Ryan Wiley - Disappearance

As fast as my body can move, I leap to the front seat and am surprised by my own quickness. I turn the steering wheel and get excited when I feel the car move where I want it to go. Turns out, the dashboard was the brains of the vehicle.

The black car is still going the same speed so I ease on the brake, but this doesn’t do anything. Before, the brake pedal seemed stuck and unable to move; now it moves but doesn’t do anything. The gas pedal does the same, which means I still have no control over the speed of the car.

I steer the wheel from left to right, making sure it still works. My situation doesn’t seem much better than before if I can’t control the speed.

One thing I can do now that I couldn’t before is go back and see Tabby. If she’s alive I want to know I did everything I could to help her. Although, at ninety miles per hour I can’t just turn around at the nearest exit or make a U-turn on the highway. I would die trying. My only chance is to find an outer belt that allows me to circle around and head back south. I try to imagine the map in my head and know I can take the Louisville outer belt around until I merge back onto I-65 south. There may be a faster route but with no map I’d just get lost. This is going to work, and for a brief moment I think I’m Einstein until I realize that even if I do make it back to where Tabby fell out, what good would that do? I’d drive by where she may or may not still be, but I wouldn’t be able to help her. I’ll only confirm whether she’s alive or not.

The alternative to that brilliant idea is to leave Tabby behind and hope she appears later. What will happen when it’s four o’clock? Will she magically appear in the car, or on the side of the road? I think I’ve learned enough by now to know there’s no way to predict what will happen next.

I’ve blocked out of my mind the thought of Tabby being dead. Falling out of a car going ninety miles per hour is tough even for a cat, but I’m optimistic she’s alive. Seeing I don’t have any other good options, I decide I’m going back for Tabby. Even if it’s only to drive by, I have to know if she’s still with me.

By the time I get to Louisville, I’ve never been hungrier in my life. I’ve never fasted for religious purposes, nor have I ever had a surgery where I couldn’t eat. To my knowledge, I’ve never missed a meal in my entire life, which is a testament to how fortunate and lucky I’ve been. Now though, all I can think about is how much I want to be sitting down eating a burger and fries.

Even though I’m clueless with directions, I’m smart enough to figure out how to make my way around the outer belt and back onto I-65 south. After having driven for a couple hours at ninety miles per hour, it’s beginning to feel almost natural. There are no sharp loops I have to deal with. Instead, the merge back onto I-65 south is nothing more than a fork in the road. I was starting to build up fear of what the merge back onto I-65 would be like. I’ll admit, if the turn was too difficult, I had already decided I would leave Tabby behind. Now that I’m back on I-65 and less than two hours away from Tabby, excitement starts to build up inside of me.

On the outside this seems like a stupid idea. Drive toward a cat in a car that doesn’t stop, just to see if it’s alive or dead. A little voice inside of me keeps reminding me of this. The other voice tells me this is the right thing to do and that something important is going to happen when I get there.

I decide no matter what, I’m going to go back to the cabin after I get there. I’ll ease myself into the grass somewhere, which will hopefully slow the car down, then jump out. The grass should cushion some of the blow. This may sound like a stupid idea, but I have no other choice. I’m under the assumption the car will be able to propel itself for a very long time without stopping. Also, once nightfall hits I know I’ll get too sleepy to drive. Now that the car doesn’t automatically steer itself, I have to make this decision. I’ll crash and die falling asleep at the wheel at night, so I might as well take things into my own hands and jump out the window when the time is right.

For the past hour, my heart has been beating out of my chest. I’ve never gone this long being so scared and nervous. I feel like I’m moments away from something very dramatic about to happen, and anticipation is at an all-time high. Some of the scenery starts to look familiar. It was only a couple days ago that I was driving on this very same road, which seems like forever ago. How different things were then; I was in Abby’s BMW expecting to be in Mobile, Alabama by the end of the day. That was before all the bruises, cracked ribs, and teeth marks from a battle to the death with Cujo. It’s like looking back on your younger school years and the problems you used to have. Suzy kissing Jimmy seemed like the most important thing on Earth, when in hindsight it was no big deal. It’s the same way when I think of the problems I was facing going to Mobile. Such petty problems when now I’m dealing with a black car I can’t stop, no food or water, and only a handful of daylight hours left.

I wish I had stayed home — or even stayed at the cabin. There, I could have healed up and been in good shape in a few days. Why did I obsess over this black car so much? Why didn’t I just ignore it as it drove by every morning at nine o’clock? After all, it never tried to get in my way. Once I was healed, I could I have gone to Mobile, or Florida, or wherever the wind took me. Even better, I could have sat back and waited for someone to find me. The bottom line is, almost every decision I’ve made up to this point has been a poor one and is the sole reason why I’m stuck risking my life inside this black car I have little control over.

As I keep heading south, a stupid realization comes over me. If Tabby isn’t on the road, how will I know where she fell out? Why didn’t I think about this before, when I decided to come back for her? It’s unfortunate, but I guess I’d rather be heading south than north anyway. I don’t like being cold and I’m not sure what the heating system is like in this car now that I’ve taken a shotgun to the dashboard.

I only have a vague clue where I was when Tabby fell out. I was too preoccupied with what happened to bother looking to see where I was. Even though I can picture vividly Tabby falling out, I have no recollection of any signs or anything else that soon followed.

With that understanding, I think it’s best I keep an eye out like I used to looking for deer at night. If you’ve driven in Ohio long enough, you’ve likely had at least one close call with these car-demolishing creatures. If Tabby is dead, I’ll surely see her on the road, but if she’s alive my guess is she didn’t stray too far from the road.

Minute after minute goes by. I haven’t been this focused on driving since I took my license exam. With each minute, doubt starts to creep in that I’ve passed where she fell. I suppose the Nashville outer belt is the best indicator that I’ve gone too far.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock. More minutes go by, and I get more unsettling feelings in the pit of my stomach. Where did she go? Where did my sweet Tabby, who saved my life, go? I barely know her, but I picture her as one tough kitty. If there were any chance of surviving, she would do it.

Then, a lot of things happen in the blink of an eye.

First, as I look forward there’s nothing but a stretch of highway for miles. But then, out of nowhere and no more than one second ahead of me, Tabby appears in the middle of the road. I don’t have time to think — just react. I jerk the car left, doing my best to avoid her. I’ll never know whether or not I missed her. If I did, it would have been by mere inches.