The Hitchhiker

Anne was a single 29 year old with a successful career in photography. Her passion of capturing life’s moments frozen in time ensured her own would never be still, always on the road for her next assignment. Luckily, her father’s residence in New Mexico would at times provide the perfect refuge for impromptu family reunions between gigs.

Living in Arizona most of her adult life, Anne’s father, Joe, had moved after the accident which took her mother’s life. Everyone complimented Anne on her uncanny resemblance to her mother, Donna. At five foot 6 inches tall, fiery red hair, and freckles gracing her ivory skin, Anne would be pursued, but never caught.

Anne was promiscuous to the tenth degree; she loved the excitement of someone new, his smell, his taste, the unknown, even if it would only last the night. Her friends always felt she pushed the envelope; she was even labeled by some as a risk taker. She didn’t care though, and really thought it more of a compliment than anything else.

Packing for her next assignment, Anne’s iPhone blared out an annoying alarm one imagines as a submarine begins to submerge.

The Hitchhiker

“Hi dad, what’s up?”

“I received your email, so you’re gonna be passing through here tomorrow?”

“Sure will, and…I’m taking a full two days to spend with you.”

“Great! ‘Bout time you stayed longer than a nights sleep. Have you planned your route? I don’t want you taking any back roads…you hear? Stay on the freeway, OK?”

“Oh dad, I’ll be fine…I’ve made this trip many times before, and will be making it many more to come…and anyways, I only take I10.”

“Just be careful hon, I tell ya, it’s a crazy fuckin’ world…and you’re all I got left. Lord knows if your mother was still…”

“I know…I know, but I really have to finish packing if I’m going to make it to your place in time.”

“OK, be safe and give your old man a call sometime along the way…just to let me know your safe, OK?”

“You know it pops!”

“Love ya, AnnaBannana!”

“Love you back…times two, Joe..kster!”

Anne hung up and tossed her phone onto the bed that never gets made. Memories of her mother singing the phrase AnnaBannana would always bring a smile to her lips, no matter how she really felt. Even though it had been 20 years since her mother’s accident, she never talked about it with anyone, not even her father.

It was too painful for her.

Crossing the border into New Mexico at 2AM, Anne was traveling along 70, not I10 like she promised her father. The road seemed desolate, not another vehicle in either direction and far from the lights of the city. She didn’t mind, it was relaxing with all the brightly lit stars above.

The pavement now humming under her tires, an overwhelming feeling of restlessness sent waves through her skin. Then she saw him. A lone figure on the side of the road, arm outstretched, thumb signaling for a friend in the dark, she knew she had to pick him up, this hitchhiker.

Climbing in the car, the lone stranger introduced himself as Dan as he placed a beat up guitar and a back pack onto the back seat.

“Well Dan, my name is Anne…and you’re pretty lucky that anyone is driving at this time.”

“Yea, I know…must be my lucky night, huh?”

“Could be,” Anne replied with a hint of flirtatious desire.

“Nooo, you don’t understand, it isss my lucky night,” Dan retorted with a sinister, animalistic glance.

As the tone in Dan’s voice implied danger, the 10 inch bone handled knife now brought it home.

“If you want to live you’ll do exactly what I say, understand, bitch? Now drive.”

Numbness overtook Anne, unable to speak let alone yell, this reaction Dan had seen before, surmising she was in total shock. A grim smile on his face now gave away the dark and ugly intentions that he had in store for her, this will be an easy one, he thought silently.

Driving for only a couple miles, Dan now motioned her to take a right off the road onto a dirt road. Anne, complying, imagined what scenario Dan planned for her. At the end of the road, there was a small but secluded clearing.

This was the end of the road.

As the car came to a stop, Dan reached over and grabbed the keys.

“Get your ass out, now!”

“What do you want, I’ll do anything…”

“What do I want…what do I want…what the hell you think I want…I want you doin what the hell I say, and only what I say…now get out!”

“Are you the…”

“The wha…the West Mesa killa? So what if I am, when I’m done with you, you’re gonna beg me to finish the job,” Dan spoke coldly as he struck Anne in the head, knocking her to the ground.

As Anne came into contact with the hard ground, something changed. Looking up at her attacker, a something wicked this way comes sort of look made its way from her face into his soul.

“What, you like it rough?” Dan asked, perplexed by the apparent joy his helpless victim was now exuding.

“No, I’m just glad I finally met ya is all.”

“Wha…”

“I’ve been dreaming about this,” Anne snarled, lifting herself up, pointing a nickel plated 45 that reflected a sliver of the moonlight into Dan’s eyes.

“Now throw your knife over there,” she demanded, motioning to the other side of the car.

Speechless, or possibly in shock himself, Dan threw the knife.

“Now lay on your stomach, you piece of shit!”

Laying face down in the dirt, Dan’s mind was racing for an answer out of this predicament. Somehow, someway, he knew his instinct for survival would deliver him from this. What he didn’t count on is Anne’s desire for revenge was greater.

“Bet you didn’t expect this, did ya tough guy?”

The smell of her perfume, her lips grazing his ear, Dan’s senses were reeling as her words taunted him. Then the clink of handcuffs sent shivers through his scalp as she cuffed his right wrist to his right ankle, and the same for his left side. It was at that moment Dan realized the hunter was really the prey.

Anne sat down, a glassy stare aimed at this wretched thing society calls a man. Her thoughts turn to the ‘accident’ of her mother. How she was raped, tortured, then beaten to death when she was only 9 years old. How the only time she can reveal her feelings about it is right before she extinguishes the life from another pathetic excuse of a person that preys on defenseless women.

“This is my therapy, you know? When I’m able to take one of you off the streets for good…it makes me happy again…for a while.”

Anne would rape the ear of her would be murderer with her story for the next hour.

An excited Joe answered the door to his only daughter, standing there beaming a huge smile. Hugging, Joe couldn’t help but see his wife whenever he looked at Anne.

“How was your trip Banana?”

“Awesome, I even ran into someone I’ve been looking for for a long time.”

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