Chapter 2 The Fog, the Diner & the Wolf
That low, rhythmic vibration of tires on asphalt was the only sound she could tolerate. It was a numbing agent. She didn’t want to feel anymore—not the sting of her mother’s words, not the crushing guilt of leaving, not the fear of what came next. She just wanted to be gone. To be blank. To start over as someone who wasn’t just a “regret” living in a spare room.
She had been ready for this.
She had topped off the gas tank on her way home from her shift yesterday, sensing the barometer in the house dropping. She had saved every penny, hoarding change in that sock like a squirrel preparing for a long hard winter, because she knew deep down that this day wasn’t an “if” —it was a “when.”
She drove until her legs went numb. She stopped only once, at a nondescript pump hours ago, to refuel “The Bean” and grab a bag of beef jerky and a soda. She didn’t linger. She paid cash, kept her head down, and got back on the on-ramp before the engine even had time to cool.
She wanted to put as much asphalt between her and 42 Maple Drive as the laws of physics would allow.
The farther away she got, the lighter she felt. It was a physical
sensation, like shedding a heavy winter coat in the middle of summer.
With every mile marker that flashed past—Columbus, Indianapolis,
the endless flatlands past—the invisible chain tethering her to her parents’ misery stretched thinner and thinner.
But as the sun dipped below the horizon, the lightness began to
fade, replaced by exhaustion.
Around 7:00 PM, the world changed.
The twilight didn’t just darken; it thickened. A strange, heavy fog
began to bleed out of the cornfields and the treelines. It wasn’t
drifting; it was surging, surrounding the car like a living thing.
Leela squinted, leaning forward over the steering wheel. The high beams of “The Bean” just reflected off the white wall of mist, blinding
her.
She was tired. Her eyes burned, and her reflexes were slowing
down. The magnetic pull in her chest—the one that had told her to GO WEST—was now screaming at her to STOP.
She couldn’t see anymore.
“Okay,” she whispered to the empty car. “Okay, I can’t do this.”
She saw a dim shape looming in the gray soup—an exit ramp leading into absolute darkness.
She took it.
She pulled off the highway, her tires crunching onto a gravel
shoulder. She was in the middle of nowhere. There were no
streetlights. No houses. Just the swirling fog and the dark sil houettes of looming trees.
For the first time since she backed out of the driveway,the adrenaline crashed. Fear, cold and sharp, rushed in to fill the void.
She was alone in the dark, miles from anyone who knew her name, sitting in a car that wouldn’t lock properly.
She locked the doors anyway. She huddled in her oversized hoodie, listening to the engine idle, waiting for the fog to lift or for a sign of where to go next.
She let her head fall back against the headrest, closing her eyes for just a second.
Without the hum of the tires on the asphalt to distract her, the
reality of what she had done crashed down on her. The silence in the car was deafening. She wasn’t just “away” anymore; she was lost.
She was sitting on a gravel shoulder in a state she couldn’t name, with no address, no plan, and a sock full of small bills that wouldn’t last forever.
“Good job, Leela,” she whispered to the roof of the car. “You escaped the prison, but you forgot to build a life raft.”
She opened her eyes, ready to turn the car around, maybe find a rest stop to sleep at.
That’s when she saw it
Through the swirling wall of gray fog, a faint, pinkish glow pulsed steadily ahead. It wasn’t a streetlight. It was too warm, too inviting.
She put The Bean back into drive and let the car creep forward,
the gravel crunching loudly under her tires.
The fog parted just enough to reveal a towering sign buzzing in the mist:
THE STARLIGHT TRAVEL CENTER GAS-EATS-LODGING
It was a beacon in the nothingness. A sprawling, concrete oasis
designed for 18 wheelers and weary travelers. A line of massive semi-trucks sat idling in the back lot, their running lights glowing like eyes in the dark. To the left was a low, L-shaped motel. To the right, a brightly lit gas station attached to a diner with chrome siding that gleamed under the floodlights.
It looked rough. It looked industrial. But right now, it looked like heaven.
Leela pulled The Bean into a spot away from the big rigs, parking near the diner entrance. She cut the engine.
Her hands were shaking as she grabbed her purse. She pulled her hoodie up over her head, trying to make herself look invisible, and stepped out into the damp, cold air. It smelled of diesel and fried onions.
She hurried to the diner's glass door and pushed it open.
A bell jingled, announcing her arrival.
The warmth hit her first--a blast of heated air smelling of coffee and bacon grease. The diner was bright, filled with the low murmur of truckers talking in booths and the clatter of silverware against plates.
Inside the diner, Leela spotted a door near the front counter marked MOTEL OFFICE in peeling black letters.
She started to reach for the handle when a voice boomed from behind the diner counter.
"Just a second!"
Leela jumped, turning to see a waitress with frizzy red hair balancing a tray of coffees. The woman didn't stop moving; she just craned her neck and yelled toward the back kitchen doors.
"Hey Hank! Someone's here for a room!"
A moment later, the kitchen door swung open. An older gentleman wiped his hands on a rag and stepped out. He didn't look like a scary motel manager; he looked like a grandfather.
He walked around the counter, tossing the rag into a bin.
"Hey, hun," he said, his voice friendly and rough, like worn sandpaper. "You looking for a room?"
"Yes, sir," Leela said, gripping her purse strap. "Just for tonight."
Hank moved to a podium beside the motel office door. He pulled out a registration card.
"Long drive?" he asked, glancing at her over the rim of his glasses. "Where's a young lady heading to on a night like this?"
Leela swallowed. She had practiced this in her head a dozen times on the highway.
"Oregon," she lied, forcing her voice to stay steady. "I'm going to stay with my grandma. She...she's going in for hip surgery next week, and she needs help around the house."
Hank paused. He looked up from the card. He looked at her frayed hoodie, her tired eyes, and the way she was practically vibrating with anxiety.
He eyed her like he knew exactly what she was--a runaway with a flimsy story.
But he didn't press. He didn't ask her parents' number. He just nodded slowly.
"Oregon's a nice drive," Hank said gently. "Hope your grandma pulls through okay."
He slid a plastic key card across the counter.
"Room 5," he said. "It's right here on the corner. Not the quietest one we got but its clean and you won't have to navigate far in this fog."
"Thank you," Leela breathed, relief washing over her.
:You hungry?" Hank asked, nodding toward the grill."You look like you haven't eaten in awhile.
"I..yeah," she admitted. "Can I get a burger and fries? To go."
"Coming right up."
Ten minutes later, Leela stood by the glass doors, clutching a greased-stained paper bag that smelled like heaven, She pushed the door open and stepped back out into the night.
She had planned to hop in "The Bean" and drive it down in front of her room.
She stopped dead on the curb.
"Oh my god," she whispered.
The fog wasn't just heavy; it was a wall. In the ten minutes she had been inside, it had swallowed the world. She couldn't see the gas pumps. She couldn't make out the road. She held her hand out in front of her face, and even thta looked blurry, ghost-like in the swirling gray mist.
Driving was out of the question. She couldn't even see where "The Bean" was parked, let alone navigate the parking lot without hitting a semi-truck.
She gripped the food bag tighter to her chest for warmth. She was going to have to walk.
She lucked out. Between the diner and the motel there was a canopy lined with lights. It didn't do much for her sight, but it made her feel better.
She ducked through it, shivering as the air temperature seemed to drop ten degrees the moment she stepped away from the diner's vents. The courtyard was eerie. Yellow bug lights buzzed over every other door, but they were useless against the fog. They didn't cast light; they just created glowing, sickly halos that illuminated nothing but the swirling mist.
1.. 2..
She walked quickly, clutching the burger bag so hard the grease was staining her hoodie. The gravel crunched loudly under her sneakers--too loudly in the heavy silence.
3... 4...
She stopped. The hair on the back of her neck stood straight up.
It wasn't like the "I'm in trouble with my dad" feeling. It was older than that. A warning in her brain that screamed: RUN.
She had the distinct sickening feeling that she was being watched.
She reached Room 5. She jammed her hand into her pocket for the key card, her fingers shaking.
She felt it then. Heavy and close.
She spun around, her back hitting the cold wood of the door.
About twenty feet away, right where the pavement met the gray void of the fog, something very big was sitting in the shadows. It was to big to be a dog. It was too still to be a dear.
The shadow stood up. It detached itself from the fog and took a slow, deliberate step forward into the halo of a bug light.
Leela stopped breathing.
It was a wolf. A massive, charcoal-black wolf that stood almost shoulder-height to a grown. Its amber eyes caught the yellow light, glowing with a terrifying intelligence.
"No. No. No." she whimpered, the words tumbling over each other in her mind.
She spun back to the door, shoving the plastic card into the slot with trembling hands.
Red light.
"Come on," she hissed, panic rising in her throat. The yellow bulbs above her were starting to glow brighter.
She wiped again, flipping the card.
Red light.
She could hear the wet, heavy sound of paws hitting the pavement behind her. PAD. PAD. PAD.
It was coming closer.
Third swipe. Red. Fourth swipe.Red.
The sound of the paws was getting louder.
Click-clack. Click-clack.
"Please," she begged the plastic box.
Fifth swipe.
Click. A tiny green light flashed.
Leela threw her weight against the handle. The door swung inward, and she practically fell into the room. She kicked the door shut with her heel, slamming it so hard the windows rattled.
She fumbled with the latch--deadbolt, chain, handle lock. Only when all three clicked into place she let herself breathe. She leaned back against the wood, her heart hammering against her ribs like it was trying to break out of her chest. She was safe. She was inside.
But she had to know.
She crept toward the window. With a shaking hand, she peeled back the edge of the heavy floral curtain just an inch.
He was there.
The wolf hadn't attacked. He hadn't charged at her or the door. He was standing on the concrete walkway, right in front of her room, staring intently at the wood she was leaning against.
But it was the air around him that made Leela's breath hitch in her throat