The driver shakes his head and tries to lift himself up from his seat, where he’s almost slumped off into unconsciousness. He knows he’s losing it. The ghostly visions –of Paula, of himself coming home to find her, and yes, even of the hitchhiker, distorted by moonlight as he draws a revolver to the girl’s face - they come with every prolonged blink of his eyelids. He can’t keep his eyes from closing, but that doesn’t stop the driver from bringing the brunt of his rage down on the hitchhiker.

“Fer Chrissakes! Ya coulda killed the woman!” His face cannot match the animation of his words. It maintains the same gray mist as that shrouding the road, hanging just over its surface out in the distance.

“Hey, it’s not like I put a gun to her head.”

There’s a flash like lightning. It’s briefly illuminates Paula’s blank face. It’s a gun shot, and her face vanishes along with the light.

“Dozen matter.” The driver notices his rage quickening. There’s something about the hitchhiker that is able to stir up all the fury that has otherwise been compressed and contained by an overriding exhaustion. It’s a rage saved not only for those he hates the most, but for those he knows enough to hate so murderously. The feeling is so overwhelming, the driver feels that he must know the hitchhiker from somewhere, though he is sure that he would remember that goofy mug and ridiculous flop of sandy hair if he had ever seen it before.

The driver is tempted to ask, and he almost gets the words out, but doesn’t know where to begin. He will reveal whatever scraps of his own story he has to; but he can no longer fight the urge to crack this wayward passenger open, dissect him, and size him up, so the driver can know exactly how much of a sick-o he’s dealing with. Most of all, the driver finds himself overcome with the desire –no, the necessity- of stopping the hitchhiker right here and preventing him from going any further.

It’s not merely a case of having ‘a bad feeling’ or even more simply ‘not liking the looks’ of someone. It’s corporeal. Every nerve-ending in the driver’s body twitches at once. They scream out in a primal and violent recognition of danger. He throbs with it: to save himself, and his mission, he must get rid of the hitchhiker. Does he even need to know why?