Author Description

David Edward Trench was seventeen and hitchhiking across western Texas. He had ten dollars in his pocket, and everything he owned was in his backpack. He was wanted by the law in three states for small-time robberies, but none of that was going to matter to him after tonight. In three hours David would be dead. David looked up at the dark and threatening sky and moaned, Oh, man. Im going to really get soaked this time. A brown, long-horned steer in the pasture across the road looked up at the sound of his voice. For a brief moment they stared into each others dark eyes. The bone-thin steer quickly lost interest and went back to searching for something edible among the cacti and the west Texas dirt. David saw a jackrabbit scampering through the scrub brush. The steer ignored the long-eared creature as it hopped past. David looked in both directions of the narrow straight road. He could see from horizon to horizon, and there wasnt a vehicle of any kind in sight. There hadnt been in hours. His brain teased him with a list of what-ifs. What if the world had ended and everyone but him was dead? What if this was a dead-end highway and he was the only person on earth that didnt know it? What if he was headed straight toward some military test sight and was about to be blown up? He knew they still did nuclear testing someplace out west. He had read about it in the Enquirer. Any minute now a hydrogen bomb was going to explode, and he would disintegrate before he even had time to piss in his pants. David tried telling himself how crazy this kind of thinking was. There was just a temporary lull in traffic. That's all. This road he was traveling went to El Paso and then on to New Mexico and eventually would take him to California. There wouldnt be any bombs going off like in all those fifties B movies or killer viruses making him puke his guts out and maybe not dying but wishing he could. No. This was just a regular two-lane highway across a really big state