All The Darkness You Need

Chapter 3: The Run Past Nawlins

The tall buildings of Jacksonville were just hazy blocks across the river and in time the Oldsmobile found the exit to Interstate Ten and left that hazy building-block city in the rear view mirror with Jen looking back through the rear window to see if anyone, if any cops, were on the road as they slid around the on ramp and leveled out onto the highway headed west. She sat back into the passenger side corner and put her legs up on the back seat and closed her eyes to rest but did not sleep. She realized she had left her bag in the Pathfinder with the hippies but at least she had her purse and her wallet and her phone. Up front the boys drove and spoke very little. One hundred miles per hour and change.
The westering Sun in the windshield was relentless and both boys lowered visors and slid up in their seats. Dan at the wheel spoke.

"I forgot to check the oil back at the station. Remind me to do that when we stop next for gas."

"We may want to go with some lighter oil then. It's getting cold and it'll be even colder at night."

"Yep."

"Did you see that Chevy back there? Chevelle I think."

"The white one?"

"Yeah the white one. You think that was those boys from Okeechobee?"

"I thought that too at first, coming up behind 'em. But I kindly doubt they'd let us pass 'em like that. Plus I doubt they came this way."

"Well did we pass the road from Gainesville yet?"

"Naw. It's up a ways still."

"You think we'll beat those boys in the 'vette past there?"

"I know we will. Ain't no way they made it through ahead of us. No way."

"All right. How's our gas?"

Dan looked down at the gauges. "More'n half-a-tank still. Man we're gone!" he said and with that he increased the throttle and leveled the Olds out at one twenty-five and the car took the speed in stride. Jen looked up but the Sun quickly blinded her so she lay back down and fell asleep.

It was well dark when Jen awoke and the dashboard lights were coke-bottle green and the glowing green light a cast dim aura across the driver's face and Jen looked to him and then to Jesse and she stirred to let them know she was awake but they did not speak nor did they look her way. She crossed her arms on the back of the passenger seat and leaned ahead slightly and asked where they were but neither boy spoke so she leaned back and watched through the windshield.

There were no cars visible ahead and she looked behind them through the back window and no headlight could be seen. The car was rocking at just under ninety-six miles per hour and it felt that they were on the only road in the world and that they were the only car. The boys drove in silence and Jen watched the headlights eat up the road ahead and she saw the streaking white pavement of the concrete road in that country and she knew it was different than the roads they had in South Florida. She thought it was because of the weather being cooler up there or that maybe it was due to the age of the road and she wanted to talk about it but she did not.

Ahead she saw lights rise above a small hill and skylight against the black darkness and as they swiftly approached the metal construction she knew it was an exit sign. The glowing orange sulphur bulbs of a town lit up the woods to the north and as the fast car angled off the exit a deer jumped the road and barely made it across and the car passed by where it had been with no reaction inside but Jen who gasped and looked back but saw nothing but nighttime behind them and the red taillight patches on the road behind and under the trunk out beyond the frosty back window. She noticed the back deck under the window and its perfect dustlessness impressed itself upon her. She turned to watch the car sail under the lighted cover of a gas station pump island and the boys got out and went to the store.