While she waited for the signs of civilization before a big city, they never came. She checked the gas gauge and saw that it was still well above a half tank. Switching on the dome light, she checked her watch. When she saw the time she had to double-take and shake her head, squinting to make sure she was seeing the numbers right. It was only eleven o'clock.
She had left the house at 9:30, she was sure of it. What had happened?
She didn't have much time to think about it. As the highway reached the next bend, she could see a glow emanating from above a hill. That meant she was nearing civilization, the city of Louisville, and the last leg of her whirlwind trip. When she reached the crest she expected to see lights, houses, and buildings. Instead the glow grew even brighter. It seemed heavenly.
Where was Louisville? For a panicked moment she wondered if she had taken a wrong turn, or had entered the wrong highway from the beginning. She knew that the highway leading east from Illinois to Louisville was Interstate 64 and that the highway leading northeast from Louisville to Cincinnati was Interstate 71. By the time the glow finally dissipated, she once again drove through miles of barren forest. She looked for the highway signs, to make sure she was on the right track.
The next highway sign she came to read I-71. I-71! To get on that highway, she would have had to have turned off onto it as Louisville. A calm woman's voice inside her ear said "Just drive." Linda also finally saw the signs of life of civilization and approaching suburbia: houses with lights on: valleys where she could see small towns, other cars (though still not many), and the big green highway signs that would tell her where she was.
One sign read "Cincinnati - 50 miles."
On one hand she knew that something was vaguely wrong. Did she miss something?
Still, a sense of calm came over her, and the same woman's voice inside her mind kept saying "Drive."
She checked her watch. It was a quarter past midnight. This was yet another one of the aspects of the trip she could not explain. As she neared Cincinnati, her sense of purpose in reaching her friends, of possibly helping, infused new energy into her. All she knew was that she needed to reach the arena. The concert would have started around eight p.m. and would last only three hours, yet there would still be people hanging around. The clean-up crew, for instance, would be at work.