Nightmare of a Trip

by Maureen Kilmer

Genres: General Fiction; Family Life; Horror; Humorous Fiction

Synopsis

This is one family getaway they’ll never forget . . .

Leigh Somerset wants to spend some quality time with her kids before they grow up, and her husband has always fancied himself sort of a Clark Griswold figure. So the Somersets will be spending their family vacation on the road, driving from suburban Milwaukee to Orlando, Florida. Already off to a rocky start, they stumble upon an abandoned, half-burned down farmhouse in Indiana, and the Somersets inadvertently unleash an eerie history that will follow them the rest of their trip.

From creepy indoor waterparks to paranormally plagued Cracker Barrels, it’s one thing after another in the pursuit of the great American summer road trip. Will the Somersets be able to shake these bad vibes and get on with the family bonding? Or will the road less traveled quite literally become the highway to hell?

Release date: September 10, 2024

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons

Print pages: 320

Sample

Chapter 1

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then Satan himself planned our family trip.

One thousand two hundred and seventy miles, driving from our Milwaukee, Wisconsin, suburb to Magic Land in Orlando, Florida. It was supposed to bond us, bring us closer together.

We thought the only horror would be sharing a data plan. Long country routes, no Wi-Fi, spotty cellular service-annoyances, but ones we would conquer like the middle-class suburban pioneers that we were.

We were wrong.

"It's a road trip, not the apocalypse. I don't think we need ten boxes of mini muffins and cheese crackers." My sixteen-year-old daughter, Piper, stood with her hands on her hips as she peered into the backseat of our family's tan Honda Odyssey minivan.

I raised my eyebrows at her but said nothing. She wouldn't be complaining when we were in the middle of cornfield territory and her siblings started going feral from imagined starvation.

Piper turned and pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her jean shorts, lifting it toward the rear gate of the minivan. I heard the click of a photo and then she studied the screen, tapping at it, before she nodded and stuck it into her pocket.

"You doing it for the 'gram? Want to film a reel as I awkwardly pack the car? Sure to go viral," I said as I threw my body toward a blue duffel bag, trying to shove it into the space between the two captain's chairs in the second row of the car.

"No thank you." She leaned a hand against the van's exterior and then quickly withdrew it. "Ow. Too hot." She shook her wavy brown hair out of her eyes and squarely faced me. "Mom. This whole road trip will go down in social media history, since I'm documenting it all. Hashtags include: 'nightmare fuel,' 'gas station hot dogs,' 'are we there yet,' and 'hostage crisis.'"

"You don't even eat hot dogs," I said. I gave the duffel bag one last shove and then slid the door closed. Every inch of the interior was stacked with suitcases, snacks, electronic devices, headphones, and DVDs.

I turned to face my daughter. "I'm so glad you've decided not to be melodramatic. And I'm sure your followers will love it all. Hey, and maybe a cute guy will slide into my DMs-isn't that what you youths call it?"

She grimaced and then turned to walk back inside our house. "Gross."

As intended. If she was going to disparage our fun family road trip, the least I could do was horrify her. Although secretly I was worried I would be the one horrified by the end of the trip. I was looking forward to the vacation time with my family, just not how we were getting to our destination. It felt like a test to see if we would all like each other by the end, and I didn't know if we would pass.

"Oh. I named our van Tammy the Tan Squirrel," Piper called over her shoulder.

"What? Why?" I said. Our Honda did not look like a Tammy. Or a squirrel.

"Because," she said slowly, like she was explaining quantum physics to a toddler, "it makes sense." She perked up and smiled. "Can I drive Tammy through Illinois? Please?"

I shook my head and rolled my eyes. "For the hundredth time: no. Your dad and I will be driving on this trip. This isn't the time to test your driving skills."

My husband, Nick, opened the door to the garage as Piper walked through. "Almost ready?" He clapped his hands together as Piper walked past him, gaze fixed back on her phone. "Someone looks ready."

He walked toward the car, peering through the front windshield, brow furrowed, before his face broke out into a smile. "I hope that's everything, because nothing else is fitting in there."

I gave him a half smile before rolling my eyes. He put an arm around my shoulders and squeezed me to his chest.

"Leigh, it'll be great. I promise," he said. "Nothing will go wrong."

It was mid-June, a time when Nick's optimism always hit a peak. He was the vice principal of Hubert Middle School, and summer break had started the week before. Mid-June was a time when his days off stretched before him, endless possibilities and limitless adventures. It usually held firm until the end of the month. But once the Fourth of July hit, he would begin a slow emotional decline of realizing the summer wouldn't last forever.

I figured his good attitude-before any work stress began to percolate, before thoughts of parent-teacher conferences, curriculum night, and school board meetings began to loom-could fuel us through the Midwest and at least through part of the upper South. And maybe we would even enjoy the hours together. Maybe.

"Is it time to go?" My eleven-year-old son, Leo, called from across the street, where he was in a highly competitive game of yard soccer with the other fifth-grade neighbors; they'd run and push and argue until a parent inevitably got irritated enough to try to play referee. It was like a game of parenting chicken, and I always won. Mostly because my home office was in the back of the house, out of earshot.

"Just about. C'mon back, buddy," Nick called to Leo, waving his hand toward the car.

"I'll go get Sophie inside," I said. The last time I'd seen our seven-year-old daughter, she was shoving Squishmallows into a rolling suitcase, certain she could fit her impressive collection inside.

Twenty minutes later, after double-checking the security straps on the turtle top storage on the minivan's roof, throwing a few more snacks into a reusable cloth grocery bag, and packing more charging cords than could be used by an entire fleet of IT professionals, we were in the car and ready to back out of the driveway.

Leo and Sophie were in the captain's chairs, headphones on, as the movie Rio started on the car's DVD player. Piper was in the third row, stretched out as far as the seat belt would allow, her phone on her lap and earbuds in.

We got as far as the end of our driveway before Sophie said, "I forgot to go to the bathroom."

Groaning, Nick stopped the car, making me shift forward in my seat, and hit the button for the garage door. "Can you make it fast, Soph? We have a schedule to stick to."

Sophie nodded and unbuckled herself and slid open the minivan's door before racing inside, her pigtails streaming behind her.

I put a foot up on the dashboard, looked over at Nick, and smiled. I held up both hands, fingers splayed. "Ten feet. We've made it ten feet. We won't make it to the Wisconsin-Illinois border before fall at this point."

"Good thing I know how to forage in the woods." Nick held up a finger and cocked his head to the side. "If we don't hit any traffic, we'll still be on track. And at least we have good music." He pecked at his phone until "Holiday Road," of National Lampoon's Vacation fame, came on.

"Seriously?" I said with a groan.

"Road trip playlist on Spotify," Nick said. He tapped his hand against the steering wheel. I could tell he was picturing himself as Clark Griswold, ready to journey to Walley World and take over the park-at gunpoint if necessary. I didn't think the security guards at Magic Land would go so quietly into the night.

Piper harrumphed in the way back and opened a bag of Takis, her snack version of a weighted blanket, while Leo slowly closed his eyes and drifted off as we waited for Sophie. He was always the first to fall asleep in the car as a baby, something that had thankfully continued throughout childhood.

Once Sophie was back inside the car, we once again reversed out of the driveway. I waved for Nick to stop in front of our mailbox on the street, so I could check one more time to make sure we had collected all of the mail before the postal hold.

Empty.

Our trusty minivan-Tammy, apparently-made it to the end of the street just as Nick's phone interrupted "On the Road Again" to blare out that we should turn left on Orchard Road, before my good friend Kerry ran out of her front door. She waved, still dressed in her blue scrubs from her overnight shift in the emergency room at Germantown Memorial Hospital.

Nick put the car in Park in the middle of our street, and I opened the door as Piper groaned from the backseat.

"Hashtag hold on," I singsonged to her as I hopped out of our car.

"I caught you!" Kerry said as she lifted her palms toward the cloudless June sky. Her strawberry blond hair was wound in a bun on top of her head with a few loose strands collapsing downward. She still had indentations on either side of her cheeks from her medical mask.

I laughed and leaned forward, giving her a quick hug. "You already said goodbye, last night before you went to work. Remember?" Kerry had stopped by as I was trying to shove an extra pair of joggers into my already-stuffed suitcase. She'd plopped down on top of the plastic shell and I quickly closed it before it could open up again like a tube of Pillsbury biscuits.

She nodded and folded her arms across her chest, the hospital's logo stitched on the pocket. "Yeah, but as my shift was ending, I had this weird feeling that I needed to say goodbye one more time."

I twisted my mouth to the side and shielded my eyes from the sunlight. "That's sweet but weird."

"That's why we're friends," Kerry said. Her smile dimmed for a moment before she straightened up, gazing over my left shoulder with a wave. "Speaking of friends-look, M.J. is pulling up."

I turned and saw a large navy Sprinter van, nearly the size of the Amazon delivery vans that patrolled the neighborhood, coming to a stop behind us in the middle of the road.

My friend M.J. jumped down from the driver's side, hair twisted in her signature topknot, wearing her uniform of capri high-waisted leggings, a matching tank top, and athletic shoes. She gave us a vigorous wave before she jogged the few paces over to where we stood. Her eyes briefly slid to the blue ribbon tied around an aging elm tree on the parkway, a leftover from two summers ago.

"Hey! About to hit the road?" she said after she gave Kerry and me each a quick hug. She squinted in the sunlight, looking at our minivan and then back to me. "I thought you guys were supposed to leave hours ago."

I lifted my palms. M.J., if anyone did, should have understood chaos. I peered inside her Sprinter van. I could make out three shapes-a trio of her kids, of which there were two more somewhere else. Three boys and two girls, and about fifty-seven youth sports teams between all of them. M.J. had played soccer at Ohio State, and her husband, Tony, had been on the tennis team, so being shuttled to activities was almost a birthright for their menagerie of children. Meanwhile, the thought of having more than my current three children was nothing short of terrifying.

"I'm taking Mason to agility training," M.J. said. "And then it's the soccer club team meeting about next season." She looked at me. "I'll get the forms for you and Leo like I promised."

I gave her a grateful look. Leo and her son Ryan were on the Germantown travel soccer team together-another stick of dynamite to lay at the feet of my calendar. Leo was a defender and Ryan played goalie, and together they were an unstoppable force. It was a feel-good neighborhood story since Ryan had battled non-Hodgkin's lymphoma a couple of years ago, hence the summer of blue ribbons wrapped around the trees.

"See? We got you covered. She's got your sports, and I'll water your gardens. I'll make sure your garden is lush and full and- Wait, this is sounding dirty." She shook her head and winked as M.J. snorted. "Anyway, they will be kept hydrated per the highly detailed map you gave me."

"If I come back and my hydrangeas are burned to a crisp, I-" I stopped as I heard shouts from the neighborhood boys. Their soccer ball was rolling into the street in front of our car. As they ran to get it, the rear door of my minivan slid open and Leo hopped out, running toward the ball to kick it back to his friends.

From M.J.'s faux FedEx truck, Ryan jumped out to join in the game. His hair was cropped short in a buzz cut.

"That's my cue, ladies. If we don't get out of here now, we never will. This is like a space shuttle launch," I said as I waved for Leo to come back.

"Well, Sally Ride, be careful." M.J. laughed and linked arms with Kerry.

"One small step for the Somerset family, one giant leap for mankind. Or something like that," I said as I ushered my son back into the car and turned to wave again at my friends.

"You'll never guess what happened at work today." Kerry turned to M.J., arms crossed.

I didn't hear the rest of the story as I closed the passenger-side door. Kerry always had the weirdest stories from working in the emergency room, like the time a patient stole a car waiting out front, or the time when a visitor accused her of stealing her doll-head collection.

Ringleader of a medical circus, as she often described it. P. T. Barnum can blow me.

A pang of sadness ran through my shoulders as I saw my two closest friends huddling together, M.J.'s car still idling in the street. I figured they would probably make plans to hang out later together, once all of M.J.'s many children were finished with their daily sporting events. Normally, I would be with them, sitting around M.J.'s pool with Kerry, laughing and drinking wine.

"I'm not even going to ask if we're ready this time," Nick said as he waved to Kerry and M.J.

"Please don't. One more hiccup and I'm walking back home and you all can go to Florida without me." The thought of my house, alone, for two weeks, sounded more enticing than ever. I glanced longingly at the flower beds Kerry had promised to water for me. I'd spent nearly every summer for the past couple of years ripping out the old evergreen yew shrubs and planting new ones, slowly bringing the exterior of our Colonial from the 1980s to the present. Leo and I had planted a shade garden the summer before, and now they would be under Kerry's care.