The smooth ease of the engine, its steady vibration, abruptly changed. It was just enough for Cassie to notice. At that, she sat up, disoriented. Something was different, but what?

Outside, it was still dark. The car’s interior hadn’t changed, dimly lit by the dashboard. And her husband was as handsome as ever.

“Something wrong?” Rick said.

“I don’t know,” she said, looking at the clock on the car stereo. “I thought I slept longer than that.” She cleared her throat. “Is there something wrong?”

“No, nothing really.”

“Then, why are you slowing down?”

Rick downshifted the stick again. “Well, I’m worried about the car.”

She sat up a little taller in her seat, alarmed, seeing the concern in his eyes. “What? What’s wrong with the car?” Cassie glanced at the dashboard, half expecting to see some light flashing.

Rick followed the direction of her eyes to the gauges. “No, nothing like that,” he said with a slight laugh. “I just started thinking about the shaving cream all over the car and remembered how bad it is on the paint job. It’ll ruin the finish.”

“Oh…” Cassie peered out the windshield at an enormous shaving cream heart on the car’s front hood. “I didn’t know that. So, what do we do about it?”

“Hopefully, we’ll find a carwash open in the next town. Then, we can wash it off and cross our fingers that it hasn’t damaged the paint.”

Cassie glanced down at her wedding dress. White satin, layers of chiffon, covered with lace and beads. And she realized that her romantic notion might now be a problem. Carwashes weren’t exactly the cleanest places to wear a wedding dress.

It was always her dream to arrive at the hotel dressed in white. And that was their plan. They would arrive at the hotel with Rick in his tux and her wearing her dreamy dress. They would spend the first two nights in Sedona, Arizona, halfway to the cabin. And then the remainder of their honeymoon at Pinetop.

Sadly, they hadn’t planned on leaving so late from the reception. But unfortunately, their wedding guests had done plenty to complicate their escape, like covering the entire car with shaving cream. So the two of them were still facing a four-hour drive when they left Las Vegas. Now, in the middle of the desert, despite the late hour, they had to wash their car. And Cassie knew that meant rethinking her dreams. “You need to pull over,” she said flatly.

Rick’s eyebrows rose slightly. “What? Why?”

“I just need you to…pull over.”

“Out here? In the dark?”

“Yes... Somewhere where I won’t be seen, farther out in the desert. I need to take care of something.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Rick eyed her with shades of disbelief and a blank stare.

“I need to change out of my dress.”

“Why?” he said.

“Because you’ll need help washing our car. And I will not do it in my wedding dress! So, I need to change!”

“I can do it by myself,” Rick said emphatically. “You don’t even need to get out of the car.”

Cassie gave him a sweet, almost serene smile and tilted her head. “Rick Stone... and his wife will be washing their car together.”

He focused on the road ahead and frowned. “I know that tone. Especially when you smile at me like that,” he said, not taking his eyes off the road as he let out a breath. “You can be so stubborn, Cassie... But I know better than to argue with you.” Rick fidgeted in his seat.

“Good, so find me a place to get out of this dress.”

“Right... We’ll pull out at a ranch exit.”

Cassie’s eyes softened as she leaned back into her seat with a grin. The one thing she wanted to do was to make sure that her handsome hubby knew that she was no pushover. And that the two of them were a team, and she was by no means an empty-headed blonde. But that’s when it occurred to her what he said. So, she asked, with a questioning glance, “Wait a minute... What’s a ranch exit?”

Rick glanced at her, raising an eyebrow. “Seriously? Don’t you know this?” Rick grinned at her. “It’s an exit for ranchers.”

Cassie shot him a cold stare but knew he was getting back at her for being pushy and smiling about it because she got her way.

“Okay,” he laughed, “calm down. You’ve seen those overpasses along the freeway that farmers and ranchers use to get to their property. They’re pretty private most of the time. But sometimes truckers use them to catch up on their sleep.”

Cassie looked out her window at the desert night. “Not on the ground, I hope.”

“No,” Rick said. “They have a bed in their sleeper cab behind the driver’s seat. Most ranch exits are pretty deserted, though. It’s the only place I can think of where you can change.”

“Well then,” Cassie said, doing her best to sound excited, “rancher’s exit it is!”

It wasn’t long until Rick pointed out a concrete off-ramp to an exit. But as they got closer, she saw semi-trucks lined up on it, one tractor-trailer after another, with their rows of red lights shining. “You know,” she said, “I never really noticed that before.”

“Kind of cool looking, isn’t it?” he said.

“Yeah…” Cassie turned in her seat as they went under the overpass, seeing more semis lining the off-ramp. “So maybe the next one will be more private?”

“Maybe,” Rick said, “What the hell is this guy doing?”

Cassie quickly turned in her seat to see his concern. A dark box truck was next to their car, keeping pace. It had no running lights or even headlights, no lights of any kind. “Where did that come from?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “As we drove under the overpass, it just appeared.” Rick took several nervous glances at the truck, trying not to lose track of the road. “The damn thing is entirely black!”

Cassie leaned in and squinted hard at the dark vehicle. “You mean—”

“I think every inch of that thing is painted black!”

The box truck deliberately began veering into their lane. And in response, Rick steered his car into the next road.

A wave of terror went through Cassie like an ice storm. “Doesn’t that guy see us?”

“He sees us just fine,” Rick grumbled. “The jerk is playing chicken with us!”

Cassie imagined Rick’s car off the road, reeling smoke, and them trapped inside it. “What are we going to do? Can you go faster?”

“I am already going faster! It just keeps speeding up, staying with me.” Rick gasped out excitedly, pointing to the other freeway lanes headed in the opposite direction. “Do you see that?”

“What?” she said.

A police car blew by at high speed, going the other direction, lights flashing. As it passed, Cassie noticed that the black-box vehicle was gone. “Hey! Where did that weird truck go?”

Rick strained to look back over his shoulder. “I don’t know!”

“It just vanished?” Cassie leaned into Rick’s shoulder, her heart outpacing her breaths. She would have wrapped herself in his arms if possible. “What just happened, Rick?”