by Rob Smales
His favorite. Ruby Red.
“Give . . . me a . . . scream . . . lover!”
He did.
Edith Hammond saw the girl hitchhiking on Route 1 in Ipswich, and she just had to stop. Edith was seventy-two, and people said she shouldn’t drive anymore, but her eyes were still good enough to see that the poor girl was wearing cast-off clothes. Her jeans were too big, and that blue spring jacket was far too large for her. They didn’t look like something a young girl would wear; not at all. She almost looked as if she were wearing her father’s clothes.
“I don’t usually do this, dear, but I just had to stop for you,” said Edith as her Buick pulled away from the curb. “A young girl like you shouldn’t be out here alone, hitchhiking! Where are you going?”
“I’m going to Spreewald, Maine, but as long as you can take me north, that’s fine.”
“You need to be more careful, dear! You can meet some dangerous people out here on the road, you know.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Valerie Redfern replied, a small smile playing across her Ruby Red lips. “I am aware.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ROB SMALES is the author of Dead of Winter, which won the Superior Achievement in Dark Fiction Award from Firbolg Publishing’s Gothic Library in 2014. His short stories have been published in over two dozen anthologies and magazines. His story “Photo Finish” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and won the Preditors & Editors’ Readers’ Choice Award for Best Horror Short Story of 2012. Most recently, his story “A Night at the Show” received an honorable mention on Ellen Datlow’s list of the Best Horror of 2014, and was also nominated as best short story by the eFestival of Words in 2015. More about his work can be found at RobSmales.com, thestoryside.com, or on Facebook at facebook.com/Robert.T.Smales.