A Ride
Featured in ⭐️Top in Fiction⭐️ weekly magazine. "She's standing alone beside the dark, empty highway ••"
Thank you Erica Drayton and The TiF Team for featuring this story on 7/20/26 in your ⭐️Top in Fiction⭐️ Weekly Magazine!
There are very few signs of life so late at night on this particular ribbon of asphalt through Texas, no nearby towns. But as he approaches the junction of Rte 180, he catches in his headlight someone standing by the side of the road, a woman, he thinks. He slows down to have a look. She doesn’t have her thumb out; she’s just standing there on the verge. What the hell? What’s she doing out here? Alone? In the dark? Her eyes follow him as he goes by.
Earlier this evening, he’d sat in a diner, over a cup of coffee and a pork chop, watching the sun set behind the Robledo Mountains. He’d ridden for eight solid hours out of Laredo, and was weary to the bone — every muscle was vibrating. Against his better judgement, he’d checked into El Hombre Loco roadside motel to catch a few hours of sleep. Turned out the room was disgusting, even by his standards. His bare feet recoiled at the feel of the crusty shag carpet. The sink was rusty, the shower moldy. The satin bedspread should have carried an STD warning. Spiders were hanging, hungry, in all four corners of the ceiling. He slept fitfully for maybe three hours, then he gave up and just got back out on the road, continuing west under a wide midnight sky.
He tore through the empty landscape for about an hour, not wasting any time. He’d promised his friend, Beaner, that he’d meet up with him in Tucson late Monday. But now — this woman? Why’s she out here so far from everything? He continues past her for about a hundred yards, then pulls over and looks back. She’s still standing there. He decides to turn around to go see if she’s in any trouble.
She steps back off the road as he approaches, and he sees she’s wearing a large overcoat slung over her shoulders. Buttoned at the throat, it hangs loose and wide around her knees like a cape. She’s pulled a brimmed hat down over her dark hair. A small day pack slumps in the dust at her feet.
“Howdy, ma’am,” he says, and she nods. “I just wanted to be sure you’re all right out here. Do you need anything?”
“Help?” she says.
“What are you doing out here alone? How’d you get here?”
“Get here?”
“Ah … okay. So, not much English, then. Well it’s all right. Can I offer you a ride somewhere?”
“Ride, yes.” She picks up her bag and walks up to the Harley.
“You ever been on a motorcycle, ma’am? You could sit back here, see? I’m heading for Arizona. I could take you a good long way.” Her face is strikingly beautiful, large dark eyes, pale skin. She looks like she hasn’t slept in a while.
He ties her pack onto the top of his saddle bag and points to the seat and the footrests. She climbs up behind him and he gives her a minute to settle in.
“Hang on tight,” he says.
“Yes. Tight.”
Her thighs now press against his hips, her hands firmly latch on to the waistband of his jeans. He feels her breasts against his back, senses her breath on his neck. There is a sweet scent of oranges. Awkwardly, his anatomy begins to betray him, a sudden spontaneous reflex. He’s pulling out onto the highway, accelerating rapidly, when two more arms emerge from her overcoat and cling to his body, and sharp, delicate teeth sink into the flesh of his ear.
He shivers and braces himself for their only possible fate — a weird, dark ride.
Compelling read, but NAH..... Sits sour in the brain.
A weird DARKNESS of a ride, but a space where the darkness and light of the soul are both revealed!