Cwej: Cable Line Road by James Wylder

Cable Line Road
By James Wylder
Illustrated by Aristide Twain

​America was vast, or at least it was supposed to be. It certainly didn’t feel like that when they’d been stuck in traffic for three hours.

“A lot of people are honking, will that help?” Sang Mi asked.

“It won’t help,” Chris replied. He thought about it for a moment, and then honked the horn a few times just in case he was wrong.

Sang Mi banged her head against the window. Continue your adventures with Cwej against all odds, she’d told herself, it’ll be everything you’d dreamed of, she’d told herself. She hadn’t anticipated that they’d move only a hundred and fifty feet over the course of an afternoon. They were stuck in their orange Honda Element, and she was becoming too familiar with it, and also too familiar with an audio stream the car picked up called NPR. She perked up. The car!

“Maybe we should name the car,” she said.

“The Vicinity III,” Chris said quickly.

“That sounds like you’re naming a boat.”

Chris mumbled that it was a really good name before conceding the point.

“What about Ol’Bessie? Like the cow that burned down Chicago?”

“There are about seven reasons I’m vetoing that,” he replied. “Number one, that’s too close to something else. Number two, O'Leary’s cow wasn’t named Bessie. Number three, that cow didn’t start the Chicago fire.” Chris stroked his chin. “Never mind, I guess I just have three reasons.”

She slumped. “It’s more fun if the cow started it.”

“The truth isn’t always fun.”

She banged her head against the window again. “I know that.” The line of cars suddenly started moving again, and she felt a brief rush as they moved a full hundred and twenty two meters before stopping again. But this time there was something to actually divert her.

“Exit! Food at the exit!”

He glanced at the sign. “Every exit has food. That’s how these roads work.”

“Yes, and I’m sure the good people of,” she squinted, “Elkhart, Indiana, will appreciate our patronage of… wherever!”

He sighed. “You just want to get out of this traffic jam.”

“I would sell one of my kidneys at this point.”

“Say no more,” he grumbled, but she could tell he was relieved at her suggestion too.

* * *

It took them half an hour to actually get to the exit—and as they got off they could see that some combination of a semi-truck turning over and construction on the road was making it a nightmare to get through. They weren’t the only people getting off, and Chris got frustrated at the slow driving from their fellow detour takers that he took his own detour. The roads and buildings had been interspersed with farms and fields for some time, but wherever they were thinned out even more.

“Sorry, I’m not actually getting us anywhere practical,” he said.

She smiled, and she meant it. “Nah, this is nice.” The world outside the window was different, and different was enough.

“Hey what’s that?” she said pointing at the plants she’d seen plenty of.

“Corn,” Chris answered.

“And that?”

“Soybeans.”

“And that?”

“More corn.”

Sang Mi squinted. There was something off about that tree—it looked weird. But she admitted she wasn’t familiar with most plants, let alone trees. Its trunk was stained, a dark reddish black.

“And that?”

“Grass.”

“No, the tree.”

He shrugged. “Missed it.”

They started cresting a hill, accelerating all the way, and Chris started to frown. He hit the brakes and, turning his head to look behind them, backed the car down again. Sang Mi watched the whole scene curiously, especially as he started up the hill once more. They climbed up at an even speed… and then she realized he wasn’t touching the acceleration pedal with his foot.

He gave her a look as her own face was clearly showing confusion. “That’s weird, right?”

“They didn’t invent gravity manipulation here early, did they? Like, that’s not for decades yet.”

“They sure haven’t.” He put his foot down on the accelerator.

They crested the hill, and the sun went out.

Chris put the headlights on, the bright ones, but they could only barely see the road ahead of them.

They were going faster. And faster.

On either side of the road there was something, a dark blur. It would appear there, then flutter by like telephone poles out of sight.

“Chris, slow down.”

“I can’t,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Slow down!”

“I CAN’T!”

The road was going by too fast; the blur had been going by at even intervals, and now as the world itself blurred it began to move like a butterfly: it was dancing, darker than darkness. Its eyes began to glow as the sole source of light in this bleak vision: they were green, but their light illuminated nothing. Sang Mi clutched the door of the car, as Chris struggled to control the wheel. The speedometer of the car had topped out, the needle shaking, trying to push onward.

“Can we… reverse?”

“We can’t—wait—there’s a switch by the gearshift, you have to pull out a little cover to hit it. I can’t let go of the wheel. Hold it down and you can shift it.”

The speed they were going made it hard to move, but she leaned over--there was a little cover, she tried to pull it off with her fingernails but it didn’t budge. She glanced around, and picked up a metal pen Cwej had been using—it was monogrammed. She slammed it into the cover. The tip of the pen smashed, but the cover remained. She tried again—and the little bit of plastic cracked in two. She ripped it off, and pushed the switch down with the broken pen, then pulled as hard as she could on the gearshift.
The car made a horrible screeching tearing noise—and then went in reverse.

Sort of.

Something was still pulling them forward, and the opposite forces made Sang Mi’s stomach churn, and the car start to first fish tail and then spin, and then they were off the road, and the car started spinning vertically instead of horizontally.

And the sun returned.

And the world returned.

And the car hit the ground.

* * *

Saki held the pill out to her. Sang Mi’s hand hung in the air trembling.

“Come on, we’ve done this countless times before. Stop wasting my time,” Saki said.

Sang Mi shook her head. “We’ve been taking the Delirium for a while now; what if I’m, like, getting addicted?”

Saki scoffed, loudly. “It’s not that kind of drug. It’s prescription.”

“A discontinued medicine neither of us have been prescribed!”

Saki only shrugged, and held the pill out closer to Sang Mi.

Her hand hesitated another moment before grabbing it, and downing it with a hefty slurp of water.

The two girls lay down. They’d done this before. You take the medicine, it puts you to sleep…

She drifted off.

And when her dreams started, the medicine kicked in.

Sang Mi found herself in a dark place, lit only by a faint purple-blue glow. Her feet were ankle deep in dark water. She held her hand out, and felt ahead of her. With the medicine, she could control the dream. She could do anything here. Well, nearly anything. She closed her eyes, and reached further until her hand touched something that wasn’t there.

And then it was.

“Doctor, she’s waking up.” There was the noise of footsteps, and Sang Mi opened her eyes to see bright lights.

“She shouldn’t be—was there something wrong with the anesthetics?”

She held her hand up to block the light—it was wrapped in a bandage. There was a mask over her face pumping air in, and she could feel something plugged into her arm—some sort of medieval version of an IV. She tried to sit up, but her head was spinning as soon as she moved, and she felt hands move to keep her down.

“You’re okay, just stay laying down—”

She reached for the mask and pulled it down—she could breathe just fine, well, mostly. “Where’s Chris?”

“You’re at Elkhart General Hospital.”

“Chris! Is Chris okay!?”

“The driver of the car is fine. Do you know what year it is?”

"2387. No, sorry, 2025, ignore the first thing.”

The nurse and the doctor glanced at each other.

“What’s your name?”

“Jhe Sang Mi—or Sarah Jhe depending on what piece of ID you’re looking at. One is my Gongen—er, Korean name, the other is my English one.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“The car wouldn’t stop accelerating, the brakes wouldn’t work, and we sped off the road.”

“Right, we have a few more questions.”

They did not have a few more questions. They had many, and then she got a break to take a nap and eat, and then they had even more questions. She’d apparently broken a few ribs and gotten cut up from the window breaking when the car rolled over. But considering the speed they were going she’d ended up in pretty good shape. Apparently the 2007 Honda Element was a good choice on Chris’s part.

The most annoying part of their questioning wasn’t the part where the cop came in and tried to get her to say the driver had been inebriated, surprisingly, but the part where the doctor came in and said.

“Your blood tests came back and… we did them a second time just to be sure there was no mistake.”

She sipped her juice box. “And?”

“You have fatal levels of petrochlorides in your bloodstream. Actually, not just fatal, your blood might be a biohazard.”

Sang Mi laughed. “Oh, yeah, rookie Earther mistake. I’m fine, those things are just littered in the soil where I’m from. If I couldn’t survive with those in my body nobody would be alive there.”

The doctor nodded very slowly. “…I was unfamiliar with that. Still, your blood could be lethal to… Americans?” She said, clearly hoping she was getting the vibe right. “So please be careful with any open cuts.”

She brushed it off. “Yeah yeah, no worries. How are my ribs?”

“Doing well. We should be able to discharge you soon. We weren’t allowed to let your uncle see you due to the police trying to detain him, but it looks like that’s sorted so he’ll be in to see you soon.”

That proved to be true, and a belabored Chris came in, clearly relieved to see she was doing well.

“How are you doing, kid?”

“Don’t call me kid, and pretty good aside from these primitive needles they’re using. Hey, did you hear my blood is a biohazard? That’s pretty cool, right?”

His face twitched. “…I would not use those words no. I’ve been on the phone with a lot of folks: the JDS, Geneva, SIGNET… I even deigned to call Blue Candle.”

“Oof, thank you for your service.”

He nodded. “Anyway, I think I’ve sorted it all out. We should be able to get your hospital records here sealed, the car is getting fixed, the cops ruled the crash an accident… all that’s left is dealing with the problem.”

She straightened up as much as one could in a hospital bed. “The thing that knocked us off the road.”

He nodded. “We can’t let it do that to any more people.”

“So, what’s the plan?”

“The plan is, I get a hotel room for you, and you wait there till I deal with this.”

That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “Really? I have a right to go with you on this!”

He shook his head. “You got hurt. Under my watch.”

“I’m fine! Once they let me out of here we can fix my ribs up no problem.”

He rubbed his hands together. “I didn’t think we were in danger on the road my—”

“I didn’t either! Who could have guessed that?”

“I should have."

“Bullshit. Bullshit and you know it. Stop blaming yourself.”

“But—”

“Ah—no buts! You couldn’t have known, I couldn’t have known. Let’s get out of here, figure out how to beat this thingy, and pick our car up.”

He smiled. “Yeah. Sounds like a plan. Stop making me look like the kid here though.”

She stuck her tongue out.

“Mission accomplished,” he laughed.

* * *

They made their way downtown, and slipped into a restaurant next to an outdoor ice-rink, one that naturally didn’t have any ice on it since it was April. After their waitress took their order, Sang Mi slid (a polite word for lightly threw) her phone across the table to Chris, who picked it up and read.

“The Cable Line Road Monster?”

“It’s a very creative name,” she sighed. “And mind you, most sources call it the Cable Line Monster.”

“Most sources?”

“Okay, like, nearly all of them, but ‘Cable Line Road Monster’ sounds cooler, so I'm saying that.” Chris nodded, bemused. "But yeah, it’s a local urban legend. Though it doesn’t seem like there is a consistent version of the story.” Sang Mi adopted her spookiest demeanor. It wasn’t that spooky. “Sometimes it starts with a guy on a motorbike–sometimes the guy and his girlfriend are in a car. Sometimes it’s a dad and his son in the car. And more. So let’s just choose one—a man and his girlfriend are zooming down the road on a motorcycle—only it doesn’t hover, it just has wheels because they haven’t invented the GravDrive yet.”

Chris smiled politely.

“He’s driving fast, she’s clutched to him, holding on tight. And then they see it there in front of them—the green-eyed creature. Maybe it’s furry. Maybe it’s a shadow. But it’s there, sudden and swift and there’s not enough time to think as the man reacts—he veers off the road! The wheels churn up grass as the motorcycle accelerates even faster—and then there is a tree. He hits it, head on, splattered in a human-shaped mark of blood and shadow that sinks in. And the mark stays there on that tree.”

“What about the girl?”

“Oh, sometimes she isn’t there,” she noted as the waitress handed them plates of food.
“She was there when you told it,” Chris noted.

“Oh right.” She raised her hands back up and resumed the spooky voice. “The girl survived, horrifically mangled, and in the hospital she described the creature, how it watched her lying there on the ground. Just staring.” She paused. “Actually, it makes sense she was there to tell the story, cause how else would we know what happened?”

Chris folded his arms and laughed. “Some ghost story.” He sat on his reaction a moment. “No… that’s not fair. It’s clearly real. You nearly died.”

She flapped her hand at him. “I’m fine! Barely injured!”

He didn’t argue the point, but his concern was evident. “Wait a second, there was no tree?”

“And then there was,” Sang Mi noted. “They cut the tree down in 1994.” She pulled a picture of the tree up on her phone. “So if the tree is gone, how is there even still a legend?”

Chris looked at the dark stain on the tree, and took a bite of his burger. “That is the question to answer, isn’t it?”
 
 
* * *

It was after dark when the pair of travelers returned to Cable Line Road. This time, they pulled over and stepped out to look at the drying grass where the tree had once been. Sang Mi raised her phone, and lined up the photograph of the tree on her screen with the place it would have been as best she could. Lowering it, to reveal the empty space, she felt like the darkness was thicker there. There was no truth to that objectively, it was the same color of night as the rest of the world. But still, there it felt. A hollow and invisible pulse drawing her in from the shadows.

“How do we deal with something that isn’t there?” she asked. She felt like she should have asked earlier.

“Easy,” Chris said. “We go where it is.”

She tried to gauge his face in the shadows. “Where do things go that don’t exist?”

He walked forward, gesturing for her to follow. They stopped in front of where the tree was, and Chris took her hand, and raised it up with his own. “Close your eyes. We’re going to reach out and touch the tree. Where the tree is.”

“…You mean like in a dream?”

“Sorry?”

“Saki and I, when we were experimenting with Delirium… when you got control of the dream, you could find things that weren’t there. Find them in the dream. You weren’t really creating them, just…”

He nodded. “Just like that. That’s good, this has a better chance of working. Now close your eyes like I asked.”

“Right, sorry.”

She did, and their hands reached out together. She thought about the tree, the tree that was definitely there. Like it was there in the dream, an image waiting to be carved out of stone just waiting within the block of marble. Their hands pressed forward.

And touched bark, scratchy and rough.

They opened their eyes, and there it was. A tree, stained dark with a shadow like a person. The world around the tree was strange, it seemed to be half remembered—like a dream. Turning her gaze, the details of the world didn’t stay consistent. Stones along the road moved, or vanished, between the movements of her eyes.

The tree seemed to stretch higher into the sky, its branches twisting and segmenting, covering the stars in a spider-web curtain.

Chris too rose to a new height. “You don’t scare me.”

The wind blew, and the grass, corn, and branches rattled with laughter. “I nearly drank that girl’s blood,” said the wind.

Sang Mi tensed, but Chris put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve faced things far worse than a roadside monster. You survive feasting on death and pain. On whispers in schoolyards.”

“I survived being cast into a darkness beyond darkness. And someday my master,” there was a coarse chattering noise like teeth gnashing and grinding, “Will return for me.”

Chris furrowed his brow.

“Do you know what this is?”

“Maybe,” he answered quickly. “It’s from a time before time. When there was less of a barrier between things like dreams and the tactile. Which doesn’t make it as special as it thinks.”

The world laughed again.

“You’re just a bad dream,” Chris shouted. But Sang Mi could see he was becoming less confident.

She looked at the stain. It seemed to radiate death. She reached her hand out, her fingers curled with hesitation. “It’s a bad dream…” She squinted, and then looked back at Cwej. “Wait, normally dreams aren’t real.”

“Well, yes, but I think we’re in sort of—”

“I know what it’s like to confuse dreams for reality. Too well.” As her hands reached into the shadow, she could touch it like wet silk. “And I know what it’s like to lose someone I love. And Chris does too. More than me, probably,” she clenched her hands around the darkness. “And I know something else. I know that Mrs. O’malley’s cow didn’t start the Chicago Fire. You’re just a story.”

The voice spoke up with anger. “You nearly died! Your bones cracked and your blood should have spelled into the soil—”

“Shoulda-coulda-woulda,” Chris cut in. “I’m sure someone died here, at some point.” He reached his hands over Sang Mi’s shoulders to grasp the darkness as well. Four hands now gripped the stain tightly. “But not every version of your story could happen. Which means your power is in the telling. So we’re going to dream bigger than you.”

“Which isn’t too hard,” Sang Mi noted.

They pulled at the stain, and it started to rip off the tree with a sticky ripping sound. The branches of the tree tried to curl around them, but with a heave, they gave one final yank, and dropped to the ground, Sang Mi landing on Chris’s chest. She pushed herself up, making Chris wince, and there was the bloody stain.

A two-dimensional cut-out of blood and shadow stumbling through the grass on its stubby feet.

Chris raised his eyes and hand to the sky, and mumbled, “Sun and rain.”

The stain didn’t have eyes, but it seemed to watch them as the night broke into day. The sky cracked for rain, washing away the shadows and the blood into wisps.

The dream vanished, and they stood together again in a treeless world by the roadside.

Sang Mi looked around, everything seemed normal. “Is it gone?”

Chris nodded with a smile, then shrugged. “Probably. I think so, its hard to tell. But it won’t be back for a long time certainly. This road will be a lot safer.”

She nodded, and looked down the concrete stretching to the horizon. “I guess we’d better get back on it.”

* * *

Chris handed the cashier a twenty—he was running lower on cash than he expected. He’d have to make sure to get more before the next snack run. Oh well, he was sure he wouldn’t forget.

“Hey Chris, look!” Sang Mi had been looking at the rest stop’s limited book selection, most of which was local tourism pamphlets. But she’d found a hardback book called Roadside Oddities of America. “This has information on all sorts of critters. Like look,” she opened it up. “Mothman! He’s a man, and a moth! And…” She turned to a different page. “The Beast of Busco, a big turtle!” 

Chris thought about it, and gestured for her to bring it over. “Alright, you got it. Might as well see the sights on our way there.” He added it to their purchase, and they got back in the Honda Element. Sang Mi excitedly flipped through the pages of the used book. 

“Oh yeah, I thought of a name for the car!” she said.

He turned it on. “Oh yeah? Better than The Vicinity III?”

“Way better.” She gestured with both hands. “The Odyssey!”

Chris pursed his lips.

“What? What!? It’s a cool name!”

“There’s already a car called the Honda Odyssey.”

She pouted. “Well this is ours.”

He laughed. Sure, why not. “Fair enough. Chris Cwej and Jhe Sang Mi, on the inaugural voyage of the Odyssey.” He put the car into drive, and as they got back on the road it hit him. “Uh, Sang Mi? Didn’t the Odyssey take… a long time, with a lot of hardship?”

“It’s just a name,” she replied.

He nodded. But he couldn’t help but think her words had stained the world just like that tree.

Eh, it was just a feeling.
​
It’ll be fine.

---

Next Stop:
Shadow and Stone
by James Hornby

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Copyright © 2025 Arcbeatle Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Edited by James Wylder and James Hornby
Formatting and design by James Wylder & Aristide Twain
illustration by Aristide Twain
Logo design by Lucas Kovacs
 
Concepts Used with Permission:
Academy 27 © Arcbeatle Press
WARSONG, WARS TCG, Gongen, Takumi, and associated concepts © Decipher, Inc.
Saki Suzuki © Taylor Elliott
SIGNET and Charles Zoltan © James Hornby
Chris Cwej and associated concepts © Andy Lane
C.R.U.X. © Aristide Twain
Blue Candle Coffee Company, E.D.E.M, Jhe Sang Mi © James Wylder