Chapter 1
Alexandra drives her 1996 Chevrolet Corsica as she listens to Phil Collin’s “In the Air Tonight” and flicks the ash from her cigarette out the window. She turns the wipers on faster as the rain pounds down, sounding like millions of little drums on the hood. She sings along to the words she knows and belts out the chorus. “I can feel it coming in the air tonight!” She wails as she turns the wheel to accommodate an upcoming curve on the near-empty highway. Not paying much attention to the thermostat gage creeping over the bright red line, she pulls another drag off her smoke and exhales rings of white. If she had noticed this warning, she might have prevented what was about to happen. But she didn’t. She continues with her performance and flicks the butt onto the rough tar that flies past her. She sees a deer along the road and hopes it doesn’t run in front of her, crashing to its death. Possibly causing her to crash to her death. She safely passes and lets out the breath she was holding in. Leftover smoke lingering deep within her lungs comes out in a small vaporous gust. She has hit a deer once before and does not have the desire to do so a second time. There are many deer in Minnesota, and many accidents have happened at their hands or their hooves. She looks down to slide the radio dial to a different station to avoid the hemorrhoid cream commercial she has heard a billion times. “Try Dean’s Hemorrhoid cream today for all your sensitive tooshie needs. But wait, there’s more, call in the next 15 minutes, and we will send you our patented aloe toilet paper to-go sheets for absolutely free.” Sure, it’s free. Just pay the additional shipping and handling fee, she thinks and quickly turns the knob.
She stops when she hears (Don’t Fear) The Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult. She continues to serenade herself as she speeds into the rainy dark. “Come on, baby, don’t fear the reaper! Baby, take my hand!” She almost screams it out as she reaches her hand out to her imaginary passenger. “We’ll be able to….” She stops as the car suddenly loses power and starts to smoke. “No, no, no!” She yells as she bangs her hands on the steering wheel. “Dammit!” She turns her wheel to the right and starts to pull over as far off the shoulder as she can. She comes to a stop and shifts into park. Alex bangs her head on the middle of the steering wheel and, in doing so, accidentally honks the childish horn. “Flipping fantastic!” She grunts with her eyes closed. She opens the door and shows off her long legs to an owl in a nearby tree, watching her intently. She doesn’t notice because if she did, she would have yelled profanity or made some snide comment about how he should have better things to do than spy on a young woman with car troubles.
She bends down and pulls the hood lever to release the latch. She knows nothing about vehicles, but she sees smoke pouring out from beneath. She feels around and finds the latch, and pushes. She raises the hood and pulls the hood prop to get a better look. Pillows of smoke tackle her, and she squints her eyes, coughs, jumps back, and waves a hand before her face. “H.P. Lovecraft! What are you trying to do? Kill me, Thong?” She named her car Thong because of her (it’s a girl) uncanny knack for getting stuck in places it shouldn’t be stuck in during the cold and snowy Minnesota winters. She left the headlights on so she could halfway see what she was doing. At this moment, she wishes she would carry an umbrella with her, “Just in case,” as her mom has always told her. After the smoke clears, she takes a timid peek inside to see if anything looks askew. Not that she would know what was wrong with it even if it stared her in the face, but she was independent and didn’t like having to rely on others to do something she may be perfectly capable of doing herself. She looks and doesn’t see anything noticeably wrong, no fluids pouring out, no loose hoses, no fire (Thank God!). She goes to her driver’s seat and pushes the Hazzard button. She grabs her phone, but this is of little use since she had forgotten to charge it the night before, and her gaming habits have reached an addictive level. “Rusty feathers. This is just perfect.” She huffs and does the only thing she can do. She plops her phone into her purse, gets out of the car, and slams the door shut. She starts to walk, and as she does, she turns her head back and childishly sticks her tongue out at Thong and walks down the dark lonely pavement.
Alex sulkily walks in the murky dark along the bumpy highway with her thumb pointed towards heaven. She doesn’t know if anyone will stop, but they may. They have before anyways. “I really need to get a different car,” she thinks. She pulls the jersey knit hood out of her tan leather jacket over her short blonde bob. She walks along the darkened highway, waiting to see if the bright yellow lights that shine on her face will start to slow. The lights dim, but the car doesn’t slow down. “Ass hat!” she shouts at the dark Ford F-150 that blazes past her and coats her with a fresh spat of rainwater. “At least he turned his high beams off.” She says aloud but not really paying attention to it. Her feet feel sore, and she can tell that her suede boots are causing swells of blisters on her heels. Even before she sees the next set of lights, she can hear a loud vehicle coming up from behind her yet still remains around the corner. Maybe she will have better luck with this one. She stretches her thin long arm out and raises her mighty thumb. The engine roars louder as the rig creeps up on her, and she can tell that the muffler needs repair or missing altogether. High beams on once again, and this time, they stay on. But, unlike the previous 18 vehicles that have passed her by–considering her as nothing but a deer on the side of the road, which they need to avoid—this one slows down. She can tell it is a truck by the height of the beams and slowly moves over on the shoulder to give extra room. She squints her deep blue eyes in response to the lights and puts her hand up like a shield to guard them. She hears a voice call out in a strong Minnesotan accent–“Howdy miss, where ya be headed at this time of night? Kinda dangerous to be walkin’ alone at night, oh ya sure you betcha it is. Why don’t you hop up in and let me get you to where you’re headed.”
“Thanks for stopping; I’m getting wetter than a duck on bath day out here. My car broke down a few miles back, and my cell phone died. Been walking ever since. I’m heading to Grand Rapids. Any chance you’re headed in that direction?”
“Sure thing, miss. Hop on in.” He said as he extended a hand to help her in the tall truck. She didn’t take it but smiled at the gesture. She hopped in and buckled her belt shaking off the rain that had wet her hair.
“I’m headed to Grand Rapids, so it will be no trouble at all, miss. Names Sandy Larson, but most people just call me Big Jim on account of my size. Where ya stayin’?” Sandy, aka Big Jim, shifted the old green truck into drive and slowly pulled away from the gravel.
“I’m just passing by, really. I came to visit my Aunt Donna and am staying with her for a few days. If you could just drop me off at the nearest gas station, I can use the phone and have her come to get me.” Alex commented as she tried to remain vague and thought it best she didn’t share too much personal information with a man she had just met. Sure he appeared to be harmless so far but so did Ted Bundy, H. H. Holmes, and John Wayne Gacy.
“Your aunt wouldn’t be Donna Jensen, would it?”
“Well, yeah, you know her?” Alex asked quizzically.
“Well, I’ll be dipped. I’ve known Donna since she was a lil’ tot. Fact, she used to babysit my kids when she was a teenager. A good gal, that one. Sweet as pie. Didn’t think she had any relatives, though, none she talked about anyway. You’re in luck, she lives down Emerald Lane, and I’m 2 streets down on Garland, just on the other side of the river.”
“Well, she isn’t my biological Aunt.” She responded, and with some hesitancy, she added more information. “I was adopted when I was 16. So, you’re neighbors then?” She looked out the window at the trees passing by her like waves on the ocean as they danced in the wind.
“Oh, well, adopted is still family in my book. Oh, yeah, we sure are neighbors. Good thing I came along, miss; not many other people out this way will stop for a hitchhiker. Not since all the disappearances, anyway. Not me, though; I’ve always stopped to pick up thumb stickers and never had a problem with any of em’. My dad used to tell me to treat others how I wanted to be treated, and when I saw a pretty girl walking along this deserted highway in the middle of the night and a rain shower to boot—my heart sank. I knew you wouldn’t likely be picked up by anyone but me er, maybe Mr. Anderson, but I doubt he would be out and about at this time of the night. Golly gee, it seems that I have forgotten my manners. What’s yer name miss?”
“Alexandra, but I go by Alex.” And that’s the last thing she can remember until she wakes up in the hospital.
Cryptic Corner 