[Southern Gothic] Radio Disney

The sun had burst to life, like fire. Across the wide prarie, the wheat burned golden with the sunset. The heat shimmer on the road ahead masked the grey asphalt as it danced and kept pace ahead of her. The engine rumbled in the old truck, a loud grumble as she pressed the gas. She was speeding, feeling each bump on the old country road as she dipped around a hawk that lay mangled along the yellow line that split the path.

Eventually, Vidalia slowed the truck and turned it onto a gravel road nearly hidden by the tall grass in the ditches. There was a rusted sign, covered with red dust, that marked it as some ancient highway. Billows of dust obscured her view in the rear mirror, and the sound of gravel and dirt pinging against the undercarriage as her wheels sprayed it back took over the sound of cicadas screaming in the summer air. She knew she should slow down, but her ring-burdened fingers just gripped the wheel harder and she rode on.

Eventually the path disappeared into a clutch of short trees, as tall as the prarie winds would let them grow. Her phone dinged, the app on it buzzing with latitude and longitude. She was close, in range of where the radio last night had said to go.

She'd been laying in bed, cursing the fan for not doing enough, for her pillow for warming too quickly, and sleep for staying away. A green light flashed on across the room and the radio roared to life. A song from her childhood started to play and before she could jump up to shut it off, the music paused and a voice called out in the darkness. Two numbers, directions. Then it shut off again.

It'd taken her all day to figure out what the numbers meant... 35.1, -98.9. Night was coming but it wasn't far, and there wasn't anything else for her to do on a Saturday night since the rodeo had moved along. As the golden light slowly turned cold and the sun threatened to dip below the horizon, she stopped the truck, pulling to the side. There was a flashlight on the faded canvas seat next to her. She grabbed it, her phone, and the old shotgun that Daddy had put up in the closet.

The girl licked her lips and hoped she wouldn't have to use it.