I stopped and stared at the smooth curve of road in front of me. I hadn’t expected it, but my heart raced ahead of its normal pace and my stomach fluttered with nerves. As Everly had promised, there were several makeshift roadside memorials, including two crosses, handmade and decorated with fake flowers that were caked with roadside dirt. The white railing that ran along the curve was a different shade of white than the rest of the highway. It was easy to spot where the new railing had been welded to the old.

With the shoddy, sporadic internet service in The Grog, I’d made the trek to the local library at least a dozen times before starting my trip. I’d found seven separate fatal accidents blamed on the deadly piece of road. All of them had been trucks driving through town late at night. My dad, the third recorded fatality, had been driving his truck on an overnight delivery. Occasionally, he’d had to fill in for other truckers and then he’d be gone a few days. The truck had been filled with his usual cargo of wine and spirits. His trucking friends had always called him by the handle Rum Runner. He’d worked for the same liquor company for ten years and had managed to snag a local, daily delivery route soon after he was thrown into the role of single parent. A wonderful woman named Greta would come and babysit me while he worked. She had big round shoulders and a heavy accent and she made the best chicken soup when I was feeling sick. Whenever Dad was asked to go on a long route, she’d come with her bag of yarn and knitting needles and spend the night. She was the only mom in my life for the first six years, but she’d moved back to Europe to be with her own family. I was bounced from day-care to day-care while my dad worked.

I walked up to the first cross. The name Mikey the Bear was etched on it. I remembered an article about the man they’d called Bear because of his size and girth. He’d left behind a wife and three kids. At the base of the cross someone had strapped on a teddy bear with a piece of faded blue ribbon.

I looked down into the ravine and swallowed back the bitter taste in my throat. The blackened skeletal remains of several trucks littered the ground in a macabre display. The trees around the truck graveyard were young saplings, offspring of the adult trees surrounding the blackened pit. I wondered how often a layer of young trees had sprung up only to be charred into ash and turned to loam to wait for a seed to start again.

The newspaper article about my dad’s accident had noted that his truck had not fallen to the bottom of the ravine like the others. It had gotten jammed on a boulder. But with his combustible cargo, it had burst into flames. They’d found my dad’s charred remains inside.

I surveyed the area. There was only one boulder large enough to stop a rolling delivery truck. My throat thickened as I stared down at it. There was no sign of the wreck, and a carpet of brilliant green moss grew around the massive rock.

I reached into my backpack and pulled out the chocolate donut. It was smashed and looked more travel weary than I felt. It had been Dad’s favorite. Occasionally, I’d go with him on a long weekend delivery and we always took a box of chocolate donuts with us. We’d have a contest to see who could lick off the icing the fastest.

The rumble of motorcycles roaring in the distance interrupted the peace and quiet of the forest. Several squirrels popped out of the nearby shrubs as I threw my leg over the railing. A narrow, flat ledge of dirt ran parallel with the guardrail. I set down my guitar and bags.

Donut in hand, I headed cautiously down the side searching for solid footing with each step. On the third step, my foot slipped, and I slid down several inches before I could gain traction again. The terrain was cut into broad, weatherworn steps where the dirt would level off to form a flat shelf before dropping down sharply to the next ledge.

I walked along one step to an area that had an easier decline and nearly tripped over a small plaque that had been welded to a metal stake. The plaque was completely crusted with dirt and the writing was faded and hard to read. I picked up a rock and scraped away some of the debris, expecting to read another tribute to one of the victims. Instead, it turned out to be a tribute and a trailhead marker commemorating the nineteenth century fur trappers who had frequented the area. The aptly named Trappers’ Trail had been deemed a historical landmark.

I straightened and looked past the sign. The trail itself was mostly worn away by rain and wind. Forest litter and even some human litter covered what must have been a well-trod path a few hundred years earlier. A long winding path led down into the ravine and disappeared into a thick copse of trees. It might have been a historical landmark, but it wasn’t being maintained in the slightest. Of course, it might have been a little too much dark irony for a town to be celebrating its proud history right along the site where the notorious Phantom Curve had claimed so many lives.

I traversed another slope of loose gravel and managed to reach the boulder with the donut still in hand, but it now had grit mixed in with the rainbow sprinkles. Overhead, the motorcycle engines echoed off the towering mountain slope.

My shoes slid along the mossy ground, kicking up the musty green smell that was uniquely moss. The boulder stood taller than me, and it was at least fifteen feet wide. In fact, to call it a boulder was silly. It was more an extension of the rocky mountain slopes, an outcropping that had somehow skipped the usual ravages of wind and erosion.

I stood and closed my eyes as an evergreen scented breeze pushed against me. Without warning, a jolt of panic shot through me. Suddenly, the breaths I’d been pulling in at a natural pace and depth weren’t enough, and I couldn’t seem to take in enough oxygen. My fingers and face tingled with numbness, and an overwhelming sense of terror froze me to the spot. The donut fell from my fingers and landed icing down on the dirt. I had no explanation for my reaction. A clammy sweat covered my skin. I leaned my hand against the rock to steady myself. The tingling in my fingers moved to my hands and arms and I worried I might pass out.

It was a laugh behind me, a deep, treacherous sounding laugh that shocked me out of the panic attack. I sucked in a long, steadying breath and turned around. Panic turned to fear, and it dawned on me just how alone I was. Only I wasn’t completely alone. The man, the motorcycle rider, was tromping down the slippery, steep trail in his black motorcycle boots and black leather jacket as easily as one might cross a flat, solid floor. His dark hair was shaved close to his head and a mosaic of black tattoos that looked like nothing more than a blur of ink from where I stood covered his neck. The one thing that was clear to me—my beloved guitar, my prized possession, was dangling precariously from his big hand.

He waved the instrument around like a flag above his head. “I wasn’t seeing things.” His unhinged laughter bounced off the surrounding granite cliffs. He stopped a few feet away. I backed up.

My bottom hit the rock. The unexplained panic attack had subsided sharply. Now fear made adrenaline surge through my bloodstream. My gaze flicked in every direction, looking for my escape route, as if I’d been cornered by a hungry mountain lion.

He had dark eyes that were looking at me but seemed to be looking straight through me too, as if there was a conflicting bunch of thoughts going through his head. One thing was sure, he looked dangerous.

His eyes dropped to my legs and back to my face. “Aren’t you something,” he said. “Looks like you just popped out of a magic genie bottle or something.” He licked his bottom lip and grinned wickedly at me. “And I already know what my three wishes will be.” He took another step.