When Victor woke up, the truck was still moving, which was a good sign. It was still dark out. Clouds covered the moon and stars, and combined with the thick tree line, it gave the highway a haunted forest feel.

“How long was I out?” Victor asked. He looked in the mirrors to make sure they weren’t being followed, but there was nothing.

“Maybe three hours.” Piper said.

“Seen anyone?”

“If I had, you would’ve known.” There was an edge in her voice. “You should call the guy and see what’s up.”

Victor pulled out his phone and called Gene. After a few rings it went straight to voicemail. “I’ll try again later.”

“Then do you mind finding a new place for us to park? Unless you’d rather me crash this thing from exhaustion.”

It took a few minutes for Victor to correlate their location to where they were on the road. According to the map, they were in the middle of Arkansas. They found a rest area a little bit off the highway. It was barren and the streetlights left the entire place in lowlight. It was the type of place someone would get murdered in a horror movie.

After they stopped, Piper turned off the truck and meandered to the back. She didn’t bother trying to climb up to her bunk on top. She fell over onto Victor’s bed and was out within a minute.

Victor was put on guard duty. Besides doing nothing but staring at the tiny building that held the bathrooms, he got out of the truck several times for a cigarette. Each puff was like a hit of caffeine and perked him right up. His muscles still ached from pushing the smog, but it dulled a bit with each drag.

When first light began to peek over the horizon, he called Gene again.

“Hello.”

“It’s Victor.”

“Are you guys at the second checkpoint already? Did you drive through the night?”

“Not exactly.” Victor explained everything that had happened.

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There was a moment of silence before Gene spoke again. “Well, I did say there were others who wanted our fugitive.”

“You also said this would be a quiet delivery.” Victor tried to hold back his irritation, but some of it bled through his attempted professional demeanor. “Who were those people and how did they find us?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll look into it. In the meantime you should get back on the road and get to the next checkpoint.”

“Going the same way would be stupid. We’re gonna have to find a detour to avoid them.”

“Should I remind you we’re on a schedule?” Gene said emphatically. “We’re involved with some people that I’d rather you didn’t anger.”

“I’m sure they would be equally angry if someone stole your cargo.” Victor shot back. “We’ll get it there, let me handle how.”

“Fine. Just get it there. Quickly.” Gene hung up without another word.

Victor pulled out the map and searched for any other routes they could possibly take. Altogether there were three options. The first was continuing on the highway which was obviously the fastest route, but was also the most likely one to have them found by whoever was chasing them. The other two were routes that took them off the highway. One wound around and crossed it a couple times while the other went a far bit out of their way and would add several hours to the overall trip.

“How are we on fuel?” Victor asked.

“Just enough to get to the second stop if we go the highway.” Piper said.

“Would it be far enough to get to this gas station?” He pointed at an icon on the map on the extended detour route. It had a gas station symbol and a truck, which indicated it was a place they could refuel.

Piper nodded. “We should be able to make it.”

“Then I guess that’s where we’re headed.”

It didn’t take long for the excitement of the previous night to fade away into a somewhat distant memory. Being on the road can do that sometimes. The ever spanning road acts like a hypnotist and can make everything disappear at times. Hours passed by ,and eventually Piper took the turn off for the highway. Within an hour of doing that, the scenery changed with more trees and less maintained roads.

Farther into the detour, Victor had to begin playing navigator since driving down the backroads was like a mouse in a maze. While the roads were built for two way travel, the truck took up its entire lane and spilled over into the other lane a little bit. There were a healthy dose of wonky turns that Piper had to take at a careful pace or they would’ve toppled over and a couple times there were cars that had to wait until they were clear. Aside from that, it was pretty empty.

Doing all this wasted more than enough gas, but the gas station on the map kept getting closer and closer, which was a good thing because as the sun went down, so did the dial on the gas meter. The gas meter indicated they were almost empty when they spotted the sign for the gas station. It was a little worse for wear and looked like it needed a good cleaning, but that was normal for gas stations out of the way. Trees blocked the rest of it.

As soon as they began turning into the station, Piper started yelling obscenities. The gas station was the perfect size and could accommodate their truck. The only problem was it was closed down and abandoned, and it looked like it had been for a very long time.