Narrative #4

The young gardener felt a cramp build in his raised right arm. His thumb was extended out over the road, pointing off behind him. He had been standing in the same spot for hours and desperately needed a ride home. He would take a ride in the pack of a dirty pickup truck at this point.

His dark hair hung in dirty locks over his grimed face, sweaty after a hard days work. The night sky was thick and starless, the moon hidden behind a saturation of clouds. It even seemed the crickets were noiselessly suffocated in the humid solidity of the evening air.

The gardener leaned his body on his large, industrial chainsaw he used for work. It was half the size of his body, and the gardener was not a small man. It could saw through an oak in under a minute and was one of his most prized workman’s tools. It was a bright yellow and would shine in the light, which was terribly lacking at the moment.

A car, a van from what the gardener could gather, was about to pass. He looked hopefully at the approaching headlights, gesticulating his hitchhiker’s thumb rapidly back and forth, and for a moment the van appeared to slow, break lights lighting for a brief moment. The moment, however, was indeed brief, and the van sped back up and out of sight over a hill behind him. The gardener let out another sigh. Why would no one give him a ride? He thought he looked pretty legit.

A motorcyclist stood not two hundred yards away from the gardener. Actually, it would be a stretch to refer to him as a motorcyclist, for his motorcycle lied in a smoking heap by a tree a dozen or so feet back. His head light was slowly waning, the bulb needing to be replaced and the corner he stood at appeared to come out of nowhere. His face was scraped rather badly because of the bark of the tree but overall he was unhurt. He had a large metal bat he was using as a makeshift crutch while he waited for some help to drive by.

He had been at the local biker’s softball game and for the first time since he had been playing, his team, the Devil’s Rejects, had finally beat out the Road Demons in seven innings. He had even hit the homerun which brought his team victory. The Road Demons even walked over and shook his hands to congratulate him. Such nice people, those Road Demons.

Up the steep hill in front of him, he saw a car, perhaps a truck or van of some sort, climb over the apex of the bump. He smiled a bloody, toothy smile as he swung the bat over his shoulder. For the second time that night, the van began to slow, but only for a moment. It quickly curved down the left hand turn and sped off into the night’s darkness. The biker was crestfallen.

He thought he looked pretty legit.

Leaning on a large metal sign, the man who looked like a business man stood nonchalantly, arms crossed in front of his chest. His tie was slightly uneven but besides that there was not one thing amiss on his body, from his well polished shoes to his perfectly slicked back hair. In his hands was a large black briefcase.

The man who looked like a business man decided that, being such a lovely night, he might as well kill some people before heading off to bed. The sign above him, large and in all capital letters, warned, “PRISON AREA: DO NOT PICK UP HITCHHIKERS”. He occasionally straightened out his stolen suit or let out a tired yawn and figured if a car full of dimwits didn’t pull over soon he was going to forget this whole murder business for the day and rent a motel room. He may even be able to kill a prostitute if he spies one on his way home. That was always a treat.

Just as he decided tonight was not the night, headlights emerged around the corner to his left. He smiled, briefly thanked the Gods above, and slowly stuck out his thumb.

The van’s break lights flashed on for a second, then flashed off. However, this time they turned on once more and stayed alit as the van slowly stopped at the side of the road.

The smiling murderer who looked like a business man picked up his suitcase, which contained several sharp instruments that could to really nasty things to nice people, and approached the van, leaving behind his post under the large metal sign. Out of the open window, he heard the sound of a bickering couple.

“You know,” came an annoying female voice, high pitched and rather whiney, “they say it’s not a good idea to pick up hitchhikers. You saw how sketchy those other dudes looked.”

As the man opened the back door of the van, the man responded, “Don’t worry, babe. This guy seems pretty legit.”