My Short Story: No Through Road

Hello, what do you think about my story and what can I improve upon it?

The night was bleak, my friends and I were packing our things for a 2-day road trip we had planned through the Nevada desert. We jump into our car, strapped our seatbelts on and headed off. Thirty minutes in our car breaks down. Midnight had literally stuck just then. We could barely see in front of us. The crickets were loud, all we could smell was the smoke coming out of our car. Sean was terrified, he did not like the night one bit. Ben was on his phone calling emergency services but there was no connection, because we were in the middle of a huge desert. Under us was extremely rough gravel, it seemed that this path had not been taken for a few months. We open the hood to check what was wrong, a screw had come off and was trapped in the middle of the engine and the water tank. I reach down the narrow gap and grab the screw, we put it back in place and we keep travelling.

“I swear, if we somehow go around in a circle or loop back to where we started from, I will be mad!” Jack said.

“We definitely won’t, I am not that dumb” I say.

I keep driving the car, the sky is not moving at all. The clouds are completely still while the moon’s light is penetrating the massive clouds overhead. We come across a sign in the middle of an interjunction. I get a very strange feeling that we have already been here before, but I take a left. 3 hours later we come across the exact same sign, only this time the environment is completely different. There was grass everywhere, a very unusual thing for a desert, trees in the distance and rolling hills. Something very, very strange was occurring. We see the same sign again; I take a left. I am sweating intensely. I did not know what was happening, I did not even know how to get out of this situation. I drive a few kilometers straight and see another sign. This one said, “No Through Road.” But the road continued, there were no arrows on the road pointing to where to go. There were no available turns to take, so I kept going straight. My friends were making jokes with each other watching downloaded Netflix movies.

I am now extremely tired, after twelve hours of driving, we decided to take a break. We take our tents out and place them next to our car. The sleeping bags had been rolled out and we sit down.

“Did any of you guys realise that we kept going to the same sign we had seen from when we had started this journey?” I ask, in a sort of terrified way.

“See! I told you that we would loop around!” Jack exclaimed.

“It’s not like that at all, Jack.” I reply. “You see, every time the sign was in our line of sight again, it was the same, but the odd thing is that the environment kept changing. I don’t know why but it just seems very off.” “Woah.” everyone says.

“Should we continue on our trip and just forget about this?” I ask.

“Yep, seems good to me.” The group replies.

“Okay then! Let’s go.”

We wake up after a good night’s sleep outside. I get the car ready while my friends are packing the tents up. We continue driving. Fifty minutes later I come across a tunnel, it was very dark, and it did not seem to have an opening on the other side. I saw another sign yet again. It was the same sign I saw previously, “No Through Road.”

“Uh guys, see this is what I’m talking about!” I shout.

The exact same sign every time but a different environment. We were terrified. I tried to turn back but the road we had literally just came from had seemingly vanished into thin air.

“I have to do it guys, I have to go through the tunnel, I don’t see any other way leaving here, it is unsafe to go on open land.” I speak.

I slowly drive the car to the tunnel, the “No Through Road” sign had sent chills down my spine. As soon as we approached the entrance of the tunnel, our car stopped completely. This had happened to me before on a muddy path, I had assumed that it was the same reason. I slammed my accelerator. The wheels did not move a centimeter. All that happened was the engine whirring. Our radio had completely changed channels. It was now playing a very ominous orchestra song. Instead of it playing forward, it played backwards for two seconds before looping back to the start. We were all sweating, trembling, and panicking.

Ominous sounds emanate from the cave. It was a growling. It was approaching closer. I quickly changed the car into reverse and slammed the accelerator again, the car still did not move. Glowing red eyes were growing larger and larger. A very strange human-like creature stepped out of the tunnel. The car door to my right jolted open, I was thrown out of the car. The creature pulled out a hatchet and was walking to me, quickly. I could not get up fast enough and the creature swung, cutting deep into my leg. I was screaming in agony. My friend got out of the car and punched the creature to the ground. I was still in so much pain.

The creature stood back up again, this time it did not have its hatchet. I stood up as fast as I could, ignoring the pain and sprinted to the hatchet lying on the floor. I picked it up and swung as hard as I could at the creature. It did not scratch it one bit. The hatchet disappeared from my hands and the strange creature retreated into the cave. My wound had suddenly healed. I go back into the car and turn around as fast as I could, the car finally moved.

My friends are terrified, not as much as me though. I had calmed down and was only focused on getting back home. I looked at my mirror, the tunnel had disappeared. Two more hours, google maps had said, until I am back home. The road was coming to an end, I, yet again saw another sign. “No Through Road” it said.

Please give me you thoughts, thanks.

- Arnav