This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Lycian-Sarpedon on 2023-08-10 06:12:48.
Have you ever heard of highway hypnosis?
Up here we tend to call it ‘white line fever’, and if you’ve never driven on a highway, you probably won’t know what it is. For those who drive, and especially for those who drive on the flat, endless highways of the North American great plains – you should know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever driven alone. Your music is playing softly in the background, you’re comfortable in the driver’s seat, the AC is on. It’s summer. Suddenly, you come back to yourself, and realize you’ve just driven for an entire hour without even noticing. You drove safely, you never cut anyone off, you used your turn signal – but that entire last hour is a complete blank.
That’s what highway hypnosis is.
I know they aren’t for everyone, but personally, I love road trips. The feeling of speeding along the highway, the freedom of the countryside – something about it is just intoxicating. Earlier this summer, me and my friend Avery had planned to take a weeklong road-trip around the northern half of the province. The winter semester had just ended at university and spring was in full bloom, I was fresh out of a shitty relationship, and my grades had been good enough that I managed to snag a few scholarships.
We had planned this girl’s trip for about a month now. We had a week off before we had to start our summer jobs, so our plan was to hit a bunch of provincial parks and lakes across the whole northern half of the province. Calling it a “plan” is a bit of a misnomer however – we sort of just planned to drive wherever we felt like every single day, camping or getting hotels whenever it suited our fancy. One thing I hate about travelling is having to stick to strict plans, so having a more free-form vacation was a dream for me – and getting to do it with my best friend wasn’t bad either.
We set off early on a Friday morning, with our first destination being Sylvan Lake – I know I know, we went south, but we wanted to stop there first. We spent a day and night on the beachfront, then went west to the mountains, where we snaked north along highway 93 before emerging from the mountains. The weather had been great so far, the mountains were beautiful, and Avery and I had a great time singing along to our road trip playlist that we had made.
It was our third or fourth day (I think), and we were travelling along highway 40 when a case of white line fever set in. Avery had stopped talking for a moment, and my attention slowly drifted towards the road flashing past, which gradually sucked me in until I was dead to my surroundings. Avery must have caught a case of it too, since my memory of what happened is completely blank until the car rocked violently, and a pothole jolted both of us out of our trance. I pulled the car over to the side of the road, as I could feel something was seriously wrong with one of the tires.
“Where are we?” Avery asked, as if waking up from a nap.
“Umm… not sure exactly.” I started, “I don’t have service, do you?”
“No doesn’t look like it.” Avery said, throwing her phone onto the dash and stepping out of the car.
“Oh shit that’s not good.” Avery said.
I turned the car off and stepped out, walking around to the side she was on. The front right tire of the car was torn and bent – there was no way it was going anywhere in that condition. I stood and looked around, we definitely weren’t on the highway anymore, but rather some sort of disused road that was cutting through a thick pine forest.
“How did we get here?” Avery asked, panic rising in her voice as she started to look around.
“I don’t know, I kinda’ zoned out there while driving.” I replied, trying to keep some measure of calm in my demeanour.
Avery hunched down on the ground leaning against the car and started breathing rapidly. I knew what her panic attacks looked like, so I let her ride it out, bringing her a bottle of water and sitting on the grass next to her. Once she had finally come back around, I got her to walk around the car a few times to feel a bit better and got her some of the snacks we had in the trunk.
“Okay okay I’m good, thanks.” She said with a weak smile.
“Alright – so… do we wait here or start walking?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we don’t have service, so we either wait here for someone to come by or we start walking and hope to find something.”
“They both sound dangerous.”
“Probably are. I think we should walk back and try and find highway 40 – we can’t have gone that far off of it.”
“And what? Hitchhike?”
“Or just try and borrow someone’s phone.”
We were both stood there arguing next to the car when we heard a rustling from the underbrush. We both turned, but before we had time to speak, a hound dog burst out of the bushes and came running up to us, tongue lolling out of its mouth as it began to circle us, barking all the while. I tripped over myself and fell to the ground as the dog came bounding towards me, letting out a shout that was cut short as I hit the ground.
“Ha ha! Come on Cerberus, be a good boy now, those aren’t rabbits.” Came a sonorous voice from the woods, at which the dog bounded away from us. Me and Avery both stared dumbfounded as a young woman astride a huge brown horse came trotting out of the woods, with a gun resting on her lap.
She swung down from the saddle with a broad grin on her face and sauntered up to us – she looked young, dressed in a white blouse that was half concealed with a dark green jacket, that matched a pair of dark green pants and a broad brimmed green hat on her head. She had golden hair that was largely tied back save for two tendrils that framed her icy features. Most prominently however, were here eyes – two of the brightest blue eyes I had ever seen.
“Your horse broke a leg I see.” The woman said, gesturing at my car.
“Yeah, we hit a nasty pothole just back there.” I said as I stood and brushed dirt and gravel off my pants.
“Suppose you need a hand then?” The woman said as she cradled her rifle in her arms and rested her weight onto her right leg.
“That would be great.” I said with an exasperated laugh, “Do you have a phone so we can call someone?”
“Afraid not – but there’s a town just up the way where I’m sure we can get you a new tire.” She said as she gestured up the road.
“Come on, grab what you need and let’s get going.” She said, taking the reins of her horse in hand. Me and Avery grabbed our bags and locked the car before we began to walk alongside her up the pitted, forgotten road.
“I’m Mary by the way – and this is Avery.” I said as we caught up with the woman.
“Pleasure! I’m Sarah, the dog is Cerberus, and the horse is Bucephalus.” Sarah said with a smile as she gestured at our animal companions.
“Also, where exactly are we? We’re sort of…” I began.
“Lost.” Avery finished.
“The town here is called Springhill.” Sarah laughed, “You’re East of highway 40, in the Pinelands. Nothing grows here so not too many towns around.”
“Oh, that’s cool, never heard of it.” I said.
“Real small place, not too many visitors – how’d you even end up here?”
“Just a few wrong turns – we’re road tripping all over Alberta so we weren’t heading anywhere specific.” I threw out.
“That sounds like fun.”
“It’s been really good so far! Is there much to do in Springhill?” Avery asked.
“I’m afraid hunting, fishing, and drinking are the only things you can do to pass the time here.”
“That could still be fun.” I suggested.
“Well, with how bad your tire looks, I’m sure you’ll be stuck a day or two – I’ll show you around.”
Sarah fell to asking us about news of the outside world, saying that most news didn’t reach Springhill, and she rarely bothered to keep up to date with current events. We filled her in on all the politics and scandals and news that we could think of, before eventually switching to just telling her about ourselves. She didn’t have much to say about herself – having been in Springhill since she was young, but she was good company and seemed to enjoy listening to us talk about ourselves.
After nearly two hours of walking along the meandering road, we reached a sign that said ‘welcome to Springhill’, and began to see log cabins pop up in clearings around us. A few minutes later on, the road took a sharp turn, and we were suddenly in the town of Springhill.
Springhill was a town plucked straight from the past. The forest crept right up to the sides of the buildings, which were all build of either timber or brick, as though the town had stopped building new buildings after the 1920s. The roads consisted of a single avenue, bisected by two streets, all of which were unpaved dirt and gravel tracks. A large white church dominated the town, which stood between the two streets on the south side of the avenue. Mirroring it across the avenue was another large, whitewashed building that looked like some sort of mansion or town hall.
It was a very picturesque town, with the encircling pines crowding the town in on every side, it felt as though the forest was in the process of swallowing the town, which was clinging desperately to the three roads that spread like arteries from the church at the centre of the settlement.
We only glimpsed a few scattered people milling about, who all gave us and Sarah inquisitive glances as we passed by. We walked in the shadow of the church which loomed over us with two imposing stone spires, and I felt a slight chill in the shadowed street. Sarah walked with us to the far edge of the town w…
Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/15n1of5/white_line_fever_part_1/