#glenrunner

Annette left home quietly, not even bothering to close the garage door. 

Sam was still asleep after their most recent siring attempt; the act taking a lot more out of him than usual…which was surprising since she was, once again, leaving his side with an empty plasma condenser. 

Ahhh yes, her husband: the largest, strongest truck this side of the Mississippi.  He could carry loads all across the country, but he could never seem to drive one home.

She snarled at her own, bitter wit and coasted to the end of the driveway. 

It was late in the evening, and the moon was just starting to crest the pines.  Despite it being fall, there was a wintery chill in the air.

She took a deep breath, letting the cool air cycle through her TR system.

What now…?  She thought, sadly.  She had already tried talking Sam around to visiting the clinic and, when that didn’t work, bringing up the topic to her in-laws.

After that…the harassment got worse.  Most of the Longhauler women wouldn’t talk to her.  The men were more sympathetic…mostly on account of her being a damn-good mechanic—you didn’t want to offend the person changing out your piston belts, after all.  But, even so, they only made small talk. Her mother-in-law had become especially cruel, gossiping about Annette to anyone who’d listen, slapping Annette with snide, degrading comments when they were alone, introducing Annette at parties and social gatherings as her “barren” daughter-in-law. 

Despite all of this, Annette had tried her best to remain positive.  She forced herself to get up every morning…with no partner to snuggle against, sang to herself at dinner to beat back the oppressive silence of their empty home, cleaned and tended the garden to keep herself busy when she wasn’t working and did her best to smile and give her clients the best automotive care possible…despite hearing them call her things like “gold-digger” behind her boot. 

She’d been maintaining, thanks mostly to her father and brothers.  Her father, especially, did everything that he could to make her feel loved and appreciated…but, ultimately, he couldn’t solve her problems.  He couldn’t make Sam get his siring cable repaired.  He couldn’t stop Claire from spreading gossip to the rest of the townsfolk.  At the end of the day, the best he could do was lean against her and tell her that it would get better. 

Somehow.

Someday.

Tears started pooling in the corner of her eyes.  She had been clinging to this notion, whispering it to herself like a personal mantra whenever doubt began to rear its ugly head. 

It’ll get better.  It’ll get better.  Someday, It’ll get better...

Will it, though?

Annette gritted her teeth and started her engine to try to banish the thought from her mind…but it clung to her like cheap grease.  Will things actually get better? 

Her fuel pump squeezed painfully, fearfully and she gunned her engine, kicking up gravel and dust as she turned out onto the road, heading south, flicking on her headlights only as an afterthought.

Annette and Sam lived in a large, converted barn about fifteen minutes from town.  As she sped down the old logging road, the terrain grew more rugged, with tall black pine and oak replacing the smaller saplings from the reclaimed Dawson Woods.  The road began to switchback, ducking around steep exposures of sedimentary rock, but always gaining in elevation.

She was driving more recklessly than she probably should have been…but she couldn’t help it.

For years she had successfully managed use the “it’ll get better” mantra as a wall to block out any thoughts that might argue otherwise.  Working long hours at the shop and taking on extra work from the clinic helped to reinforce it. 

And up until tonight, the integrity of said wall had never been undermined.

Annette reached the top of a prominent, east-west trending hill that the locals called Oracle ridge and paused to catch her breath.

You’re not sure…are you?

Annette closed her eyes, fighting back tears.

Sam was only home for a week this time, so Annette wasn’t expecting much, surely not another siring attempt.  But…he offered…because he knew that having a child meant the world to his wife, and he was willing to keep trying in the hopes that they’d somehow be successful.  It was the first time in their two years of marriage that he’d done something like that, made an effort to show her that he cared, a rare expression of vulnerability when he had always been forced to be “strong” and “fearless.” She eagerly accepted his offer, and as they made love, the hope that she saw in his eyes and the compassion that she felt in his touch rejuvenated her, made her think that there was still a chance.  That the planets and the stars would align just for them and they could have their happy ending. 

And then she waited. Hours and hours of waiting with giddy anticipation, faithfully hoping for a factory notification.

She was going to be a mother! It was going to happen this time!

But…it didn’t. 

And, for the first time in her life, the voices on the other side of the wall began to make themselves known, hissing and spitting at her through a spiderweb of newly formed cracks.

Wiper fluid was leaking freely down her fenders and her breath came in ragged sobs. 

It’s not going to get better.

Annette shook her front end, trying to dislodge the thought.

It’s NOT going to get better.

Her eyes shot open and she revved her engine.  It will!  It HAS to! 

Sam won’t go to the doctor.  His parents won’t force him to go because they believe that you and your father are lying to them.  So, logically, every future siring attempt will fail…and your life will always be just miserable as it is at present.  It’s an exercise in futility if there ever was one.

No… No it’s not… Annette’s throat constricted

It’s hopeless.

Annette froze. 

Hopeless.

The wall shattered.  All the rogue thoughts that she’d tried to keep bottled up broke free and surged through her brain with the force of a tidal wave. 

If nothing is going to change, what’s the point in trying?  In caring?  You care so much about other people…but they don’t seem to care much for you, do they?

Panicking, Annette gunned her engine and tore down the ridge.  Her model wasn’t particularly fast on account of its weight, but the steep slope combined with her Cadillac standard V8 made sure that when she hit the first switchback, her tires had to really scrabble for traction.  She cleared the curve, but just barely. 

You’re pathetic.  A waste of metal desperately clinging to false hopes and yearning for a life that you’ll never have.

The ghostly outlines of trees blurred in her peripheral vision.  Another switchback ahead, not as sharp as the first one, but even so she could feel the literal edge of the road under her rear tires, the loose scree falling away to tumble down into the river below.  

Really, is running all you can do? 

Her eyes narrowed.  Another switchback.  Another close call, though this one came with a jolt of pain and a loud snap as she clipped a rock with her left back tire.  The snap must have been her coil spring, because from that moment onward, her body seemed to list to that side and she’d bottom out on every dip and rise in the road. 

A Sudden dip.  Something large and sharp caught her undercarriage and tore the metal; the pain made her eyes water, but rather than slow down, she gunned it harder.  Red line.  Her engine was straining under the stress, and she was starting to feel nauseous as the hot metal began to effect nearby systems.

Annette, you’re a coward.  You always have been.  You could have stood up to your in-laws, but instead you kept your chassis low.  You’re pathetic.  So pathetic, that your family just stood by in silence while you suffered.

No!  My father stood up for me!

Your father stood up for the Glenrunner name.  Not you.

Annette counter steered the last curve, almost skidding into the river, but her flattening left rear tire helped keep her on the road.  There was another sharp pain, this time further up into the axle; she could feel hydraulic fluid running down the inside of the tire.

She was on a straightaway, now, heading for Timing-Belt Bridge. There was a sharp turn on the other side, the sort of turn you had to make at less than twenty miles per hour, otherwise you’d end up hitting a wall of limestone.

Time seemed to slow as a deadly realization sunk its claws into her brain.

By the time her tires tore into the concrete of the bridge, she had reached sixty miles per hour.  Even with her left rear tire about to give out, she would still be doing sixty as she hit the curve on the other side. 

No. More. Pain.

Her engine screamed.  Her vision was blacking out and she was starting to taste oil and other vital fluids in her mouth… 

And then…the lights.  Right in front of her.  Head-on.

"To say that the Longhaulers and the Glenrunners weren't responsible for establishing Dawsonville would be an abject lie. The Longhaulers logged the woods, stripped the hills of their coal, and refashioned the scarred landscape into some of the best farmland this side of the Mississippi. The Glenrunners kept the Longhaulers in top, physical condition with their mechanical prowess, and made high quality fuel from Longhauler lumber and cash crops. To acquire rarer materials, they began to trade with the nearby Silver Creek Factory, and the settlement--tentatively named Arciniville (are-sin-o-ville)--began to grow by leaps and bounds.

But then the Factory Wars Began.

The Silver Creek Factory was beset by angels from the Atlanta based Brawny Motors. Once the Brawny angels learned of Silver Creek's involvement with the residents of Arciniville, they sent one of their angels to destroy the settlement and its inhabitants. The battle was brief and brutal; only a few dozen vehicles survived.

Of the survivors, Saren Glenrunner used his aptitude with mechanical engineering to design a catapult that could launch tree trunks like spears. The Longhaulers, led by Aren Longhauler, provided the raw materials and labor, and when the angel returned two days later to finish the assault, they shot it out of the sky.

Whether or not their victory caused Brawny motors to reconsider their methods is up for debate. All that is known is that their settlement was spared any additional violence.

The tree that delivered the killing blow had been harvested from the top of Dawson hill, and so the settlement was renamed Dawsonville to honor its sacrifice. While most of the wood was too damaged to be of any use, the Glenrunners and the Longhaulers stitched some pieces together into a mount upon which they proudly displayed their combined family crests...and the wings that they'd pried off of the angel's mutilated corpse.

Up until 1958, the crest had remained in the possession of Aren's descendant, Samuel Longhauler Sr. Upon his passing, his widow, Annette Longhauler, donated the crest--along with a large collection of artifacts and books--to the Dawson County Museum, where they can still be seen to this very day."