It was cool for that time of year, tolerable. The night was hidden by a hazy mist that clung to the van’s windshield. Larry almost didn’t see the kid until he was upon him—a ghost on the side of the road, neither coming nor going. Larry passed him—no hitchhikers, ever. Too dangerous these days. Maybe once, when he himself was a kid, but not now, not after Nixon, after Oklahoma City and Osama bin Laden. He’d spent over a decade on the road, one of the last hardy traveling salesmen, a dying breed he called himself, and he’d survived as long as he had because he didn’t pick up hitchhikers. Common sense kept you alive.

But a habitual glance in the rearview mirror caused him to pull over. Something about the slump of the figure’s shoulders suggested youth.