Shadow Offramps, The Town of Lacrima

Quite a fun little weekend.  I came home to see my family and pick up a few things.  I spent most of that time quite ill.  There was also an ill-fated episode in which the 'rents tried to give me a haircut but the clippers weren't cooperating.  It all works out.  I had hoped to be back at school by 4 PM at the latest, but I didn't even get on the road before 6.  That was all well and good except that it meant I would still be on the highway after nightfall on the way back to school.  I hate driving at night...

The shadow highways are still there, crossing and looping and whatnot alongside the normal interstate highway, but I don't worry about it much during the day.  I try to stay off of it at night.  Especially after what happened last time.  But alas, as I was getting off at my exit, the lights in the distance went out and the name on the offramp changed to "Lacrima,  Population: Unknown".

Not again.

Like it or not, I had wandered onto the shadow highways.  Or rather, wandered off.  I switched on my high beams and followed the road as it went on for a ways into empty plains (which if you know anything about Arkansas is totally uncharacteristic).  Finally, I came across Lacrima proper.  "Population: Unknown" my foot, the town was completely empty.  What's more the buildings were mostly Hollywood facades.  Sure they were shades of grays and blacks and the door frames looked like the maw of some horrific beast (which in spite of my flippant tone is sure to give me nightmares for a while), but their not-really-a-building-ness just seemed to rob them of the scary.  I would have turned around right then, but the road was only wide enough to travel one way.

There was one building that was more substantial, however.  A large manor house which might have served as a town welcome center or something similar where I come from.  A bit creepy, but not the least bit scary, I got out of my car and walked up to the door.  It too was sculpted to look like a hungry nightmare.  Being an actual building, the manor was gaining fear-reaction points by the moment.  I knocked.  Nothing.  I waited for a moment, suppressing rising discomfort.  I knocked again.  Still nothing.

I turned to go back to my car.  There was a swish behind me.  I turned around.  A letter had been pushed under the door.  There was no light inside and the door was windowless.  I picked it up.  The letter had my name on the outside.  I opened it.

It read;
"I dreamed a dream of a land not far away,
Where no birds sang,
No steeples rang,
And teardrops fell like rain."

I was suddenly acutely aware that there was no sound in Lacrima.  Unsettlingly so.  And then I could feel something like bending, creaking, cracking wood where the door was behind me, but I couldn't hear it.  Panic rose. I ran back to my car without looking back.  As soon as the engine was started, I found in the rear view mirror that the road was suddenly two-laned.  I didn't need a second hint.  I was out of there and headed back toward the highway.  As soon as I entered the onramp, I was suddenly back on the offramp  to my little college town.  It's probably better for my sanity that I never saw what it was that came from the door.

A few things once I got back to my dorm.  First, I did a search on the lines from the letter (which seems to have disappeared when I left Lacrima).  It's from a choral piece called "The Awakening".  No idea what that was about.  The other thing was that the hitchhiker type was still outside my dorm.  He hadn't moved at all from last week.  That probably isn't good.  Anywhat...

No more interstate night driving.  Never again.