I'm a Hitchhiker. I'm So Sorry.
Before You Begin: A Note from the Road
This tale wanders the forgotten highways of memory, where shadows stretch long and silence carries weight. It is a story of dust and dusk, of strangers and secrets, of innocence lost beneath the hum of tires and the crackle of old songs.
Within these pages, you may encounter:
Child sexual abuse and grooming Explicit depiction of predatory behavior and sexual violence involving a minor.
Sexual assault Graphic and emotionally distressing scenes of non-consensual sexual contact.
Violence and physical trauma Descriptions of bodily harm, blood, and pain, including supernatural acts of violence.
Murder and gore Scenes involving the brutal killing of characters, including dismemberment and bloodshed.
Psychological manipulation and coercion Adult characters deceive and manipulate a vulnerable child.
Child neglect and abandonment Themes of parental absence and emotional abandonment.
Supernatural horror and transformation Depictions of monstrous metamorphosis, spectral existence, and cursed immortality.
Mental health themes Implicit references to trauma, dissociation, and loss of control.
Disturbing imagery Vivid descriptions of unsettling scenes, including rotting flesh and unnatural sensations.
Cannibalism (implied) The protagonist bites into a victim, suggesting consumption of human flesh.
Substance use / drugging A character is unknowingly sedated through food.
Death of religious figures Violent death of nuns and a priest, which may be distressing to some readers.
This is not a safe journey. It is not meant to be. But if you choose to walk this road, do so with care. Some stories bruise. Some truths burn. And some ghosts never stop hitching rides.
If you carry wounds that mirror these words, please tread gently. You are not alone.
THE STORY
I'm a hitch hiker. I’ve hitched my way across every twisting backroad in the United States hundreds of times since I started hitching rides when I was young. How young? I don’t recall an exact age, but I was old enough and it was well before cell phones and cameras were every-damn-where.
Nowadays, I’m older than most that still walk the dusty black veins of our motherland. There’s fewer of us every year. Back when I first started, I used to spot a fellow hitchhiker at least once a week. Now, I see one every couple’a years.
The last one I saw was sixteen months ago. She was sitting in the backseat of a cream colored beat up Buick with Idaho plates. It sped past me, its lights flooding the pitch black highway I walked alongside. I caught a split second view of the hitcher through the back window. She was crying.
Sometimes, bad things happen to hitchers. It’s kind of part and parcel of the whole exchange. We put ourselves at the mercy of strangers, coming to them in our most vulnerable shape, and hoping that they grant us a moment of reprieve. From what? That depends on the hitcher, but in the end, we’re all running from something. Sometimes it’s the weather, sometimes it’s our past; and every inch of pavement we pound, we gain just a little bit more ground between us and whatever it is we’re trying to escape.
Thumb jutted out, I put one foot in front of the other. My strides consume the distance, but distance doesn’t matter. Not really. Not for me. As odd as it may sound, I can’t stop hitching. I used to try. I’d settle in a town, but before I could cash my first paycheck at whatever rundown hole-in-the-wall hired me, I’d find myself back on the road, all my belongings in the world shoved into a single bag on my back. No matter how hard I try, I end up on the side of the road with my thumb out.
I drift along one of America’s arteries, the asphalt pulsing beneath my feet like a dying heartbeat. These roads — black and cracked — carry more than traffic. They carry memories. Regret. Blood. I’ve walked them all. I’ve bled on most.
Cars whizz by, but never more than one at a time, and half an hour passes between sightings. One of my shoulders droops from the weight of my pack. I don’t know why I carry it, honestly. I never open it. I just know I can’t leave it behind.
Gravel crunches under the weight of tires. My eternal march ceases temporarily, and I turn to face the sound. As I do, the phantom sensation of fabric swirls around my thighs. “Hey!” A man calls, with his mouth stretched into a big grin. “Need a ride?” He drives up to me, putting me at his passenger door. “Hop in.” He encourages, but he doesn’t have to. My hand’s already reaching for the handle.
I climb into his powder blue Jetta. The interior reeks of stale cigarette smoke. The guy probably got the car second hand, because the smoke smells older than he is. His dirty blond hair falls around his ears in waves. He drums his pale fingers on the steering wheel as he waits for me to settle into the car. He’s wearing an olive green t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. “Buckle up.” He instructs with a kind smile, humor twinkling in his grey eyes.
I oblige and he puts the car into drive. “Where are you headed?” He asks, fiddling with the radio as he merges lanes and gets up to speed. No matter what station he lands on, Rising Sun Blues plays over the speakers. The sound crackles to life and my heart lurches into high gear.
“Whereever the wind takes me.” I answer his question on the tail of a wistful sigh. The first time I heard this song, I was practically a child. The late September air buzzed with energy. My chest aches at the memory. I’d snuck out of the house, a pack slung over my shoulder stuffed with my best dress, an eyeshadow compact that I’d stolen from my mother, and twenty-five cents carefully hidden in the bottom of my right shoe.
Sweat beads on my temples and along my top lip. Whether from the heat of the day, or from how fast my heart’s going, I don’t know. What I do know is that something terrible is going to happen again, and soon. “What’s your name?” The man asks, turning the radio down a notch or two.
I twist my neck and look up at him through my lashes. “What’s yours?”
He gives me another smile. The corners of his grey eyes wrinkle. “Brian.”
“I’m Jenny.” I lie.
He takes his right hand off the wheel and offers it to me. “Nice to meet you, Jenny.” Our palms touch and I shake his hand. Goose pimples flush up his bare arm on contact. “I’m heading north. You’re welcome to stay with me as long as you’re inclined to.” He says, rolling his shoulders to dislodge the sudden discomfort that kisses his heart.
“That’s awful kind of you.” I murmur, my hand tingling with residual heat from Brian’s touch. “I don’t know how far I’ll go, but I’m glad you’re the one that picked me up.”
He laughs, low and throaty. Like he knows something I don’t know. “Why’s that?”
I shrug, picking at a stray thread on the hem of my skirt. “There’s some bad people out there, is all.”
He stares at me from the corner of his eye. Half his attention on me, half on the road before us. “That’s true.” He agrees eventually, voice faux-loose. Brian clears his throat and changes the subject. “So, you don’t have a destination in mind. How long have you been out here?”
“Decades.” I laugh, shaking my head to toss my hair out of my face.
He laughs with me. “Uh-huh. And yet you don’t look a day over sixteen.”
With a soft giggle, I stretch my arms above my head. My tank top rides up, exposing my stomach to the dying sunlight. I pretend I can’t feel his eyes on my bare skin. “Can you keep a secret?” I ask when I finish stretching.
He grins into the sunset. The red and orange light makes it look like he’s got a mouthful of jagged teeth stained with blood. “I’m the best at keeping secrets.”
“I turn fourteen next month.” I confess, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear.
Brian licks his lips. “Where are your parents? Do they know where you are?”
My long hair tickles my neck and collar bones when I shake my head and sigh. “Naw, the last thing they’re thinking about is me. They probably haven’t even noticed I’m gone.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Brian says. Then he reaches a long, muscled arm across the divide between our seats. The back of his hand brushes both of my knobbly knees as he opens the glove compartment. “Hungry?” He passes me a tupperware container of homemade treats.
The lid comes off easily. I’m immediately ensnared in its sugary sweet perfume. “Starved.”
Brian laughs. “Dig in. We’ll stop for some real food soon enough.”
I oblige. The treats crunch between my teeth, bursting with vanilla and caramel flavors. As I munch, I watch the scenery through my window. Occasionally, I’ll catch Brian staring at me through the side mirror, but I don’t let him know I can see him. The sun dips below the horizon, and before long the car is bathed in moonlight.
My eyelids droop and I yawn. “Get some sleep. I’ll wake you up when we’re there.” Brian tells me, voice low and soothing.
He doesn’t have to tell me twice. “Thanks.” I say, and grab the handle that allows the seat to fall back. Then I lie down, close my eyes, and I’m asleep in seconds.
I dream about the concert. The first concert I ever went to. Well, tried to go to. My parents refused to let me go. It was too late at night, they said. It was no place for a girl like me, they insisted. But of course I knew better – my ego propped up by the invulnerability of youth – so I packed up my belongings the night before and got to walking. Then, when I got tired of walking, I stuck my thumb out.
An older gentleman in a shiny pick up truck offered me a ride. He told me his name was William, and he was kind. A lot like Brian, actually. When I told him my destination, he laughed and gave me a whole nickel as a present. “Get yourself a souvenir.” He told me, and I promised I would, even though I didn’t know what ‘souvenir’ meant.
An hour into the drive, police sirens wailed in the distance. William tensed, and turned onto the first quiet dirt road he came upon. “What are we doing?” I asked, too excited about my nickel to be afraid. I should have been. Afraid, that is. ‘There is… a house…’ Tom Ashley and Gwen Foster serenade us. ‘They call… the Rising Sun…’
William smiled at me. It was a nervous smile. One that warbled at the edges. I didn’t recognize it as such at the time. “Uh, I ain’t got the papers fer this here truck.” He rambled, pulling into the brush, then cutting the engine and dimming the headlights. “I borrowed it from my brother-in-law but he forgot to give me the registration. We get pulled over, and the cops’ll take it. Then we won’t have a vehicle and you won’t make it to that concert.”
“Golly.” I whispered, eyes wide. Suddenly, I was just as afraid as William that the police would find us. I couldn’t risk not making it to the show. “What do we do?”
The sirens sounded fainter than before, but out in the country, you couldn’t always trust that a sound was farther away just ‘cause it didn’t sound close. William eyed me up and down. “Let’s get in the bed and lie low.” He insisted, and I was too naive to know any better so when he crept out of the cab, I did too. He shut his door quietly, and slunk alongside the truck. I mirrored his movements.
William, despite being older than my father, hefted me into the back of the truck bed as easily as lifting a pillow. “Now lay down.” He instructed me, climbing in after me. His eyes dark, full of a new kind of hunger I’d never known.
For the first time that night, fear tickled the back of my brain. I attributed it to not wanting to be caught by the police. William laid down next to me. Our breaths nearly in sync as we waited for the coast to be clear.
Crickets sang their nighttime songs in the tall grass. Ten minutes passed. We remained silent. Then thirty minutes. Finally, I whispered, “Are we safe?”
William rested his hand on my upper arm, his fingers dangerously close to grazing my chest. “Almost.” He smiled, his teeth glinting in the moonlight. “Just gonna get my nickels worth real quick.”
The night turned sour in the blink of an eye. Hot and wet. Pain and red. Blood stained places blood had never been before. ‘There is… a house…’ the radio crooned. ‘They call… the Rising Sun…’ And the world went black.
Then I woke up standing on the side of the road. A different road, but the same pack on my back. I walked, zombie-like. Dazed and confused in the worst ways. Cars passed me by. Gusts of wind blew my hair and my dress into disarray.
Tires crunched gravel and I turned on instinct. Without my say-so, I climbed into the van. Two nuns and a priest chattered pleasantly at me. They offered me food and water, but I accepted none. A walking curse, I had one path to follow. The radio changed on its own. ‘The only time he’s satisfied…’ They were innocent. They did nothing to me, but I did everything to them.
I ripped them apart and left them on the side of the road.
I woke. Again, on another freeway. Pack on my back as though I’d never set it down. The urge to destroy filling me once more. That’s how it went for a long, long time. I lived on instinct. “I’m so sorry.” I told them. I told every single one of them how sorry I was, but it didn’t matter. My apologies couldn’t change anything. I had no control; the only thing I could do was rend flesh from bone as I wept.
I tried to stop hurting people. I tried to settle. But it never lasted. I’d be on the road and soaked in blood within days. Men. Women. Children. Didn’t matter. When the urge overtook me, I couldn’t ignore it for long. Even if I tried hiding away – somewhere there were no roads, deep in the water, or high in the sky – I’d blink and find myself on the black top with my thumb out.
Sometimes, bad things happened to hitchers and sometimes – most times – hitchers were the bad things. Unnatural things were we who stalked the shoulders of American backroads and freeways.
“Wakey, wakey.” Brian sings, drawing me from my restless slumber. When I open my eyes, the moon hangs high above me. I stare at it, blinking the memories of yesteryear away until I can think clearly again. It’s a tenuous hold, but I do my best to maintain lucidity.
Anticipation licks the inside of my stomach. It’s a barbed tongue that tears me apart in preparation for what’s to come. Groggy from whatever Brian put in the candy, I twist my neck to find him. He’s leaning against his Jetta, hands tucked in his bluejeans, and a bright smile on his lips.
My stomach turns. I try to sit up, but ropes bite into my wrists and ankles. Brian’s grin widens. “Don’t move too much. You ate more than I thought you would.” He clicks his tongue at me, shaking his head. “Greedy little piggy.” He teases.
“Greedy little piggy.” I mimic, eyes locked on him. The cloudy haze slowly lifts from my brain, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not letting this one get away, no matter how much sedative he pumps me full of.
His face screws up at my words, his smile drooping. “I don’t think you understand what’s happening here.” He laughs, but it’s forced. I’ve unnerved him, as easily as that. He opens his mouth to say more, but I cut in.
“You’re not my first.” I say, stealing the words from his tongue.
His eyes flare wide. “Shut up.” He hisses, stalking forward, “And if you don’t, I’ll make you.” His right arm crosses his chest, palm facing him, and he swings on me. It passes through me. I sigh at the warmth that cuts a path across my cheeks. Brian stumbles from the force of his backhand.
With a sigh, the ropes restraining me fall away. Rather, they fall through me. I rise, and the world pulses like a dying star. My skin splits, not with pain, but with memory. The monster isn’t inside me — it is me. It always was. I just forget, sometimes, until someone like Brian reminds me.
Brian scrambles to his feet, clutching a knife in his hand. “How did you do that?" He demands, “Sit back down!” He slashes the knife in the air, threatening me in order to force compliance.
“You can’t hurt me, Brian.” I tell him, my voice distorted as the decades I’ve spent in the sun rot me in seconds. “You won’t hurt anyone, ever again.”
Brian gags as my stench reaches him. He blinks rapidly, as if that will suddenly force my disgusting visage to revert to the cute little girl he’d wanted in the first place. “What the fuck?” He whimpers.
He’s not the first I’ve hunted, not the first I’ve stalked in the night. It took me a long time, longer than I wanted it to, but I trained my senses to stretch beyond instinct. I honed my skills, and now I have the privilege of removing another clot from America’s tarred veins. ““What are you?!” Brian cries, voice cracking like old vinyl.
“I’ve been called a lot of things. Ghost. Curse. Reckoning.” I say, stepping closer. “But I think I’m just a wound that never closes.” What am I? Am I a demon? I’m born of trauma, baptized in it, and raised in it, but what does that make me? I’ve never really stopped to think too hard about it. All I know is that I can’t let people like Brian continue as they have been. As they will be.
As long as people like Brian exist, so shall hitchers. Brian screams as my teeth slice into his skin. “I’m a hitchhiker,” I tell him, his blood dribbling from my lips, “and I’m not sorry anymore.”
Time passes. The moon slinks low in the sky. The sun rises on a new day. As I shrug my pack over my shoulders, the radio ticks to life one last time. ‘I'm going there to New Orleans… For my race is almost run… To spend the rest of my wicked life… Beneath the rising sun…’
