If Your Car’s Radio Tunes to Station 444 AM, Pray The Dispatcher Doesn't Call Your Name
I’ve spent a little over half of my 54 year-old life driving a Peterbilt. I’ve hauled everything from frozen food to industrial chemicals across every interstate of this country. “How far” becomes “how much time” and quickly, 12-hour drives don’t seem all too bad. When you spend that much time on the road, the world starts to shrink so small that it becomes nothing but you, the glow of the gauges, and the hypnotic white noise of the tires meeting asphalt. It’s one thing to take road trips that last only a few hours and go from city to city, but most of you don’t spend enough time in the "Dead Zones.” Those are stretches of highway where the GPS turns into a useless blue triangle and your cell signal flatlines into a hollow 'No Service'. We truckers live in those zones.
If you’ve traversed these zones for as long as I have, you’ve probably experienced some strange things. Abandoned trucks in ditches, skeletal remains of burnt sedans, a hitchhiker that seems to vanish as you pass by, the smell of old copper filling up your dense cabin, or the sound of static emanating from your broken radio. I have survived enough Dead Zones to tell you that it all is connected. It all relates to Radio Station 444 AM.
If you are a night-shifter, a long-hauler, or just someone driving home way too late, you need to listen. At 4:44 AM, if you are caught within the hearts of any of America’s Dead Zones, your radio, whether off, on, or broken, will tune itself to station 444 AM. Greeting you through the quieting static will be a voice that still haunts my dreams. We call him the Dispatcher. He’s got a voice like a late-night jazz DJ, smooth, professional, and confident. He never plays any music on his station. Instead, he reads off a Manifest.
The first time I heard about Radio Station 444 AM, I was slumped over a basket of greasy fries at a diner outside of a small town that I don’t remember the name of. It was midweek, maybe 3:00 AM, split between three egregiously long days. I was sitting with an old-timer, whom I only knew as "Cutter." He was more than twice my age at the time and was the kind of guy who looked like he’d been carved out of a hickory stump. He had the works of a seasoned driver: leathery, wrinkled skin, eyes that had seen too many horizons, and hands that shook just a little too much before his daily caffeine hit.
We were shootin’ the shit, but when I told him about my upcoming route, he froze. "Artie," he whispered. "If you’re pulling that haul through the Nebraska Dead Zone tonight, keep your eyes on the clock. If it hits 4:40 AM, you pull onto the shoulder. Kill that engine, douse your lights, and put your head on the wheel. Don't even listen to the airwaves. Not even for the weather." He had leaned in so uncomfortably close that I could feel the moisture coming from his peppermint scented breath, which failed to hide the smell of the day’s tobacco.
I brushed his concern off with a slight chuckle. I was only 26. As with any young kid in that position, I was full of vigor and the arrogance of a boy who thought a 500-horsepower engine made him king of the world. "What, Cutter? You afraid of the Ghost Rider? Or is it the Phantom Tollbooth again?"
He ignored my teasing. Those worn eyes that resembled shattered glass just stared through my soul. "It ain't no ghost, kid. It’s the Dispatcher. He's as real as you and me. If you hear him say 'Good morning, travelers,' you better hope to God he’s talking to the guy in the lane next to you."
I dismissed it immediately. This was just another tall trucker tale that drivers spin to keep themselves awake on the long, lonely stretches. I finished my fries, climbed back into the Pete, and forgot all about Cutter’s warning.
It was three months later when I was forced to remember his tale. I was hauling a load of medical isotopes toward Kentucky. I was running late. A blown gasket in Utah and a brief stop to pick up a hiker named Bobby Vance had cost me about six hours. I was never late to any of my destinations before then, so I was pushing the limit to make my window. I hit the heart of a Dead Zone somewhere deep on the I-64. The GPS had been a flickering grid for miles. I watched it struggle to remember where we were, failing to establish any link to the connected world. Bobby had been asleep for about five hours from the time displayed on the dash’s digital clock. Through its orange glow, it read 4:44 AM.
Gradually, the silence in the cab evolved into pressure. My ears popped just the same way they do when you’re descending a steep mountain grade. But there, the road was flat as a pancake. The smell of moist compost overtook the Christmas tree air freshener hanging from my mirror as the air became thick. Then, my radio hissed a rhythmic, pulsing sound. Shhhuuufffshhhuuufff. It sounded like a massive pair of lungs breathing through my shitty speakers. I went to shut the damn thing off as I didn’t want to wake Bobby, but I noticed that the display didn't show my preset. Instead, it showed a frequency that no radio could tune to. 444 AM.
A heavy, mechanical thump echoed through the cab, like the sound of a live AUX cord being plugged into an awaiting speaker. The static was cut and transformed into a rich silence. Then, a voice filled the space. It was a voice that was deep, calm, resonant, one that belongs on a high-end stereo system.
"Good morning, travelers," said the voice from my speakers. There was no music. Just that smooth, confident greeting. A greeting that sucked all of the air out of the cabin. "The fog is rolling in low over the valley floor, and the concrete is feeling particularly brittle today. We have a heavy schedule, and the road is asking for a little extra support. Let's see who's helping us maintain the flow..."
I thought about pulling over. I should have listened to Cutter’s instructions. But I was too gripped by a morbid, hypnotic fascination. What did that voice want? What did it mean? I watched the white lines of the highway blur past with a calming consistency. I felt as if I was just a passenger in my own cabin.
The sound of crinkling paper followed by the clearing of a throat preceded the voice's next words. “Gregory Miller, 47, driving a Mack… Pass-Through…. You're doing fine, Gregory. Keep that heavy foot off the brake. You're cleared for the next sixty miles." ‘Pass-Through’ was spoken in a way that sounded almost robotic. The voice continued. “Diane Halloway, 33, driving a Hyundai… Pass-Through…. A bit of a tremor in your steering, Diane? Don't you worry. It'll pass. You've been granted transit." These names felt so real in the middle of nowhere, as though I was connected to all of them. “Larry Smith, 68, driving a Lincoln… Pass-Through… The road thanks you for your punctuality, Larry. Drive on."
The voice paused. I could hear the faint sound of a page turning. It was a crisp, paper sound that felt impossibly real. “And for our final guest of the morning... our Exit..." The voice drifted off for a second. "Robert Vance, 19, riding shotgun in a Peterbilt. Bobby, I see you're still trying to find your place in this world. Today's your lucky day. We are in need of someone with your... elasticity."
My head snapped right. "Bobby," I rasped. "Bobby... Bobby!" I tried shaking him awake, but the sound of the passenger door lock rapidly clicking did my job for me.
"Bobby, you’ve got such a fine, young frame," the voice purred. "The I-64 is feeling a bit thin near the expansion joints." As the voice was talking, his seatbelt began to tighten. He couldn't scream, although face strained as he tried. The belt effortlessly crushed his lungs as it pinned him into the seat. It winched him tighter with each of his strained breaths. His eyes, wide, bloodshot, and bulging, were flooded with a primal panic only seen on those who know their fate. "The cracks in the road are getting bigger, Bobby, and you're just the glue we need," the voice said with a smile in his tone.
I wanted to slow down and pull over, but the truck stayed its course. The steering wheel was locked in place and cruise control was unable to be overridden. Then, I heard the metal of his door peeling back like a sardine can. The noise of the chunching metal violently overtook the smoothness of the Dispatcher’s voice, yet no rushing air could be heard, even from our speed. There was just a void of devouring blackness where the door should have been.
The seat beneath him started to tilt toward the open void. Bobby’s legs–God, the sound–unspooled like twine. His shins snapped and twisted in ways they were not designed to. Bones broke with the sound of timber being shoved through a mulcher. His legs began to stretch towards the void, pulled by invisible tethers of the Dispatcher’s will. The voice continued in his relaxed demeanor. "A little more slack, Bobby. Just relax. The road needs its repairs." I couldn't believe my eyes. Bobby was being slowly stretched out of the cab. After his legs had disappeared to the void, his hips, then torso, followed. The skin over his crushed ribs stretched until it was translucent. I'll never forget seeing the frantic, pulsing beat of his heart beneath a layer of tissue no thicker than a balloon.
"Bobby! Hang on!" I snapped out of my stupor and lunged across the center console. I went to grab his jacket, but my fingers passed right through the fabric as if it were smoke. I then cursed myself by looking at his face. The skin on his cheeks pulled back toward his ears making the most horrid smile any human can conjure. His mouth was forced open by an unseen hand that broke his jaw and allowed me to see down his bloodied throat. His eyes rolled to the back of his head until the optic nerve was visible. Worst of all, oozing from every orifice in his skull leaked a thick, black tar-like fluid that smelled of fresh oil.
"Beautiful," the Dispatcher remarked. "A perfect fit. You’re the tendon the I-64 has been missing, Bobby. You’re the graft that keeps the world together." With one final, violent thud that rocked the entire eighteen-wheeler, Bobby was ripped from his seat and vanished. He didn't hit pavement or roll into a ditch. He simply became a streak of raw, red matter that smeared across the threshold of the door before being absorbed into the darkness of the road. I still remember his pained face as he stretched beyond what was physically possible. The door straightened itself and slammed shut. The lock clicked a few more times and then, the white noise of the rubber meeting road returned.
The smell of old copper was so thick I gagged, vomiting onto the steering wheel. My reaction jerked the wheel free of the hold it had and I realized I could start slowing down. I looked at the passenger seat. It was pristine. No blood. No torn fabric. Just a slight indentation where a nineteen-year-old kid had been sleeping just thirty seconds ago.
The smooth voice of the Dispatcher returned one more time. "The toll is settled. The road is slick, the lines are straight, and the Manifest is closed until tomorrow. Drive with care, listeners. We’ll see you at the next mile marker."
The clock hit 4:45 AM. The breathing static returned for a brief moment before shutting off entirely. I finally pulled the rig onto the shoulder. My heart raced so hard I thought I would die of a heart attack before I could stop the truck. I sat there for three hours, waiting for the sun to come up and refusing the temptation to look at my mirrors. I just knew, with a terrifying certainty, that if I looked in my side-mirrors, there wouldn't be a highway staring back at me. I’d see Bobby Vance, stretched out thin across the road, holding the pavement together so that I could keep on driving.
It took every ounce of my remaining drive to call the troopers. I didn’t move, I waited for them to come to me, hoping they would see just a fraction of the horror that I just saw. When they arrived, I told them that a hitchhiker named Bobby Vance fell out of my cab. I couldn’t tell them the truth. They would think I was drunk or on something and have me arrested. They searched thirty miles of shoulder. They didn't find a drop of blood. There was no sign that Bobby ever existed.
When the troopers shared that they couldn’t find any sign of him, I froze. I feared that they thought I was mad or that I killed him. I thought I would surely lose my job now, not just for missing my first deadline, but for getting arrested for misuse of state resources. I quickly pushed through each question they asked, hoping that it would be the last. Finally, they told me that I could be on my way. Without a second thought, I rolled out of that Dead Zone as fast as I could.
I drove in a trance for the next three years, unable to forget Bobby Vance. My eyes would always look past the white lines. Their slow, rhythmic pulse between my tires would always remind me of watching Bobby's final heartbeats. I told myself multiple times that it was all a big hallucination. It was just a spike of carbon monoxide in the cab from an exhaust leak. I thought of everything but the truth.
After about 5 years, I had eventually convinced myself that Bobby never existed. But the world I built for myself came crashing down when I got a little too comfortable traveling west on the I-70 through Ohio. It was early morning and I was hauling a massive cooling unit to California. The engine was making that steady, low-frequency hum that usually lulls you into the type of trance that makes you forget about the last 50 miles, especially at that hour. At 4:44am, the air changed. That copper-and-ozone tang began to seep through the vents. It was so thick I could taste the metallic grit on the back of my tongue. The first whiff snapped my brain out of its trance as it brought Bobby’s fate to the top of my head. The radio didn't even flicker this time. The digital display bled into those three glowing numbers. 444. I didn’t even realize what was happening before I heard those three haunting words.
“Good morning, travelers.” He sounded pleased this day, his voice carrying the warmth of a man sitting down to a feast he’d been smelling for hours. “The fog is thick in the valleys, and the road is feeling a bit blind. We need to sharpen our focus. We need a new set of eyes." Again, paper crinkled and a throat cleared before the list was read. "Marcus Thorne, 42, driving a Freightliner… Pass-Through… You’re running a bit hot in the trailer, aren't you, Marcus? Keep that coolant pumping. You’re cleared to pass. Sarah Jenkins, 28, driving a Honda… Pass-Through… Checking your reflection in the rearview again, Sarah? Clearly, you can’t share your vision with the road. Please continue. David Poe, 51, driving a Ford… Pass-Through… I see that wedding ring is fitting a little tight this morning, David. Take a deep breath. The road thanks you for your sacrifice. You may proceed."
The Dispatcher paused. I heard a swallowing sound, like a heavy liquid moving through a throat. "And for our final guest of the morning... our Exit... Elena Rodriguez, 33, driving a Toyota. The road is blind in the valley, Elena," the Dispatcher narrated, his voice dropping an octave. "We need to see the deer before they jump. We need to see the black ice before it reveals itself. Your vision is so... vivid. Let's share it with the road."
Through the fog, cruising in the far left lane parallel to me was a red Toyota Camry being driven by a young woman in a business suit. I thought I had left my back door open again as she appeared to be drawing my attention by flashing her headlights. She looked tired for her age. She had one hand on a paper commuter mug with the other barely resting on the wheel. As soon as my attention was drawn to her, I watched her face shift from exhaustion to a sudden, crazed confusion the moment her name was read by the voice on the radio. After the Dispatcher finished his line, she quickly dropped her coffee as if it were too hot for her hands. Instead of flinching in pain from the hot coffee, her hands frantically clawed at her own eyes, all the while her car remained perfectly between the lines.
I watched in horror as, from the dashboard, hundreds of wires erupted and raced toward her face. They all went straight for her tear ducts. Elena’s mouth opened in a wide-eyed scream that I could hear through my radio over the soothing voice of the Dispatcher. I could see her eyes start to glow with that same sickly, halogen light coming from her old headlights. "Don't blink, Elena. We don't want to miss a thing," the Dispatcher urged. The wires slowly pulled her eyeballs forward. Her optic nerves stretched like taffy through the gaps in the dashboard and her body convulsed wildly as smoke rose from her skull. The headlights of her car dimmed, before they shut off completely. Her car slowed down and fell behind me. I stared at the driver-side mirror waiting to see what would happen next, failing to keep my attention on the road in front of me. Then, her headlights started to burn again, but the light coming from them highlighted a horror that I wish I could forget. Her bloodied eyeballs grew and filled the sockets her headlights previously occupied. They were each starting to emanate the same dull yellow light as the car’s bulbs, but they grew brighter and brighter, until they were twin beams of searing, white-hot lasers that cut through the fog like butter. I averted my eyes from the horror and the brightness reflected in my mirror, only to then look up and realize that the fog we were driving through for the last several miles was gone.
"Beautiful," the Dispatcher remarked. "The road has never been seen so clearly. Can you feel the horizon, Elena? You're the one who watches the path now. You're the light that guides the others home." I had just enough curiosity to look back at, what I figured was, Elena as she started to speed past me. She was a shell. Her head was tilted back and her empty eye-sockets glowed with residual electricity. Her body became blackened and shriveled. Her mouth was left agape in a permanent state of screaming. Her sedan didn't deviate from its course as it slowly sank into the road. The car's metal flattened out and became part of the road's surface until there was nothing left but a perfectly smooth, shimmering patch of pavement. The voice on the radio let out a contented sigh. "The valley is clear. The sightlines are perfect. The road thanks you for your sacrifice, Elena. Remember to drive safely, travelers. We’ll see you at the next mile marker." I’ve passed through that stretch countless times after that incident. Not once had I ever seen fog like that morning, but every time, I remembered the terrible fate Elena suffered through.
About a year later, I found myself at a 24-hour diner in West Virginia. It was the kind of place where the fluorescent lights are louder than the refrigerators, the coffee tastes about as good as battery acid, and the waitresses don't give two shits about you. I was sitting at a corner booth with two other lifers: James McCann, a guy who’d been driving longer than I’d been breathing, and a younger fella named CJ.
We ran out of things to talk about after barely an hour. During this time, CJ had already gone through enough cups of Joe that the ceramic clattered against the table every time he rested his cup. "I almost laid my rig down near the Clinch Mountain stretch last week," he said, trying to spark a new conversation. His eyes drifted up to see if we were paying him any attention. "I hit that long curve where the fog gets thick enough to chew. My dash lights started pulsing red, and then the radio keyed up. I didn't even touch the dial."
James didn't look up from his eggs when he spoke just before the fork reached his mouth. "You remember what station you were tuned to, kid?"
"444," CJ rasped. "I tried to kill it, but it wouldn’t die. The speakers just... breathed. And then that voice came through. Smooth. Like a velvet shroud. He called my name. He knew my age. He knew what rig I drove."
James slowly put his fork down until it reached his plate with deliberate click. He finally looked up, his eyes hard and hollow. "He call you an 'Exit'?"
"No," CJ exhaled, shaking his head. "He just said 'Pass-Through.' Told me to watch my lane-centering and granted me transit. As soon as he said it, the fog just... parted. Like it was being pulled back by invisible hands."
"That wasn't a glitch, CJ," James rasped, leaning over the table until his shadow swallowed the kid’s plate. "That’s the Manifest. You found yourself a Dead Zone, and the Dispatcher found himself a traveler. You’re lucky you’re sitting here eating with us. Most guys who hear their name called don't make it to the next weigh station." James slowly sat back in his seat, but it became clear that CJ wasn’t telling us the whole story.
“You saw something else, didn’t you,” I asked. My voice was barely audible over the hum of the diner’s neon sign hanging over us.
He nodded slowly. "The voice said the road was 'unstable' near the shoulder. Said it needed 'mineral density.' I looked in my side-mirror. That car... it… it didn't crash. The guardrail just reached out. The steel uncoiled like a snake and wrapped around the cab. The voice narrated the whole thing, how the driver’s teeth and marrow were the perfect 'calcium supplement' for the concrete. I watched the road absorb the whole vehicle. No fire. No debris. Just... a smoother shoulder. It all happened within seconds"
Unable to find another opportunity to free myself of the two horrors I’d seen, I shared my experiences with Radio Station 444 AM. I gave explicit detail of Bobby and Elena’s demise, yet James didn’t seem to flinch. “You seen anything of the sorts?” I asked him.
James rubbed his face, his heavy sigh sounding like a leak in an air-brake. "I was running a flatbed through the Carolina border 20 years ago. 4:44 AM. The radio keyed up, and I heard the Dispatcher. He called a guy in a rig a quarter-mile ahead of me. It was a ‘Traction Exit’." James’s eyes went distant, staring at something 30 miles and two decades away. "The Dispatcher narrated the whole thing. He said the curve was 'thirsty' and the asphalt was 'slipping.' I watched that guy’s tires melt from the road reaching up and dissolving the rubber. Then the driver... the Dispatcher described how his skin was being pulled off his muscles to act as a 'high-friction grip' for the rest of us. I drove over that curve just after his truck was swallowed by the road, unable to come to a stop. It felt like I was driving on fresh black asphalt. I could hear the guy’s muffled screams coming through the radio, then through the floorboards the whole way through the turn."
CJ had lost his appetite and I was just thankful that I wasn’t alone in these experiences, but James wasn't done. He looked at me, then back to the kid. “I’ve seen a handful of ‘Exits’ in my time. Reflectors, dividers, lights, potholes, they all relate to the integrity of the road itself. But I’ve also seen it take what it needs in order to think.” It was clear that CJ didn't want to stay on this topic, but I had given in to my unnatural, yet curious desire to learn what he meant.
"I was hauling a wide-load across the I-80 in Wyoming," James began, his eyes fixed on an old coffee stain on the table. "4:44 AM. The Dead Zone was so thick the stars looked like they were being blotted out by ink. The radio keyed up, that smooth bastard. He called a pickup truck following just behind me." It was at this point where I saw James’s hand starting to shake. It was the first and last time I’d ever seen a tremor in that man.
"The Dispatcher called an Exit for a man named Alfred Mercier. 67 years old. His Exit was for ‘Central Processing.’" James took a shuddering breath. "His truck didn't crash. It didn't even slow down. But the pavement beneath it... it started to ripple, like a pond after you throw a stone. I watched in my mirrors as the asphalt turned translucent, evolving into a sort of pink, gelatinous membrane. And then the Dispatcher started narrating the 'Integration.' He described, in that calm voice, how the road’s internal mapping was 'fragmenting.' It needed a memory bank to track the travelers. I watched through my mirrors as Alfred was pulled through his seat and into the floorboards. He simply vanished beneath his windshield. I sometimes still hear his screams through my radio.”
CJ was visibly nervous at this point, yet James didn’t even pause to drink. “His body slowly oozed out of the grill of his truck like a pasta press. When pieces of him touched the road, it started to unravel his nervous system like a ball of yarn. I heard the Dispatcher talking about 'synaptic bridging.' I saw his brain matter being stretched out past me into long, fleshy threads that wove themselves into the expansion joints of the highway ahead. Then, the Dispatcher thanked him for his 'intellectual contribution' to the infrastructure."
James finally took the first sip of his replenished coffee as if trying to swallow the lump in his throat. “His truck followed close behind me for several miles until it finally drove itself off the road, through the dirt plains, and into a boulder a few yards from the highway. While it followed me, I could hear random voices and sounds coming from my radio. Some were sounds of nature and others were cries of pain. But the one that haunts me to this day was the sound of a group of kids singing the birthday song to a kid named Alfie.”
James looked up at us. I caught a glimpse of a tear running down the left side of his face before he quickly wiped it away with his shaking hand. "That’s why I’m here. That’s why I don't move until the sun is high enough to turn the sky pink. The road is not a road. It’s a brain. It’s a gut. It’s a giant, paved parasite that’s learning our names until it can call us home. It’s all alive, and we’re keeping its heart beating by driving on it." The veteran driver brushed off the horror behind his eyes and regained a hard, yet brittle edge. "I’m staying here. I will leave at 6:00 AM. To hell with the schedule. I’m not becoming a food for a mountain bypass."
His words stuck with me like a bad memory. I remember every detail he shared that night. The visions played over and over in my head every time I found myself on the road past sundown. For the next couple of decades, I followed his lead, pulling over between 3:00 AM and 6:00 AM to become a ghost on the shoulder anytime I had an early route. I watched the sun shine atop the Dead Zones from the safety of the nearest rest stop. Unfortunately, the industry changed around me, replacing old-school intuition with "Smart-Flow" technology. My company installed a digital leash in the cab that tracked every second of idle time, and to the suits in the office, my "superstition" looked like a lack of productivity.
Two weeks ago, the pressure finally peaked. I was hauling a high-priority refrigerated load through the open road of the I-90. I was already behind schedule due to a slow weigh station, and my dashboard started screaming with "Efficiency Alerts". I called my dispatcher, a guy named Miller who’d never seen a sunrise from a windshield, and told him I was pulling over for the three-hour window.
"Artie, if those wheels aren't turning by 4:00 AM, don't bother coming to the terminal," he snapped through the headset. "We’ve got a contract to keep. I don’t care about your 'bad vibes' or your trucker ghost stories. You’ve already used those excuses, Artie. Drive the damn truck or hand in the keys." I looked at the clock. 3:45 AM. I looked at the dark, winding road ahead. I thought about my pension. I thought about the mortgage. I shifted into tenth gear and pushed the needle to 85. I thought I could outrun the Manifest. I was mistaken.
At 4:44 AM, the air in the cab turned into that familiar, crushing pressure. I was entering the heart of a Dead Zone. The radio display bled those same three glowing digits and the rhythmic static cut to the voice I feared most. “Good morning, travelers. The road is smooth, and visibility is perfectly clear. However, the snow has made everything slick. We need to de-ice. We need salt.” He went through the list, his tone calm and professional as he listed the spared Pass-Throughs of those caught in the Dead Zone. I forgot the other names the moment he spoke them. I only heard the one that mattered. "Arthur Holm, 54, driving a Peterbilt… Pass-Through," the voice purred. My heart increased its pressure as I felt my stomach drop at the sound of my own name. "We’ve missed you, Artie. The road appreciates a recurring visitor. Your transit is cleared for the next twenty miles.”
The blacktop in front of my truck transformed into a clear, heaving membrane that looked like wet, translucent quartz. My high beams illuminated through the thin film, highlighting every horrible detail. For the next twenty miles, the Interstate became a massive, throbbing vein stretched over a trench of absolute horror.
All tires usually make a rhythmic hum against the asphalt, but mine sounded wet and organic. They made a sickening squelch with every rotation like I was driving through a long, shallow puddle. I then realized that the reflectors embedded in the road weren't plastic or glass. They instead were preserved, reflective eyeballs, stripped from past Exits and wired into the substrate. As my 20-ton rig rolled past, I watched them, their pupils dilating and tracking my tread with a primal, desperate fear of being crushed.
The white lines were long, flattened strips of human bone that flattened down and inlaid to mark the path. I could see each bone's porous texture through the clear skin of the road that kept it in its place. Beneath that thin, clear membrane, a dark, viscous fluid churned with the slow pressure of a deep-sea current. It carried a slurry of debris from rusted subcompacts from eras beyond my time, to shredded semi-trailers, and what could only be perceived as half-digested human bodies. Everything was suspended in a pink, gelatinous mass, acting like cells in a transcontinental bloodstream.
Every few miles, the radio would erupt with the sound of today’s Exit. This time, it was an older woman named Elsie. Her screams, muffled by the poor connection to the radio, vibrated through the speakers and into my ears, yet I barely heard her pleads for death. I just watched as her "sacrifice" was processed and injected into the slurry to act as a de-icer for the upcoming mountain pass.
"Beautiful," the Dispatcher remarked, his voice cool and satisfied. "Elsie's salt will now make the road less slippery for other travelers. We thank you for your sacrifice. To all of our loyal listeners, we’ll see you at the next mile marker."
For those 20 miles, I was a passenger in my own rig. I had no control over the steering wheel, and my speed remained a locked, steady 70. I was forced to stare at the amalgamation of flesh, bone, and metal that followed me. About 15 minutes after the Dispatcher signed off for the morning, the clear vein turned back into the black, opaque asphalt road. The truck started to drift so I grabbed the wheel, regained control, and pressed on.
I reached the terminal at 7:00 AM. Miller was waiting for me with a smug look on his face because I’d arrived 15 minutes ahead of schedule. He began to dismiss my "superstitions," but I didn't let him finish. I threw my keys at his feet. "I’m done," I told him, my voice shaking with a terror he couldn't possibly understand. "I'm not driving another inch on that thing! It's alive, Miller! I would rather starve in the dirt than spend one more second acting as a vital impulse for that paved nightmare.” He called me crazy and threatened to blackball me from every freight company in the country, but his voice sounded like distant static compared to the memory of the road.
I’ve been out of a job since then, cooped up in my house too afraid of the road connecting to my driveway. I am begging you, if there is any shred of human instinct left in you, stay off the Interstates. Avoid the turnpikes, the bypasses, and the toll roads. If you must travel, please watch the clock with a religious fervor. If the sun isn't up and you see your GPS begin to flicker into a void, turn around. Do not let the 444 AM frequency find you. I am pleading with you to listen because every time you drive through those Dead Zones, you are nothing but an eligible nutrient for the road. It learns from you, about you. You are the only thing keeping that continental parasite alive. For the sake of your soul and your skin, please, just stay off the road.