Hitchhikers (Wolf Point #1)

-3-

My sneakers sink into each mud puddle. Even the dirt wants me to stop and surrender. I plod along, determined not to give in to the dizziness, the weakness, or the weariness.

The best I could do was to cover the old couple with another quilt. With no food in my belly, it's pointless to waste my energy on burying them. I am tempted, if only because it means the police might show up in the meantime and arrest me, and lock me up someplace safe. But I have the feeling that the first visitor would not be the police. It would be a neighbor, some kindly old woman bringing over a plate of cookies, or a son or daughter with their toddling children in tow, and then there would be a mess.

There is no way I could begin to remove evidence from that room. After all this time it blows my mind that the police haven't caught up to me yet.

I'm a monster.

I slump along, like the beast toward Bethlehem, soaked through by rain and mud and tears. The desolate countryside accompanies me.

"You little monster."

A hand grabbing me, jerking my arm up at an impossible angle.

"Look what you done!"

My face pushed into the shards of glass. Cutting into my cheek. Glass and tears and a child's blood.

"...little monster..."

My first memory. Where was my mother when my father was grinding a four-year-old's face into a broken mirror? I don't even remember if it was my fault or not, the mirror. Somehow it was broken and somehow it was my fault.

Anger begins a slow burn deep inside me but I tamp it down. The drizzle is cold. Drizzle cold over my anger.

I can keep it away. I can control this.

Breath hot in my face. "You're a little bitch, just like your mother."

Stay out. Stay out of my head.

If only there was something other than this flat Midwestern landscape to look at, to keep my mind from those thoughts. Rolling waves of grain all the way to the horizon, ramshackle buildings dotting the fields. A tree! I run stumbling toward it. I'll climb it. I'll sleep in the branches like a bird.

Behind me, a trailer truck rumbles past. The earth quakes beneath my sneakers.

I run out of energy long before I reach the tree. The mud slows me down, and the tall stalks of wheat.

It's like an ocean, the wheat. I'm drowning in it, barely keeping my head above water. It's too much. I lie down where I am, the wheat enveloping me. Blue skies and amber waves of grain. Reminds me of second grade, the school concert at the end of the year. My class sang "America the Beautiful." Second grade, back when things were safe.

Safe. Ha! Just because I wasn't homeless back then doesn't mean I was safe.

I was never safe. Any small infraction could cause my father's wrath, or not. I never knew what would set him off. The only sure thing was if my father was drinking and my uncles were around, I stayed clear.

Blackness.

A flash, a darkening of the bright blue sky. I knew it would happen sooner than later. The hunger often does it.

Probably the only reason I haven't starved to death yet.

Darkness descends.