Rain splattered the windshield, thudding on the top of the car. Heat blasted from the vents, overpowering the sound of the radio and fogging up the windows. I squinted, trying to see past the reach of the headlights and into the darkness beyond. It was slow going and I expected a long trip ahead of me before I reached my destination. The glimmering lights of a passing car momentarily blinded me and when I looked back a gray shape had emerged from the rain, waiving frantically. I slammed on the brakes and felt the car slide on the slick roads. The shape dove out of the way as I slip past and bumped along on the grass till I stopped.
My panic held me in place for several seconds as the adrenaline faded from my system. But I still jumped when a knock sounded on the passenger window. My panic rose again, expecting some creep or a murderer or a monster to be standing on the other side. Who knows, out in the middle of nowhere like this, I could have run into anyone. So I was not expecting the rain-soaked beauty that gazed at me with worried eyes through the glass. So shocked I was that I forgot about the rain and rolled down the window to hear him speak.
"Are you alright?" He said. His lips turned down and eyes dark and searching.
The pause after he spoke was long, long enough that he opened his mouth as if to ask again before I quickly cut him off. "Oh, yes. Yes, I'm fine." Flustered, I continued. "Are you all right? You just came out of nowhere. I mean, it's the middle of the night and the nearest town isn't for miles. What are you even doing out here?"
"Sorry about that," came the answer, "I didn't mean to frighten you. I'm heading west, do you think you can give me a ride?"
He gave me a sad sort of half smile that made me completely forget that he had just brushed over both of my questions. "Um, yeah. I can give you a ride." I unlocked the door with shaky hands and gestured for him to get in.
"Thanks." He said quietly. His features dissipated into the rain as he took a few steps back to get the door open. He slid into the seat with the grace of a model, or a rich businessman. "I apologize for all the water." He said, buckling himself in and then rolling up the window, avoiding talking directly to me.
"It's no big deal." I replied.
A silence fell over us as I pulled the car back onto the road. The awkwardness of it was not lost on me as I snuck glances at my new passenger. For the most part, his attention was on the scenery passing by. Although in this weather, at night, It was hard to tell how much of it he could actually see. But the corners of his lips were tugged downwards and his eyes were contemplative as if he had more on his mind then he cared to share. Every so often he would shift, reaching out to the dashboard to fiddle with how the fans were pointed. Or he would reach out to the window to clear a hole in the fog for him to see again. After all, having someone drenched from the rain inside the vehicle had cased the windows to fog up even worse than they had before.
He was an interesting case study, this hitchhiker. His skin was tanned a golden brown from a sun that was stronger that any we get this far north, and his hair was the silvery blonde that was more common in the North East. His eyes were too shadowed to discern a particular color, but I would have bet that they were dark. His clothes hung loosely, as if they were not his size and he only borrowed them, but the rain has matted them down till they stuck to his skin and showed off an impressive figure. He wore no shoes and mud clung to his feet and pants. But he sat like a king upon a throne, an elbow on the door and his face lightly resting on his fist, a straight and refined posture with one leg crossed over the other. If he had been wearing a suit he really could have been mistaken for someone who was terribly important, too important to talk to some commoner like myself.
So we didn't. Talk, that is. And as the night wore on my nervous energy pushed me to break the silence. The heavy rain finally started to let up early in the morning, before sunrise, as I pulled into a gas station that seemed to be one of three buildings in the smallest town I have ever seen. I turned the car off and stepped outside to fill up before quickly hopping back inside as I felt the wicked fingers of the cold outside air reach for me. The hitchhiker glanced at me from his spot as I shivered with the chill. Without a word he stepped out. I looked over after hearing the door slam shut and quickly followed him with my eyes as he stepped up to the pump and stood out in the cold while he filled up my car. When it was done he payed, walked back around, and sat back down as if nothing at all had happened.
After a moment of just openly staring at him I mentally shook myself and got back on the road. It was only a few minutes longer before I broke the silence. "Thank you." I said.
"For what?" He asked, not moving.
I shrunk into my seat a bit from embarrassment. "For filling up my gas tank. I was acting like a baby because it was cold, but it must have seemed even colder for you because you're still wet." I motioned to him and the fact that his hair was still plastered to his face even as bits of it were starting to dry out and break away from the majority.
"It was nothing." He said.
He ran a hand through his hair, pulling it back as he looked directly at me for the first time since I had let him into my car. We made eye contact and I felt trapped by his emotionless gaze. In the back of my mind I registered the color of his eyes, a deep forest green mixed with a blackish brown. Hazel. The moment that was probably only a few seconds seemed to stretch on for several minutes before he broke away and returned to looking out the window. I quickly returned my own gaze to the road. I could feel me heart pounding itself into a panic in my chest. The hitchhiker's appearance in that moment seared into my mind. Pale hair pulled loosely back and lit by a stray ray of moonlight from behind him, the rest of the world outside the window impossibly dark. Skin glowing with an almost ethereal fervor, and eyes deep pools that you could loose yourself in.
I was suddenly glad for the silence. I did not care to learn any more about the terrifying man beside me. His posture, which seemed so regal and refined before, now gave me the impression of a carefully contained storm barely being held together. His clothes caught my imagination as it sprinted away with the idea that they were stolen off the corpse of a dead man, killed and buried in the woods. After all, who would be out in the middle of nowhere so late at night? Fear clouded my mind until all I could think of was finding a reason to get this hitchhiker out of my car in a way that wouldn't raise suspicions.
Just after dawn we finally came across a larger town, my fear not having faded from our last stop. I pulled into a truck stop on the edge of town and parked just off to the side of a row of Semi-trucks. "This is the end of the road for me." I said, keeping my head down and my gaze away from my passenger.
"Thanks for the ride." He said back to me.
I didn't look up until I heard the slam of the door. I followed his figure with my eyes as he flagged down a Semi, hopped in, and drove away. I finally released the breath I had been holding, my nerves frayed from the tension. I waited a bit longer, winding down, before I drove down the street to a diner that seemed to be just opening up for the day. I would eat breakfast first before getting back on the road, hoping that the head start meant that I would not again come across the hitchhiker as I too continued west.
Word Count: 1494
My panic held me in place for several seconds as the adrenaline faded from my system. But I still jumped when a knock sounded on the passenger window. My panic rose again, expecting some creep or a murderer or a monster to be standing on the other side. Who knows, out in the middle of nowhere like this, I could have run into anyone. So I was not expecting the rain-soaked beauty that gazed at me with worried eyes through the glass. So shocked I was that I forgot about the rain and rolled down the window to hear him speak.
"Are you alright?" He said. His lips turned down and eyes dark and searching.
The pause after he spoke was long, long enough that he opened his mouth as if to ask again before I quickly cut him off. "Oh, yes. Yes, I'm fine." Flustered, I continued. "Are you all right? You just came out of nowhere. I mean, it's the middle of the night and the nearest town isn't for miles. What are you even doing out here?"
"Sorry about that," came the answer, "I didn't mean to frighten you. I'm heading west, do you think you can give me a ride?"
He gave me a sad sort of half smile that made me completely forget that he had just brushed over both of my questions. "Um, yeah. I can give you a ride." I unlocked the door with shaky hands and gestured for him to get in.
"Thanks." He said quietly. His features dissipated into the rain as he took a few steps back to get the door open. He slid into the seat with the grace of a model, or a rich businessman. "I apologize for all the water." He said, buckling himself in and then rolling up the window, avoiding talking directly to me.
"It's no big deal." I replied.
A silence fell over us as I pulled the car back onto the road. The awkwardness of it was not lost on me as I snuck glances at my new passenger. For the most part, his attention was on the scenery passing by. Although in this weather, at night, It was hard to tell how much of it he could actually see. But the corners of his lips were tugged downwards and his eyes were contemplative as if he had more on his mind then he cared to share. Every so often he would shift, reaching out to the dashboard to fiddle with how the fans were pointed. Or he would reach out to the window to clear a hole in the fog for him to see again. After all, having someone drenched from the rain inside the vehicle had cased the windows to fog up even worse than they had before.
He was an interesting case study, this hitchhiker. His skin was tanned a golden brown from a sun that was stronger that any we get this far north, and his hair was the silvery blonde that was more common in the North East. His eyes were too shadowed to discern a particular color, but I would have bet that they were dark. His clothes hung loosely, as if they were not his size and he only borrowed them, but the rain has matted them down till they stuck to his skin and showed off an impressive figure. He wore no shoes and mud clung to his feet and pants. But he sat like a king upon a throne, an elbow on the door and his face lightly resting on his fist, a straight and refined posture with one leg crossed over the other. If he had been wearing a suit he really could have been mistaken for someone who was terribly important, too important to talk to some commoner like myself.
So we didn't. Talk, that is. And as the night wore on my nervous energy pushed me to break the silence. The heavy rain finally started to let up early in the morning, before sunrise, as I pulled into a gas station that seemed to be one of three buildings in the smallest town I have ever seen. I turned the car off and stepped outside to fill up before quickly hopping back inside as I felt the wicked fingers of the cold outside air reach for me. The hitchhiker glanced at me from his spot as I shivered with the chill. Without a word he stepped out. I looked over after hearing the door slam shut and quickly followed him with my eyes as he stepped up to the pump and stood out in the cold while he filled up my car. When it was done he payed, walked back around, and sat back down as if nothing at all had happened.
After a moment of just openly staring at him I mentally shook myself and got back on the road. It was only a few minutes longer before I broke the silence. "Thank you." I said.
"For what?" He asked, not moving.
I shrunk into my seat a bit from embarrassment. "For filling up my gas tank. I was acting like a baby because it was cold, but it must have seemed even colder for you because you're still wet." I motioned to him and the fact that his hair was still plastered to his face even as bits of it were starting to dry out and break away from the majority.
"It was nothing." He said.
He ran a hand through his hair, pulling it back as he looked directly at me for the first time since I had let him into my car. We made eye contact and I felt trapped by his emotionless gaze. In the back of my mind I registered the color of his eyes, a deep forest green mixed with a blackish brown. Hazel. The moment that was probably only a few seconds seemed to stretch on for several minutes before he broke away and returned to looking out the window. I quickly returned my own gaze to the road. I could feel me heart pounding itself into a panic in my chest. The hitchhiker's appearance in that moment seared into my mind. Pale hair pulled loosely back and lit by a stray ray of moonlight from behind him, the rest of the world outside the window impossibly dark. Skin glowing with an almost ethereal fervor, and eyes deep pools that you could loose yourself in.
I was suddenly glad for the silence. I did not care to learn any more about the terrifying man beside me. His posture, which seemed so regal and refined before, now gave me the impression of a carefully contained storm barely being held together. His clothes caught my imagination as it sprinted away with the idea that they were stolen off the corpse of a dead man, killed and buried in the woods. After all, who would be out in the middle of nowhere so late at night? Fear clouded my mind until all I could think of was finding a reason to get this hitchhiker out of my car in a way that wouldn't raise suspicions.
Just after dawn we finally came across a larger town, my fear not having faded from our last stop. I pulled into a truck stop on the edge of town and parked just off to the side of a row of Semi-trucks. "This is the end of the road for me." I said, keeping my head down and my gaze away from my passenger.
"Thanks for the ride." He said back to me.
I didn't look up until I heard the slam of the door. I followed his figure with my eyes as he flagged down a Semi, hopped in, and drove away. I finally released the breath I had been holding, my nerves frayed from the tension. I waited a bit longer, winding down, before I drove down the street to a diner that seemed to be just opening up for the day. I would eat breakfast first before getting back on the road, hoping that the head start meant that I would not again come across the hitchhiker as I too continued west.
Word Count: 1494
Comments
Post a Comment