The truck cab stank of smoke and sweat; the trucker’s nerves showed through white knuckles and twitchy eyes.

“That girl spin some kinda story?”

The hitchhiker didn’t reply. The hollow-eyed girl from the truck-stop was nothing to him, her face already lost amongst countless others.

“She tell you I…got grabby?”

“No.”

The trucker breathed a sigh of relief but didn’t relax—his knuckles no less white, eyes moving like an off-time metronome.

“Nice jacket—I’d have my own but my unit was in basic when the war ended.”

“Huh.”

“That patch—you one of those experimentals? Don’t see too many guys fought at Drumhead.”

The trucker licked lips like two fat worms, pig-eyes narrowed to tiny beads.

“Sell it?”

“No.”

“Aw, come on. Guy like you could use the cash. Howbout a grand?”

“Not for sale.”

The trucker reached out, nicotine-stained fingernails brushing the mission patch that had killed so many men.

“Watch the road—hey!”

The big rig jumped a curb and jackknifed, and on the far-distant horizon C-ville burned.