The Road to Hollow's Bend
The GPS had given up an hour ago, its blue dot frozen on a road that no longer resembled the one beneath their tires. Elena kept driving anyway, both hands on the wheel, watching the asphalt fray into gravel and the gravel narrow into something that barely deserved the name road at all. Pine trees crowded close on either side, their branches meeting overhead in a canopy that turned the afternoon light the color of old bruises.
"You know," Jake said from the passenger seat, "when you said 'off the grid,' I pictured, like, a cabin with spotty Wi-Fi. Not the actual, literal absence of civilization."
"That's the point, Jake."
"Is it, though? Is that really the point?" He held his phone up toward the windshield like a divining rod, watching the signal bars blink out one by one. "Because I'm looking at zero bars right now. Zero. That's not rustic, Elena, that's a horror movie setup. That's the part where the nice lady at the gas station says 'you don't wanna go up there.'"
"We haven't even hit the gas station yet."
"Give it time."
In the back seat, Sophie laughed and leaned further out the window, phone raised, capturing the blur of trees rushing past. "This is *incredible*…
