Roadside Assistance
Greg gently angled the steering wheel with his free hand to help his pick up glide through the bend in the road while he turned the radio up louder than he prefered it. He heard the nasally voice of the talk show host rambling back and forth with an equally annoying caller about some half-baked alien government conspiracy shit. Heard, not listened. The radio at this time of night was more for survival than entertainment. He tried to rub the exhaustion away from his eyes while keeping his truck just inside of the worn-out yellow line. Jim had promised there wouldn’t be any more of these fourteen-hour days. Look at the fucking good that had done.
“I’m getting too old for this shit,” Greg muttered. He swallowed a yawn and reached for his phone in the—
His headlights hit something bright on the edge of his lane and he instinctively jerked the steering wheel to the left and kicked his brakes hard. Rubber squealed as his trick spun out. Trees filled his windshield, and he braced for impact.
The truck somehow stayed upright, now on the shoulder of the opposite side of the road. Clenched tight on the steering wheel, his hands tried to tremble. He just kept staring ahead. The shoulder ran for another ten feet or so before dropping off into a treeline. He easily could’ve been at the bottom over there wrapped around one of those fuckers.
Deep breath. Eyes closed. Deep breath. Eyes open.
“What the fuck was that?” he breathed. He punched the center of the steering wheel. “What the fuck?!”
He listened to the echo of the truck’s horn for a moment, feeling the veins in his neck pound. After four or five tries, he finally flung the door open and tumbled out of his seat as it bounced on its hinges and back into him. He kicked it shut.
He tried to mentally place what the hell had been in his lane, had almost killed him. An animal? A fucking garbage bag? He’d rip the animal with his own hands. Hell, he’d rip whoever had littered the shitbag. His boots thudded with a pleasing murderous sound as he pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and flipped the flashlight on. Scanning it across his original lane, his eyes fixated on the yellow tarp now completely on the shoulder opposite him.
It moved in his light.
He stopped on the yellow line in the road. It wasn’t blowing in the wind. It was movement.
“Hey!” he barked. It didn’t turn toward him. He took a couple steps closer.
If it were an animal, it had to be nearly dead. He realized he wasn’t looking at a tarp. It was a raincoat.
And that’s when he made out the shape. Somebody was shuffling on hands and knees along the road. He took another step, this one cautious. The heat still flared in his face, remembering the glance with death moments before.
“You okay?” It had its head turned away from him looking along the ground. “You almost fucking killed me. What’re you doing?”
Its hands were frantically rustling through the grass. Greg was nearly on the shoulder himself, trying to calm himself enough to not kick this idiot to death.
“Answer me,” he demanded, trying to sound threatening. “I’ve got a gun.” He didn’t have a gun.
That gave the shape pause. It turned its head straight into the beam of the flashlight. “Forgive me, stranger. I’m looking for my token. I lost it right here.”
A woman. Greg couldn’t place her age on account of the poor light and the yellow hood that obscured most of her face. “That doesn’t change the fact that you nearly sent me flipping right into those trees. And why the hell are you wearing that coat?”
She stood suddenly, grasping something in her hands.
“What’re you holding there?” Greg couldn’t quite make it out. Surely it couldn’t be a weapon.
“My token,” she said, matter-of-factly.
Greg kept the light shining in her squinting face. “Uhhuh. Why the hell are you out in the middle of nowhere? Where’s your car?”
“I don’t have one.” She sounded distracted. “I...haven’t had any instructions in a while, so I don’t know where I’m going now.”
“Where were you headed?” he asked.
She looked down the road and back toward him. “Where do you live, stranger?”
“Uh, down the road a ways. Now answer one of my questions, will you? You’re acting fucking weird. Where were you headed before you ran me off the road?”
She pointed. “Just down the road a ways. Like I said, I’m not sure what’s happening.” She placed whatever was in her hand near her ear and then shook her head.
Greg took two steps back toward his truck. His phone said it was 4:37 a.m. and he didn’t have time for this shit. No time for freaking strung out bitches in raincoats crawling hand and foot on the side of the road. All he wanted was to be in bed, god dammit.
“You got friends down that way?” He pointed toward the direction she’d indicated. Toward his house.
“Yeah, I do. They live not too far from here, actually.”
He sighed. There were no houses between here and his, and he didn’t have neighbors for ten miles in any direction around him. So she was a nutcase. And if he left her here, which he could easily do, she would eventually make it to his home. Probably snoop around and try to steal something. Or she’d wake him up pounding on the door begging for water or breakfast or money. If he took her now, maybe he could lock her up and call the cops. At least get out in front of the crazy before she did something really insane. Other than running him off the road, of course. Truth be told, she was more than likely just tripping really bad.
“Alright, well why don’t I take you to your friends’ house?” He hated himself. He hated every word coming out of his damn mouth. “It’ll be on the way home for me.”
“Really? You wouldn’t mind doing that?” She took a step toward him.
“I mean, what other choice do I really have?” He stepped toward his truck, not turning his back to her.
“You could leave me out here, I guess. I’m sure I’ll get more instructions soon and know what I’m supposed to do next.”
“Mmkay.” What the fuck was he doing?
They made their way back to his truck still sitting with its headlights peering into the looming treeline. Greg felt running down his arms inside his coveralls. It was warm, way too warm for a raincoat.
When they shut their doors and settled into the cab, he turned the dome light on and nervously readjusted his rearview mirror. “You never told me why you’re wearing that raincoat.”
She watched him place the truck in reverse and slowly back onto the road. “No, I didn’t.”
“Was it raining where you were walking from? Wherever the hell that is.”
“No, I’m wearing it because it’s about to rain.”
“Ahh okay.” A quick glance toward the sky revealed a black blanket full of stars. No clouds. “So you live nearby or something? Just taking a walk to your friends’ house at four in the morning?”
She laughed like it he’d meant it as a joke. He quickly swiped left on his phone to check the forecast. Clear skies for the next few days. Okay, so he definitely needed to go ahead and pick out what closet to put her in.
“Oh no, it won’t show up on there,” she said.
He glanced over at her. She pointed at his phone.
“They won’t know about the rain. They couldn’t. What do they truly know anyway? It’s the great flood.”
“The what?” He checked his rearview mirror again, slightly squinting from the dome light.
“The flood. Abraham told me about it. It’ll be like Noah’s flood all over again.”
Greg winced. So she was religious nutfuck. His night was getting better and better. He could probably go ahead and call the police now and get them started this way. What could she do to him even if he did it in front of her? He glanced over her slight frame. She definitely couldn’t take him if she tried to stop him.
“Abraham. Is that one of your little friends?”
She made a sound. No words, just a quiet hum sound. “No, I wouldn’t call him a friend. A guide, maybe, but not a friend. I’m just glad I found him. I don’t know what I would do if he’d stayed lost.”
In his periphery, Greg saw her stroking the item still in her hands. It...was a coin. Wait, it was a coin. He did a double-take.
“That’s Abraham?”
She held it up in the dome light. It was indeed a penny. A leather-looking strand looped through a hole punched near Lincoln’s face. Greg had half a mind to pull the truck over right here and throw her out.
“Yes, he was the one who told me about the flood and the end coming. That’s what started me on my journey. He told me to prepare.”
“For the end?”
“Mmhmm.”
Greg kept his hand tightly gripped on the wheel. Fuck. “So you’re looking for an apocalypse type of deals or something?”
“Oh, I’m not looking for that. That’ll come either way as part of the flood. I’m looking for heaven.” She paused. “Or a way too it. Abraham tells me I still have time to get to heaven before the rain starts, but I put this on just in case I ran behind.”
The raincoat squeaked from her movement.
Greg shifted, keeping his eyes on the road. “So wait, the coin is the one talking to you about all this stuff? How do you hear it?” Just bide your time ‘til you get her in the goddamn closet.
She shrugged, producing more squeaking. “I just do. Like I’m hearing you right now.”
“When was the last time you heard it — him?”
“About a minute ago. After we got in the truck.”
“What did he tell you?”
He saw her stare out her window toward the darkness and the passing trees. Her eyes reflected back at him from the glass.
“That this truck could take me to heaven,” she said evenly.
“Right. I don’t know if that’s gonna happen.” His house was just another two or so minutes away. “Where did you say your friends lived? Wasn’t it on this road?”
“I don’t have any friends.”
Greg moved his hand slowly back toward his phone.
“Abraham said you were my key to heaven. If I don’t take this chance, I definitely won’t get there before the rain comes. And the rain is supposed to burn like fire, so I don’t want to be around for it, understand? You do understand me, don’t you, stranger?”
She turned around toward him, now holding a pistol she’d pulled from somewhere in her coat. A tickle ran down Greg’s neck.
“You’re a goddamn stupid idiot,” he said. “That’s a fucking penny, you—”
Greg heard the gunshot, heard half of it as the eruption ended abruptly before turning to a high pitched hum. Blackness descended over him like a blanket.
There were no stars.
