On The Road Again 9

DISCLAIMER: If you're reading this and you are under 18, ask LBJ how many babies he killed today. Put that fucker in his place, you've got rights, man!

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Julia was young when she grew scared of sleeping. So scared, in fact, that she did everything- and took everything- possible to stop it. Though a clever girl, her phobia and other disorders greatly interfered with her life, to the point of her actually becoming a truck driver instead of pursuing some other, more rewarding career.

And there she was on the road, nights bleeding together, driving for days on end, sometimes not even remembering where she was going. She didn't even remember picking up the hitchhiker, smelling the alcohol on his breath all the way from where she was sitting, and all of a sudden grew afraid. "Who...who are you?" Her breath caught in her ribcage, suddenly self-conscious of what she was wearing. It's snowing outside. What am I doing?

The man sniffed a bit, undoing his jacket slowly, but leaving the cap on his head. His voice croaked from the misery that came from the timeless twilight of night, that seemingly endless stretch of pitch black until it was throttled abruptly by those oh so gentle rays of light. "I'm nobody." It was the wisdom of senselessness that the hour brought to the mind, and Julia prayed for those rays of dawn, those awful tendrils of brightness that brought with them clarity. She knew it would arrive far too late, as he tossed his jacket back, and the clang and rattling of empty Red Bull cans and pill bottles filling the cabin. She felt his hand find her thigh that was far, far too bare, why am I wearing this?! What is happening? but she knew she'd have to take him down. She kept an old letter opener on the driver side, and it would find a fitting home in his jugular! They were in the boonies, he wouldn't be found for some time. And even if he was, these people didn't report anything. She steeled herself, about ready to-

Reality wasn't real, and pain lanced her brain, tears instantly falling as she knew what was happening. It always happened always happened to her. She was in the middle now, and his hand was on her face, it felt like the smell of flies and she couldn't move. No no please no not now please no! She felt his breath on her ear, he always came after her, he attacked and when he was there her skull felt like it wanted to split open from the inside out. She didn't even notice them undoing her clothes, was Nobody seeing this?! He had to! "Please! Help!"

Even as she sobbed weakly at him, that voice whispered, the sound of weeds growing over a grave. "You're...beautiful...", the grotesque shape on her left uttered, it's vile tongue across her neck even as the man on her right continued his exploration of her. She looked at the abomination on her left. "M-Mr. Boo...puh-p-please...nooo..."

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Phillip awoke at dawnbreak, strong rays of gold and warmth heating him up enough to let him remember how much he was freezing. Rising from the base of a tree and marveling at the fact that he wasn't dead, the backpacker and perpetual hitchhiker wanted to make it out of this goddamn forest, remembering the last night the sound of what had to be a mac truck screeching and barreling down the nearby road at what had to be at least 90, Phil gauged with his lifetime of experience on the road. He was scared that with that crazy noise would bring sirens and with sirens would come their questions and harassments. He'd had enough of that as a young man, and now in his 40s, the bearded wanderer hadn't changed his ways.

The sunlight was galvanizing his body into working once more, the hunger easily ignored last night, gnawed at him in a way that drove him crazy. Not only that, but morning seemed to fill his bladder to painful bursting, a problem that seemed only to come with age. Looking around, and seeing naught but trees and dirt for miles like before, he turned, leaning on that righteous oak, breath fogging as he unzipped his jeans, pulled down his boxers, and waited. Waiting was another problem, somewhere down the line his dick became lethargic and slower to respond for anything, and it frustrated and angered the aging man.

"I wasn't ready!" He had to voice it out loud, right hand clenching into a fist even as the left firmly gripped his cock and aimed it at the roots. It was true, he hadn't been ready, but his body didn't seem to give a damn what he wanted, and behaved according to its own schedule, just about. And one day, it would decide he'd spent enough time here, and to hell if he needed more time, or wanted to see his family one last time, or, or...it was tough not to be bitter about it all, especially without coffee this early in the morning.

It was while his mind railed against his mortality that he finally went, interrupting Phil's morbid thought process with the sensation of that golden yellow flowing from him and hitting the dirt softly. He leaned more against that tree and groaned at the sensation, knees bowing inward just a fraction, it was just a pleasurable sensation that he couldn't for the life of him explain, and didn't care to. "No more pissing when it's over, neither."

With a sigh, he shook it off and shook himself out of this spiral, knowing that he just needed a hot breakfast in him. There was a road up ahead, he'd follow it and find a truckstop down the road. Had to of been what that speeding bastard was hauling ass for, right? In no time he found the road, and looking down, he saw a mudflap, apparently that bastard had been going so fast, his truck lost a flap. Phil had to chuckle at that, and looking up ahead he saw an old, faded yellow piece of writing paper looking to be 2 years old at least, crumpled in the mud. The air had been so still here that it hadn't gone very far, and apparently no cars took this route, so there was nothing to disturb it.

While not normally a snoop, Phil held the belief that because the note fell out here in the open, it became open for 'dibs', and there being nobody else to call 'dibs'...Phil stepped over casually, picked up the piece of paper with hands so cold they were a bit red, and opened it up. Instantly he was surprised at the lovely and remarkable handwriting, much neater than he'd give a truck writer credit for. Sniffing just to ensure his nose remembered how to do it, Phil began to read.

"Dear (there was mud and soot covering the name, and Phil couldn't make heads or tails of it),

I had a dream about you last night, it was a nightmare, but when I woke up and wanted to tell you about it, I remembered that you left, how you left, and I cried. Your father and I are worried sick about you, we can't pretend to know why you made the decision to do what you do, but we promise not to fight if you just come back, come back and let us know you're ok.

It wasn't ok of us to say you were crazy, it wasn't alright of us to hurt you, but you have to understand that we were hurt. Hurt that our beautiful, baby girl wanted to throw her life away, at least that's how it looked to us. Our imaginative girl who always saw such rich fantastic worlds, our genius writer, our straight A honor student who never looked pushed into it like your poor little friends with the overbearing parents...our girl who decided out of the blue, days before graduation, to quit high school, and become a trucker! You had to have seen our point of view. But it doesn't matter now, your 23rd birthday went by without you here, we don't want you to miss your 24th. We don't want you to think that nobody cares about you.

I don't know how to write this next part. We spoke with your therapist, the one you say privately, in high school...we're not angry about that, we would have helped pay for it if we knew, but I understand that you wanted privacy. He told us about Mr. Boo. All this time, we had no idea. We just thought that Mr. Boo was your childhood friend when you grew up. You would always tell us he was in the corner, when you ate at the table, and when you went to bed at night...We always thought you loved him, that you were playing...we didn't realize what he was, that you didn't want him around. We didn't realize you were trying to warn us."

At this point the ink for the next 2 paragraphs were smudged save for occasional repeated words of 'we/I were/was stupid', and 'I love you', and Phil knew right away they were smudged tears. His own features softened, and he made himself finish the letter. He owed them that much, though he honestly couldn't say why.

"You are our daughter, and we made mistakes raising you, but we love you more than there is sand in Egypt. Please just come back. Please."

It didn't bother signing the letter, a personal letter to your child, why would you? He looked up, looking to his right and catching glimpses of that beautiful amber and purple dawn through the leaves of trees. It gave him a sense of clarity, and putting the letter in his jacket pocket, he walked toward the dawn, down the side of the road.

"Maybe there'll be a truckstop soon, and maybe sleeping there is a girl who owns a truck. And if there's a girl there who owns a truck, maybe I'll find her. And maybe she'll want a letter from her mommy back. Maybe."

It was one hell of a longshot, a lot of maybes that probably wouldn't turn out to be the case at all, but he could hope.

It was the only option he had, after reading that letter. Something in him was glad it was morning.