Kenny and Xerife Boyd saw the car drive through the road once.

Twice.

Three times.

By the fourth, they noticed the vehicle beginning to slow, lingering just a little longer as it passed.

Panic was setting in, Kenny thought. He knew it was.

He'd seen this multiple times before.

He was already starting to feel the familiar pity and sorrow for whoever was behind the wheel.

For whoever was inside.

He always did.

Nobody ever understood what was happening at first. They just kept driving, convinced they'd missed a turn somewhere, that the road had to lead somewhere different if they just tried again.

At the fifth pass, when the car disappeared farther down the road once more, Kenny knew exactly what to do.

He headed for the post office that he and Boyd were using as a precinct, grabbed the spike strips, then hurried back out to the road. He laid the strip across the pavement, covering it with a thin layer of loose dirt before stepping back to wait for the car to return a sixth time.

Sure enough, the familiar engine echoed through the trees.

When the car came back, it rolled straight over the hidden spikes.

The tires blew out almost immediately, and the vehicle lurched to a stop in the middle of the road.

They never tried to stop the cars on the first trip.

By letting them drive the road a few times, the people inside eventually realized there was no way out.

It made explaining the rest a little easier.

The monsters.

The sun going down.

The way no one had ever left this town.

Everything that came after.

Taking a slow breath, Kenny stepped into the middle of the road in front of the stranded car. He lifted one hand in greeting, offering what he hoped was a calm, reassuring smile to the person who was almost certainly terrified inside.

Which was you.