Traffic (Complete two-hundred pages) (Moving to Kindle Vella in 30 Days! )

18

RUNNER

HE TUMBLED FOR YARDS until the leg that was shot caught onto a rock and he was able to catch himself upon his bleeding hands. Sand shifted beneath him but he was able to drop himself onto his back. The road was beside him now, and some passersby parked along the ocean called out to him something possibly like:

"Hey are you alright?" or "You climb much?"

He stood at a limp and suddenly spotted a young girl around 21 with a Santa Monica City College shirt who was waiting for an autonomous Uber that was suddenly pulling up along the road.

"Wait!" Jack hollered. The young girl spotted him but gave him an odd put-offish look. Jack nevertheless limped across the road, dodging the cars like a real life game of Frogger. When he made it across he thanked the girl for waiting.

The girl said to Jack as he walked up next to her, "Why'd the chicken cross the road?"

He shot her a blank look. "To get to the hospital."

This shut the girl up. They got inside and he passed her 20 bucks.

"Why are you giving me this?"

"I didn't bring my credit card," he said.

"Who uses credit cards?" the girl asked. She put her phone up to the monitor and the car immediately started driving them. "Where are you going?"

"The train station."

"Wait. I thought you were going to the hospital?" she said. Suddenly she spotted just how badly blood was oozing down his leg. "Wait. What the hell? Were you shot?" She jumped and was about to press the stop button on the monitor. But he pushed her hand away.

"Relax. I was climbing my way down the hill as a shortcut."

Her eyes accused him of insanity. "Why are you such a lazy dumbass?" she asked as she peered up through the window at the giant hill on the opposite lane from the Oceanside.

Jack changed the subject. "Do you have a clean piece of clothing I can wrap around my leg?"

She stared at him awkwardly.

"What?" he said.

"Sorry. To be honest all my clothes are a day old." She must have slept over at some guy's house. Shamelessly she noted, "Except my underwear. That's clean."

Jack looked at her. Thinking.

"What?" she asked.

"Thong or regular?"

The girl gave Jack a blank look of you've-got-to-be-kidding-me. "Regular."

Within five minutes he had her classic black Victoria's Secret underwear wrapped around his leg, over his pants. (Progressives at this era tend to be conveniently nonchalant about fashion choices.)

"Thanks," he said.

"Thank goodness I wore a sundress today. It wasn't windy either. But I had the worst day today."

Couldn't be worse than Jack's.

Seeing Jack's doubtful face she insisted, "No, really. My date was such an asshole. He took me to this five star restaurant, then to a movie on the beach, then for ice cream--"

"That sounds nice to me," said Jack. "What's the problem?"

"Then he told me who he voted for in the 2016 election."

That explains it, Jack thought. "I'm sorry to hear about that. Are you planning on seeing him again?"

Never, said the look on her face. The social climate bred a divided nation.