playcon – Rebecca Cuneo Keenan

I should have known better.

After all, I made Ed pull over so we could get dinner and fill up the car at what looked like the last significant place on the map.

“But the tank is three quarters full,” he said.

“There’s going to be a whole lot of nothing where we’re going,” I said.

So we gassed up and I peered at my phone in order to navigate our way north through Maine. We had left Portland earlier that evening and thought, hey, let’s take the scenic route! Up through Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and then into Quebec! That’ll be more interesting than doubling back down to Boston and taking the interstate!

So that’s how we wound up turning from one small, backwoods road onto ever smaller and further back-in-the woods roads until we finally found our way onto a narrow two-lane highway with dirt shoulders in the deep, dark Maine woods.

“Looks like this is the main highway that takes us up into Vermont,” I was trying to sound upbeat. What a great adventure.

Then it started to rain.

Then the highway proceed to cut through a corner of the White Mountain National Forest in the (you can’t make this stuff up) Unorganized Territory of South Oxford. So now we are driving through the rain, in the dark, over mountains, in a for-real forest, in what we can only assume is some sort of lawless no man’s land.

We passed a transport truck pulled over at the side of the road, hugging the guardrail at the edge of what I imagined to be a precipitous drop. It was too dark to see anything really. “There is nothing that could ever compel me to pull over in this godforsaken forest and sleep for the night,” I said. “I would rather sleep on the New York City streets.” Truer words have never been spoken.

We came through the forest, or so my map showed me, because there was no respite from the tall pines and narrow roads and total darkness. I tried to see where there might be a town or some sort of smattering of human existence coming up. There was a place name on the map right where we were and then nothing for a helluva long stretch.

We slowly wound our way past a few lone mailboxes perched at the end of long drives. I thought of the people living in their homes deep in the Maine wilderness, the dark forests pressing into their yards, and wondered at what kind of lives they lived. Finally, I saw it, a beacon of momentary respite. It was a small parking lot in front of an institutional building, long closed for the night. There was a flag pole in front and a small semi circle of lawn cut out of the wild.

“You’d better pull over here,” I told Ed. “Looking at the map, it may be a long time before we get another chance. I should take over at the wheel.”

First, we stepped out to pee. Instinctively, I walked back toward the bush to find some cover while I relieved myself. I approached the shadowy tangle of wilderness and thought about what could be lurking out there. Nope. Modesty be damned. I walked right back to a small shrub next to the flag pole by the road and peed.

When I finally pulled back out onto the road, we were practically crawling. “Be careful,” Ed said. “Dude. I’m driving 40 kilometres an hour as though I’m on a residential side street.”

I peered out at the road ahead, lit only with my own high beams, and gradually settled in for the long haul. We wound up and over and down narrow mountain roads and continued through the deep, dark woods. I had cautiously picked up speed and held fast to a grim, can-do, attitude. Just keep going because there’s no stopping now.

That’s when it happened.

My headlights caught the glistening body of a small frog hopping across the road in front of us. I barely had time to register “frog” in my thoughts when I saw a shadowy mass out of my peripheral vision. It was an enormous presence that was stampeding toward the side of our van at great speed.

My reflexes took over and I pressed hard on the gas before I had even finished telling myself to gun it. I heard Ed say, “That was a moose!” after what seemed like an eternity but was probably only an instant. I was hopped up on adrenaline and the acuteness of the danger we had just narrowly averted started to seep in.

“Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.”

“Wow. That moose was coming right at us.”

“Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.”

I’d seen the signs all along, of course. The yellow reflective diamonds that warned of moose had been posted along the entire length of the highway. But what I’d imagined was a moose standing on the road up ahead. I thought it would be moseying along and perhaps be startled by the sudden oncoming vehicle and stop walking. So all I had to do was drive carefully and be sure that I’d be able to stop in time. What I’d never in a million years imagined was that a massive moose would come charging out of the woods, running directly toward us.

“How do you even guard against that?!(function() {
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