I squinted out the windshield of my semi-truck, white-knuckling the steering wheel. It was so beat-up that fake leather hung off it in shreds. Driving rain poured down on the truck as I sped down the interstate. It was pitch black outside, and with the rain, visibility was next to nothing. I fucking hated when this happened, when it rained like this when I had a truckload of dairy and speed—hidden in plastic bags submerged in full milk cartons—thumping around in the back. I had a time limit, goddammit, and I couldn’t be late. Not again, or what happened to Jimmy would happen to me. And I had a family to get back to. Not a family so much as a woman. Not my wife, the one I got with after my wife. Her name was Nancy. She had fat thighs and talked too much, but we would smoke in bed together after sex. It was nice. I think I might’ve loved her. 

I slid my gaze from the road to the glove box, where I’d taped a picture of my kid taken just before the end. She was in a hospital bed, a headscarf wrapped around that little skull, and her eyes were so bright. She was five. She didn’t know what death really meant, what it would do to me and Joyce. How our marriage would dissolve. Now Joyce had the house with the room our daughter had lived in all her life, the backyard with the tire swing, the dog we’d bought together, and what did I have? Jack shit. 

I turned on the cruise control and groaned as I rolled my ankle. How long had I been driving? Felt like an eon or two, but the clock said 1:09. More like 1:04. The clock was fast, and I’d never cared enough to change it. That made it right at twelve hours since my last break. Five hours to go. I’d gone farther without a stop.

The trailer skidded a little to the left. I didn’t bother adjusting the wheel. If death was meant for me that night, there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it. I’d stopped believing in anything a long time ago, after my daughter died. Scratch that. I believed in money, that it could solve my problems—if I could ever stop blowing it on lottery tickets—and in the tradition of a nice, stiff drink after work, but that was about it. No higher power or whatever people said existed somewhere up there above the clouds and looked down on me. The thought creeped me out. Someone, a god or my ancestors or whoever, had watched me do everything? Had seen what I’d done for money, had watched me risk what little I had left to drive coke and molly across the country for a small cut of what the bigwigs at corporate were getting? 

I imagined some guy who lived a thousand years ago with a comically large beard sitting on a cloud, shaking his huge head at me. I looked up and flipped my theoretical ancestor the bird, and was suddenly angry at myself. Why was I doing that? I wasn’t some schizo idiot. I didn’t think I was, at least, but maybe that was the truth. It didn’t matter; the ancient jackass wouldn’t be able to see me through the rain and dark clouds, anyway. Enough. Get a hold of yourself. 

I’d veered into the other lane while thinking about the cosmic joke. Some asshole honked at me and sped past me in his fancy ride, but I didn’t look to see who it was. I knew. It was some yuppie white man in fucking loafers off to his warm home in the ‘burbs. He had a dog and a kid, a live one. Maybe he was having an affair, and that’s why he was on the road so late. I smiled. 

And then I saw it in front of me like it was happening again. Jimmy was on the ground, his brains blown out and blood spattered on the warehouse wall. I hadn’t realized just how much blood was in a person, but I looked it up later. Supposedly it was only only a gallon, but Jimmy must’ve been some kind of medical wonder, considering it looked like at least two gallons of it

pooled around him and soaking into his shirt. My shirt. I’d lent it to him once, and Jimmy hadn’t ever given it back. 

I suddenly felt sick, like someone was twisting my guts around. I glanced up at an exit sign, but the picture of Jimmy’s body was still right there in the front of my mind. I shut my eyes and opened them real fast when I realized what the sign had said. Exit 120. Fuck. 

I swerved onto the exit ramp just before it was too late, the tires skidding over the wet road. I slammed on the brakes and the truck came to an easy stop. I made a right onto the narrow back road, like always, and began the final leg of the trip. 

I went on for a while before I drove under a streetlight. The windshield was covered in bird shit, but I could still see something in the middle of the road. I kept driving, though, and then there was this popping sound. The truck pulled to the left. I swerved to the right. A flat at this time of night on this creepy-ass road was just what would happen to me. I found a gravel driveway just up the road and parked. 

I sighed and opened the creaky door, then went around to the front, where the flat tire was. Rain soaked through my shirt. I thought of Jimmy. I bent down to look at the tire, and realized six or so of them had been punctured, all on the same side of the truck. I stood back up, rain dripping down my face, and then I knew. They were after me, that group my boss always vaguely referred to as “them,” as in “They’ll kill you if you let them.” I always imagined them as a group of guys from one of those old-timey movies dressed in all black who were supposed to look like bullies, but just looked stupid. 

I turned and looked through the trees all around me, packed solid as concrete. The woods were so dark, and my headlights were the only light source—the single streetlight I’d passed was a half mile back. I turned to climb back in the truck to get my gun.

I heard a gun fire, and I was on my back on the ground. Who’d been shot? It felt like someone hit my head with a fucking hammer. I sat up and touched the back of my head. It was sticky. I looked at my bloody hand and collapsed back onto the gravel. 

They say your life flashes before your eyes just before you go, but all I saw was my little girl’s face. I looked up at the black sky, suddenly wishing to whatever was up there that there was something after death, that I would see my daughter again. And I would finally get my shirt back from Jimmy, the thieving bastard.