LOCKED IN DIRT NASTY, humming along to a scratchy CD. Headed for The Lonesome Crowded West. He filled your gas tank cordially.
Clanking. Sloshing. Plunk!
It would be okay. Everything would be okay.
"Hey." Knock. My window was dirty. It was cold again. It was too dark again. "It's good," he said, flashing a thumbs-up. His expression reflecting a muddied blur. Details were fuzzy. Opaque. "Yeah?"
I should've left him. I should've ripped away, bailed before I could be put in such a fucking situation, but I didn't. I unlocked it, a blustery gust of chill sifting in, cramming into your low-lying Civic.
His elbows and knees splayed awkwardly. His neck bowed.
He didn't... fit.
Inside, I remember a tint, a flush, a faint red glow on planes of a face, on wrinkles of clothing, on corded wrists and inked knuckles: F-E-A-R.
Something flutter-fizzing in your body.
Dirt Nasty purred awake, grinding a hitching echo off.
"Good?" His voice a low rasp. Dirty. Smoky. "Go."
My spine tingled. My brain bristled. Heel flooring it. Everything I owned clunking in a backseat, hiccuping as I peeled away, needle-gasping to F. Everything... smoothing down a rickety road, shuttling a soft-spoken hitchhiker and you.
It's different when you're not alone: when you have somebody beside you, somebody to hear you. (Mom had called you her Co-Pilot.) Silence treads thickly. Heavy holds a baseless lull. Miles before you say anything.
"So... why were you, uh..." I jabbed a thumb backwards, fleeting a glance at him. It was dark, hazy, and I didn't expect anything. Honestly, I could use a bit of quiet company.
"I don't know," he said, but I barely heard it. I imagined it. "I woke up and I was there, is all, I guess."
My blood ran cold, I remember. I'd heard your story. I knew your story. Retold. Everybody a carbon copy. "Do you know who you are?"
"Vaguely." His gaze a dead look faraway. "No. I... I forgot a lot of things, but..." He faded off, as if it hadn't been left hanging, drifting, loosely in your grip. Vagueness.
Don't push. Don't pull.
Drive.
Distance does solve a few of your problems. Homesickness. Wanderlust. Confusion. Heartbreak. Driving is cleansing; if you know, you know, I promise. But I'd never cured a sense of loss, a forgetfulness in any clarity from being On The Road.
Whatever was in Mesa for him, I didn't know.
I hope he found his way home, and I hope it's...
Crossing into Arizona is a fuzzy dream I don't remember, coasting down a mountainside in pitch darkness, vaguely afraid of myself. Downpulling off, a few miles from Mesa, to catch my breath; realize I'm parked in a lot for a picnic-area rest-stop, and I need to piss.
Both of you stand up, stretch, amble away from Dirt Nasty. Headlights lit on a grey block of a building. Two dark, cavernous doorways, open, unobstructed, and a damp, musty scent curdling your blood closer, closer, closer...
He disappeared.
A single lightbulb glazed it.
I shook myself inside a slip of Silent Hill. It was dim, dungeon-like; every wall of smooth stone, old, archaic, jutting slabs for stalls, a few grimy, vandalized toilets reflecting foggy chrome, I think. Icy goosebumps prickled your last shred of sanity, stirring a flurry of anxiety. Go. Go. Go.
"Hey!" I huffed as I rounded out, clapping urgently. "Let's go."
Nothing.
"Hey!"
I paused, hearing it echo, echo... echo...
My head spun. I needed to go.
"Hey," I hissed again, ducking in to let him know, "Leaving. Now."
Now... Now... Now....
My gaze ricocheted, searching a dingy haze: bluish-white light on damp, smooth stone, so purely black. Urinals. Footsteps echoing. You. Only you. Nobody else.
People disappear. I know. People disappear every day. People just... vanish.
