The Road That Pulls

In a small Arizona desert town, a road called Reverie Road begins between the gas station and the bar and heads straight into the desert. Nobody knows where it goes. There are no houses, towns, lakes, mines, rivers, or any destination in that direction. The road has been there longer than the town itself, but it has no highway marker, no pavement markings, and no clear purpose. Four years ago, a man named Jeffrey Willard drove down that road late one night after delivering parcels. When he came back, he grabbed a hammer from his shed and beat his wife and dog to death. He sat on his porch afterward and told police he didn't remember anything about that night or why he did what he did.

A Murder and a Mystery

The narrator moved to this town and became friends with Duane Yolis, the responding officer on the Willard case. Yolis refused to talk about what he saw that night, but he made one brief note: Jeffrey Willard was a standout man who loved his wife and loved God. He never would have done something so heinous unless something had caused him to go mad. The only other witness was Tom Davis, the local barkeep, who saw Willard driving back from Reverie Road the night of the murder. Davis said Willard drove slowly, ignoring stop signs and traffic lines, and when Davis glimpsed his face, "there was no life in the man's eyes."