Gone Forever

by Scott Blade

  He said, “Get in. I’m headed dat direction for da next half hour or better.”

  I opened the door and got into the truck.

  The guy was a safe driver whenever he had a passenger in his truck—that was evident. As soon as I sat down, he returned his hands to the ten and two o’clock positions as designated by the Mississippi Highway Book of Road Regulations for Safe Automobile Use.

  No traffic behind us, yet he still used his signal like he was going to merge and looked over his left shoulder for a good long second. A safe driver. And then he hit the gas and the engine roared and the truck sped off, leaving a cloud of dust behind us.

  “What’s your name, son?”

  I twisted in my seat and craned my head as far back over my right shoulder as I could. I gave the end of Carter Crossing one final, hard look.

  Then I turned forward in my seat and reached up to grab the seatbelt. Mississippi has a seatbelt enforcement policy. The last thing that I wanted to do was get this guy a ticket. So I pulled the seatbelt out of its holster and down across my chest and clicked it into its latching mechanism.

  Then I turned to him and said, “Reacher.”

  Chapter 4

  I had made it with the guy in the old junkyard truck for about 60 miles from my hometown until he let me out. I really had no clear direction of which way I was headed, but I knew that I didn’t want to head south, the direction that he wanted to go. South would’ve gotten me nowhere because there was nothing south but rural country, the state capital, and the Gulf of Mexico. And Jack Reacher wasn’t in the Gulf of Mexico. So he dropped me off at a gas station off Highway 118, near the corner of a road called Blackwell, a big paved road, blacktop that was completely empty and with no landmarks in sight, just the gas station and flat lands, probably farms.

  I stayed at the gas station for a spell. Inside I used my debit card and bought a bottle of water and one of those gas station sandwiches, not the healthiest thing, but I was hungry since I hadn’t eaten all day or the night before. At the checkout, I stared at the roadmaps displayed in front of the counter and wondered if anyone ever bought those anymore because everyone had smartphones with Google Maps. I paid for my items and then went outside the gas station and sat on the curb. I ate my sandwich and drank from the water bottle. I drank nearly half the bottle in one gulp.

  Highway 118 ran parallel with interstate 48, which was just over the horizon, not even 100 yards from me. I figured that I would get a lot farther a lot faster if I could hitch a ride on the interstate, so I finished my sandwich and threw the wrapper into a trashcan. Then I crossed over the highway and walked to the interstate along decent roadside terrain. The grass was green and freshly cut and smelled of springtime. I walked across a large field and heard the rush of cars on the interstate, traveling fast like you would expect on a busy freeway. I heard Whoosh! Whoosh!

  Semi-trucks and big rigs hauled goods at higher speeds than the highway traffic to destinations that I could only guess at and imagine. Gas trucks, oil tankers, trucks filled with limbless trees, and two trucks filled with brand new Dodge Vipers rocketed past me, shaking the smaller, personal vehicles. The 18-ton trucks versus four-cylinder compact cars were like big kids playing with small kids. Some trucks headed east and some west, but all had destinations to somewhere, a purpose and a route. Mississippi was a state to pass through.

  I walked up a hill on the side of the interstate and began walking along the shoulder up on the westbound side. I walked with the traffic and stuck my thumb out again. I walked about six miles, glad that the summer heat hadn’t set in yet because I walked for 79 minutes straight and not a single car had even slowed down for me.

  I had retracted my thumb long ago as well as thrown away my empty water bottle. I usually wouldn’t litter, but the particular ditch that I tossed it in was filled with trash. I didn’t think that my water bottle would make much of a difference and any local wildlife that lived there were probably used to the trash.

  I walked on for another ten minutes and I’d started to think that maybe this was a bad idea. I wondered how my father had done this for so many years. Then I figured he must have used public transportation more than hitchhiking. I bet that buses were probably the way that he traveled from place to place. America had no high-speed train system, not yet, maybe one day.

  Just when I was about to give up hope on ever getting a ride, a blue Ford Fusion with a nice coat of wax glimmering in the sunlight pulled out in front of me. It stopped so abruptly that the tires let out smoke and the smell of rubber filled the air. The brakes howled as the car halted to a stop on the shoulder in front of me a good 40 yards away. I scrambled toward it. I saw that the driver must have had second thoughts because the brake lights went off at one point before I reached the car like he was about to speed off. He had probably seen me in the rearview mirror and realized how gigantic I was. Although my clothes had been relatively clean from when I left town, I still looked like something out of a horror movie. A giant hitchhiker with long, black hair was not the kind of guy that drivers preferred to pick up. Then again, these days the hitchhikers risked as much as the drivers. I had heard stories of hitchhikers getting murdered by killers who drove around looking to take advantage of lost, nomadic travelers. Generally as a hitchhiker, you were at the mercy of whatever driver was kind enough to stop because drivers could be choosers, but riders less so.

  Still I wasn’t a dream-come-true-looking hitchhiker. If there was such a thing as a drifting marauder who sought out hitchhikers to kill, I doubted that he would pick me because besides being a walking giant, I could handle myself; that was something that any idiot with two eyes could see. One look at me and you knew I was capable of self-defense with no problem.

  I didn’t want to lose this ride so I picked up my pace and jogged the rest of the distance to the car before he changed his mind. I reached the passenger door and grabbed the handle. I pulled at it and it sprang back into place, making a snapping sound. The door was locked. I paused a moment and stared at myself in the reflection of the window. The window buzzed down just enough to leave a crack. I felt the blast of air conditioning rush out as a scatter of cold air. I stooped down and the cold air caressed my face as I peered into the car at the driver.

  The guy driving had not been a guy at all, not an old man like I had met earlier, but a young, attractive girl. She must’ve been my age or a year older, but not much more than that and I doubted that she was younger than me. No way did her parents let her drive this long stretch of interstate alone if she was seventeen or less. No, this had to be an endeavor of her own choosing.

  I said, “Thanks for stopping.”

  She looked me up and down and then back up again. I could see the hesitation and the worry in her face and even a hint of fear. She had probably thought, Oh my God! What have I done?

  I smiled the friendliest smile that I could muster, showed my teeth like the ones that I had seen in dentist offices.

  Then she asked, “Where are you headed?”

  I didn’t want to scare her by suggesting that I was some sort of drifter, which technically I wasn’t—not yet. I wasn’t sure exactly what point I had to reach in order to be qualified as one, but I was sure that it wasn’t 66 miles and less than three hours of travel.

  I looked at her and said, “Oxford.”

  This made sense considering my age. Maybe she would think that I was some sort of free-spirited college student backpacking across the state, going back to school, even though I had no backpack, no luggage, and no place to carry fresh clothes. I hoped she wouldn’t notice those small details.

  It was the middle of May and the spring semester had ended, but maybe I was returning to school for summer classes after a two-week hiatus. Some kids wanted to graduate early and took summer classes, so this could make sense.

  She wore a Mississippi State University jersey. On the front of it was a picture of a cartoon bulldog, their mascot.

  “Are you a bulldog?” I asked. I c
ontinued to smile, but not too big, not enough to frighten her.

  She smiled back and said, “Sure am.”

  She had a thick Southern accent. It almost sounded cliché, like it had been rehearsed.

  She clicked the button on her door and I heard an electronic lock snick; the passenger door unlocked. I pulled the handle and the door opened. I dumped myself into the seat. It was a tight fit getting into her car. These vehicles weren’t built for a man of my size. I had to spend several seconds trying to find the latch to move the seat back.

  She watched me fumbling around for a moment and then she said, “It’s on the bottom.”

  I found the bar to the seat mechanism and pulled it up. The seat slid all the way back as far as it would go. It wasn’t enough room for me to recline, but it was enough to fit my legs into the foot well and shut the door. My knees rested against the dash, but I didn’t complain; at least I wasn’t outside walking anymore.

  I looked at her and said, “I appreciate it. I’ve been out there for over an hour. I was beginning to think that no one was going to stop.”

  She nodded and smiled and began to drive forward. She merged with the traffic, taking us off the shoulder and up to a comparable speed with the other cars.

  She glanced my way and said, “Don’t forget to buckle your seatbelt.”

  I nodded and pulled the belt around my chest.

  We rode in silence for a little ways. She was still scared of me. I saw that in her demeanor: shaking hands, nervous glances, and she kept glancing at her glove box. I decided it was best to break the ice before she pulled over and kicked me out or pretended to get gas and drive off as soon as she sent me into the next gas station for an energy drink or a water bottle or a soda.

  I said, “I wouldn’t have thought that I would get a ride from a beautiful, young woman. Isn’t it kind of dangerous for you to be giving rides to strangers? Especially ones that look like me?”

  She smiled and then she said, “I figure that I’m safer with a big guy like you than I am out here on my own. You know, because of all of the abductions in this county.”

  “Abductions?”

  “Yes. In this part of the state there are amber alerts all the time. It’s been happening for years in this county and three other ones nearby. Young girls. A girl from my school drove through here by herself last year. No one has seen her since.”

  She paused a beat and then she asked, “Haven’t you heard about it?”

  I shrugged and stayed quiet.

  “Her name was Ann Gables. She was a really pretty girl,”

  I stayed quiet.

  “It’s been happening for so long that it isn’t even on the news anymore. It was like national news the first year, but now it’s just like another girl has gone missing. Oh well. It’s just Mississippi. Who cares about them rednecks? Right?”

  I asked, “It is that bad? How long has it gone on?”

  “Five years or so. Now it’s like an urban legend.”

  “Your parents are okay with letting you drive this interstate on your own?”

  “There’s a gun in the glove box.”

  I stared at the dash, realized why she had glanced over at the glove box now.

  Then I said, “Okay. Are you sure that you should have told me that? What if I’m the culprit?”

  She smiled and said, “Nah. I knew it wasn’t you when I saw your eyes. They’re nice eyes. A kind man’s eyes. Besides I can tell that you’re too young to be the bad guy. This started five years ago. You would’ve been in junior high for sure.”

  I nodded. The thing she had said about my eyes was nice. I wasn’t used to good-looking young women paying me compliments, and she was a good-looking woman. She had that kind of coed look like she belonged at a home game somewhere, cheering on her quarterback boyfriend.

  I said, “My name is Reacher.”

  “Jill,” she replied.

  “Nice to meet you.”

  She did a double take at my name and then she asked, “What kind of a name is Reacher?”

  I said, “It is a family name. My first name is Cameron, but nobody calls me that.”

  “Okay. It’s nice. Goes with your arms.”

  “My arms?”

  “Yeah,” she said and then she glanced over at them and traced them with her eyes, a quick look over, but she made a point of making it obvious.

  I followed her gaze and stared at my long, awkward arms that led to my oversized hands. They looked like sledgehammers that were screwed onto my wrists instead of thick wooden handles.

  She looked back at the road. A grin swept across her face and she said, “Your arms. They’re so long. You must have a record arm span.”

  I stayed quiet and stared at my arms, feeling a little insecure. That was what she was telling me, what she really meant. I was a freak with tree trunks growing out of my shoulders and then she must’ve sensed my self-doubt because she reached over with her right hand and touched my left forearm, gently.

  She said, “No, I like them. I didn’t mean it in a bad way.”

  She poked at my bicep and said, “You must get a lot of girls. Girls like to feel protected. That’s why I picked you up. Honestly. I wanted to feel safe.”

  I nodded. I didn’t know what else to do. I had always been a little self-conscious about how I looked, not in a bad way, not like I had thought of myself as ugly, but I was no pretty boy. That was for damn sure.

  There was more silence in the car as we drove in the fast lane. I looked out the window and stared at the terrain as it brushed by and then I saw a highway sign that read:

  Tupelo

  65 miles

  She said, “You don’t go to school. Do you?”

  I said, “No.”

  Then she said, “So where are you headed exactly? Because I’m turning south at Tupelo.”

  “I’m going west. No particular destination.”

  “What are you, like a drifter?”

  “I’m searching for my father. I figure that he is west, so that’s the direction that I’m headed.”

  She looked at me strange and then she said, “You don’t know where he is exactly? And you’re just headed west, hoping to what?”

  She paused a beat. Then she said, “Run into him?”

  “That is 100% right. I have no idea where he is. I have no plan. Just to head west.”

  “You know west is a big place? If he’s in the United States you’re looking at like a million miles.”

  I said, “1,559,951 square miles.”

  She craned her head at me like a reflex and then she asked, “You know the exact amount?”

  I said, “The United States is roughly 3,794,100 square miles.”

  She began calculating in her head. I could see it on her face. Not an easy thing to do while driving for most people, especially with smartphones. Normally a person would pull out a smartphone, start googling and adding up numbers on a calculator app. I had seen it a thousand times. A driver partakes in a conversation, hears a statistic or has a disagreement with another person and he pulls out his smartphone and looks up the topic, even when he’s driving. The world has become a place of instant distractions and multitasking.

  She said, “If you’re taking half of that then actually you’re looking at 1,900,000 or so, not 1,500,000 or whatever you said.”

  “1,559,951. And you’re right. Half of the United States’ total square miles is 1,897,050. Close to 1,900,000. But you have to take out 674,198 square miles.”

  “674,000, why?”

  “674,198 square miles,” I said. “Because that’s the combined area of Alaska and Hawaii in square miles.”

  She shook her head and then she said, “Did you already think out all that math?”

  I shook my head back.

  “So you just know those numbers off the top of your head?”

  I nodded.

  She said, “How? What are you, like a genius?”

  “No. Far from it. I like to read and learn things…fac
ts, and I like numbers. My mother had me read every book that she could ever get her hands on. I’m from a rural town. There’s not much else to do besides learning,” I said, slightly bending the truth because the reality was I had had plenty to do back home. There was no reason to tell her that I spent my teenage years solving homicides and studying dead bodies and learning about police work.

  She nodded and said, “All of Northern Mississippi is rural. Even cities like Tupelo aren’t really that big.”

  I stayed quiet.

  She must have sensed that that was the end of the conversation because all she said was, “Good luck with finding your dad.”

  I nodded again.

  Then there was silence for a spell. I supposed that she didn’t want to intrude in my private business and I respected that about her. She was a nice girl.

  We drove on for another hour through the rest of Marion County, about 52 miles. She was speedy, but an alert and cautious driver like a lot of young people that I had known.

  To break the silence and to answer my own curiosity, I said, “Before you let me out I wanted to ask about those abductions. What are the cops doing about it?”

  “Not much. The FBI is involved, but they have been since the beginning. They came to my school the first year and handed out pamphlets and emergency numbers to call in case we saw anything. They even opened a temporary field office in Brownville. I think it’s still there.”

  She paused a beat and checked the fast lane in her side mirror and then she signaled a lane change and moved the car over, pulling left. She accelerated and the little four-cylinder car picked up speed. I felt the engine purr, not roar like a V6 or higher; it purred like a small car does, a house cat compared to a V6 leopard or a V8 lion.

  “They said that over ten girls had gone missing and all of it was in this area. These four counties I mean. That’s why we’re supposed to ride in pairs like a safety carpool, but I’ve been driving back solo. That was when my father bought me a gun and taught me how to shoot.”

  She waited like she expected me to say something back, but I stayed quiet.