To Make It Home

It was 11:15 am, 94 degrees, and I didn’t have any service. I slid my phone back into my pocket and sighed.

I was standing on the shoulder of a desolate two-lane road in the Nevada desert, under a cloudless sky. Everything around me was still. I'd never seen another car on that road, which I usually considered a good thing — it meant I could drive as fast as I wanted — but that day, it made me nervous.

I told myself to relax. I'd done the drive back from Julie's old cabin enough times that I knew there was a gas station not far off. Maybe a mile or two. Less than four, for sure.

I looked at the car and saw my grim expression reflected in the passenger-side window. I shifted my gaze to the car itself. The back tire had blown out. It was totally flat, and I didn't have a spare.

I pressed the lock button on my key fob, and the headlights blinked at me as if to ask, "So, what are you going to do?"

I turned and started walking. Temperatures had been in the high 90s for weeks, occasionally venturing higher, and it was forecast to be one of those days.

After walking for a while, I paused at the top of a craggy hill, shaded my eyes with one hand, and peered ahead. I still couldn't see the gas station. Maybe it was around that next curve. I checked my phone. No service.

I kept walking.

I was sweating through my t-shirt by then. I wished I'd worn shorts instead of jeans and that I had a hat. I wished I'd eaten breakfast. I wished I had some water.

By the time I reached the curve in the road, the heat was making me dizzy. I still couldn’t see the gas station. My legs felt thicker and heavier, and the air around me did, too. With each step, I pushed myself forward through an invisible pool of warm pudding.

I retched, leaned forward, and vomited a neat circle of yellow-brown liquid onto the asphalt. Then I started shivering.

The only plants I'd passed were dry, stalky weeds, but ahead of me, I saw a lone tree, and the hope of shade kept me moving.

As I approached the tree, its branches went sort of blurry. I blamed the heat at first, but the closer I got, the harder the tree was to see. My pace slowed even further, and I squinted at the tree, trying unsuccessfully to bring it into focus. When I should've been close enough to touch it, the tree wasn't there at all. I sat down in the spot that would've been shady if the tree were real and put my head between my knees. "Keep breathing," I told myself.

My inner voice replied, "You really fucked up this time."

I lifted my head and looked at my phone. Still no service. I looked down the road. No sign of the gas station.

I closed my eyes and took slow, deep breaths. "Don't die," I told myself.

Then I heard a low rumbling sound. I opened my eyes and saw something moving in the distance. A truck? I tried to stand, but couldn't muster the energy. I squinted at the motion. Whatever it was didn't move like a truck. It was too small to be a dust storm.

It moved like... elephants. A whole herd. There weren’t any elephants in the Nevada desert as far as I knew, but maybe they had gotten loose from a wild animal sanctuary or something. They were coming straight toward me.

I wondered half-heartedly if I was about to be trampled, but I didn’t move. I couldn’t.

They were elephants — they had to be — but they were the wrong color. They were light brown with long, curving tusks, and as they got closer, I could see that they were hairy. Had some whacked-out scientist started cloning woolly mammoths? Whatever they were, they didn't seem to care that I was directly in their path.

I let my head fall again. Curled over my knees, I listened to my erratic heartbeat until it was drowned out by the animals' pounding footsteps. 

When the first one reached me, it made a sputtering sound, like someone trying to start a gas lawnmower, and then it leaned in close. The underside of its massive head brushed against my shoulder, its steamy breath making me even hotter. I tried to pull away, but couldn’t.

I sensed the other animals gathering around me. One nudged my hip with its curved tusks. I flopped onto my side, and then I don't know what happened. I guess I passed out. I dreamt that the animals carried me across the desert. I remember feeling like I was floating. I wasn't scared anymore. I knew I was safe.

The guttural noises of the animals changed as I returned to consciousness. They started to sound more like humans. I felt like I'd be able to understand them if I could just open my eyes.

When I did, the sky was still too bright, but the air around me was ice cold. My eyes adjusted. It wasn't sky above me; it was a row of fluorescent lights. I took a breath and smelled a blend of hotdogs and disinfectant.

I was lying on the floor of the gas station, and a guy in a neon green polo shirt stood at my feet, talking on his phone.

Then an ambulance came. The guy told the paramedics that the automatic doors had been opening on their own, and when he went to check what was causing it, he found me unconscious just outside. He said he could see the whole parking lot on the security cameras, but he hadn’t seen me arrive. He’d dragged me inside and called 911.

The paramedics put me on a stretcher, loaded me into the ambulance, and connected an IV.

When the hospital released me a few hours later, I took a rideshare home and slept.

Now it's morning. I feel a thousand times better, but I'm still confused. Had I somehow hallucinated myself to safety?

I lie in bed and use my phone to do a search on woolly mammoths. They're still extinct. I keep scrolling. Maybe someone in Nevada is trying to bring them back to life?

The small text on my phone screen makes my head spin, so I stop reading and click on a YouTube video called "Nothing Is Really Extinct."

A woman with long gray hair is sitting on a patio, next to a huge cactus. She says she wants people to know that every plant and animal leaves its mark on the planet, so nothing ever really dies. She says, "I see their spirits sometimes, and you can too, if you try. You've gotta get out of town, where there's no buildings."

Off camera, a man asks in a joking voice, “What are you taking? I want to try it.”

The woman says, “You gotta pay attention.” It sounds like she’s about to explain a regimen of hallucinogens, but then she shakes her head. “You just go out there and pay attention.”

I stop the video, because it's freaking me out. I'm tempted to contact this woman and ask about mammoth ghosts, but instead, I force myself to be practical.

I get out of bed and drink a glass of water. I eat a stale muffin. Then I call roadside assistance. They can be at my car with a new tire in about an hour. I have to meet them there, so I ask my neighbor Raj to drive me back to the desert.

On the way, he asks what I remember about how I ended up in the hospital.

It seems easiest to lie. "Not much, man. I was really messed up. Shouldn't have tried to walk. It was way too hot."

"The desert will kill ya," Raj says.

The roadside assistance van gets to my car just after we do. Raj waits with me as a giant white guy, maybe 6'6", changes my tire.

After making sure the car starts okay, the repair guy takes off.

Raj says he'll see me soon, and then he drives away, too.

I sit behind the wheel with the engine running and the windows open, staring out at my dry surroundings. It all looks empty. I don't see any blurry trees or mammoth herds, but the temperature is climbing. I feel a headache coming on, so I figure I owe it to myself to get home as soon as possible.

I hit the gas. As I drive, I scan the landscape again. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a gray-brown blur, too small to be a dust storm. But when I turn my head, there's nothing there.