Crowning Fables 4: A collection of one short stories

Mile Marker 17

The first time Lena saw the hitchhiker, she almost drove right past him.

He stood on the shoulder of Route 41 just beyond mile marker 17, where the road curled through a stretch of lonely pine forest and the nearest gas station sat twenty miles behind. It had been raining for most of the afternoon, the kind of thin, gray rain that turned the sky into a sheet of dull metal and left the road shining black as ink. Her windshield wipers moved back and forth with a tired squeak, keeping time with the old truck's uneven engine.

Lena saw him only at the last second.

A man. Tall. Thin. Standing under the crooked arm of a dead road sign as though it might somehow shelter him. He wore a dark jacket soaked through at the shoulders, jeans streaked with mud, and carried a canvas duffel bag slung over one shoulder. One thumb stuck out into the lane, not boldly, not dramatically—just there, almost hesitant.

For one brief, foolish second, Lena thought of every warning she had ever heard.

Don't stop for strangers.

Don't pick up hitchhikers.

People vanish on roads like this.

People get robbed.

People get killed.

And then, just as quickly, she thought of her father.

Not because he had ever been a hitchhiker, but because he had spent half his life stopping for stranded people. Flat tire on the side of the road? He pulled over. Car smoking in the heat? He pulled over. Someone walking alone with a gas can? He pulled over.

"Most people aren't monsters, Len," he used to tell her. "Most people are just people who've had a rough day."

He had been gone almost eleven months.

The memory hit her with enough force that her foot eased off the gas without her entirely meaning to. The truck slowed. She looked in the rearview mirror, saw the man growing smaller behind her, then muttered something annoyed under her breath and pulled onto the shoulder.

Rain tapped the roof.

For a second she sat gripping the wheel.

"This is stupid," she told herself.

Then she rolled down the passenger-side window three inches.

The man jogged up carefully, not too close, keeping his hands visible. That, at least, counted for something.

"You headed north?" he asked.

His voice was rough but calm.

"Depends," Lena said.

A faint smile touched his mouth, as if he understood exactly what kind of answer that was. "I'm trying to get to Blackwater."

Blackwater was another forty miles ahead, a tired little town with an old rail depot, a diner, a grocery store, and not much else.

"I can take you as far as there," Lena said.

"That'd help."

She looked him over. Late thirties maybe. Maybe forty. Hard to tell. Dark hair, too long around the ears. A face that might've been handsome once if life had been gentler with it. There was exhaustion in the lines around his eyes, but not menace. No twitchiness. No obvious drunken sway. Just wet, tired, and cold.

"Got any weapons?" she asked bluntly.

He blinked once, then gave a small shake of his head. "No."

"You on drugs?"