Monster Nation(27)

It rolled up to a stop next to her but the window didn't come down at first. She could understand that. She'd been eating out of trash cans for a week, hiding where she could. She had scrounged some clothes out of a dumpster, a pink baby tee a size too small for her and a pair of ratty chinos long out of fashion. Together they made her look like a prostitute. Her stringy hair and the unnatural pallor of her skin made her look like a junkie. People didn't pick up hitch-hikers who looked like her. Not often.

She smiled through the window anyway, bending down to try to make eye contact. There were two people in the car'two kids. White suburban teenagers, going by looks. He had a little wispy facial hair and an Oakland Raiders baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. She had a gold cross around her neck. They both wore black t-shirts, band t-shirts.

The window came down, cranked by hand. This had to be the boy's first car. He probably scrimped and saved to buy it used. He had probably installed the spoiler on the back himself'the paint didn't quite match. Nilla knew she had to be careful with what she said, with what she asked for.

'I'm heading east, to, toBarstow ,' she suggested. She remembered to smile and put a hand on the windowsill. They were less likely to take off if she was already in contact with the car. You learned these things after a week on the road.

The boy looked her up and down, studying her clothes. Her breasts and her hips.

'I don't know, Charles,' the girl whispered, as if Nilla couldn't hear her. 'Look at her.' Nilla gave the boy her best high wattage smile.

'Damn, Shar!' the boy shot back. 'Shut up! I guess we got room for one more,' he offered. He wasn't sure, no more than his girlfriend, but he had teenage hormones to contend with.

Nilla opened the back door and climbed in.





Monster Nation





Chapter Two


Limit: Two Gallons of Water per Person, due to Emergency, Please! [Handwritten sign posted at a CVS Pharmacy, Carefree, CA 3/28/05]

Nilla nestled back in the upholstery of theToyota 's back seat and chewed on a candy bar when she really wanted to swallow it whole. It was the closest thing the kids had to food.

'We were heading down toHollywood , but the radio said you shouldn't.' The girl, Shar, craned around in her seat to look back at the hitch-hiker. 'You're' you're not supposed to pick people up, either. You're not even supposed to drive unless you have to.'

It was an apology. Nilla's mouth was full, so she gave the girl a closed-mouth smile.

'Damn, woman, if I want to go somewheres I'ma gonna do it,' Charles swore, striking the steering wheel with the flat of his hand. 'I got my mind on my drivin', and my drivin' on my mind, you know what I'm saying? Shit, that's just what freedom is all about. For reals. Now see if you can find something on the FM.'

'I just get scared, is all,' the girl said, slumping down in her seat again. She didn't touch the radio. 'They say there's sick people down there. They say they're violent.'

Nilla gave a polite shrug. The girl was still looking at her in the rear-view mirror.

'They say they have glowing red eyes,' Shar finished, and then looked away. 'I get scared, is all.'

'Unh-uh, no way, I told you already, woman. I'm psycho-killer crazy. I'm mad gangsta dangerous. I'm a hard man, baby, hard enough for both of us. I'll keep you safe, Shar. I already told you that.'

He grabbed her around the shoulders with one arm and held her close, kissing the side of her forehead before he let her go again. He switched the radio on himself and they couldn't talk any more, not and be heard over the blare of hip-hop that came out of the speakers by Nilla's head. It made a strange soundtrack for what she saw out her windows'flat land covered in spotty green and yellow vegetation in the perfect rectangular fields of big truck farms. They passed the occasional abandoned oil derrick like a tired animal bending down for a drink of water and unable to get back up. Nilla saw a couple of houses that had collapsed down the middle. It looked like the ground itself had fallen away from beneath them. Nobody had bothered to repair them. She was a long way already from the bustling little town by the sea where she died and came back.

'There's a place to stop up ahead,' Shar said, sitting up in her seat. 'Are you still hungry?'

Nilla nodded hopefully. 'I don't have any money, though.'

Shar sat back down. 'Can we stop, Charles? Just for a minute? I need to pee?'