The Road That Pulls

Every town has a legend, and in the Arizona desert, the legend was Reverie Road—a paved strip that begins between a gas station and a bar and heads straight into empty desert. No houses, no towns, no lakes, no mines, no telephone lines. The road has no highway marker, no lane markings, and after about three miles, it reaches a bridge that has fallen apart, making it impossible to cross by vehicle. Nobody knows where it goes. Nobody knows why it was built.

Four years ago, a man named Jeffrey Willard drove down Reverie Road late one night, came home, grabbed a hammer from his shed, and beat his wife and dog to death. He had no memory of it. He sat on his porch peacefully when police arrived. The town never found a motive. The only witness who saw him that night was Tom Davis, the barkeep, who watched Willard drive past the bar "entranced," his eyes empty of life. The murder and the road fused into a local myth: something on Reverie Road made Willard snap.

The Second Incident

The narrator, a former police officer who moved to town and became friends with the responding officer from the Willard case—a man named Duane Yolis—describes how the legend faded over time. Then, yesterday morning, he was filling his car at the gas station when his wife pointed toward the desert. A figure was limping up Reverie Road, dragging something behind him.