Hitchhiking can be scary

All she could hear was the hoot of an owl eerily sounding in the distance. Her breath was like small puffs of smoke as she breathed heavily in the cold night air. Even in the car it was freezing. The moon was a sliver tonight and almost completely hidden by dark clouds - not allowing her to see anything as she peered out of the window – just black silhouettes, different shapes and sizes.

The car was stopped and parked on the side of the road, her phone was almost dead but there wasn’t a signal anyway. And she felt scared.

Marie had been sitting in her car for over half an hour, the silence and dark enveloping her. The windows had all fogged up, the small car beginning to feel stuffy. She felt the need for fresh air so she wound the window down an inch or two. It was at least two hours’ drive to her destination but with no phone or passing traffic all she could do was sit and wait for daylight. It was only 1.38am so she knew the wait would be long.

She wiped the still fogged up window and looked out – at nothing. The doors were locked and she had put her seat down to lay back and think. ‘I wonder if I should get out and walk to see if there is anything around here? The thought didn’t sit well with her – what if she couldn’t find her car on the way back and what if there was an axe murderer walking around at the same time she was? The problem was that she had never driven this way before. “Come and visit me in the country before you fly off to Europe” her cousin had said to her, and Marie thought it a good idea at the time.

Her cousin Jennifer was a very…well ‘odd’ might be a bit rude, but she was very ‘different’ – an artist and an academic who lived a very reclusive life in the countryside. Jennifer had lived most of her life in the jungles of Borneo writing and painting. Money was no object as she had inherited a very large sum of money from her Father when he died, which had enabled Jennifer to travel extensively before settling in Borneo. So when her Great Aunt passed away and left her the house and land where she now lives, it was the right time to come home.

Marie had been to visit her cousin in Borneo a couple of times, but had never been here to this house. She was looking forward to seeing her cousin again – if she ever got there!

Jennifer was an acclaimed artist, having held many exhibitions both overseas and here. Her art work wasn’t all to Marie’s taste but some of it she liked. One of her obsessions was with monkeys so the villa she lived in near the jungle was ‘wallpapered’ with paintings of monkeys – some of them really ugly and startling when you walked past them in the dark!

Something moved outside close to the car and brought Marie back to the present – she wiped the window and peered through it, her heart beginning to pound. ‘Oh what was that’ she cried out, quickly sitting up. ‘I can’t stay in here’ she thought – ‘I’m a sitting duck - I need to get out and be able to run’.

She cautiously and slowly opened her door and quietly shut it. Looking around she tried to make out some of the shapes and see where she actually was. There had been a mini torch in her glove box once but of course when she needed it most, it wasn’t there. If she needed a pair of sun glasses, pens, spare make-up, chops sticks or sweet wrappers then the glove box was the place to look, but nothing to give off any light.

Ahhh! She jumped as some sort of animal scurried past her and off into the darkness. She wanted to get back into the car and lock it again but maybe this way she could at least see a sign or something along the edge of the road. Her heart was still thumping from the sound of whatever ran near her. She was freezing too and wrapped her cardigan tightly around herself. There was a blanket in the car but it would be too difficult to walk in that – let alone run if need be.

The edge of the road was rough – tough grasses and weeds grew thickly, and small branches and twigs fallen from trees lay on the surface, crunching and snapping under foot. She didn’t know what she was going to achieve by walking away from her car and was having second thought when in the distance she heard the sound of a vehicle. She couldn’t believe it as she ran back to the car, opened it and took out the blanket, putting it on the end of a long stick. The noise was getting louder and she thought it sounded like a truck coming towards her, which meant it was going the way she wanted to go. After a minute or so Marie could see lights a way off down the road and she ran to the edge, standing on the grass and stones waving the blanket, hoping the driver would see the big beige piece of fabric being waved around. It began to slow down as it neared her until just past her it stopped., and she could see what it was.

It was a huge truck, a double cab at the front and two trailers behind, covered in tarpaulins. The truck stopped with the sound that the doors of the school bus used to make when opening and shutting, as if a huge puff of steam had escaped from a pipe.

‘Oh he’s seen me’, she thought to herself, not knowing whether to be happy or scared, stand there or run away. She didn’t accept lifts from strangers and had never hitchhiked in her life. Some of her friends had but their stories left her with dread and apprehension at the thought of getting into a stranger’s car.

Walking the short distance to the truck she saw that the driver had opened his door on the other side and hopped down, jumping and landing with a thud on the road. He walked around and spoke.

“Are you in trouble?” he asked in a broad accent and pointing to her small red car just sitting down the road.

“Yes I stopped my car to check where I was and when I went to start it up again, it wouldn’t. There’s no phone coverage and even if there was my phone has almost run out of battery. I’ve just been sitting in my car waiting for day light – it’s so dark around here. You’re the first vehicle I’ve seen on the road since my car stopped”.

“I could have a quick look under the bonnet of your car if you like” he offered.

“Yes that would be great thanks but I don’t have any tools, well that’s not true, I have jumper leads, a screwdriver and a tin of small things, not sure what they are, that my dad gave to me, if you need them?”

“No I’ve got tools, but we’ll see what the problem is first”.

He walked around truck and in front of his lights that he had left on. She could see that he was probably in his forties, tall, stocky and tattooed. His hair was long and curly and he was wearing the usual truck driver garb, checked shirt and jeans, grease stains all down the front of the legs.

Putting his hazard lights on and grabbing some tools and a very heavy looking torch, he joined her and they walked a short distance to her car.

“Where are you going to?” He asked lifting up the bonnet of the car.

“She told him the area she was headed for and how she was going to stay with her cousin, but didn’t want to give out too much information. Her father who was a detective had warned her since young that you don’t give too much away when you first meet someone and she had always heeded his advice. So when the truck driver asked “Is she expecting you – will she be worried if you don’t turn up on time?” Marie told him “Oh yes, her and her husband are both in the police force and if I’m not there when I said I would be, give or take a bit of extra time,  then they will get the ball rolling to find me”. Marie had heard and seen this in a movie a few times and thought at the time it was a good idea, but now she felt really silly saying it when it wasn’t true!

“Oh right” was all he said.

He tinkered under the hood for a while and then declared that it was a broken lead that he couldn’t fix “I mean I could try taping it but the chances of the tape staying in place are pretty slim. I go past where you’re headed, so can give you a lift. Your cousin’s husband can come back tomorrow and sort your car out – if you want to?”

Marie didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to stay here in the dark on her own, or to get into his truck. But then she thought that at least in the truck she could jump out if she had to - if someone saw her sitting in her car here and came up to it, what could she do?  ‘He looks ok but what if he takes me somewhere – veers away from the main road? But if I say no to a lift he might just do me in here and now.’ Her mind swirled with negative thoughts and she was scaring herself even more, but she knew she would have to take a chance and go with him.

“Yes a lift would be great, thank you. Can I just get my bag and stuff out of my car?” She quickly found a scrap of paper and scribbled his number plate down on it, left it on the seat and locked her car door.

He took her big bag and put it carefully behind the curtain in the cab and she kept her little shoulder bag on her lap, buckled her seat belt and they took off. It had been so high up to climb into her seat, and she wondered how very old or overweight people did it – if any such people ever got into this truck.

The truck jolted back and forwards a bit as he changed gears and eventually got going – driving smoothly on the long road ahead. She felt very tired after the day’s events but was on ‘high alert’ and needed to keep her wits about her. Nothing looked untoward in the front of the cab but Marie knew she was sitting with a stranger, it was in the middle of the night, and she didn’t trust him!

“I’m Fred by the way” he told her and waited for her to tell him what she was called.

“Oh Marie” she told him, feeling apprehensive and a little uptight. 

“It’s a bit dark and lonely for a young girl like you to be stranded out this way but you’ll be alright now”.

“Yes” was all she could muster, her heart pounding furiously.

“Are you at school, or University or do you work?” he asked in a friendly tone.

“Umm I’ve just finished Uni so I’m going overseas before I start my new job in a couple of months” she offered him.

“Oh what’s your job? Let me guess…. A teacher?” and he glanced at her sideways waiting for an answer.

“No, forensic scientist – well I will be. It will be my first ‘proper’ job and I’ll be under the guidance of a professor for at least six months.

“Is that where dead bodies of people who disappeared are found, dug up and examined to see how they died? I find that sort of thing quite interesting myself. I mean some of those bodies are hidden so well that they aren’t found for years. I really enjoy all of those programmes on television – fascinating” he said, taking too much of an interest in in for Marie’s on edge nerves.

‘Why didn’t I say a teacher like he thought? I don’t want to talk about this with him”.

But he continued…..”You must have a strong stomach for that sort of thing – I mean some of those monsters who did what they did to their victims knew where to hide them – like I said, they weren’t discovered for decades and by that time, well we can imagine what they looked like. Did you always want to do that for a job?”

Marie wanted to shout out loud ‘I just want to get out of here, NOW!’  But kept the thought to herself.

But the conversation was cut short as a rustling sound came from behind the curtain. Marie jumped and wondering what on earth it could be she felt frightened - taking in a big breath she began to perspire on her forehead.

“Oh what’s that?” she blurted out sensing someone or something behind the curtain and immediately deciding whether now was the time to open her door and jump out, not even considering  the consequences of falling from a huge truck doing 100 km along a road.

Fred looked towards the curtain a couple of times as if determining what to do.

“Do you mind if we pull over for a minute?” he asked an unnerved Marie.

She didn’t answer; her palms were now also sweating and her breathing becoming faster. ‘I think I’m having an anxiety attack’ she thought ‘I need a paper bag’. Looking around she tried to form a plan for when he stopped the truck. ‘Why didn’t I just stay in my car?’ she lamented.

Big Fred climbed out of the truck on his side, went to the back door of the cab behind and opened that one. Meanwhile Marie went to open her door to get out, quickly unbuckling her belt and moving towards the handle, but it was locked. Her heart was racing and she grabbed a tin mug from off the floor near her feet – the only thing hard enough to hit him with. “Can you let me out?” she called, panicking now.

“Hang on a minute sounded the voice of Fred”. She could hear his heavy footsteps, and she cowered against her side of the cab. Abruptly and forcefully he yanked open his door, and as he did so, Marie let out a small squeal.

 She didn’t know what to expect, another man, a gun or knife? She thought her life might be over soon and felt tears prickling her eyes. ‘I want my Mum’ she thought at that moment and put her head down, averting her eyes from seeing whatever, or whoever it was with Fred.

“What do you think of this guy then?” he called to her and she looked up.

In his hands he had a little black and white puppy. “After you’ve stretched your legs do you think you could hold on to this little guy for me?” he asked “It’s for my daughter’s birthday but I was hoping that  being so little he might have slept all the way! Hop out and stretch your legs first though…… oh sorry I have the door lock on” and he flicked it off.  “I take my little girl on short road trips sometimes and I make sure the door is locked. I’m really sorry about that”.

Marie was in shock and her shoulders slumped in relief. A puppy in Fred’s arms was the last thing she thought she would see.

The feeling that someone wasn’t out to hurt her, and she was safe was so overwhelming that she began to cry. Wiping away her tears with the back of her hand she sniffed and took in a few deep breaths.

“Oh what’s wrong? Asked Fred, concern in his voice “Surely you can’t be scared of a dog this small? He laughed.

Marie thought quickly of a good reason for the tears “No I used to have a puppy like that one – well it grew into a dog and I had him for years. I miss him, that’s all. Silly I know” and she climbed out of the cab to stretch her legs.

She didn’t like lying but she knew how ridiculous it would all sound if he knew the truth.

Climbing back into her seat and taking the warm bundle from Fred to settle it on her lap, she knew that she would possibly nod off now for the next couple of hours.