The Lost Read Online Free PDF Page B

tell direction. The road could have split and then somehow circled back here... I don’t remember a fork or a merge or any turns, but there’s no other explanation.
    Shaken, I check carefully in both directions—there are still no other vehicles on the road—and do an overly cautious three-point turn, like my mom if she has to drive in downtown L.A. I head away from town. Again.
    A few miles down the road, I hit the dust storm. It swallows me and the desert and the road. This time, I inch forward and keep as close to the side of the road as I can without driving on the dirt, so that I don’t miss the highway entrance a second time. It has to be here somewhere.
    I am in the dust storm for nearly half an hour.
    A minute after I emerge, I see the Welcome to Lost sign.
    I slam on the brakes and hit the steering wheel with the heel of my hand. I swear I didn’t feel the road turn. It didn’t fork. This makes no sense!
    I pull a U-turn and try again.
    Again, there’s the dust. And again, when I emerge, the sign.
    “Goddammit!” I shout. I get out of the car, and I kick the Welcome to Lost sign. It doesn’t even sway. I take a cathartic breath so deep that it would please a yoga instructor, and I climb back into my car.
    I slam the door.
    I check my cell phone.
    Still no damn signal.
    I look down at the gas gauge. It’s brushing against the red.
    What the hell kind of middle of nowhere town doesn’t have a gas station? Isn’t that the whole point of the entire goddamn town, to service people who drive out here in a futile bid to avoid the inevitable?
    I have enough gas for one more try.
    There has to be an entrance ramp somewhere. It’s the dust storm that’s fouling up my sense of direction. If I could see more than three feet ahead of me, I’d be fine. I’ll wait for the dust to die down, and then... And then if I fail, I’ll use the motel phone to call AAA to bring me gas from the next town. I am reasonably sure that I renewed my AAA membership when Mom reminded, aka nagged, me to.
    I sit in the car, engine off, while I think about Mom and wait for the dust to die.
    I know I should have used the motel phone to call her before I checked out. I’m certain Mom has tried to call me already, probably multiple times. She wouldn’t be panicking yet, at least not visibly, because we’d had a conversation about boundaries and how I need space, especially now that she’s moved in with me. But she will be checking her phone regularly by now.
    I’m coming, Mom, I think.
    It is silent here, in a way that L.A. never is. So silent that it feels like a pressure inside my ears as I strain to hear the hum of another car, the honk of a horn, the bark of a dog, even the cry of a bird. I only hear the wind. I reach for the radio again and then stop. I don’t want to know if it’s continuing to play the same unfamiliar song.
    I turn the car on, ignore the low-gas beep, and drive down the road—directly into the dust storm. This time, I’m in the storm for much longer. It begins to feel as if the dust will never end. I can feel it in my lungs as it leaches into the car. My skin is gritty. I had to have missed the highway entrance, but I continue to drive because this road must lead to another town! Construction workers spent time constructing this. It can’t be a road to nowhere.
    After an hour, the car sputters. I look at the gas gauge, and the needle is at the bottom of the red zone. I press down on the gas pedal. But the car runs slower and slower.
    Soon, it stops. Dust swirls all around me. I lay my forehead on the steering wheel. This is how I will die, lost in a storm in the desert, choked by dust, dehydrated, and starved...
    A knock on the window.
    Shrieking, I jump. My head smacks hard against the headrest. “Ow!” I rub the back of my head as I look out the window. I see only dust, though I swear I’d heard a knock. The wind must have blown something against it.
    It works as a wake-up call, though.
    Option one: I