Highway Tale

 Hannah couldn't feel her hands. Still dripping wet, she'd gone numb in the evening chill. At least she couldn't feel the ache building up in her arms as she stood with her thumb raised high by the highwayside. Cars passed by one at a time, and no one seemed to give her so much as a sideways glance. Frustrated, she checked her phone for perhaps the hundredth time. No reception. She'd been stuck by the roadside for nearly an hour, trying in vain to get a ride home. In the first twenty minutes she wore out half of her cell phone's battery trying fruitlessly to call almost every contact on her list. By the time she'd given up, she came to loathe the automated voice telling her she had no signal. The next several minutes she spent counting license plates and pacing a few yards at a time in the direction she assumed was south.

By now she'd gotten used to the near-blinding glare of approaching headlights. She had stopped  muttering to herself that someone would eventually come for her. Any hopeful mantra, repeated enough times, eventually seemed bleaker than resignation. Hannah cursed under her breath as more cars passed by paying her no attention. And yet she knew she probably would have done the same to some stranger waiting by the side of the road. She had heard stories about killers and worse things roaming the highways at night, and not believing them did little to help. Stories had a way of sneaking past people's logical filters at inopportune times.

With a futile sigh, she weighed her options once again. There were no signs in sight, and the next town could be miles away. She could make a call from a gas station if any were still open. Maybe someone would give her a ride if she offered what little money she had in her pockets. She no longer even bothered with the possibility that a passing car might pick her up. After an hour that hope seemed like no more than a cruel tease.

For that reason she stood awestruck moments later when a pair of white lights approached and came to a sliding rest just a few feet away from her. She stared silently at the shape of the long, white truck that stopped beside her, as if staring hard enough might reveal it for some desperate illusion her mind conjured up. But there it stood, too solid, to real to doubt.

A deep voice from inside broke her stupor. “I can't imagine you're just out here taking a stroll. Where are you headed?” The man in the driver's seat looked safe enough. She made out bluish eyes and and greying brown hair under a cap, with a somewhat pudgy frame under a heavy jacket. His face seemed inviting enough, if not exactly warm and happy.

“Um, Northamp,” she shouted back eagerly, “It's only about an hour and a half south of here.”

“Northamp, hmmm...Shouldn't be much trouble. Hop in.” He wasn't even shouting, but his gravelly voice carried effortlessly over the sounds of wind and passing cars.

Hannah nearly tripped as she ran toward the truck. She pulled the side door open and jumped in without hesitation, too happy just to be warm. Except she wasn't warm at all. The inside of the truck was just as cold as the air outside. She looked uneasily into the driver's eyes. He certainly didn't look like a serial killer, not that she knew what a serial killer might look like. “Th...thank you for this. I really appreciate it.”

“Don't thank me just yet,” the driver said. “This ride's going to cost you.”

Of course, she thought. There was always a catch.  She had lost her purse, along with her coat and everything else valuable. She'd be lucky if she even had anything more than a handful of change in her pocket, and the truck driver didn't look or sound like the type to be won over with a sob story. “Um, how much?” she asked, hope once again escaping her.

“Don't know,” the blue-eyed man said with a shrug, “I'm willing to bargain.”

Hannah sighed and dug maybe seven or eight coins out of her pocket. Extending her palm, she said, “Please don't laugh, but this is all I have.”

The driver didn't laugh. Instead he scrutinized each coin carefully as if they were priceless artifacts, and after several seconds of what looked like painful deliberation, he picked two that seemed to please him most. He gently pushed her hand shut and pocketed his prize. “Turns out we're both in luck,” he remarked, “It's been quite a while since I've seen a bicentennial quarter. There were a billion six hundred sixty nine million nine hundred two thousand eight hundred eighty five of them  minted and this is only the fourth one to come into my hands. Strange, isn't it?”

Hannah nodded blankly. Strange indeed, she thought, but she wasn't going to comment on the man's eccentricities if he was willing to give her a ride. She buckled herself in as the engine's quiet hum turned to a tremolo rumble and the truck merged back onto the highway.



“Name's Charles, by the way.”

“Hannah.”

“Pretty name. Means 'favored by god.' Did you know that?”

“No, never occurred to me to think about it, to be honest,” Hannah replied, .

“It's ancient Hebrew,” he added, his eyes fixed on the lines of the road.

“Oh,” was all she could think to say. Then after short, silent pause, “So are you some kind of coin collector?”

“I guess you could call me that,” he answered. “It's the closest thing I have to a hobby.” Another minute slipped away watching street lights pass, one after another. Hannah held her hands by the heating vents, but they didn't get any warmer or drier. “So what's your story?” Charles asked, shooting Hannah a curious glance.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, for the seven hours I've been on this road I haven't seen a single drop off rain. And here you are, dripping like you'd just taken a swim.”

“Well, I guess I did take a bit of a swim” Hannah admitted with a blush. “Long story short, my boyfriend left me last week. I figured a weekend at my family's old lake house would do me some good. I had a little wine in me when I took my dad's boat out for a little moonlight ride and well, you can probably guess the rest.”

“Boat sank?”

“Completely tipped over,” she said, gesturing with her hands. “I nearly drowned, and when I finally got to shore I was on the other side of the lake, just a few hundred feet from this highway. Well, I guess I'm just lucky to be alive.”

Charles gave her a sympathetic look but didn't say anything. Hannah checked her phone every mile or so. Still no reception, but she was lucky it was working at all after nearly ending up at the the bottom of a cold, dark lake. It was only then that she realized the full magnitude of that mental image. She had almost died. Among the last hour's chaos and desperation it was an afterthought. Now with nothing but the night's quiet to occupy her mind, the thought overwhelmed her. Even in her mind she was speechless. Tears slid down her face, lost in the wetness that wouldn't seem to leave her. She wiped her eyes with moist, clammy hands, but it did no good. White with embarrassment, she glanced over to Charles, who did his best not to appear to notice.

“I'm sorry,” she sobbed quietly, “It's just, well...it's just hit me that I nearly died. I mean, for the first time, really hit me. And I...I don't know what to think about all this.” She took a deep breath, relieved that she could at least vent her frustration. “Again, I'm sorry,” she said, looking down at nothing in particular. “You didn't need to hear that.”

“Don't worry about me,” Charles answered, “I've picked up quite a few people in my day, and if I've learned anything, it's that no one ends up alone on the side of the road without some sad story to tell. If I had a nickel for every poor soul lost on their way home,” he paused and chuckled for a moment, “Well, come to think of it, I do.”

“Why do you do it?” Hannah, asked.

“Do what?”

“Pick up hitchhikers. Not to sound ungrateful, but if I were you, I'd be worried about the sort of people who wander dark roads at night.”

Charles replied, “Well, I figure dangerous people have better things to do than walk dark roads at night. Besides, when you spend practically all your days on the road, it's nice to have someone  to keep you company. They rarely make any trouble for me, and they're never too far out of my way. Plus, I've always said it's the journey that matters, not the destination. It's like, hmm....” He stroked his chin pensively, “Have you ever seen the Coyote and Roadrunner show?”

“Um, yeah.” Hannah answered, not sure how that could possibly relevant. But she had already accepted that predicting Charles' train of thought was futile.

“Well, every episode the Coyote would set up some elaborate scheme to catch the Roadrunner,  but the scheme would always backfire terribly-”

“Right, right, I remember,” Hannah added smiling at the childhood memories it conjured. “And of course the Coyote never caught the Roadrunner, and-”

“Not quite,” Charles corrected. “In the very last episode the Coyote finally catches the roadrunner. And then after a moment of silence he just holds up a sign that says 'I got him. Now what?' Always got to me. How's that for an ending? After all that time it was the chase that gave him meaning. You never expect that kind of philosophy from a children's cartoon, you know?.”

“Yeah, I guess not,” Hannah answered, half lost in her own thoughts as she watched  random lights speed by through the window. Her head drooped at an angle and beads of moisture still rolled down her face. She was getting tired.

“It's just a little while longer,” Charles reassured. “Soon enough you'll be back where you belong and...you know what? I'm not doing you any good by patronizing you, and there's really no way I can soften the blow. You're dead, Hannah.”

Hannah's head rose and she snapped immediately back into full awareness. Staring back, baffled yet scared, into Charles' face she saw no evil intent in his expression, nor any indication that it was just a mean-spirited joke. Only a slight contortion of regret hung in his face.

“W...what?” Hannah stuttered. She suddenly felt cold spread across her entire body, and something vaguely wrong in her stomach. She saw the lights outside all blur and bleed into one another, melding with the blacks into a single dull yet blindingly intense shade of grey. Her skin shivered and she struggled for breath. What was going on? Her mind scrambled for answers. Had Charles drugged her with something?  No, impossible. A hallucination? No, too real. What then?

Charles continued, “You misunderstand me, Hannah. That wasn't a threat.” His voice was unchanged.

“What did you do to me?” She gasped, erupting into a choking cough.

“I didn't do anything to you, Hannah. You're dead. Dead at the bottom of a cold, dark lake. I'm just taking you home.”

Hannah couldn't even fathom those words; her own thoughts were muffled by the sound of water rushing in her ears. Choking harder, she coughed up whole mouthfuls of water, until it rushed out in a stream, too strong to force back. The cold grew deeper, more intense, covering even her eyes and hair. Every sight around her faded to a murky black, with spots of grey light somewhere distant.

“For what it's worth,” a voice, distorted, sounded in the distance, “You were very good company.”

Then something new appeared, and Hannah didn't know what to make of it. But for the moment she 
was warm and dry.