Free Serial by Jack Kilborn and Blake Crouch Page A

school? What do you do for a living? Where you headed? When’d you start hitchhiking? Invariably, the conversation turned to him.
    “So what’s your name?” Brett asked.
    “Donaldson.” No point in lying. Brett wouldn’t be alive long enough to tell anyone.
    “What do you do, Donaldson?”
    “I’m a courier.”
    Donaldson sipped from the Big Gulp container in the cup holder, taking a hit of caffeinated sugar water. He offered the cup to Brett, who shook his head. Probably worried about germs. Donaldson smiled. That should have been the least of his worries.
    “So you mean you deliver packages?”
    “I deliver anything. Sometimes overnight delivery isn’t fast enough, and people are willing to pay a premium to get it same day.”
    “What sort of things?”
    “Things people need right away. Legal documents. Car parts for repairs. A diabetic forgets his insulin, guy loses his glasses and can’t drive home without them, kid needs his cello for a recital. Or a kidney needs to get to a transplant location on time. That’s the run I’m on right now.”
    Donaldson jerked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing to the backseat floorboard. Brett glanced back, saw a cooler sitting there, a biohazard sticker on the lid.
    “No kidding, there’s a kidney in there?”
    “There will be, once I get it.” Donaldson winked at the kid. “By the way, what’s your blood type?”
    The kid chuckled nervously. Donaldson joined in.
    A long stretch of road approaching. No cars in either direction.
    “Sounds like an interesting job,” Brett said.
    “It is. Perfect for a loner like me. That’s why it’s nice to have company every so often. Gets lonely on the road.”
    “What about Neil?”
    “Neil?”
    Brett pointed at the photograph on the dashboard. “Your dog. You said he rode with you sometimes.”
    “Oh, yeah. Neil. Of course. But it isn’t the same as having a human companion. Know what I mean?”
    Brett nodded, then glanced at the fuel gauge.
    “You’re down to a quarter tank,” he said.
    “Really? I thought I just filled up. Next place we see, I’ll take you up on that offer to pay.”
    It was a bright, sunny late afternoon, clean country air blowing in through the inch of window Donaldson had open. A perfect day for a drive. The road ahead was clear, no one behind them.
    “So seriously,” Donaldson asked, “What’s your blood type?”
    Brett’s chuckle sounded forced this time, and Donaldson didn’t join in. Brett put his hand in his pocket. Going for a weapon, or holding one for reassurance, Donaldson figured. Not many hitchers traveled without some form of reassurance.
    But Donaldson had something better than a knife, or a gun. His weapon weighed thirty-six hundred pounds and was barreling down the road at eighty miles per hour.
    Checking once more for traffic, Donaldson gripped the wheel, braced himself, and stood on the brake.
    The car screeched toward a skidding halt, Brett’s seatbelt popping open exactly the way Donaldson had rigged it to, and the kid launched headfirst into the dashboard. The spongy plastic had, beneath the veneer, been reinforced with unforgiving steel.
    The car shuddered to a stop, the stench of scorched rubber in the air. Brett was in bad shape. With no seatbelt and one hand in his pocket, he’d banged his nose up pretty good. Donaldson grasped his hair, rammed his face into the dashboard two more times, then opened the glove compartment. He grabbed a plastic zip tie, checked again for oncoming traffic, and quickly secured the kid’s hands behind his back. In Brett’s coat pocket, he found a tiny Swiss Army knife. Donaldson barked out a laugh.
    If memory served, and it usually did, there was an off ramp less than a mile ahead, and then a remote stretch of farmland. Donaldson pulled back onto the highway and headed for it, whistling as he drove.
    The farm stood just where he remembered it. Donaldson pulled off the road into a cornfield and drove through the dead stalks until