Deadend

Deadend

  Robert C. Waggoner

  Copyright 2012 by Robert C. Waggoner

  Short Story

  “Deadend”

  Robert C. Waggoner

  “Man where did this weird weather come from,” asked Eric Stoner to his mother.

  “I’m not sure, but I can’t see where I’m going it’s raining so hard.

  “I can’t wait till I’m old enough to drive, but driving in this crap is unreal,” said Eric.

  “Try to watch your mouth,” said Mother. Mrs. Laura Stoner squinted through the windshield trying to see their street where they lived at the end of the cul-de-sac in the exclusive Fairhaven area.

  “Mom, you missed our street. Elm Street is where we live. Back up or turn around,” Eric said.

  “I’ll turn around in the next street where I can do a U-turn.”

  It was a hot sultry night in Texas. Normally July was always hot and the days and nights steamy. However, clearly with the earth warming up the weather was ever changing and normal was not a word in use anymore. Laura disliked being a ‘soccer mom’ and on a late evening like this, picking up her son from football practice, she hated it even more. Now with the wipers on high speed, she could just barely see the street sign marking their road to home. A few more minutes, she thought and we’ll be safe inside the house.

  Her husband Slim, a banker, had come home early due to a terrible headache. When Laura left to pick up her son, Slim was laying on the sofa in the library snoring. For once in her life she would like to hear him snoring as the wind buffeted the SUV as they entered the drive way of her home. She pressed the garage door opener and nothing happened. She stopped the car, pressed the button several times and nothing happened. Eric said, “Batteries mom. Just when you need it, the batteries die. The side door should be open and I’ll run around and hit the wall button.”

  Laura left the motor running and waited while Eric opened the garage door. Soon the garage door was opening and Laura was impatient to drive in out of this horrible storm. As the door slowly opened, a frown appeared on Laura’s forehead. There were two cars in the garage and neither one was her husbands or any car she recognized. Eric ran back and climbed in out of breath. He said, “What the hell mom, this is not our garage. How can that be? I can see our house in front of us, but those two cars don’t belong in there. Look at the wall next to the door. Those are our house numbers. I’ll go in and see what is going on. I’ll be right back.”

  Laura’s heart was up near her throat with wonder. Nothing seemed right these days. She watched as Eric stormed through the front door. However, for some reason Laura never moved but sat frozen looking at the front door of her lovely home. A few minutes went by and then Eric came back out of the house as a tall man was waving his arms in anger. Laura did not recognize the man. What was he doing in her house and why was he motioning for Eric to get out?

  Eric ran back to the car. With a scared look on his face he said, “Mom, I could swear that’s our house, but that guy says it’s his house and that he’s lived there for three years.”

  Laura watched and listened to the wipers beat back and forth. The tall man shook his head and closed the door. Laura said, “Let’s go look at that street sign again. With this crazy weather, we must have made a mistake. There’re lots of streets here. We must have misread it somehow.”

  Eric was not convinced. When he had seen the inside of the house, he could have sworn all of it looked just like his house inside. Slowly Laura backed out of the driveway and turned around. Driving carefully she angled the car so its lights shown on the street sign. Clearly, even though the rain was heavy, both could see that indeed it was Elm Street. At precisely that second a flash of lightning lit up the area and the crack of thunder followed on its heels.

  Laura leaned her head onto the steering wheel and tears streamed down her cheeks. Eric reached out with his arm and patted her on the back. He said, “Look mom, logic tells me that we made a mistake on the street sign. I know it says Elm, but when you take a harder look you can see it might say Elf Street. I’m going to get out and see if someone has painted over the ‘f’ to make it an ‘m’.”

  Eric got out and ran up to the street sign. However, he was too short to touch the dark green sign on top of the pipe that was cemented into the sidewalk. He jumped but couldn’t reach it. He went back to the car. Now he was soaked to the skin as the rain and wind continued to beat down on the roof of the SUV’ Mother said, “Let’s go back to your school and try this again. Somehow we must have gotten on the wrong road.”

  Both watched the road with total focus as they drove back to Eric’s school. They had both made that trip many times. Eric and Laura both knew the way and were soon back at the school parking lot. Not a car in sight and none were on the roads as they later tried to remember seeing anyone on the road. Laura said, “Okay Eric here we go again.”

  With caution and concentration they drove home. No talking occurred and the only sounds were the rain crashing on the car and thunder and lightning. When they came to their street, Laura stopped. She turned to Eric and said, “Let’s go to the neighbor’s house this time. Jill would be home as well as Alex on a night like this.” As they came to the end of the cul-de-sac, instead of going straight, Laura turned to the left and stopped in the driveway. The porch light was on, but to both of them it seemed like the rain was coming down even harder than before. Laura unfastened her seat belt and felt behind her for her umbrella. Eric didn’t hold out much hope for the umbrella in this wind, but said nothing. Laura opened her door and opened the umbrella. Eric ran to the door followed by Laura. Laura pushed the door bell hearing the familiar ding ding dong of her good friend’s door bell.

  The door opened and Laura gasped at the face looking back at her. The lady was elderly and totally grey haired, however, she had a nice smile on her face. She said, “Won’t you come in out of the rain please. I’ve been expecting you, but thought you would’ve been here earlier.” She stood aside and Laura and Eric came in. Eric was dripping, but the nice lady had a towel ready. He gratefully dried his head off and Laura sat her umbrella in a rack beside the door. She told them to follow her and led the way to the dinning room.

  Laura was petrified and could hardly keep her body upright she was so freaked out. She glanced at Eric who seemed to be holding up very well. The smiling lady stood aside as they passed her by into the dinning room. Sitting around the table were three people. All were of the same vintage as the lady at the door. Laura was escorted by the nice lady to the head of the table. Eric was motioned to the other end while the two couples in the middle on both sides. Smiles radiated from the senior citizens. The man next to the door lady said, “Welcome to our temporary home. I do apologize for the bad weather, but once it starts, it’s hard to turn off. We have some hot coffee for you Laura and hot chocolate for Eric.”

  Eric looked down where he could have sworn nothing was on the table in front of him, but now a steaming hot mug of hot chocolate sat daring him to take a sip. The same could be said of Laura as she looked down and saw a like mug of very nice smelling coffee wafted up to her senses. Both looked back up at the four old folks and saw all smiling back at them.

  Laura found some hidden reserve and asked, “Who are you people and where are my husband and daughter. This is Jill’s house and I’d appreciate it if you would explain, if you can, what is happening?”

  The nice old lady who had greeted them at the door spoke up and said, “Well, we mean no harm to you, but this is hard to explain to you we think. Because of the weather we had to stop and regroup. The best I can do with my limited knowledge of English is we are trapped in a time warp. That is, the four of us are trapped and when we tried to break out, you and this area was affected. For the time being we must be patient and
wait out the storm. We’ve applied pressure on the weather and in a few of your hours we should have peace and quiet again.”

  Laura thought about what she had heard and said, “I’m totally confused and are we dead? I don’t feel dead and where are the rest of my family and my neighbors Jill and Alex. We are sitting in Jill’s dinning room drinking coffee and she is nowhere to be seen. I find that just a little strange don’t you?”

  The four elderly looked at each other and finally nice ladies partner next to her said, “If I said we’re aliens, then you would want to know where we are from. We are not from anywhere, but everywhere at any given time or place. Maybe this will help you understand better. We are just passer-bys and happen to have a flat tire in your neighbor hood. We need to call a tow truck and one is not available for a few hours yet. We need to wait here and when the tow truck comes, we will be out of your hair in a flash.”

  Eric was quick on the uptake and said, “Okay, I got it. Physics is my love and if I may use an old cliché, someone stuck a stick in your spokes. You went ass over tea kettle and landed here in the middle of Texas. I’d say let’s spend the time chatting and learn all we can from this experience. First question I have is, why are you depicted as looking like elderly humans?”

  Nice old lady answered, “We asked for nonthreatening appearances so as not to frighten you. We are indeed harmless. Sometimes when we are traveling we pass by too close and that triggers a reverse reaction to our method of movement.”

  Eric said, “I’ll not ask how you made the hot chocolate appear, but I’m a bit hungry. Can you provide me with something to eat?”

  The nice lady smiled and said, “Of course, what would you like; just name it.”

  Laura said, “We’re not here to eat, but to find a way home. Now, how is it that strangers are living in my house?”

  The four old folks looked at each other and for the first time, the other old gent said, “Laura, you don’t live there anymore. You moved to another city after your husband was transferred. It was a rush thing so household belongings and all were sold.”

  Eric asked, “Hey, where did we move to? I’ve many friends here and this is getting ridiculous.”

  The old lady next to the last speaker said, “Houston, Texas if I recall correctly. And by the way young feller, what do you mean by, ‘a stick in the spokes,’ and ‘ass over tea kettle.’?

  “I don’t know where it came from but my grandfather used to say it all the time.”

  “Okay and I’ll do some research on that cliché as you call it,” said the same lady.

  Laura asked, “You said we moved and that would mean you can tell the future for us humans?”

  “Well,” said the same nice old lady, “we don’t know what the future really is but we know you left here and went to Houston.”

  Suddenly the pounding of rain and wind ceased making all involved to look up at the ceiling. The door greeter lady said, “Well, it looks like the storm is over. Soon we will be gone.”

  “Excuse me, but after you are gone, do we return to our normal time before this event took place. In other words, can I go home to my house,” asked Laura.

  Four sets of eyes looked at each other and one after another shrugged their aging shoulders. Finally the door greeter said, “We have no idea about that. Your guess is as good as ours. When we walk out the door a loud clap like thunder will occur. Once again, we apologize for the intrusion. If it happens again, we hope to see you well and happy.”

  Laura and Eric were the last to stand as the four seniors from god knows where stood and slowly walked to the front door. Laura took Eric’s hand and followed them to the door.

  As the door greeter said a clap like thunder would be heard and then, poof gone for good. All four of the travelers stood at the door and turned to wave good bye to their new friends. All four gave them a Polident smile and when they walked completely out the door, a noise so loud it made both Laura and Eric close their eyes and hold their ears.

  When the sound died away, Laura and Eric looked up at a clear, bright sunny morning. The SUV was sitting in the driveway and as they looked across to their house, they saw Phil walk out the door to the garage as the garage door opened. Laura opened her mouth and at the same time a voice from a woman was heard, “Laura, what are you doing here so early this morning,” asked her neighbor and friend Jill.

  Laura turned and said, “I have no idea what we are doing here Jill. For some reason, I’ve a blank mind this morning.”