I was drenched in cold rain with a wet joint in my hand and a lighter in the other. I held my joint underneath my coat and was using my lighter to try and dry it.

I tried but my mission was failing. The worst was that it was beginning to roll into the early hours of the morning and no car had driven past me in an hour.

No way in hell would a driver decide to pull over and let in some drenched teenager into their car at this hour. Not unless they were a creep.

I was making my way along the rural road, with not a sign of the rain giving up. I was forced to walk along the tar seal since the dirt hills either side of the road would submerge under my footprint.

This was the time no one picked me up, it would only happen once or twice. Both times were equally as distressing as they were strange.

Something about walking along a rural road with nothing but long stretches of farm paddocks flanking either side with the reflection of deer staring at me.

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Nothing but the sound of my soaked chuck taylors quacking and the rain plummeting against the land.

After the first half hour of isolation I began to wonder if I was the only one here. Or if a killer was lurking behind a tree. Or maybe a UFO in the sky tracking me as I made my way. Or maybe I was just too stoned and I should have really saved up for a car. Or maybe I should finally quit weed.

The darkness all around me and my mind began to race and play tricks on me. I thought I saw something but then I didn’t. I thought I heard something, but it was all shoe quacks and rain.

This is the ugly side that hitchhikers don’t tell you about. Or maybe it’s what I had heard that had happened to my friend Robert.

Robert had been hitchhiking in the same spot that I had been. Three known local crackheads picked him up and got him to drive. All of a sudden they held a knife to his throat, held a meth pipe to his mouth and forced him to smoke.

Next, they ordered him to drive faster and faster and faster. Which of course he did.

In the end they booted him out at top speed, jumped into the driver seat and sped off.

Robert’s still in rehab recovering from his injuries.

Yeah, you know what? Maybe that’s the ugly side of hitchhiking.