Hitchhikers (Wolf Point #1)

-5-

The roads are empty today.

I come across a cornfield. It is not time for corn to be ripe, but I am hungry enough to steal a few budding ears and tear at the hard kernels with my teeth. I pass one farmhouse where there are no cars in the driveway, and I snatch some tomatoes from the garden in their yard to eat like apples as I walk.

Walking has a rhythm that lulls the mind. I am able to keep from those dark thoughts that haunt me at night. Now it is wondering about the people in the distant houses and what their small lives are like. Have they traveled as I travel? Do they know fear?

I imagine they are all happy, content, eating Thanksgiving dinners around crowded tables and talking about the future.

I see the trees, whispering to one another in the breeze.

Clouds drifting in the sky, nowhere to go in a hurry.

There is never really silence. Always crickets, or birds, the drone of insects. It is a comfortable noise. Nothing alarming.

Until I hear the footsteps behind me.

The steps are light and quick, in a rhythm that tells me these do not belong to a human. Still, I feel my hackles rise, my senses extended to know what this creature is who approaches my back.

When it is closer, I hear the panting, the whooshing of a wagging tail.

I smell dog.

Putting my head down, I walk faster.

Usually animals stay away from me. They can smell the evil on me like a disease, and they turn tail and run. Sometimes before I even know they are there.

Dogs aren't like other animals. They're loyal to humans. A cat will run. A horse will gallop. A squirrel will scamper away. They have no reason to fight. Dogs will protect their territory, their humans, even if it means fighting me.

I never had a dog growing up. I'd watch reruns of Lassie and Benji and wish I had a dog, but it was always

"Ain't no way in hell you're getting a dog."

Even if we were out walking around, and we'd see a dog coming up on the street, my father would grab my arm and yank me to the other side of the road.

"You afraid of dogs, Dad?"

"I ain't afraid of nothin'. That dog's afraid of me."

I never believed him. And if I came across a dog when I wasn't with my dad, well, those dogs loved me. They trotted on up and sniffed me all over and licked me and lay on the ground with their bellies up.

Until this all happened.

Ever since I started blacking out, dogs don't like me so much. They see me coming up the road and their whole body goes stiff. Hair raised on their backs and all. Mostly I can just keep to the road, or cross the street, and they stare after me. Waiting. Waiting for me to make one move toward them, one threatening inch toward their family. I keep my head down and try to breathe and keep myself calm, because I feel that pull too. The beast in me doesn't want to back down from a stupid animal. I keep my head down and walk on by. And nothing happens.

Other times they go fucking crazy.

This one time, I ended up in a neighborhood. I wasn't paying much attention to where this truck driver let me off. Houses all around, nice big yards full of toys. I walked through it, head down and legs moving as fast as my tired muscles could go, hoping no one would see me and report a strange homeless-looking kid on their perfect street.

The dog was a golden retriever. They say those are the friendliest kinds of dogs. They look it, in all the pictures. Smiling mouths, playing with little toddlers and bright red Frisbees.

Not this one. Huge with its yellow fur all hackled up along its spine, and it already had its teeth bared at me from fifty yards away. I made eye contact with it and nearly lost it myself. I could practically feel the testosterone rising. My vision hazed in and out.

eyes down eyes down don't look right at him

I crossed over, thinking it would be fine. A golden retriever isn't the same as a pit bull, and I'd dealt with plenty of those. Thing is, most people who own pit bulls keep them chained up or locked in a pen. They know a pit bull would just as soon eat a baby as their kibble.

I'm sure the owners of this retriever had some kind of precaution in place. One of those underground electric fences, because I could see it didn't have a leash. The house itself was huge. A big yellow monstrosity you'd have to be rolling in money to afford.

Not like the little peeling ranch house I called home

These people had probably bought the dog to match the house. I crossed in front of it feeling cornered, even though there was room to run. Fences all around every yard. My eyes were scanning for ways out already. Walls everywhere. I felt trapped.

I was directly in front of the house when the dog made this strangled growling sound and launched itself at me.

A yellow blur, flying at me. I ran like hell down the street. Whatever electric piece of crap was supposed to keep that dog in was a distant memory.

"Tessa! Come back!" shouted a little girl's voice.

I ran and ran, the soles of my worn down sneakers slapping the pavement.

run keep running don't stop

blackness

don't stop keep running

The blackness pulsed in and out. I couldn't tell if it was because of my exhaustion or if I was going to have one of my blackouts. I made it to the end of the street and ducked into a blessed patch of trees before it happened.

When I came to, it was twilight and the forest sang to me. I felt my face slick with blood and gritty with short, yellow hairs. Nausea flooded my senses but I managed not to succumb. I wiped myself as best I could with the sleeve of my flannel shirt, staggered off to the cool scentless aura of running water. It was a long cold night waiting for my clothes to dry and fearing the call of the trees. I wasn't hungry anymore.

* * *

Now this.

Some mutt trotting along behind me like I'm the pied piper of dogs, thrilled to have found some company on the road. I refuse to look at it or otherwise acknowledge its presence. Doesn't it smell me? Is it so desperate?

I throw the tomato rinds and corn cobs on the ground, and listen as the dog happily gulps them up in her teeth.

I can smell that she's female.

I walk on.