(A short fiction)
I have been waiting too long for you to come and pick me up. It’s cold and wet; this mist rain is papercutting my eyes. Getting darker too, and the cars passing by now have their headlights on. The change from day to night usually creeps up on me, so I don’t notice until I look up and everything is shaded with black. But headlights jar my brain into paying attention in a way I don’t care for.
Where are you?
I don’t want to get into another stranger’s car, but I’ll do it if you’re not coming.
If you’re trying to hitch a ride and you’re not pretty, it’s hard fucking work. I stick out my thumb and try to look as pathetic as possible. My shirt jacket is getting soaked through and my hair is getting welded to my forehead. The rain is making me blink, like I’m crying. It’s going to be some fucking psycho that picks me up, but if he’s got a warm heater running, I’ll take my chances.
Where are you?
A few cars drive by me, splashing my boots and the bottom of my jeans with water, until a flatbed truck pulls over. I run up to the door and don’t even look in before I open it and slide into the seat, slipping my backpack between my legs. I look over at whatever abomination took pity on me. He’s twice my age, hair growing out of every hole in his head, even his eyes, I swear to God.
“Not a good road to be thumbing a lift on, buddy,” he says.
“I know, I know,” I say, looking down at my hand gripping the bag’s top loop. “I’m just glad someone stopped. Thank you.”
I look up and catch him giving me a disgusted appraisal. He turns his head to the road and pulls the truck back into the descending night.
“Been a few people killed along here. I mean, there’s been lots over the years, but more than a few recently.”
I let his statement hang in the air long enough for both of us to move on.
“I only need the next town along, if you’re going that way?”
“I’ll drive through it,” he says, and it sounds like a threat somehow.
Where are you?
I was sick of waiting but I think this is a bad idea.
This guy isn’t a talker, thankfully, and we slip into silence. The sound of his windscreen wipers scrapes the glass like some doomsday metronome.
I sweep my hair back with one hand and rub my palm down my damp jeans like it’ll somehow dry it. I’m starting to get warm now, my clothes still clinging to me, but not enough now I can’t feel I haven’t had a shower or bath in days. Not since we argued. Not since you told me it was done. We were done. You said being with me was like a slow suicide.
Do you remember when we were new and I got lost so easily? You told me whatever happened between us and wherever I ended up, you would find me. Come get me.
Where are you?
I hear the guy trying to clear his throat like a fist is stuck in it. He can’t do it. It starts to sound like choking. When I look over at him, he’s already going purple. The truck drifts to the side of the road, running over gravel towards the ditch. I feel the lurch in my stomach as we tip into it and grind to a halt, the truck deep enough in to nearly be on its side.
Dirty water starts collecting around me. The guy is gone now, slumped towards me, looking down at me like some distended old ventriloquist puppet, only his seatbelt stopping him from crushing me down into the black water that’s filling up the cab, reaching up for my head. I don’t know how I’m going to get out of this one.
I have been waiting too long for you to come and pick me up.
It’s cold and wet; this mist rain is papercutting my eyes. Getting darker too, and the cars passing by now have their headlights on. The change from day to night usually creeps up on me, so I don’t notice until I look up and everything is shaded in black. But headlights jar my brain into paying attention in a way I don’t care for.
Where are you?
I don’t want to get into another stranger’s car, but I’ll do it if you’re not coming.
(This story inspired in part by Greet Death’s song ‘Motherfucker’)
Writing by Jamie Evans 
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