No Cars on the Island

I love Mackinac Island. There. I said it. I love the horses and the bicycles and the fudge shops and the fact that you can stand in the middle of a street and realize there isn't a car anywhere in sight. I love the old buildings and the water and the enormous white sweep of the Grand Hotel sitting up on the bluff like something from another time. And, of course, there is the fact that the island has been the backdrop for movies.

It‘s beautiful. It’s romantic. It’s almost ridiculously charming. Which, naturally, made me wonder:

What if you couldn't leave?

Not because the ferry broke down. Not because the weather was too bad. Not because you missed the last boat.

What if you were stranded there because the people around you had decided you were staying?

There’s something about an island that makes that question especially uncomfortable. Water is beautiful until you need to cross it. Then nine miles of open water becomes a wall. And Mackinac has another interesting quality. There are no cars. We think of that as part of the charm. Horses instead of engines. Bicycles instead of traffic. Quiet streets. It sounds idyllic. But take away the cars, take away the roads, take away the ordinary ways we expect to escape a place, and suddenly the island becomes something else.

A contained world. A place where everyone knows everyone. A place where strangers stand out. A place where somebody could notice that you hadn't left. That was the seed. I wanted to take a place I genuinely love and ask what might be hiding underneath all that beauty. Because horror doesn't always need an ugly setting. Sometimes it works better when the setting is perfect.

Especially when everyone agrees that it is. The Grand Hotel is beautiful. The horses are beautiful. The water is beautiful. The island is beautiful. And what if all of that beauty depends on keeping one terrible secret? What if the people who seem the most welcoming are the people who need you to stay? And what if, eventually, staying means becoming one of them?

I think that's what frightened me most about this story. Not being stranded. Not even being hunted. It was the idea that a place I loved could slowly convince me that I belonged there. And then, one day, I might be the one standing on the porch, smiling at a stranger, telling her how quiet the island is in the winter. Telling her she should probably leave before the last boat. Knowing perfectly well that she won't. And writing her name down anyway.