Chapter 1: The Copper Storm

The windshield wipers beat a steady rhythm against the glass, fighting a losing battle with the rain that seemed to come from every direction at once. Elara Vance gripped the steering wheel tighter, her knuckles white against the black leather as she squinted through the storm that had materialized from nowhere.

Just twenty minutes ago, the Florida interstate had been clear, the afternoon sun streaming through her Honda's sunroof as she sang along to some forgettable pop song. She'd been making good time on her drive south—a solo road trip to meet her family for what her father had called "a long overdue reunion." The phrase had felt strange coming from him, formal and weighted in a way that didn't match his usual casual tone, but she'd dismissed it. Dad had always been a little dramatic.

Now, as copper-colored lightning split the sky in impossible patterns, she was beginning to wish she'd asked more questions.

The storm had hit like a wall. One moment she was cruising at seventy-five, windows down, letting the humid air whip through her dark hair, and the next she was trapped in what felt like the inside of a washing machine. The rain didn't fall so much as assault, coming in sheets that turned the world beyond her headlights into a shifting gray void.

"Come on," she muttered, leaning forward to peer through the windshield. The GPS on her phone had lost signal ten miles back, leaving her to navigate by instinct and the increasingly sparse road signs that emerged from the storm like ghosts before vanishing again.

Thunder rolled overhead, not the sharp crack she was used to from summer storms back home in Georgia, but a low, sustained rumble that seemed to come from beneath the asphalt itself. She felt it in her chest, in her bones, a vibration that made her teeth ache.

The radio, which had been playing classic rock from a Tampa station, suddenly cut to static. She reached for the dial, but before she could change the channel, a voice emerged from the white noise.

"Elara."

Her hand froze halfway to the radio. The voice was warm, familiar, tinged with the slight Southern drawl she'd grown up hearing every day until she'd left for college two years ago.

It was her father's voice.

But that was impossible. Her father had been dead for three months.

"Elara, sweetheart, can you hear me?"

The words were clear now, cutting through the static like they were being broadcast from the studio next door. She could picture him perfectly: the way he'd lean back in his old recliner, one hand gesturing even though she couldn't see him, his eyes crinkling at the corners when he smiled.

"Dad?" The word slipped out before she could stop it, barely audible over the storm.

"I know this is strange, baby girl. I know you're scared. But you need to keep driving. Just keep following the road."

Her heart hammered against her ribs. This wasn't possible. She'd been at his funeral, had thrown dirt on his coffin, had spent the last three months learning how to live in a world without his terrible dad jokes and his Sunday morning pancakes. The grief counselor had warned her about auditory hallucinations, about the tricks a mourning mind could play.

But this felt real. This felt like him.

"Where are you?" she whispered to the radio, her voice cracking.

"I'm waiting for you, Elara. We're all waiting. The family's all here, just like we planned."

Another flash of copper lightning illuminated the road ahead, and for a moment she saw something that made her stomach drop. Cars. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds, scattered across the interstate like toys thrown by a giant child. Some were upright, others overturned, most were smashed together in a massive pile-up that stretched as far as the lightning allowed her to see.

"Oh, shit," she breathed, slamming on the brakes.

The Honda skidded on the wet asphalt, fishtailing as she fought for control. She spun the wheel left, then right, her driving instructor's voice echoing in her head: Don't overcorrect, don't overcorrect. But the laws of physics had other plans.

The car hit something—a guardrail, maybe, or another vehicle—with a sickening crunch of metal on metal. The airbag exploded in her face, and for a moment the world went white and silent.

When she came to, the engine was ticking as it cooled, and rain was pattering against the crumpled hood. Her head throbbed where it had hit the side window, and when she touched her temple, her fingers came away sticky with blood.

The radio was still on.

"That's my girl," her father's voice said, warm with approval. "You made it."

She looked around, trying to get her bearings. Her car had come to rest against what looked like a minivan, its windows dark and empty. Beyond that, the endless maze of abandoned vehicles stretched in all directions, their metal shells gleaming like beetles in the strange copper light that seemed to have no source.

And lining the road, standing perfectly still despite the driving rain, were figures. People, she thought at first, but something about their stillness, their perfect alignment, made her skin crawl. They faced the road, dozens of them, maybe hundreds, all identical in their unnatural stillness.

"Don't mind them," her father's voice continued, now coming from every radio in the graveyard of cars. The sound surrounded her, a chorus of the same familiar voice speaking in perfect unison. "They're just here to witness. They've been waiting so long to see you."

Elara fumbled with her seatbelt, her hands shaking as she tried to process what she was seeing. This couldn't be real. This had to be a dream, a hallucination brought on by the crash, by grief, by something explainable and normal and sane.

But when she finally managed to unbuckle the belt and push open the car door, the rain that hit her face was real enough. Cold and sharp and carrying a metallic taste that coated her tongue like old pennies.

"Come on, sweetheart," the voice said, now emanating from a blue sedan to her left, then an SUV to her right, then from cars she couldn't even see in the maze ahead. "Don't be afraid. Family's waiting, and we have so much to catch up on."

She stepped out into the storm, her legs unsteady, her practical driving clothes—faded Nirvana t-shirt and jeans—already soaked through. The figures lining the road hadn't moved, hadn't even seemed to notice her emergence from the wreckage, but she could feel their attention like a weight on her shoulders.

Lightning flashed again, that impossible copper color that belonged in no natural storm, and in that brief moment of illumination she saw their faces.

Or what should have been faces.

Some had too much flesh, features melted and reformed like wax figures left too long in the sun. Others had too little, skin stretched tight over skull, eyes sunken so deep they looked like holes punched through paper. All of them were wrong in ways that made her brain struggle to process what she was seeing.

And all of them were watching her.

"What is this place?" she called out to the storm, to the voices, to whatever cosmic joke had dropped her into this nightmare.

"This is the road, baby girl," her father's voice replied from a dozen directions at once. "This is the road that leads home. And you're right on time."

The wind picked up, howling between the twisted metal of the cars, carrying with it the sound of her name spoken by a thousand voices that all sounded like home, like safety, like the man who used to read her bedtime stories and teach her how to parallel park.

Elara pulled her jacket tighter around herself, rain streaming down her face, and took her first step into the graveyard of cars. Behind her, her Honda's radio continued its impossible broadcast, her father's voice following her into the maze like a beloved ghost leading her deeper into hell.

Lightning split the sky again, copper and cruel, and in its glow she saw that the road stretched on forever, lined with its silent congregation of the wrong and watching.

She had no choice but to follow it.

The storm had brought her this far. Now it was time to see where the road would take her home.