You don’t stop.
Your phone shows no service. The radio picks up only one station: static with a voice underneath, repeating numbers. Or maybe names. Or maybe nothing.
The pavement changes first. Smooth asphalt turns to patched tar, then to gravel, then to dirt that hasn't seen a state plow in twenty years. The trees lean inward. Not like a tunnel—like they're listening. wrong turn m4p
Now you have it.
No one gets out.
At mile marker 4 (or is it 7? the numbers are scratched beyond reading), you pass the first car. It’s pulled off on the shoulder—if you can call mud and pine needles a shoulder. A sedan, dark blue, windows fogged from the inside. No plates. You slow down. Something tells you not to stop.
The M4P doesn’t have an end. It has a middle. And you just arrived. You don’t stop
You see the third car ahead. You don’t slow down this time. You press the accelerator. The engine revs, but the speedometer doesn’t move. You’re going the same speed. Maybe slower.