The Long Drift North

The old Ford coughed up another lungful of smoke, protesting the ascent of the final ridge. Casey pressed his foot harder, the accelerator pedal grumbling back under his worn boot. The road here hadn't changed, still a ribbon of cracked asphalt fighting a losing battle against the encroaching wilderness. It smelt of damp pine needles and the faint, metallic tang of coming rain, a scent he’d tried to scrub from his memory for three long years. He shouldn't be here. He knew it. But the pull, a tight, insistent knot in his gut, had been stronger than any sense of self-preservation.

His knuckles were white on the steering wheel, a nervous habit he hadn't shaken. Through the streaked windscreen, the valley below began to unfurl, a patchwork of ochre and burnt umber where the autumn had really taken hold. The town itself, a scattered handful of lights, looked smaller, more desolate than he remembered. A sigh caught in his throat, a dry, rasping sound.

Then, a flicker. Something dark, half-obscured by a cluster of skeletal birches just off the main road, maybe a mile shy of the town limits. He almost drove past it, almost let his tired eyes dismiss it as another forgotten heap of farm machinery. But something snagged, a cold, sharp claw in his chest. He slowed, indicator clicking a reluctant rhythm, and pulled the truck onto the crumbling shoulder.

The brakes shrieked, sending a cloud of fine, ochre dust swirling around the old truck. Casey cut the engine. The sudden silence pressed in, broken only by the ticking of the cooling metal and the distant cry of a crow. He felt a shiver, not from the crisp autumn air, but from a deeper, colder place. He knew that shape. He shouldn’t, but he did.

He unbuckled the seatbelt, the snap echoing too loudly in the quiet. His hand instinctively went to the empty right pocket of his denim jacket, a fidget he hadn't consciously registered in years. The ground felt uneven under his feet as he pushed the heavy door open, stepping out onto a carpet of crushed leaves and loose gravel. The scent of wet earth was stronger here, mingling with something else, faint and familiar, a metallic ghost.

Walking towards it felt like wading through treacle. Every step was deliberate, heavy. The birches, stripped bare by the season, offered little concealment. It was definitely the truck. The same faded blue, now closer to grey-green under a thick layer of rust. The driver's side door, still slightly ajar, looked like an open mouth, gaping at the indifferent sky. He remembered the last time he’d seen it. Not a full memory, just fragments: the flickering dashboard light, the cold against his cheek, Owen’s voice, tight with something he couldn't quite place.

His mind skipped, a flat stone over choppy water. Owen. Had he changed? Was he still… him? The thought was a jarring intrusion, unwelcome and yet impossible to ignore. He kicked at a loose stone, sending it skittering into the undergrowth.

“Took you long enough.”

Casey flinched, a small, involuntary twitch of his shoulders. His head snapped up, eyes darting to the sound. He hadn’t heard anyone approach. Owen. Standing there, perhaps twenty feet away, leaning against a thick, gnarled oak, arms crossed. He looked different, harder, sharper around the edges, like he’d been carved from something tougher than he was three years ago. There was a faint, jagged scar just under his left eye that Casey didn’t remember. Owen’s gaze was unreadable, dark under the brim of a worn cap.

“I…” Casey started, his voice a little hoarse. “I saw this.” He gestured vaguely towards the rusted truck. “It’s still here.”

Owen pushed off the oak, slowly, deliberately. The movement was economical, quiet. “Some things don’t leave, Cas.” His tone was flat, devoid of warmth or accusation, which somehow made it worse. Casey’s gut twisted. *Did he know I’d find it? Was he waiting?*

Casey shoved his hands deep into his own pockets, feeling the familiar rough lining. He watched a squirrel, bold and quick, chatter on a low branch above Owen’s head, seemingly oblivious to the tension radiating between them. The air was getting colder, the light beginning to bleed from the sky, taking the warmth with it.

“Why is it… out here?” Casey asked, the question hanging heavy between them, the *real* question unasked, unspoken.

Owen shrugged, a faint, almost imperceptible movement of his broad shoulders. He took a few steps closer, then stopped, keeping a careful distance. “Where else would it be?” His eyes, when they met Casey’s, were shadowed. Casey noticed the way Owen kept his shoulders hunched, a new habit, as if bracing against a constant, invisible weight.

They talked about nothing for a few minutes then, the small details, the meaningless filler that humans use to avoid the gaping chasms. The bad harvest, the early frost, how the old diner finally closed up last spring. Casey watched Owen’s mouth move, but the words felt like static, covering a frequency he couldn't quite tune into. The town, as he’d driven through the outskirts, looked like a faded photograph, everything a little more chipped, a little more worn. Like a wound that never quite healed.

“You didn’t exactly stick around to see it through, did you?” Owen’s voice cut through the small talk, sharper now, though still quiet. It wasn't an accusation, not exactly. More like a statement of fact, but it carried the quiet hum of betrayal. It hit Casey harder than a punch.

Casey flinched again, a barely perceptible shift of his weight. He looked away, down at the dying leaves under his boots, tracing the intricate patterns of their decay. “There wasn’t anything left for me here.” It was a half-truth, maybe more than half, but it felt hollow even as he said it.

Owen moved again, closer still, until Casey could smell the faint scent of woodsmoke and something metallic—oil, maybe?—from Owen's clothes. “There was us.” The words were soft, a whisper against the rising wind, but they slammed into Casey’s chest, stealing his breath.

His heart was hammering, a frantic drum against his ribs. He wanted to reach out, to grab Owen, to shake him. He wanted to pull him close, bury his face against that familiar, now slightly unfamiliar, neck. He wanted to punch him, hard, for the quiet accusation, for the years of silence. Both. All at once. It was a messy, contradictory tangle of feeling, burning him from the inside out. He suddenly felt trapped, pinned between the rusted truck and Owen’s unwavering gaze, like the oppressive landscape around them. The encroaching dusk deepened the shadows, blurring the edges of the world, making everything feel more menacing.

Owen reached out, his fingers brushing against the rusted door of the truck. He paused, looking at Casey again, a question in his eyes. “We need to talk about this, Cas. Really talk.”

Casey shook his head, a small, unconscious gesture of denial. “What is there to say? It’s done.” But his voice cracked on the last word, betraying the lie.

Owen sighed, a sound heavy with resignation and fatigue, like a weight he’d been carrying for too long. He finally looked Casey directly in the eye, and this time, Casey didn't break the gaze. He couldn't. He saw the flicker of something raw in Owen’s eyes, a mirrored pain. He noticed the faint tremor in Owen’s hand as he finally pushed the truck door further open, revealing a glimpse of the interior, darker than the fading twilight.

Casey’s heart gave a lurch. Inside, half-covered by a tattered canvas tarp, was a shape. Indistinct in the gloom, but his mind instantly supplied the details, the contours of what it had to be.

Owen stepped back, gesturing vaguely to the truck, his face unreadable in the dimming light, a silhouette against the last sliver of dull orange horizon. “Or we can finally finish what we started. You decide, Casey.” The wind picked up, rustling the dry leaves into a sudden, frantic dance around their feet, and Casey felt a chill deep in his bones, not just from the autumn air, but from the stark, impossible choice laid bare before him. He stood there, rooted to the spot, the past and the present colliding in a sickening rush, the metallic scent of old blood, or rust, thick in his throat.