nosleep

I wasn’t supposed to be driving that night. Pat was our designated driver, but they forgot about halfway through the night and started drinking heavily. I, having nursed the same cocktail up until I saw them getting red in the face and wobbly, knew my libations were over with then and there, and that their responsibility was now mine. I was annoyed, but since I hadn’t intended on getting shit-faced that evening, I suppose Pat thought sobriety was wasted on them and figured I’d all but offered to take their place.

In any case, once the night was done, I helped Pat and our other friends, Cynthia and James, into the car and slipped into the driver’s seat. Pat was mumbling something about what a great friend I was and got nothing but daggers from me in return. The other two passed out before they even buckled up, forcing me to lean over them like a mother to secure them in place. Was I this bad when I drank?

Another flash of annoyance hit me. They could all sleep soundly, leaving me alone, having to stay alert and awake to play taxi for them. What’s more, I wasn’t so keen on driving specifically Pat home. See, there’s this tunnel between their house and center town. And, while it’s just an ordinary tunnel as far as everyone else is concerned, I can’t stand it. It makes my skin crawl because of something that happened when I was a kid. Honestly, it scares the shit out of me. I usually take a different route just so I can avoid it, but doing so adds an hour to the trip, and at 2 in the morning in a car that stank of crusted puke, I made the mistake of picking the tunnel.

I want to be clear that when I said the tunnel scared me, I could never have predicted what happened that night. When I was a kid, my brother told me the tunnel was the mouth of a giant and the only way to survive was to hold my breath the whole way through. Stupid, in hindsight, but kids believe the weirdest superstitions. So, I held my breath until I couldn’t – until the world was almost nothing but darkness with a few small spots of light – and then I let in the faintest of inhales and heard a shriek coming from the other end of the tunnel. I was convinced I’d made the giant aware of me, and now we were going to die. Can you imagine? Experiencing the genuine, honest-to-goodness fear of death at that age?

Now, of course, since I’m writing this, I didn’t die in the belly of a monster. Instead, I hyperventilated with my hands slapped over my mouth, bracing myself for the worst, until we came upon a wreck. Someone had lost control of their vehicle and had driven right into the tunnel wall. That was the sound that I’d heard. I didn’t see a simple accident, though. Through the lens of a child’s imagination, I saw the twisted metal as a car gnashed by the teeth of the giant. I saw the accident as somehow being my fault. All because I took a breath. I never wanted to go through that tunnel again after that. And if I had to, I held my breath the entire time just in case. As I got older, that fear morphed into avoidance of the tunnel.

Which leads us to this story – to me pulling up along the side of the road near the mouth of the tunnel with my three friends passed out in the passenger seats. I think I was more anxious than scared. Something about the way the wind moved through the entrance put me on-edge. I could hear the howl even with the windows rolled up. I figured I’d wait for another car to drive in first. It felt a little silly, but you know what they say: safety in numbers.

It wasn’t long before a little Corolla passed me and was engulfed in the darkness. I hit the gas and followed behind, trying not to be too creepy about it. It was nice to see the taillights blazing the trail in front of me. I followed it to about the halfway point of the tunnel – to the point where I used to start struggling to hold my breath. I could feel myself unintentionally holding it now. So far, it was going fine, and I even started to relax a little.

It was the calm before the storm.

Suddenly, something weird happened. The car in front of began to shrink, as though it had violently sped up. I accelerated to give chase, not wanting to lose its light, but no matter how fast I went, the distance between us only grew. I couldn’t hear the revving of its engine and I couldn’t understand why or how it was going so fast so quietly. It kept shrinking, illuminating what seemed like ever-encroaching tunnel walls. I would have stopped and turned around if I wasn’t sure it was only an optical illusion. Likewise, I would have turned around if I’d realized I should have been long out of the tunnel by then. Sometimes, you miss the forest for the trees, and that Corolla was my tree.

By the time the Corolla became a blip on the horizon, I realized I was white knuckling the steering wheel. I stopped focusing on my convoy partner, slowed, and took in the surroundings. Where was the left lane? Gone, I realized. I was tucked between narrow tunnel walls with the roof so low, if I’d been driving a van, the top would’ve scraped against it. My first thought was that I’d somehow veered into a maintenance tunnel, and I was lucky I hadn’t scratched Pat’s car in the process. And then I noticed how dark it was. With the Corolla now completely out of view and no hanging lights, I could only see as far as my headlights shined. Everything beyond that was pitch black, like in the deepest recesses of the ocean. I wasn’t sure how far into the maintenance tunnel I was, nor whether it looped back to rejoin the main road. I didn’t have room to turn the car around, and the thought of backing up the whole way filled me with a potent sense of dread. I didn’t want to not look forward. Something told me I needed to keep my eyes on the road ahead.