The Montana Zone
Aaron looked over at the GPS display and laughed. "Turn right in 112.8 miles." Jeez, what kind of place was this?
He pressed down on the accelerator, but it was no use. No matter how fast he pushed it, it still felt like he was barely making any progress.
On the plane, he'd read that Montana was nicknamed "Big Sky Country," and now he understood why. The heavens above were like a giant blue dome, and he in his car was just a tiny ant crawling along a ribbon between endless grass fields.
Aaron leaned over and activated the satellite radio function, but it couldn't seem to lock on a signal. He whacked it with one hand as if they might get it to work, but it was to no avail.
Everything in this crappy rental car was junk. The front passenger visor was hanging down askew after he'd gone over a tiny bump in the road, and there was a streak across the windshield thanks to the wiper fluid tank being empty.
Oh well, he sighed to himself. He'd be back in civilization in three days, where there were three noodle shops within a five-minute walk of his apartment and the sky didn't look as though it wanted to swallow him up whole.
Just then, Aaron heard a loud thud, and the car began to vibrate. The accelerator turned to mush under his foot, and he had to use both hands to steer the car to the side of the road. As soon as he got the vehicle stopped, there was a loud popping noise and then steam began to billow out from under the hood.
"Damn it!" he shouted, putting the car in park and then climbing out.
Aaron walked around to the front of the car as if he could better diagnose the problem from there. The truth was that he knew nothing about cars other than he docked his Uber drivers a star if the air conditioning didn't work.
Aaron walked back to the driver's seat and hunted around for a minute or so until he found the button to release the hood. Once he popped it, even more white smoke began rising out. Aaron walked back around to the front of the car, peering inside as if he had any clue as to what had gone wrong.
Crap! Out of frustration, Aaron kicked the front tire, causing the small car to rock back and forth for a moment. He then reached into the front compartment and got out his phone. But when he held it up, he saw that there was no signal. Of course! His car had broken down in the literal middle of nowhere.
Looking around, all he could see was miles of wooden fencing that separated the road from the grasslands beyond. He assumed that this was someone's ranch or something, but he hadn't seen any buildings in a long time.
Everything related to human inhabitation was few and far between in this godforsaken state. Heck, he couldn't even remember the last time he'd seen a vehicle on this road. It was just him, the grass, and the endless sky above.
What the heck was he going to do? Aaron got back in the car and played around with the GPS for a while. The nearest town was more than twenty miles away, far too far for him to walk. His phone had no signal, and now his car was toast. He was well and truly screwed.
"Stupid car, fix yourself!" shouted Aaron, kicking the tires over and over again until his big toe began to squeal in protest. But the car just sat there, hissing as more white vapor billowed out from whatever rusty piece of junk car part had sprung the leak. Clearly, the car wasn't going anywhere.
Aaron walked over to the side of the road. Maybe some yokel in his oversized pickup would come rambling down the road and give him a ride to the nearest town. Or maybe some farmer on his way to a steer auction or whatever it was that people in Montana did would come driving past and then fix Aaron's car.
But none of those things happened. The road just lay there, empty of all traffic and completely useless as it stretched off toward the distant horizon.
Realizing that he was going to probably be there for a while, Aaron did an inventory of his possessions. He had a protein bar that he'd brought from Chicago and two bottles of overpriced Fiji water that he'd bought at the airport in Bozeman, but that was it in terms of food supplies.
In the trunk, he found a tiny first aid kit that had some band-aids and gauze but nothing else, not even any aspirin. But there were no roadside flares or emergency lights, something he could use for when it got dark.
Frustrated, Aaron climbed up on the trunk and sat there, hoping against hope that he'd soon see a tiny dot in the distance that signified an oncoming vehicle, but there was nothing.
After a while, the hissing from the car stopped, and he began to realize that he could actually hear the wind as it moved through the grass. It made a kind of faint rustling noise that was rather unsettling, as if the landscape was alive.
But there were no sounds of birds chirping or squirrels chattering or any other friendly animal sounds. It was just the rustling of the grass and the beating of his heart in his chest as he grew increasingly more despondent. Was there really no one who ever used this road?
Did they build it as some kind of joke to trap unsuspecting tourists? Or was it some boondoggle project authorized by some corrupt rancher years ago and then abandoned? Whatever the case, it was nuts! How could there be a two-lane highway without any vehicles on it?
Aaron cast about for something to look at. Even a mountain in the far-off distance would've been a welcome respite from the endless waves of grass, but there was nothing.
Eventually, he spotted a couple of trees far off in the middle of a field and settled for that. He sat there and sipped on his water, wondering if he'd somehow been caught in an episode of the Twilight Zone or something.
Imagine, if you will, a place that is only a three-hour flight from Chicago but exists on another level of space and time. A place, allegedly inhabited by more than a million people, yet they are nowhere to be seen.
A place where thousands of cattle are ranched, yet even they are swallowed up by the vastness of this stupid dumb prairie that just makes creepy rustling noises designed to scare out-of-towners whom the rental company gave the crappiest car on their lot to. This is... the Montana Zone.
Aaron chuckled to himself and jotted down a few notes on his phone. His friend Larry worked in Los Angeles as a part-time scriptwriter. Maybe he could sell the story to him and make a few bucks from this horrible, stupid day.
But for now, that would have to wait because he was as stuck as a person could be stuck.
After a while, the feeling of the sky above him got to be too oppressive, so he got back into the car. He wished he had some music to listen to, but the stupid car had no Bluetooth, so he couldn't connect his phone.
Instead, he leaned the seat back and began imagining himself back in his office, explaining to Steve and the gang how he'd suffered in the wilds of Montana, but it'd all been worth it when he'd signed the contract, everyone clapping him on the back and congratulating him for being so brave and courageous.
Just then, Aaron heard the faint neighing of a horse. But was that just a bit of color from his imaginary anecdote, or was it a real animal?
He sat up and watched in amazement as he saw a person on a horse slowly make its way down the fence line. Yes!
