James Chase - There’s a Hippie on the Highway

Harry rubbed his hand over his face, feeling the stubble of his beard. He hated sleeping in his clothes although during his time in the Army it was an accepted thing but he had never got used to it. He longed for a shave, a cold shower and coffee.

‘Let’s stop at the first café. We’ll wake the girl up and see where in Miami she wants to drop us.’

‘I’m going to miss this car,’ Randy said regretfully. ‘There’s a café coming up now.’

The small wooden building with its glaring neon sign was just off the highway. Lights showed in the windows. As Randy slowed, Harry glanced at his watch. The time was 05.15 hours. He grimaced. A hell of a time, he thought, to wake up.

As Randy pulled up, Harry opened the door.

‘I’ll get a couple of cartons of coffee. You wake her up.’

Randy smirked.

‘It’ll be my pleasure. You know something? I really think you don’t dig for dolls.’

‘Oh, shut up!’ Harry snapped. He wasn’t in the mood for Randy’s corny humour. He went into the café.

A sleepy looking negro was behind the counter. He regarded Harry without enthusiasm.

‘Two cartons of strong coffee,’ Harry said, coming to rest at the counter. ‘Black, and lots of sugar.’

‘You want doughnuts?’

Harry didn’t, but he thought the girl might and he was sure Randy would.

‘Four, please.’

He watched the negro pour coffee into the wax containers. The smell of the coffee made his nose twitch. He lit a cigarette, coughed as the smoke bit at the back of his throat.

The negro put four doughnuts into a paper sack.

‘Ain’t you afraid of lung cancer, mister?’ he asked as he pushed the sack across the counter.

‘Does it scare you?’ Harry asked, taking a dollar from his billfold.

‘I don’t smoke.’

Harry stared at him,

‘So why should you care about me?’

The negro blinked, shrugged and took the dollar.

‘And thirty cents.’

Harry added the money and as he picked up the two cartons, he heard the horn of the Mustang give two sharp bleeps. He frowned picked up the sack of doughnuts and walked quickly to the door.

Randy was sitting behind the driving wheel. As soon as he saw Harry, he made an urgent gesture to hurry.

Harry crossed to the car and stared at Randy through the open window. One look at Randy’s pallid, sweating face told him something bad had happened. He didn’t wait to ask questions. He opened the car door and slid into the passenger’s seat and slammed the door.

Randy sent the Mustang racing along the highway. He was practically standing on the gas pedal.

‘What is it?’ Harry asked quietly, ‘and cut your speed. Do you imagine you’re on a racetrack. Cut your speed!’

Randy shivered. He passed his hand over his sweating face, but Harry’s quiet firm voice steadied him. He eased the speed down to 65 m.p.h.

‘She’s dead,’ he said, his voice quivering. ‘There’s blood on the blanket and she’s as stiff as a board.’

Harry felt a little jolt inside him: a small, controlled explosion of shock. The first sight he had of Randy’s face had told him it would be bad, but he hadn’t expected it to be this bad.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he said, his voice even and quiet. ‘Pull up! I’ll take a look.’

‘We don’t stop on this highway,’ Randy said wildly. ‘The cops start patrolling any time now! I’m not going to be caught with a body! They’ll think we killed her!’

Harry’s face tightened. He hadn’t thought of that possibility. Yes... if a cop stopped them and found... He stamped down on a tiny spark of panic and extinguished it.

‘You’re sure she’s dead?’

‘I’m sure. I knocked on the door and there was no answer so I tried the door and it opened,’ Randy gulped, swallowed, then went on. ‘She was on the lower berth, covered with a blanket. There was a smell in there that turned me over. Then I saw a smear of blood on the blanket. I nearly flipped. I called to her, then leaned in and took hold of her arm. That was enough for me. It was like catching hold of a lump of wood.’

Ahead of them, Harry saw a turning with a signpost that read: ‘Beach. Safe Swimming.’

‘Turn off here,’ he said, ‘and cut your speed.’ He looked into the wing mirror. The highway was deserted.

Randy slowed and steered the car and caravan down the dirt road. They drove in tense silence for about half a mile. The road opened out onto a vast stretch of golden sand, surrounded by shrubs and hillocks. Some two hundred yards beyond the hillocks was the sea.

‘Pull up here,’ Harry said. ‘The caravan will explain what we are doing. Anyone seeing us will think we’ve spent the night here.’

Randy stopped the car by a grass-covered sand dune. He began to shake as soon as he tinned the engine off.

‘Get hold of yourself,’ Harry said sharply. He thrust a carton of coffee into Randy’s shakes hand. ‘Drink some of this!’

‘I can’t. I’ll throw up!’ Randy moaned.

‘Come on!’

Randy stared with revulsion at the carton. Losing patience Harry slid out of the car.

‘Stay here. I’ll take a look.’

He walked over the soft sand to the rear of the caravan. He paused to look right and left. The two miles of beach was deserted except for a few gulls walking by the surf. The grey had gone out of the sky now and the yellow and red were dissolving into a soft blue as the sun began to rise.

He took out his handkerchief, put it over the handle of the caravan door and turned it, pulling the door open.

The smell of death he had lived with for the past three years came out of the caravan making him grimace. He could see a huddled form, completely covered by a grey blanket, lying on the lower berth. There was a long smear of dried blood on the lower end of the blanket as Randy had described.

Harry stepped into the caravan and lifted the blanket, drawing it back and letting it drop.

He looked down at the face of a man well into his fifties in spite of a thick thatch of dark brown hair: a thin, sun burned face with a small beaky nose, a mean lipless mouth and ice grey eyes that stared up at Harry in a terror that remained in spite of death.

The right side of the face carried a livid bruise. The sharp, yellowing teeth revealed by the lips drawn back were bloodstained and gave to the dead face a snarling, animal defiance.

Harry shifted his eyes and looked quickly around the caravan and then into the top bunk. The dead man was the only occupant.

‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ Randy quavered. He had come around to the back of the caravan, but was standing well away from it, watching Harry with sick, scared eyes.

Harry stepped out of the caravan and fumbled for his pack of Camels. He lit a cigarette, noting his hands were rock steady. But then, he thought, he had lived with dead, stinking bodies for so long: another was merely a problem.

‘She’s gone... it’s a man,’ he said and drew in a deep lungful of smoke.

A light breeze that sprang up to herald the sun, wafted the smell of death to Randy. He paled, turned away and began to vomit. Harry walked to the Mustang, found the carton of coffee and drank deeply. The lukewarm coffee cleared the taste in his mouth. He leaned against the side of the car, holding the carton, his mind busy.

From the moment he had caught the girl in the lie that she had been driving eighteen hours, he had been uneasy. He should have trusted his instinct and have tackled her as soon as he knew she was lying.

Shrugging, he went to where Randy was now sitting on the sand, holding his head in his hands and stood over him.

‘Did you stop any time while I was asleep?’

Randy looked up.

‘No. I kept moving the whole time. Has she gone?’