As they drove, Michael kept trying to piece it together. Suddenly, a loud *pop* echoed through the cabin, and the SUV jerked to the right. A tire had blown. Michael fought the steering wheel, the sound of rubber flapping against pavement filling the air as he guided the heavy vehicle to a stop on the narrow shoulder.
The sudden violence of the blowout left them both shaken. Michael took a deep breath to steady his pulse, then stepped out to inspect the damage. The rear passenger tire was shredded. With the practiced efficiency of a man who didn’t like to rely on others, he opened the trunk, pulled out the jack and the spare, and set to work.
When the job was done and the lug nuts were tightened, Michael wiped his hands on a rag and climbed back into the driver’s seat. But when he looked over, the passenger seat was empty. Stunned, Michael jumped back out and scanned the road. The highway was a ribbon of grey under the moonlight, completely empty. There was no sign of Eleanor. He figured she might have stepped out while he was working, but it seemed impossible for an elderly woman to move that fast or go that far in total darkness. He ran a few yards in both directions, using his phone’s flashlight to cut through the gloom, but found nothing. The silence of the night was deafening.
After ten minutes of searching, a growing sense of unease settled over him. Logic told him to keep going, though his gut was screaming that something was wrong. He drove the rest of the way home in a daze. When he finally pulled into his driveway, he went straight to his wife, Susan, and told her the whole strange story. She listened, but her expression was one of pure skepticism.
— “Michael, honey, you’ve been working fourteen-hour days,” Susan said, placing a hand on his arm. “Maybe you just imagined her? Or maybe she just slipped into the woods?”
— “I’m telling you, Susan, she was right there,” Michael insisted. “I talked to her for twenty minutes. She sang. And then she was just… gone.”
Susan gave him a small, pitying smile.
