are we going to do?” We sat staring at each other, at the night. No one spoke. My heart raced as I realized I had no idea what to do. None of us had any idea what to do. The car, our phones, tablets, even our watches were all dead. We were in the middle of Nowhere, North Carolina, completely stranded ... six hundred miles from home, with no way to get help. Sara’s words broke the silence: “We are going to die.”