Arena Road: Collect and Train Warrior Women. Chapter 1

New series from me.

I cruised down the highway with the sunset at my back. My truck’s cab cast a looming shadow ahead, but my headlights chased it away and replaced it with a calm yellow glow that was brighter than the dusty, cracked old lights that had been on the truck when I first acquired it. Now they were bright enough to carve a clear path through the growing darkness, but far from the type of glaring blue LED that would blind any cars driving in the opposite direction.

I was sort of the new kid on the block as a trucker, but I had already spent enough time driving at night to shell out a little for some minor adjustments to my beloved classic rig.

As the sun sank lower in the sky, a feeling that I’d already grown to love started to settle over me. There was something both calming and thrilling about night trips. Maybe it was the freshness of a new journey combined with the relative emptiness of the highway after most people had called it a day and gone home. It felt like the night was mine, and so was the road ahead.

And driving alongside the Columbia River Gorge was always a treat, no matter which highway I took. The one I typically took was Interstate 84 in Northern Oregon. But lately I had been putting more miles in on the second option, the one I was cruising down now: State Route 14 in Southern Washington. I did this partly just to switch things up, but also because Oregon’s road tax was high enough to make me grind my teeth at the prospect of taking that route too frequently.

Since my 1982 Marmon was small enough to squeak through the tunnels up on State Route 14, there wasn’t much to be lost by taking it instead of Interstate 84. The two highways ran parallel to each other, and the only thing separating them was the Columbia River Gorge. The gorge formed the border between the two states.

Both highways took me through the gorge’s tree-clad slopes and rocky cliffs, and either way, the river was constantly at my side. It made for a good companion at any time of day, but now, at sunset, it was especially beautiful.

The sun was low enough to wash the walls of the gorge’s tree-clad slopes and cliffs in a shade of cool dusky blue, but still high enough to breathe fire across the water’s glassy surface. When the night got darker, the silver moon would dance across the river instead.

During these times, I almost felt like I had stepped into one of the fantasy books I always listened to on my drives. The one playing now was an oldie, but a goodie, and I knew the rises and falls of the narrator’s voice so well that I probably could’ve told it myself.

But I wasn’t some bold, muscly badass like the heroes in the stories. I was fit enough to feel confident with my shirt off, which was a big improvement after my gangly highschool years. I’d also never considered myself a coward by any means, but at the end of the day, I was just an average guy, with an average body, and with the most average name of all time.

I was just John, an up and coming trucker looking for some good views and good travels.

Although, according to my boss, I was too pretty for the job.

Whatever the fuck that meant.

I shifted gears to climb one of the highway’s few slopes, and my surroundings were dim enough for my eye to immediately catch the sudden flare of hot orange-red behind me. It wasn’t as bright as the sun, but it was a hell of a lot closer.

“Dammit,” I muttered.

My phone was on the dash mount within easy reach. I reluctantly reached out and stabbed a finger at the pause button on the open BookFunnel app so I could listen to the engine.

I was irked by this little fire-show, but not exactly unnerved. Spitfire had earned her name by pulling this very same trick, spitting flame out of her exhaust pipe when I was hauling a heavy load uphill. But I thought I had resolved the issue with my last trip to the shop.

Spitfire was a bit of a clunker, but she was a classic, and I was probably one of ten or so guys in the USA still driving a Marmon cabover engine, so I was more than fond of the old gal. Fond enough to shell out an arm and a leg for repairs, which had proved to be a necessity. It was in my contract that any repairs to the truck had to be done at one of the shops associated with the company, even if it was an easy fix I could’ve handled myself. And of course, the company saw fit to charge me up the ass for every little thing.

During my last visit, they’d actually installed a pretty decent pyrometer, and it was something I tended to glance down at regularly by habit. It was almost second nature at this point. I gave it a closer look now to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.

I hadn’t. The temperature reading was still well within range.

A long sigh escaped me as I considered my immediate options.

The flash of fire from my exhaust pipe had only lasted for a second this time, but it still wasn’t something I could just ignore. Even though I was only leasing Spitfire now, I hoped to buy her outright once I could afford to. After that, I’d be able to do a full overhaul on the engine without my asshole boss finding creative new ways to wring money out of me in the process. If I could make it that long, an overhaul on the old girl would be cheaper than buying a newer truck. But for the time being, I needed to take care of these problems one by one when they came up, like sealing up holes in a leaky ship until it reached shore.

No, not a ship. A dreamboat.

Maybe it was a little janky at times, but the old truck was undeniably a timeless classic, and the thing had pretty much become my baby by this point. I needed to take care of her, even if I had to pay the damn shop for their overpriced repairs.

Luckily, I was just approaching an exit. I must have already passed the sign, but it had a long ramp I could already see. There was enough time for me to flip on my turn signal and triple-check my mirrors before I got over into the exit lane.

Then I down-shifted as I rolled down the sloping ramp and scanned over my surroundings. I had never needed to exit anywhere near this area of the highway. There were no restaurants where I could get a quick bite, and truck stops were scarce. I had also quickly learned that gas stations in this region tended to be small enough that they were annoying to maneuver even with my cabover’s tight turn radius. And even without that annoyance, it wasn’t my maneuvering that was an issue so much as the car drivers who parked like idiots and often felt the need to take up the few diesel pumps available instead of using one of the dozen other gas pumps.

By now, I knew I’d save myself a lot of headaches by fueling up strategically. And seeing exits as unhelpful as this one made me glad I had.

There was what might have once been a gas station just off the road, but it looked like it had been abandoned for decades. The building’s windows were boarded up, there were no gas pumps remaining, and the parking lot was being taken over by patches of short yellow grass.

Still, it was a good enough place for me to pull over and decide exactly what to do, and my truck trundled easily over the grassy pavement. Once I was off the road, I parked my truck in neutral and drummed my fingers lightly against the steering wheel as I considered my options.

A glance around me reminded me of all the stuff that would go flying if I tilted the cab forward to look at the engine. I’d been prepared for the necessity to take stuff out or secure it firmly in place since day one of driving old Spitfire in the event that I needed to take a peek at the engine, but in this case, it seemed a little pointless. I wouldn’t be allowed to lay a finger on the contraption even if I knew what was wrong.

The company would probably charge even more for sending someone out here to fix it. But I’d been working my ass off to work toward both buying the truck and having some amount of money stashed away, so I could technically spare the expense.

“Better to just get it over with,” I sighed.

It was no use dawdling here.

I was fine with waiting, but idling the truck until someone could come out to look at it went against my better inclination, so I prepared to turn it off as I snatched my GPS off the dash mount. I would need to tell the guy on the phone exactly where I was so he could make it out here.

I looked down at the GPS and froze with my other hand hovering an inch away from the ignition.

There was no exit marked on the map. According to the device, I was parked away from any sort of road whatsoever.

I frowned and pinched my fingers against the touch-screen to zoom out, thinking maybe it was some sort of glitch. But the highway was there, and so were all the other exits and various other amenities marked around them.

But in my current location, there was nothing.

There was also the fact that the little blue dot that marked my location on the map was blinking in a weird, irregular kind of way. It was almost flickering.

“Damned thing.” I scowled at the little device like it had personally offended me.

I could just picture the invoice from the mechanic if I called someone out here, especially at this hour. They’d probably already be charging me for the simple act of pulling a few levers to lift the cab or wiping a smudge of grease off their forehead, much less fixing whatever the hell was wrong with the engine. I couldn’t stomach having an extra few hundred dollars tacked onto the labor costs just because roadside service had to drive in circles trying to find me.

After some rummaging, I found the tightly-folded paper map I always brought along with me. I stretched it out awkwardly across the space beside me and smoothed out the deep creases well enough to see the surrounding area on the map.

It confirmed what the GPS had told me. There was nothing here.

I shook my head impatiently and decided to just drive on to the next exit before I called someone. That one was clearly marked on both the paper map and my GPS, and there were several stores just off it. It should be easy to send them my location from there. The pyrometer had stayed well within normal range, too, and my truck had only backfired the one time. I’d just have to make sure I gained a bit of momentum on the flat road down here before I drove up the mild slope back onto the highway. After that, I would take it easy and cruise a couple miles down to the next exit.

“You can do it, old girl,” I murmured as I gave the steering wheel a reassuring pat and acted like I wasn’t reassuring myself.

I put old Spitfire in gear and made sure to check left and right, even though by all appearances I was leaving the last remaining parking lot in some sort of ghost town. When everything seemed clear, I eased off the grassy paved area and back onto the flat road that led up to the entrance ramp back onto the freeway.

I had just straightened out when the fog started coming out of nowhere. One second, things were crystal clear. The next, it was everywhere and swirling across my windshield and the road in front of me.

“What the…?”

Washington weather could be fickle, and I knew fog tended to get blown in by the wind before it settled with the cool night air into the canyon-like gorge... but this seemed excessive even for valley fog. I could still see the on-ramp ahead, though, so I drove on straight and steady after double-checking that my low-beams were on. I even cracked the window to listen for approaching cars in case I couldn’t see them.

Then the fog got even thicker.

My forehead creased into a frown as I squinted doubtfully into the swirling whiteness. I couldn’t even see the damn exit ramp anymore, even though I’d been getting steadily closer to it.

I turned on my flashers just to be cautious and kept driving. I couldn’t exactly stop in the middle of the road. That would be even more dangerous than driving in this crazy fog. So I just kept my senses sharp and my grip on the wheel tight as I continued on at the same pace. As eager as I was to get out of the swirling fog, I didn’t gas it too much.

The faded yellow lines on the road below were still faintly visible, and I felt a surge of thankfulness that my truck was a cabover. I could keep a decent eye on the centerline to make sure I was heading straight, and I’d be able to see approaching cars better than I would in a conventional sleeper.

Then I hit a slight bump in the pavement, like the surface changed from rough to smooth, and I felt the beginnings of relief at the thought that it must’ve been the newer part of the road that connected to the entrance ramp.

But suddenly the fog’s slow swirl turned into a faster, chaotic motion.

Thick tendrils of it were rippling, whirling, and corkscrewing in every direction. It billowed in through my cracked window and writhed bizarrely around inside the cab.

My shocked inhale turned into coughing as icy tendrils seemed to force themselves into my lungs.

I rolled up the window as quickly as I could. The fog inside my cab seemed like it was dissipating now, and I took slow, deep breaths while I tried to ignore the fading white swirls around me so I could focus on getting through the ones outside. Whatever this freakish weather phenomenon was, I was determined not to get stuck in it. I was going to get through this. I had to be near the ramp by now.

But when the fog ahead started to glimmer, I couldn’t hold back a string of curses.

What the hell was going on?

There were halos of ghostly, colorful light dancing through the fog, with trails of glitter floating through them like stardust. I felt like I was driving through the sky during a solar storm with the colors of the northern lights swirling all around me.

This was insane. I was following both my CDL training and my instincts as accurately as possible, and for the first time, they were failing me. Nothing at truck school, or in life at all, had prepared me for swirly, luminous, blinding fog to descend on me out of nowhere. But there was no way I could be imagining this shit.

Then the truck started to vibrate from the outside, like I was going through one of those air blowers in a car wash.

“Son of a bitch,” I growled as my whole body shook.

It felt like there was a huge, crushing pressure all around. I tried to brake, but there was no response from my truck. I pressed the pedal down harder to be sure, but even when it was down flat, the truck’s pace didn’t change. I tried not to panic and tested my luck with the gas again instead, then the clutch.

Still, nothing happened. I couldn’t go faster, I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t even shift. I was just rolling along through this apparently endless magical fog.

Then, out of nowhere, the truck lurched forward with a suddenness that made my stomach drop. There was a horrible feeling of weightlessness as it continued to hurtle on like it had been launched out of a cannon, and I felt sure the wheels were no longer on the ground. The swirls of fog were whipping past my windshield faster and faster, and I started to feel sick to my stomach.

I kept my grip on the wheel rigid even though the idea of me being in control of the truck seemed laughable right now.

But it was a damn good thing I did.

The truck jolted down with a force that made my already-gritted teeth grind together audibly. I could easily sense the appearance of a hard, smooth surface under the tires again. But in front of my windshield, the fog was still whipping around like crazy, and I felt the truck wobble slightly.

I kept my grip on the wheel and tentatively pressed down on the clutch. My palm was slick against the stick as I tested its resistance. Then a wave of relief washed through me as it slid smoothly into gear. I knew it had less to do with the necessity of downshifting than with some sort of reassurance that the laws of physics as I knew them were still in place. At least I was in control of something.

I kept the flow of driving going, and felt another touch of reassurance when the gas pedal reacted the way I was used to it reacting.

When the fog started to finally thin out, it was like icing on the cake.

I couldn’t hold back a whoop of relief. “Finall—”

The word died on my lips as my surroundings came into view, and my jaw dropped.

The first thing I noticed was the road I was on. It stretched far into the distance ahead, but it wasn’t the road I had been on just a few minutes ago. It wasn’t like any road I had ever seen.

It was a pure, pristine white, and the surface looked smooth and glossy. The white color had a cool blue sheen to it that wasn’t glowing with light in the way the swirling fog had been. Instead, it was iridescent, like a moonstone. It was perfectly shaped, with an even surface and smooth sides that fell down to meet the ground around it.

And the ground around it was even more shocking than the road.

There was no landscape like this in Washington.

The surface looked barren and parched, with deep cracks running through its dusty umber-colored surface. Just like the road, it stretched off endlessly into the distance.

In every direction.

“Where… the fuck am I?” I breathed.

I had driven through Eastern Washington’s deserts on my routes before. They had been dry and hot during the summer, but still full of life in their own way. There had been a bunch of scrubby desert plants, Junipers and Sage Brush, and stiff yellow grass everywhere. There had been animals, too, like birds, rabbits, snakes, deer, and bobcats. I had even seen a few coyotes skulking around and blending in perfectly with the yellowish grass.

But the land I was in now was completely different. This strange hellhole of a desert made Eastern Washington look like a tropical paradise. There was no shred of evidence around me that suggested any form of plant or animal life. Just the hard-packed ground, the smooth white road, and the sun.

It was like a whole different world out here.

And I had a fluttering feeling in my stomach as I realized it really did seem to actually be a whole different world.

A world I’d passed through a crazy foggy portal to get through just like the dudes in the audiobooks I loved.

Holy shit, I sounded crazy.

The sun was one thing that didn’t seem quite as different as the rest of my surroundings. It was in the same place it had been before, at least, with the last sliver of the fiery orange disk just visible above the horizon.

I turned away from the unsettling view of the world around me to cast a hopeful look at my GPS. It was still in its place mounted on the dashboard, but the screen was black now, and it didn’t flicker back into life when I desperately pressed every last button on the outside of the device.

The same thing turned out to be true with my phone. I even fished around for the portable battery I always carefully charged up before every trip. I ignored my personal possessions going flying in every direction as I rummaged for my phone’s charging cord next.

Finally I found it, and I plugged one end triumphantly into the USB port of the battery. Then, more slowly, I inserted the other end of the cord into my phone.

I held my breath as it clicked neatly into place.

Nothing.

I felt a small jolt of surprise when I realized the little old rectangular clock on Spitfire’s dashboard was still working. The black analog numbers on its gray screen showed that a little over five minutes had passed since I left the grassy yellow parking lot.

It was impressive that old Spitfire’s clock had weathered the journey when my other electronics hadn’t, but at the moment, this wasn’t exactly helpful in helping me get home from… wherever the hell I was.

“Okay, then,” I exhaled.

Well, now that I’d ruled out calling for help, the next thing on my agenda was something that had less to do with survival than with preventing myself from losing my shit completely.

I had to prove to myself that I hadn’t gone insane. That I wasn’t dreaming, or having some sort of nervous breakdown and hallucinating all this.

So I swung open the door of my truck and descended carefully toward the ground. I made sure to keep a grip on the door until I found my footing, but then I found myself wondering why the hell I was moving not just with my usual carefulness, but with the slow caution of an elderly turtle.

I came to a halt.

After a few seconds, I realized it was dread that kept me from moving. I was flooded with it.

What would happen when my foot touched that glossy white road below?

I figured there were two scenarios. Scenario A was that it would be another one of my five senses confirming that this was real--that I was trapped in the middle of a vast, empty wasteland.

Scenario B was that I had gone completely off the rails.

Dread was fine, I decided. What mattered was proving to myself that I wouldn’t let that dread own me.

With that in mind, I took the last few steps down. I finished the last one with a brisk, decisive hop to land with both feet planted firmly on the ground.

And they did land. My black boots thumped hard onto the smooth white surface. I crouched and ran a cautious hand over it, and I watched the fading sunlight play off the iridescence inside. It felt and looked almost like some type of polished gemstone, and it appeared completely seamless.

I turned to look behind my truck in the direction I had come from. The white road stretched off in that direction, too.

But in the air above it… there was the same fog.

My stomach leapt with something between excitement and fear.

The fog was a pure, misty white with no colorful glow, just a smooth, gentle swirling to it. Just like it had appeared when I first entered into this crazy situation on the on-ramp.

I marched determinedly up to the cloud of fog but stopped a cautious few feet away when I remembered the way it had seemed to catch in my throat when it swept into the cab of my truck.

After a moment’s thought, I pulled off the button-up flannel shirt that I wore over a dark t-shirt. Despite my desert-like surroundings, the darkening air felt cool against my arms as I reached up to tie the flannel around the bottom lower half of my face so it would shield my nose and mouth from the fog. Then I tucked the hanging bottom of it into the neck of my dark t-shirt as snugly as I could so no foggy air would flow up from underneath.

Then I stuck both arms out straight in front of me and took a slow step into the fog.

I probably looked like a zombie, but I didn’t care. Not only was there no one around to see, but even if there had been, the benefit of caution far outweighed the risk of looking like a jackass in this situation.

The fog started to swirl around my extended fingers as I advanced, and I shivered slightly but took another step. And then another. The swirling intensified, and it started to encircle my arms, then my torso. It was almost like the foggy tendrils wanted to wrap around me and drag me away into the thickening center of the cloud ahead.

But then, after another step, I started encountering some weird sort of resistance in the air. It felt almost like trying to push the wrong sides of two magnets together. I couldn’t see what was stopping me, but I could sure as hell feel it.

After a few more steps, I couldn’t go any further.

I backed out of the fog’s chilly embrace feeling oddly relieved. It was true that I hadn’t been able to pass through the fog just now, but it was definitely, unmistakably there. And I had no idea how any of it worked, but one thing that seemed clear was that the fog was how I’d gotten here.

So the fog was one piece of the puzzle. The other piece must have been…

“My truck.” I almost whispered the words.

Spitfire, my tough-as-nails 1982 Marmon semi, was what had gotten me through.

A thousand questions leaped into my mind with this realization. Why? How? Was it just my truck who could manage a trip like this, or were there others? Was I the first person to come here, ever?

And more importantly, what the hell was this place?

The last shard of the fiery sun was just slipping out of sight below the horizon when I walked back to the driver’s side of the truck.

Then I froze there mid-step and stared at what I could now see in the distance across the vast empty desert.

Lights.

A bunch of them.

They were all blooming like golden flowers in the growing darkness.

My thoughts went into overdrive, and I tapped my heel briskly against the ground to release some of the nervous energy while I debated my next course of action.

If I hadn’t seen the lights, I might have just turned my truck around and driven right back through the fog.

Right back to call someone to come out and look at the truck, and then to deal with the outrageous cost of that minor task, along with the more substantial cost of any repairs, minor or not. And, of course, the unending bitching and moaning from my boss, who was essentially the reason for that outrageous cost.

But…

Why go right away?

I turned back to stare into the swirling fog again. It still appeared unchanged. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.

Why not stay for a while and explore? Why not seek out the origin of the mysterious lights? Any form of life that could exist in this empty, desolate land had to be something exciting. Something worth seeing.

Hell, I might be in a whole new fucking world. This was beyond anything I’d ever dreamed. This was the stuff of the stories I practically inhaled during my time on the road, and I was standing right here at the edge of the unknown.

I thought back to the way I felt on my night drives, how seeing the silver moon on the dark river’s surface made me feel almost like I had slipped into one of my favorite audiobooks.

Something else stirred in my chest as I turned away from the fog again and back to the golden lights that burned brighter as the sun’s afterglow faded away. Something similar, but closer and more tangible.

Something real.

I’d felt it for myself, this place wasn’t some hallucination. It looked completely out of this world, and whatever sort of civilization existed here was right there across the desert.

And I had my truck to cross over it.

Just to be sure, I hurried over the glossy white road to test the surface of the dry cracked ground. Under my feet, it felt just as solid as it looked.

“Fuck it,” I half laughed to myself.

Then I climbed back up with renewed energy and swung like a monkey into the cab of my truck.

Wanderlust was a very real part of what had drawn me to a career as a truck driver, and I couldn’t deny that my life on the road had helped to fulfill that somewhat.

But up until tonight, when I stared off into the distance with my eyes fixed on those glowing golden lights, I hadn’t realized how much I’d been craving more.

And it seemed like I may have just found more than I’d ever dreamed.

“Let’s do this,” I said under my breath, and I gave Spitfire’s steering wheel another grateful pat before I put the key back in the ignition.

She started up without a hitch and slid easily into gear. The truck bumped slightly as I directed it off the edge of the smooth white road and onto the dusty ground.

I didn’t know exactly where I was going, but I couldn’t wait to find out.