The Unearthly Mists Of Doom
I had a wonderful weekend. I love my boyfriend. I worked hard to get there, and it was worth it.
but Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Bill didn't want to drive all the way from Appleton to Chicago and back, so I asked A if he could meet me part way: Milwaukee. A said sure. After an apparently horrible trip down, due partly to bad luck, partly to bad directions and partly to lack of street signs, it took A a long time and a few frantic phone calls. Upon finally reuniting, we bought A food at a Greek place and chatted for a while, as rising blood sugar and prolonged lack of exposure to the Mil. ghetto helped raise his spirits. I said my goodbyes and we got on the road.
I mention again that Milwaukee had not been nice with A, been evil to navigate, and that neither of us were familiar - we just wanted out. We didn't know which highway to take, but figured we'd take one going north and figure it out. We ended up on N43 headed to Green Bay. As soon as we'd gotten past all the second chances, the phone rang: Art, calling A regarding some stuff he needed to pick up. When I explained that he couldn't talk because we were just trying to escape Milwaukee, Art said to make sure we didn't take... HW 43. No way off, he said. I handed the phone to A, who after discussion decided with Art that we'd just stick to it for a while, until we saw something we recognized; too late to go back.
As we earnestly began our drive through, for those not familiar, a huge swath of farmland, we began to notice the weather getting worse. Not storming, exactly, but the humidity and chill was perfect conditions for some really cool fog. Cool, that is, for the first ten minutes. As we drove on, A realized that he couldn't see more than two car lengths in front of us. I realized that in the left lane, I could barely read the signs on the right of the road. We began cracking jokes, all the while sure that the fog would lift. Soon. It didn't.
Visibility was bad, and some drivers didn't know how to deal. We mocked one guy for refusing to pass a semi, merely maintaining right next to him. But the empty road that returned more and more frequently was much worse. Brights or normal headlights only reflected on the "unearthly mists," as we started calling them. I could barely discern signs until they were about 30 feet in front, and there was nothing nearby for much of the trip. Without city lights, or cars in front or in back, there was no sense of distance traveled or time passed. And then some god started fucking with us.
We slowly caught up to a semi truck, whose bright lights and broad solidity were reassuring; we named it Bob. When Bob turned off the highway, leaving us alone, the darkness that seemed to be pressing in just became thicker. The next car, which we named Bob 2, immediately sped up and outpaced us, invisible in the fog. Bob 3 vanished. Literally. Didn't speed up, didn't turn off the road; its headlights just suddenly vanished. We nervously, half seriously, joked that we'd entered some sort of Stephen King novel. Then the road signs began to be ominous.
First they were just ominous due to lack of familiarity, tiny towns no one's heard of. But then, gradually fading out of the darkness, came names like Sunset Rd, Hillside Acres, Lake Church, Mount Calvary, and Chickadee Dr. Miles and miles of driving, seeing noone and nothing except for the odd dead animal, and then I saw, out of the corner of my eye, red metallic lettering k which read "Westward" in creepy Goosebumps-style lettering. I hope there was a billboard, but I honestly didn't see one, only the letters. Several more miles of encroaching blackness later, as we leaned further and further forward in the cab to be able to see, an actual sign gradually materialized. Just as we began to hope, the words became clear: "such and such Correctional Facility."
It was at this point that we both began periodically making sure our doors were still locked. We tried singing to try and calm our nerves, but Queen didn't help much ("Is this the real life, is this just fantasy..." heh. right.). We began wondering if I had somehow angered someone and thus been cursed. As the banter continued, A said the sentence: "at least it can't get much worse." In case you missed Horror Movie 101, never say this sentence!!! At that instant, lightning flashed (an interesting optical illusion during heavy fog is that all light appears to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once). The fog got heavier, with lightning flashing at regular intervals from what seemed like directly above us. Then we saw lights in the rear-view. Phew, company. We assumed it was a car until they started wavering, then split apart; one of them passed us, going ridiculously fast for that weather. It settled in front of us, a motorcyclist with a dark helmet. For a moment, a vehicle in front of us was vaguely comforting, until we noticed the other motorcyclist right behind us. They maintained pace with us, as if escorting us, all the way to Fond du Lac.
Fond du Lac was our bastion of hope. Our altitude was lower than the clouds, so we were out of the fog. We stopped to pee (rather than pee our pants out of need/fear) at a Walgreen's, filled with reassuringly actual name brands and fluorescent lighting. In the parking lot, a man passed us on a bicycle with a silly looking helmet. And then suddenly the absurdity returned, with our brains jumping at the slightest symbol (one of which was a store offering D'Signs, with a black raven as it's mascot). The fog returned. A huge pole, eerily lit, rose up from the grass to the right in what we eventually realized had been an American flag (but you couldn't actually see as high as the flag). We passed Black Wolf Rd and Lone Elm, and then another Correctional Facility. The lightning storm also made one last stand, flashing almost constantly, all around us.
Clearly I've made it back alive, but I haven't been so scared, just creepy scared, in a long time. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to go to Milwaukee for a looong while, nor drive comfortably in fog. The dead animals, the odd-sounding place names, it all combined to make us feel like we were in some horrible combination of Silent Hill, the Twilight Zone, and some horror novel. By the end of the creepiness, we'd finally begun just alternating from dumbfounded silence to horrified, disbelieving laughter (a correctional facility?! for god's sake!!!). I think I'm just thankful that the mists didn't devour us. But I'll always wonder what happened to Bob 3. And I really hope those "Westward" signs, which looked like bloody carvings, actually exist. I don't think I'm going to check anytime soon, though.
but Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Bill didn't want to drive all the way from Appleton to Chicago and back, so I asked A if he could meet me part way: Milwaukee. A said sure. After an apparently horrible trip down, due partly to bad luck, partly to bad directions and partly to lack of street signs, it took A a long time and a few frantic phone calls. Upon finally reuniting, we bought A food at a Greek place and chatted for a while, as rising blood sugar and prolonged lack of exposure to the Mil. ghetto helped raise his spirits. I said my goodbyes and we got on the road.
I mention again that Milwaukee had not been nice with A, been evil to navigate, and that neither of us were familiar - we just wanted out. We didn't know which highway to take, but figured we'd take one going north and figure it out. We ended up on N43 headed to Green Bay. As soon as we'd gotten past all the second chances, the phone rang: Art, calling A regarding some stuff he needed to pick up. When I explained that he couldn't talk because we were just trying to escape Milwaukee, Art said to make sure we didn't take... HW 43. No way off, he said. I handed the phone to A, who after discussion decided with Art that we'd just stick to it for a while, until we saw something we recognized; too late to go back.
As we earnestly began our drive through, for those not familiar, a huge swath of farmland, we began to notice the weather getting worse. Not storming, exactly, but the humidity and chill was perfect conditions for some really cool fog. Cool, that is, for the first ten minutes. As we drove on, A realized that he couldn't see more than two car lengths in front of us. I realized that in the left lane, I could barely read the signs on the right of the road. We began cracking jokes, all the while sure that the fog would lift. Soon. It didn't.
Visibility was bad, and some drivers didn't know how to deal. We mocked one guy for refusing to pass a semi, merely maintaining right next to him. But the empty road that returned more and more frequently was much worse. Brights or normal headlights only reflected on the "unearthly mists," as we started calling them. I could barely discern signs until they were about 30 feet in front, and there was nothing nearby for much of the trip. Without city lights, or cars in front or in back, there was no sense of distance traveled or time passed. And then some god started fucking with us.
We slowly caught up to a semi truck, whose bright lights and broad solidity were reassuring; we named it Bob. When Bob turned off the highway, leaving us alone, the darkness that seemed to be pressing in just became thicker. The next car, which we named Bob 2, immediately sped up and outpaced us, invisible in the fog. Bob 3 vanished. Literally. Didn't speed up, didn't turn off the road; its headlights just suddenly vanished. We nervously, half seriously, joked that we'd entered some sort of Stephen King novel. Then the road signs began to be ominous.
First they were just ominous due to lack of familiarity, tiny towns no one's heard of. But then, gradually fading out of the darkness, came names like Sunset Rd, Hillside Acres, Lake Church, Mount Calvary, and Chickadee Dr. Miles and miles of driving, seeing noone and nothing except for the odd dead animal, and then I saw, out of the corner of my eye, red metallic lettering k which read "Westward" in creepy Goosebumps-style lettering. I hope there was a billboard, but I honestly didn't see one, only the letters. Several more miles of encroaching blackness later, as we leaned further and further forward in the cab to be able to see, an actual sign gradually materialized. Just as we began to hope, the words became clear: "such and such Correctional Facility."
It was at this point that we both began periodically making sure our doors were still locked. We tried singing to try and calm our nerves, but Queen didn't help much ("Is this the real life, is this just fantasy..." heh. right.). We began wondering if I had somehow angered someone and thus been cursed. As the banter continued, A said the sentence: "at least it can't get much worse." In case you missed Horror Movie 101, never say this sentence!!! At that instant, lightning flashed (an interesting optical illusion during heavy fog is that all light appears to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once). The fog got heavier, with lightning flashing at regular intervals from what seemed like directly above us. Then we saw lights in the rear-view. Phew, company. We assumed it was a car until they started wavering, then split apart; one of them passed us, going ridiculously fast for that weather. It settled in front of us, a motorcyclist with a dark helmet. For a moment, a vehicle in front of us was vaguely comforting, until we noticed the other motorcyclist right behind us. They maintained pace with us, as if escorting us, all the way to Fond du Lac.
Fond du Lac was our bastion of hope. Our altitude was lower than the clouds, so we were out of the fog. We stopped to pee (rather than pee our pants out of need/fear) at a Walgreen's, filled with reassuringly actual name brands and fluorescent lighting. In the parking lot, a man passed us on a bicycle with a silly looking helmet. And then suddenly the absurdity returned, with our brains jumping at the slightest symbol (one of which was a store offering D'Signs, with a black raven as it's mascot). The fog returned. A huge pole, eerily lit, rose up from the grass to the right in what we eventually realized had been an American flag (but you couldn't actually see as high as the flag). We passed Black Wolf Rd and Lone Elm, and then another Correctional Facility. The lightning storm also made one last stand, flashing almost constantly, all around us.
Clearly I've made it back alive, but I haven't been so scared, just creepy scared, in a long time. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to go to Milwaukee for a looong while, nor drive comfortably in fog. The dead animals, the odd-sounding place names, it all combined to make us feel like we were in some horrible combination of Silent Hill, the Twilight Zone, and some horror novel. By the end of the creepiness, we'd finally begun just alternating from dumbfounded silence to horrified, disbelieving laughter (a correctional facility?! for god's sake!!!). I think I'm just thankful that the mists didn't devour us. But I'll always wonder what happened to Bob 3. And I really hope those "Westward" signs, which looked like bloody carvings, actually exist. I don't think I'm going to check anytime soon, though.