Long Black Road, all in one post

(Caught a couple of typos, plus changed all the dashes out for quotation marks to make it easier to read the dialogue.  Dashes make it easier to write, is why I use them, but now that I’m done with it I guess I don’t actually need them.  Approximately 3100 words.)

The truck don’t drive itself, it just likes to go chasing after Greyhounds now and then. You’d barely kept it from causing an accident, wheel jerking in your sleepy hands, and once you’d gotten it back under control you’d stopped at the next rest stop. You’re just into Nebraska, heading west on 80, and it’s still a long way to Reno. You doze off, there in the parking lot, heat and road-weariness weighing your eyelids down too heavily for caffeine and fear to prop them open.

Some people have all the luck: get drunk, black out, wake up with a new tattoo or STD. You woke up with a truck and a shipping contract. Near as you can tell, the contract is signed in blood. That explains the pain in your thumb, but you don’t know who the other signature belongs to, or why it’s nearly black when yours is still rust brown. You’re not sure you want to know.

Travis Tritt is on the radio when you wake up, sun reflected off another truck’s mirror and stabbing you in the eyes. You’re fairly sure it wasn’t on when you fell asleep, but you ignore that and turn it off, and head in to the rest-stop building to take a piss and grab a cup of vending machine coffee. The snacks machine is empty, not even a stale bearclaw or bag of chips wedged into the dusty rows. There’s a kid trying to bum a ride, high school or college age maybe, and they’re cute and you hope they get where they’re going but you’re not about to pick up a hitchhiker. Your life’s gotten weird enough lately, they’d probably turn out to be a wanted felon or an ax murderer or something. You walk out, stretch, and light up one of the Marlboros you don’t remember buying.

About halfway to the truck, you hear something kind of scratching and snuffling around back of it, just out of sight from where you are. You make sure not to look in any of the mirrors as you get in the cab and pull out, merging onto the deserted morning highway without a backwards glance, and don’t check them until you’re several miles down the road.

The engine growls and surges whenever a car passes you; the truck wants to give chase. You think you see the kid from the rest stop in one of the cars that goes by, but the sun is reflecting white off glass and chrome and you can’t be sure. Long shadows stretch out before you in the morning sun, but the highway is already shimmering with heat, pale and bright and looking like sky. The truck’s air conditioning doesn’t work. It’s going to be a very long way to Reno.

Late mid-morning: a black car settles in behind you, just far enough back to be clearly visible in your mirrors. Its headlights look a little too large for it, and you can’t quite tell whether or not they’re on.

Almost noon: red and blue lights in the mirrors, then sirens rising above the radio and the road noise. You pull over carefully, and two cop cars go howling past, followed by an ambulance, the blue hex-cross and white snake-wrapped staff on its back doors bright in the harsh sunlight. You don’t see the black car pass you as traffic gets going again, but when you check the mirrors it’s not in sight.

Early afternoon: you pull in to a Flying J to fill up. The truck growls more often as the tank gets low, with an increasingly aggressive note to it. You check your wallet to make sure you can pay for the diesel and some coffee, and find the twenties you thought you spent at the last truck stop still in it. Must have miscounted, is all.

When you walk out of the bathroom, you notice the kid from the rest stop. Someone’s given them a piece of cardboard, and it’s got RENO scrawled on it, ballpoint pen gone over and over again to make the lines thick enough to read. Their eyes are dull, not really looking at anything, and their whole posture is so hopeless that you just can’t walk by a second time.

“Hey,” you say.

The kid looks up, not even a flicker of hope on that tired face. If they recognize you, it doesn’t show.

“I’m heading to Reno,” you say. “Got anything you need to grab?”

The kid shakes their head. “Just my pack,” they say, and even the voice doesn’t tell you whether that’s a guy or a girl.

“I think that’ll fit,” you say. “You want a coffee or anything?”

The kid shakes their head a bit. “No thanks,” they say, “I’m good.”

“Suitchaself,” you say, and go stand in line.

When you and the kid walk out of the air conditioning, the heat and light come down like a hammer. You’re both sweating by the time you get to the truck. Just out of sight, hidden by the back of the truck, something is again scratching around and snuffling wetly. The kid looks up at you, surprised and worried.

“Just don’t look in the mirror,” you say, and open the driver’s side door for the kid to get in.

Getting out of the crowded parking lot without looking in the mirrors wracks your nerves, your knuckles white on the hot wheel. The kid is digging around in a pocket of their grungy backpack, and once you’re out on the highway and you’ve untensed a little, they hand you a couple of quarters.

“Not much, but it’s all I’ve got left,” the kid says. “Not really enough to get me anything, might as well pay you a little for the ride.”

You’re about to refuse, but the kid looks so pathetic with that mix of hope and gratitude that you can’t.

“Sure,” you say, and shrug. The coins are cool in your hand; kid must have an icepack or something in there. Good idea, in this heat.

Late afternoon: the kid is a little more relaxed now, no longer hunched quite so tightly into a ball of tension and solitude, and turns out to be a talker. They’re going on about Greek mythology, all the gods fighting and quarreling and causing trouble for everyone.

“So Apollo had all these cattle he was really proud of, right?” they’re saying. “And Hermes, right, he’s not even much of a god yet, like he’s just a kid, the other gods don’t even know what to make him god of yet? He all up and disguises himself and steals Apollo’s cattle. Walks off with every last one.”

“Huh,” you say. “Bet Apollo was pissed.”

“Oh, he was super pissed,” says the kid. “But he can’t really do anything to Hermes without pissing off the other gods, right? So he’s all taking it out on people, but then Hermes comes up to him and gives the cattle back, and says he was just trying to prove he was cool enough to be one of the gods. And Apollo’s still mad at him, but get this, Apollo’s god of music, right? And Hermes all up and invents a whole new instrument just for him, to apologize, and so they end up being friends.”

“So what’s Hermes god of?” you say.

“Oh, he ended up being god of all kinds of shit,” says the kid. “Thieves, merchants, travelers, messengers, even magicians and alchemists.”

“What, like lead into gold, kind of shit?” you say.

“Yeah,” says the kid. “Crazy, huh?”

The truck picks just then to lunge at a passing Greyhound bus, and you fight it back into the proper lane. The kid is still talking, but you’re not really paying attention right now. You hold the wheel sternly as the engine growls, steadying the truck until it settles back down. It’s still a long way to Reno.

Evening, around sunset: Wyoming is an empty land; the road is the only visible trace of human presence. When you finally see a sign for a rest stop, you realize just how tired you’ve gotten, and yawn. As you take the exit, you notice that your passenger is a little tense, nervous maybe, and you’re about to say something when they speak up instead.

“Uh, so. Is there anything you want me to do for you? For the ride, I mean?”

It takes you a moment to realize what they’re asking. “Kid, how old are you even?” you say.

“Twenty,” they say. “Well, in a couple of weeks.”

You sigh. “Look,” you say, “I’m giving you a ride because you needed one. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

The kid looks a little relieved, but continues. “I’d, uh. You’re being really nice. I’d like to do something for you. Uh. If you want me to.”

There’s a trace of pleading in their voice, and you can tell what they really want is to pay you back, to be an equal, not a beggar. There’s no other vehicles in the parking lot at all, and you nod. “Yeah, okay,” you say.

When the two of you walk into the rest stop building, hell, it doesn’t look like there’s been anyone here in days. The counter with the travel pamphlets has a thin layer of dust, and so too, when you go into the restroom, does the sink counter. You both crowd into one of the stalls, and you undo your belt and push your pants down.

Your hitchhiker kneels and looks up at you, and you shift your feet a little farther apart and rest your hands on their shoulders. They lean in and start going down on you, and you close your eyes and sigh quietly.

They’re really not very good at this, but they are eager. You shift your hands and run your fingers through their shaggy hair, gently guiding them, and make sure to moan when they do something right.

Despite their obvious inexperience, it still feels really good. Your body responds quickly to their mouth and the gentle touch of their breath, and you start to tense up, fingers curling a little tighter. Their tongue touches just the right place to send a thrill all the way up to your shoulders, and you squeak. They pause.

“No, that’s good, that’s really good,” you say, and they continue.

You finally come, hips jerking forward, shocks of pleasure making all your muscles tight. They hold your hips until you relax, and when you open your eyes they’re looking up at you and blushing.

“Thanks,” you say, and mean it. “Didn’t know how much I needed that.”

They blush more, but look proud. “You’re welcome,” they say. Later, when you’re both washing up, your eyes meet theirs in the mirror, and they blush again.

The two of you leave as casually as you can – nothing to see here, folks, just a couple of travelers using the restroom – but the building and lot are still empty apart from the two of you and your truck. The night is already getting cold, but the truck is still warm, and you fall asleep quickly. It’s not that far to Reno, now.

The morning is cool when you wake up, but the clear sky promises another hot day to come. Your hitchhiker – after last night, you’ve stopped thinking of them as a kid – is still asleep, head against your shoulder, drooling a little. The night before, you’d stretched out on the seat the best you could, but it was too narrow a bed for the two of you, and so you’d slept propped against each other, and your neck is stiff and sore. You try to slide out without waking them, but they stir and look up groggily as soon as you move.

“Sorry,” you say.

They sit up and mumble something. You swing yourself out of the cab and light a cigarette while they head into the rest stop building. You’re almost done with it by the time they come out, looking at least a little more awake. You drop the butt on the asphalt and crush it underfoot, and head into the building to take a leak and see if the coffee machine works.

“What the hell am I even doing,” you ask yourself, staring into the stained mirror as you wash your hands. The owl on your cap stares back at you.

The coffee machine does work, and you get two cups. If your hitchhiker doesn’t want one, you’ll just drink the other later.

The day’s already starting to heat up as you get on the road, but you’re heading up into the Rockies now; with any luck that’ll keep things a little cooler. Your hitchhiker sips their coffee and watches out the window, still sleepy.

“Hey, what’s your name?” you say.

“Alex,” they say. “You?”

“Sam,” you say.

The truck startles you with a sudden growl, and you look around and check the mirrors. There’s a black car following you a little too closely. It looks like the car from yesterday, with its oversized headlights, but you can’t be sure. When you look back at Alex, they’re watching out the window again. You fiddle with the radio until you find a country station, and keep driving.

Going uphill isn’t bad, but the truck keeps trying to get away from you on the downslopes, and shifting to a lower gear makes it growl more. You find yourself hauling back on the wheel like a leash, even though there’s no reason for it to work, and it feels like it’s helping. Makes you feel more in control, at least.

By the time you’re through the mountains and crossing level Nevada desert, the heat is almost a relief. The truck is sluggish and snarly, even after you stop to fill up the tank, but at least it’s not fighting you any more, and you’re nearly to Reno.

It’s evening by the time you get there, though, sun low and red and right in your eyes. Headlights and taillights weave into the distance along a tangle of interchanges, and traffic crawls through the smoky orange light and long shadows. The streetlights come on, and the sun slides below the horizon, and you finally reach the exit you’re looking for. The truck rumbles and seems to perk up as you guide it around the offramp and into a light-industrial sprawl of low warehouses.

The parking lot is empty when you pull in to it, the lights far apart and poorly maintained, so that the pools of light only make the spaces between darker. Gravel crunches under your tires. You park, and sigh, and let your shoulders relax. Alex looks up, tense and a little puzzled.

“Thought I heard something behind the truck,” they say.

You lift your head and listen. You don’t hear anything at first, and you’re about to say so, when you do. It’s a scratching sound, and a wet snuffling, and you’ve heard it before.

“What is that?” says Alex.

“Don’t know,” you say. “Don’t want to know.”

“I’m going to look,” says Alex.

You blink, frozen, but you don’t even know why you’re so certain this is a terrible idea. Alex opens the door and swings down from the cab, and takes a few steps toward the back of the truck before freezing, bathed in brilliant white light that throws their shadow out behind them. The black car with the oversized headlights whips past with a howl of engine noise and rushing wind and flings Alex aside.

The car is out of sight before you can move again, taillights vanished into a distance that shouldn’t have been there. Alex is crumpled, yards away, beneath one of the light posts, limbs all bent the wrong way, completely still. You force yourself to walk over and check, but there’s no pulse, and a look of pure terror is frozen on their face. The world around you seems unreal as you walk back to the truck.

Gravel crunches behind you, and you turn to see a tall man in an expensive black suit. He looks familiar.

“Not your fault,” he says. “Sorry I wasn’t here earlier, had a business meeting that ran long. Did you have any other trouble on the way here?”

Everything still seems fragile and far away, and you don’t even recognize your own voice at first.

“It just-” you say, then lose your voice for a moment. “I couldn’t even…”

“I’ll call the police about the hit and run in a moment,” the man says. “You look like you need to sit down.”

You do need to sit down. You let the man guide you back to the truck, and wait there while he makes a call, and then while the parking lot fills with flashing lights, red and blue and red and blue. The man in the suit talks to the officers, and one comes over to take your statement. You tell him about the black car with the oversized headlights, and he says something about hooligans out joyriding. You don’t tell him about the noises behind the truck.

Eventually the police cars and the ambulance leave, and there’s only the smear of drying blood under the light. The man in the suit walks back over to you.

“Hell of a thing to happen on your first run,” he says, sympathetically. You look up at him, eyes blank.

“Let’s get you unhitched and back on your way,” he says. “Something to do will help get your mind off it.”

The two of you set the trailer’s stand and unhook it from the cab. A nightbreeze picks up as you work, blowing empty wrappers across the lot and making it sound like the trailer is full of moaning voices. The man in the suit doesn’t have any trouble in the poor lighting, even though you’re fumbling around, and while you’re all grimy by the time you’re done, his suit is still spotless and unwrinkled.

“You’ll be heading back bobtail, I’m afraid,” he says. “Better get yourself some rest first. It’s a long way to Nashville.”