don't ask don't tell

we had already gotten spooked at a gas station that served as an end point for some kind of a strip mall resort schlumped around the border of a shitty, manmade lake. i had tried to beg dan not to stop there because i didn't like the way that only the end was lit up and i didn't like how much the mouse and cheesewheel statue felt a little too possum pete's. i never liked those jerky dancing robots. it was scary then, when the excuse of extreme overcaffeination fully covered such seemingly irrational paranoia, but when we (three, this time) accidentally ended up there in october, i felt just as bad about it.

it was too late, we had left too late, my exam had run too late, cleaning out my room had started too late, i turned in my room key too late. dan had just opened can number seven and i was shaking through number ten. the gas light had been on for awhile, so he decided to take the next exit off. there were no lights on the off-ramp, so he hit the brights, not expecting them to reflect back off a flash mob of traffic barrels, cones, signs. left, right, left again and neither choice seemed correct and both seemed terrifying. left was not the right choice.

they must have filmed house of wax at this exact gas station, and also that one movie where paul walker and that other guy had a ham radio and pretended to be into some truck driver's solicitations for sex. from a little ways away, it was possible, maybe, that the gas station was open because it looked like a light was on inside; it was one of those little tiny ones with a glorified shack for a mini-mart, the kind that only sold marlboro reds and cans of pop. we were both already speaking in the running donkey clip of auctioneers, the voice where calm has clearly been overshadowed by panic, but the only reason to try to control it is because it might be the only thing to control in that moment.

the lights were on in the gas station shack, but weren't nobody home. imagine the hysteria of teenagers watching a horror film. when we slowed next to the pumps, which were turned off and chained together, we looked across the street at the same time. it was a trucker's restaurant, an a-frame shithole with a five football field lot for the trucks that were bigger than it, just like the one in pontiac, by the silverdome. there was one semi, idling with its lights shining right onto our faces, which were slowly morphing with the frantic terror of tweakers, fully actualized the moment we both realized there was no one in the cab.

when dan screams, his voice gets higher and thinner, except when he does his yawp.
we were both screaming, and i was also flailing around, thrashing around in flight response.

WHAT THE FUCK DRIVE DRIVE DRIVE WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK GET OUT OF HERE GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE I'M TRYING JUST GO.

as we were booking it towards the entrance ramp as quick as a 2005 nissan maxima (dan's sensible mother's sensible car as a sensible means of transportation), i jerked my head right for just a moment. i immediately wished i hadn't.

DAN WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WE'RE IN FUCKING COUNTY ZERO!!!!!!!!

after our screaming had slowed with our pulses, we decided. county zero was the scariest place we had ever been. ever.