Afterward, Ashley showed him the road just beyond the back edge of the campground property.“This used to be the front,” she said, “but in the nineties they had to reroute the highway and abandon this section because it was too dangerous.”“Dangerous how?”“There’s an underground fire. This is coal country, and the coal caught on fire. It’s been burning ever since—fifty years or so. They can’t put it out. Or they won’t, because it would be too expensive.”“That’s bizarre.”“Yeah. So for a long time, it wasn’t noticeable, but then in the eighties and nineties, I think, there started to be all these dangerous things. Like, Stanley says the highway was venting clouds of gas, and plus it was so warm that the temperature difference caused banks of fog, and people couldn’t see where they were driving. He said it was like driving into the Twilight Zone sometimes.”The surface of the road undulated and shifted. Gullies opened up, then disappeared. She kind of loved this road.
