The Left Turn

I gripped the faux-leather steering wheel, shifted in my seat, and stared out into the night. Beneath the black sky were distant traffic lights and cars flowing through a McDonald’s drive-thru, the children with trick-or-treat bags and witch hats long replaced by drunk college students with beers and raucous laughter, stumbling off to who knows where. Anyone out this late had something exciting planned.

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Like me.

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Theoretically.

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I rolled down the window. The whoosh and honks of cars spilled inside, the whine of a distant siren petering out. I glanced at Morrigan’s house, tempted to bang on her door and propose a horror movie sleepover instead. But I couldn’t back out. Not again. Biting my lip, I checked the navigation for the fourth time to make sure I’d typed in the right address.

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Thud.

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Morrigan banged on the window, dressed in a black tee with glittery eyeshadow smudged on her nose, weighed down by a clunky grocery bag. It clanked cacophonously between her feet as she ducked inside. “Oops.”

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I frowned. “Why’d you buy so many?”

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She shrugged and pulled out a six pack of Palm Bay and a few bottles of vodka. “I didn’t know how much would get us drunk.”

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I started the engine and immediately jolted to a stop before I could merge onto the road, a car behind me shouting an expletive as he narrowly zoomed past. The bottles clanged together.

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“You can’t even bring your own drinks into the club,” I said.

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“Oh. I guess we should chug these now.” Morrigan fished out two cans.

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“Wait. I’m driving back. I can’t drink.”

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At the red light, we stared at each other, two sober but naive college students, our collective foolishness screaming amateur in the air.

 

​Morrigan popped a can open and took a sip. She coughed. “Are your parents okay with you driving so late?”

 

I bristled at the reminder that this was my parents’ car, fuelled with their gas money, who’d been painfully bad at hiding their flinches when I’d grabbed the car keys tonight. Maybe they’d have more faith in my driving skills if they’d seen them in action more often, but I hadn’t driven in months for anything from groceries to dates.

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“Well, just because they never went clubbing on Halloween doesn’t mean I shouldn’t.”

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I shoulder-checked, a bit too aggressively, and my neck joints popped. I glimpsed Morrigan staring at my chest.

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“Why are you checking me out?” I asked.

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“Because I can basically see your entire boob.. When did you get that top?”

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“Yesterday.”

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“It looks like lingerie.”

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“That’s the goal.”

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“Are you hoping to… sleep with someone tonight?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Really?”

 

“No. Kind of. Just—I’m gonna kiss someone. So are you.”

 

Morrigan’s eyes jumped out of her head. “No, I’m not!”

 

“Look, what’s the best thing you’ve done in college?”

 

She scrunched her face. “The best thing?”

 

“See? I don’t know either, and I think it’s because we didn’t do anything. This year is our last chance to do something memorable. So drink your beer.”

 

“Beer is disgusting.”

 

“Drink your Palm Bay.”

 

She did. We silently watched an elderly couple hobble across the road, waiting to turn right. 

 

“So we’re gonna kiss a guy,” said Morrigan.

 

“Yeah. I mean, we could do more.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“Like… you know.”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

Against my better judgement, I threw out a phrase from the internet. “Let someone butter our muffins.”

 

The blinker ticked in the silence.

 

“What does that mean?”

 

“I don’t know.”

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We cranked up rap songs that dropped the F-bomb every other second in preparation for the club. I tried to memorize the lyrics but they fell from my tongue when we entered the busy road. My mouth dried. I focused on navigating through the labyrinth of roads, whipping my head back and forth between the millions of cars around us, streams of pedestrians, and the faded pavement markings. I swallowed back dread when the navigation monotoned Turn left and inched into the lane, shrinking back from the barrage of blinding headlights hurtling past. Morrigan, on her second Palm Bay, bobbed off-beat.

 

“What are you gonna do after graduation?” she asked.

 

Anxiety shot up my legs and I resisted the urge to bounce my knee up and down. I didn’t answer. The cars and crowd of glammed-up pedestrians offered no opening for a left turn. My palms sweat into the steering wheel and I panicked wondering if I should risk wiping them on my shorts or if the pedestrians would clear up the instant my hands left the wheel. It was the same battle before every left turn, convinced the tick of the blinker was a countdown to catastrophe—I’d miscalculate the speed of an oncoming car, turn too late, and crash in a mechanical, crimson mess, or I’d hesitate even at the yellow light and stay rooted mid-intersection, as firmly as I’m rooted in bed instead of going out or beelining away from a cute classmate. The green light would flash for the opposite cars. They’d smash into me dead-on and I’d be found crumpled over the steering wheel. Red highways trickling down my skin.

 

Miraculously, the road cleared. I turned left.

 

Nobody died.

 

“Graduation?” prompted Morrigan.

 

“Um…” I scrambled to find an impressive way to say nothing, my almost-finished English degree proving its uselessness. I drove tensely until we finally veered off the main road and into a quiet neighbourhood.

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“Come on, grad-u-a-tion,” Morrigan sang, somehow dancing with too much elbow.

 

“Ah, honestly—”

 

I turned right and screeched to a halt. Something massive dangled from above and blocked our path—long, swaying branches like skinny fingers with gnarled knuckles, connected to a crooked tree on the sidewalk. A sidewalk that stretched into an eerie residential street, shrivelled houses unnaturally far from the curb, the road crumbling from pavement to gravel. It disappeared into blackness over a hill.

 

Morrigan slowed her bobbing. “Maybe we should take a detour.”

 

I tapped the navigation, squinting. I couldn’t really tell if we were still on the right path, but instead of admitting I was so sheltered that after twenty-one years, I couldn’t make it to a club without getting lost, I hit the gas.

 

Morrigan scrambled back in her seat. “Um. You realize this looks like a street where girls get murdered, right?”

 

As the car crawled forward, the tree’s branches scraped the roof unevenly like drunken footsteps. “I trust Google Maps.” More than I trusted myself, really. If only it knew a direct route from English degree at a mediocre college to my future.

 

As I drove deeper into the neighbourhood, crunching on the gravel, chills skittered up my spine. Rows of houses were engulfed in shadows, most run-down and decayed like their owners had left and never returned. One had dark, gaping mouths for windows, caged in a rusty fence and another was choked in vines criss-crossed haphazardly that revealed only a slice of the crimson door. Morrigan gulped at the sight of a bungalow with cracked windows and a smashed-in roof, like a beast had taken a massive bite of shingles and wood. It was hard to imagine these houses in their prime, before something uncanny happened to them.

 

I approached a four-way. No street signs. No lights.

 

I straightened. No lights anywhere because none of the houses were lit.

 

I realized nothing happened to these houses. They were the result of abandonment, of letting years erode away their souls, and that fact was somehow the terrifying cherry on top that extinguished my last bit of calm. Suddenly, I needed to drive the hell out of here.

 

The radio crackled, then cut out.

 

“Um.” Morrigan’s voice was small.

 

I tapped a trembling finger on the navigation’s frozen screen. I would’ve given up anything for blaring music and the comfort of a sweaty crowd at the club, but instead I got a warning light on the dashboard.

 

Fuck. “I’m running out of gas.”

 

Morrigan grabbed my arm, Palm Bay splashing onto the console. Her face was as pale as my knuckles on the steering wheel. “You’re joking.”

 

I forgot to check the gas before leaving. I forgot I couldn’t drink and drive. Tonight invalidated every A I’d gotten on an essay. My classmates got As and partied at clubs, stuck their tongues down a one-night-stand’s throat, and were still up for paid internships the next morning. They mastered how college kids were supposed to live. I could barely drive a car.

 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I shouldn’t have dragged Morrigan out tonight. I should’ve known staying home all the time had been a blessing in disguise.

 

I made a goddamn left turn, whimpering. “You don’t think there’d be a—”

 

A hazy light flickered on at the end of the street. Like a bulb in a sea of ink, unveiling a shabby gas station.

 

“No.” The Palm Bay was knocked over on the floor. Both Morrigan’s hands gripped her seatbelt. “Fuck no.”

 

I wanted to press my foot into the brakes so hard it smashed a sinkhole that swallowed us up. “What choice do we have?”

 

At a snail’s crawl, we rolled toward the singular filling station. The poles were dirtier than a hiker’s shoe soles, smudged with maroon stains that I quickly glanced away from. The convenience store looked like an abandoned park pit stop with broken blinds and grimy windows. Above us, the light was weak and quivering, its plastic panels showcasing a museum of stiff bug corpses, but it felt like a spotlight. A target.

 

I parked the car but didn’t move. I didn’t have enough gas to find my way back out and was in this deep already. I needed to stay on schedule and do whatever girls did at clubs for a memorable, wild night out.

 

“It’s just a gas station.” My voice was loud in the stillness. Morrigan wasn’t convinced, gaze flitting across the station.

 

I got out. Left the door open.

 

No breeze, no sound. It was freezing, a bite in the air harsher than the usual October chill. I felt it in every hair, every inch of exposed boob covered by flimsy lace. With cold fingers, I punched the buttons quickly and cursed myself for dressing like the hot chicks who die in slasher movies.

 

Bang.

 

“Jesus!” I whirled around.

 

Morrigan had slammed her hand against the car, having crawled over the driver’s seat and fallen out. She stumbled to her feet and grabbed me tightly, pointing a threatening bottle of vodka into the darkness.

 

“I’m not letting you stand outside alone.” Her heavy breaths helped me circulate air into my own lungs. “Fill the tank.”

 

I obliged. Gasoline glugged in the silence until—

 

“What was that?” Morrigan’s nails dug into my arms.

 

“What?” I hissed.

 

An unearthly growl. A skittish jump.

 

Screams.

 

Piercing screams from Morrigan and I. She flung the bottle. I yanked out the nozzle and shot gasoline in front of us. We jammed into each other and screeched because this was it. This was my last defense against amounting to nothing, as shattering as a newborn’s cries because I nearly burst with how badly I wanted to live, to have the most interesting thing about me be something other than my death at a sinister gas station beside a house from The Conjuring. So I screamed.

 

It was a terrifying catharsis.

 

The raccoon jumped, narrowly missing Morrigan’s bottle. It bolted past us, melted into the blackness, and disappeared around the block. It didn’t even scream back. We stood there, panting, gasoline pooling between our toes, trying to comprehend our utter misjudgement. There was no vindictive ghost or murderer of college girls in revealing tops. It wasn’t our end.

 

It was absolutely nothing at all.

 

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“One Big Mac and—oh.”

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The drive-thru employee held our burgers hostage as he stared at us—broken nails, the perfume of gasoline, Palm Bays littering the floor—but handed over our food and waved us away.

 

I rolled into a spot between two cars in the parking lot. Sandwiched between the main road and McDonald’s, we drank in the view of colourful glowing taillights zooming past the big yellow M, the muted drones of cars accompanying our crunches of lettuce. One briefly blasted music and the whoops of college students off to some Halloween party.

 

“You know, I think I’m ready to leave college behind,” Morrigan said, watching them go.

 

I nodded.

 

She slurped the last of her coke. “Are you ready for the real world?”

 

Earlier, I’d thought the real world would kill me. But something about this quiet parking lot and mediocre burger gave me courage.

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“Yeah.” I reclined back in my seat. “We’ll be fine.”