The Hollow Roads

The First Marker

*Somewhere in New Mexico - 3:42 AM*

Luz's headlights carved through the darkness, illuminating the broken white line that seemed to twitch like a dying snake. Cole hadn't spoken in seventy-three miles, just stared at the handheld radio buzzing with dead air between them.

Then the GPS flickered again.

This time, the map didn't just glitch—it changed.

Luz slammed the brakes as the screen repainted itself in jagged pixels, revealing a fork in the road that shouldn't exist. To the right: the real I-10 continuing east. To the left: a darker path labeled "VEIN 12" in blocky ASCII text.

Cole finally moved, his neck creaking like old suspension. "There."

The truck's high beams barely pierced the gloom of Vein 12. The asphalt here was wrong—too black, too wet, with a texture like stretched skin. Luz's hands trembled on the wheel.

"Last chance to turn back," Cole murmured.

Luz thought of Mateo's lighter burning black. Stamped the gas.

The moment her tires touched Vein 12, the cab filled with the smell of copper and diesel. The radio crackled to life, playing a distorted rendition of "Six Days on the Road" backward.

And the road breathed beneath them.

The Weeping Bridge

Five miles in, they found the first proof Jake and Rachel's tapes were real.

The bridge arched over a dry riverbed, its concrete weeping black tears. But as they rolled closer, Luz realized the stains weren't liquid—they were handprints. Dozens of them, all sizes, pressed into the structure as if trying to claw their way out.

Cole exited without a word. Luz followed, her boots sticking slightly to the pavement. Up close, the bridge's support beams weren't steel.

They were bones.

Femurs and spines fused with rebar, their hollow centers oozing that familiar sludge. Luz touched one—

—and screamed as the vision hit:

A maintenance crew pouring hot tar that slithered up their legs

Rachel Mears screaming into a dying recorder

Jake Carter's eyes turning pitch black as he whispered "Almost ready"

Cole yanked her back. His fingers left bruises. "Don't. Touch. The. Infrastructure."

Above them, something scraped against the bridge's underside.

Luz looked up just as a long, segmented limb retracted into the shadows.

The Toll Booth

The checkpoint appeared at dawn—a crumbling concrete kiosk straddling the road. No signs. No lights. Just a single arm barrier and a figure in a faded DOT vest.

Luz slowed. "That guy's not..."

"Human?" Cole finished. "Not for years."

As they rolled closer, the attendant's face became visible under his hat brim. His skin had the texture of cured asphalt, his smile showing teeth like crushed gravel. One hand held a rusted coin bucket. The other gripped a familiar object—Rachel's podcast microphone, now fused to his wrist with black tendrils.

"Toll," the thing rasped.

Cole rolled down his window. "What's the price today, Charlie?"

The attendant's grin widened. "Same as always. A story." He pointed at Luz with a finger that bent too many ways. "Hers."

Luz's blood ran cold. She remembered Mateo's last call: "They keep asking about you, hermana."

Cole tossed something into the bucket. It landed with a wet plink. "Raincheck."

The attendant examined his payment—a human molar with a silver filling. He nodded and raised the barrier.

As they passed, Luz saw the toll booth's backside: a gaping hole where the concrete blended seamlessly into a massive, ribbed tunnel descending underground.

The microphone crackled in the thing's grip: "...Jake says hello, Luz..."

Then they were through.

The Collector's Secret

"You didn't tell me they knew my name," Luz accused when they stopped to siphon gas from an abandoned station.

Cole didn't look up from the hose. "Would you have come if I did?"

The sun rose over the wasteland, revealing the truth about Vein 12—it wasn't just a road. It was a growth. Black tendrils branched off periodically, some burrowing underground, others creeping toward the distant interstate like invasive roots.

Luz kicked a rock at one. It hissed where it landed. "How do we stop this?"

Cole finally met her eyes. "We don't. We document. So when the change comes, someone remembers how it started." He opened his jacket, revealing a cassette tape sewn into the lining with black thread. "Your brother helped me with this one."

The label read: "MARTINEZ, MATEO - FINAL STATEMENT."

Luz lunged for it. Cole caught her wrist with terrifying speed. His fingers were cold.

"Not yet," he said. "First, you see what they're building."

He pointed east, where the road dipped below the horizon. There, just visible in the morning haze, stood a massive construction site swarming with figures in DOT vests.

And rising from its center—

A new kind of bridge.

Shaped like a ribcage.