Verwandte Artikel zu Nightmare of a Trip

Nightmare of a Trip - Softcover

Kilmer, Maureen

 
9780593718599: Nightmare of a Trip
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593718593 ISBN 13: 9780593718599
Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

This is one family getaway they’ll never forget . . .

Leigh Somerset wants to spend some quality time with her kids before they grow up, and her husband has always fancied himself sort of a Clark Griswold figure. So the Somersets will be spending their family vacation on the road, driving from suburban Milwaukee to Orlando, Florida. Already off to a rocky start, they stumble upon an abandoned, half-burned down farmhouse in Indiana, and the Somersets inadvertently unleash an eerie history that will follow them the rest of their trip.

From creepy indoor waterparks to paranormally plagued Cracker Barrels, it’s one thing after another in the pursuit of the great American summer road trip. Will the Somersets be able to shake these bad vibes and get on with the family bonding? Or will the road less traveled quite literally become the highway to hell?

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Maureen Kilmer graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and three children. She thankfully has not had to battle the forces of darkness. She is also the author of Suburban Hell, her horror debut, and Hex Education.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then Satan himself planned our family trip.

One thousand two hundred and seventy miles, driving from our Milwaukee, Wisconsin, suburb to Magic Land in Orlando, Florida. It was supposed to bond us, bring us closer together.

We thought the only horror would be sharing a data plan. Long country routes, no Wi-Fi, spotty cellular service-annoyances, but ones we would conquer like the middle-class suburban pioneers that we were.

We were wrong.

"It's a road trip, not the apocalypse. I don't think we need ten boxes of mini muffins and cheese crackers." My sixteen-year-old daughter, Piper, stood with her hands on her hips as she peered into the backseat of our family's tan Honda Odyssey minivan.

I raised my eyebrows at her but said nothing. She wouldn't be complaining when we were in the middle of cornfield territory and her siblings started going feral from imagined starvation.

Piper turned and pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her jean shorts, lifting it toward the rear gate of the minivan. I heard the click of a photo and then she studied the screen, tapping at it, before she nodded and stuck it into her pocket.

"You doing it for the 'gram? Want to film a reel as I awkwardly pack the car? Sure to go viral," I said as I threw my body toward a blue duffel bag, trying to shove it into the space between the two captain's chairs in the second row of the car.

"No thank you." She leaned a hand against the van's exterior and then quickly withdrew it. "Ow. Too hot." She shook her wavy brown hair out of her eyes and squarely faced me. "Mom. This whole road trip will go down in social media history, since I'm documenting it all. Hashtags include: 'nightmare fuel,' 'gas station hot dogs,' 'are we there yet,' and 'hostage crisis.'"

"You don't even eat hot dogs," I said. I gave the duffel bag one last shove and then slid the door closed. Every inch of the interior was stacked with suitcases, snacks, electronic devices, headphones, and DVDs.

I turned to face my daughter. "I'm so glad you've decided not to be melodramatic. And I'm sure your followers will love it all. Hey, and maybe a cute guy will slide into my DMs-isn't that what you youths call it?"

She grimaced and then turned to walk back inside our house. "Gross."

As intended. If she was going to disparage our fun family road trip, the least I could do was horrify her. Although secretly I was worried I would be the one horrified by the end of the trip. I was looking forward to the vacation time with my family, just not how we were getting to our destination. It felt like a test to see if we would all like each other by the end, and I didn't know if we would pass.

"Oh. I named our van Tammy the Tan Squirrel," Piper called over her shoulder.

"What? Why?" I said. Our Honda did not look like a Tammy. Or a squirrel.

"Because," she said slowly, like she was explaining quantum physics to a toddler, "it makes sense." She perked up and smiled. "Can I drive Tammy through Illinois? Please?"

I shook my head and rolled my eyes. "For the hundredth time: no. Your dad and I will be driving on this trip. This isn't the time to test your driving skills."

My husband, Nick, opened the door to the garage as Piper walked through. "Almost ready?" He clapped his hands together as Piper walked past him, gaze fixed back on her phone. "Someone looks ready."

He walked toward the car, peering through the front windshield, brow furrowed, before his face broke out into a smile. "I hope that's everything, because nothing else is fitting in there."

I gave him a half smile before rolling my eyes. He put an arm around my shoulders and squeezed me to his chest.

"Leigh, it'll be great. I promise," he said. "Nothing will go wrong."

It was mid-June, a time when Nick's optimism always hit a peak. He was the vice principal of Hubert Middle School, and summer break had started the week before. Mid-June was a time when his days off stretched before him, endless possibilities and limitless adventures. It usually held firm until the end of the month. But once the Fourth of July hit, he would begin a slow emotional decline of realizing the summer wouldn't last forever.

I figured his good attitude-before any work stress began to percolate, before thoughts of parent-teacher conferences, curriculum night, and school board meetings began to loom-could fuel us through the Midwest and at least through part of the upper South. And maybe we would even enjoy the hours together. Maybe.

"Is it time to go?" My eleven-year-old son, Leo, called from across the street, where he was in a highly competitive game of yard soccer with the other fifth-grade neighbors; they'd run and push and argue until a parent inevitably got irritated enough to try to play referee. It was like a game of parenting chicken, and I always won. Mostly because my home office was in the back of the house, out of earshot.

"Just about. C'mon back, buddy," Nick called to Leo, waving his hand toward the car.

"I'll go get Sophie inside," I said. The last time I'd seen our seven-year-old daughter, she was shoving Squishmallows into a rolling suitcase, certain she could fit her impressive collection inside.

Twenty minutes later, after double-checking the security straps on the turtle top storage on the minivan's roof, throwing a few more snacks into a reusable cloth grocery bag, and packing more charging cords than could be used by an entire fleet of IT professionals, we were in the car and ready to back out of the driveway.

Leo and Sophie were in the captain's chairs, headphones on, as the movie Rio started on the car's DVD player. Piper was in the third row, stretched out as far as the seat belt would allow, her phone on her lap and earbuds in.

We got as far as the end of our driveway before Sophie said, "I forgot to go to the bathroom."

Groaning, Nick stopped the car, making me shift forward in my seat, and hit the button for the garage door. "Can you make it fast, Soph? We have a schedule to stick to."

Sophie nodded and unbuckled herself and slid open the minivan's door before racing inside, her pigtails streaming behind her.

I put a foot up on the dashboard, looked over at Nick, and smiled. I held up both hands, fingers splayed. "Ten feet. We've made it ten feet. We won't make it to the Wisconsin-Illinois border before fall at this point."

"Good thing I know how to forage in the woods." Nick held up a finger and cocked his head to the side. "If we don't hit any traffic, we'll still be on track. And at least we have good music." He pecked at his phone until "Holiday Road," of National Lampoon's Vacation fame, came on.

"Seriously?" I said with a groan.

"Road trip playlist on Spotify," Nick said. He tapped his hand against the steering wheel. I could tell he was picturing himself as Clark Griswold, ready to journey to Walley World and take over the park-at gunpoint if necessary. I didn't think the security guards at Magic Land would go so quietly into the night.

Piper harrumphed in the way back and opened a bag of Takis, her snack version of a weighted blanket, while Leo slowly closed his eyes and drifted off as we waited for Sophie. He was always the first to fall asleep in the car as a baby, something that had thankfully continued throughout childhood.

Once Sophie was back inside the car, we once again reversed out of the driveway. I waved for Nick to stop in front of our mailbox on the street, so I could check one more time to make sure we had collected all of the mail before the postal hold.

Empty.

Our trusty minivan-Tammy, apparently-made it to the end of the street just as Nick's phone interrupted "On the Road Again" to...

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Verlag
Penguin Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2024
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593718593
ISBN 13 
9780593718599
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
320
Kontakt zum Hersteller
preigu GmbH & Co. KG
mail@preigu.de

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