Chapter 1: Chapter 1

Nothing good ever came from starting a conversation in a gas station bathroom. It broke at least three unspoken rules, but not acting would have broken a bigger, more personal one. Chance stepped over a puddle of liquid on the old tiles that could have been either beer or piss – judging by where he was, it probably would have tasted the same.

“Excuse me?” Chance asked, clearing his throat as he came to a stop a healthy few feet behind a large man wearing a stained white shirt that was only half covered by the ill-fitting leather jacket over its top.

The man, who still had his hands on the front of his pants, craned his head back to look at Chance with beady eyes in disbelief. A ratty hat sat askew on his head, and several weeks of stubble flavored with Cheeto dust covered his face.

“Yer kidding me,” the man said. “I’m taking a piss. Screw off.”

Chance cleared his throat and held up the wallet he’d picked up only a few minutes before. “You dropped this.”

The large man fumbled with his pants, zipping them up with a sharp motion. He swore, yanking the zipper back down and hopping from foot to foot in pain for a few seconds before properly rezipping them.

“That’s not mine,” the trucker said.

“Yes it is,” Chance said with a frown. “It fell out of your pocket when you walked in here.”

The trucker snatched the wallet from his hands and flipped it open. “Huh. Guess it is. Didn’t realize that was me today.”

“I’m sorry? Ah, never mind. I’m sorry for bothering you. I hope you have a nice day.”

Chance turned to head back out of the bathroom. A meaty hand fell on his shoulder and his stomach twisted. That wasn’t good.

“Hold on,” the trucker said. “I been a bit rude. It would have been real bad if I lost that. Can I get you a drink?”

Dad did always say not to turn down a gift offered up in kindness.

“Okay, if you’re sure about it. You really don’t need to pay me back or anything, it’s what anyone would have done.”

“That’s what everyone says, but not what everyone does,” the trucker replied. He took his hand off Chance’s shoulder and washed his hands in the stained sink. “Name’s Bob.”

“Hi Bob. I’m Chance.”

God, did I really just say that? It sounds like I’m at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

Bob didn’t comment on it. He shut the water off and wiped his hands off on the front of his shirt – probably the most cleaning it had seen in weeks – and ambled out into the gas station. Chance trailed after him, already regretting his decision.

Each step sent a tiny pang of pain through him. The ill-fitting shoes he’d been wearing for the past year didn’t agree much with him, judging by the blisters covering his feet.

“Whaddya want?” Bob asked, stopping in front of the liquor isle. “It’s on me, kid.”

“Ah, I don’t actually do alcohol,” Chance said, rubbing the back of his head. “Family history. Would milk be okay?”

Bob stared at him. Then he let out a grunting laugh. “Kid wants milk. Sure, I did say anything.”

He grabbed a bottle of beer for himself, then snagged one of the small cartons of milk from the fridge behind it. Bob ambled over to the self-checkout, scanning the drinks. The screen lit up with the total of seven dollars and fifty cents. He swiped his card through the scanner.

The machine buzzed, a red error screen flashing up on the display. Bob’s eye twitched. He tried a second card and earned himself a second error.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Stupid thing doesn’t take card?” Bob asked, cursing under his breath and leafing through his wallet. “Stupid piece of shit. I hate this place. Only good thing they have is booze.”

Damn it. But he tried to do something nice for me, I can’t just not help.

“Here,” Chance said, sliding a ten dollar bill into the machine’s reader. It ate the money and let out a cheerful ding, indicating the change had been dispensed at the bottom. A single quarter rolled out.

“Wait, I was supposed to be buying you something,” Bob said as Chance plucked the single coin and stared at it.

“And I was supposed to get more than one quarter as change.” Chance laughed. “Oh well. It happens. You can just pay it forward somewhere along the road.”

Bob frowned, picking his beer up. Chance scanned the store, but there was no sign of a cashier. He hadn’t even seen any cars parked outside the gas station, so he’d been mildly surprised to enter and see the wallet falling from Bob’s pocket as the trucker walked into the bathroom.

“No cashier,” Chance said. “He’s probably on a smoke break or something.”

“Well, shit,” Bob said. “I got no paper.”

“You mean cash? That’s fine,” Chance said. “Don’t worry about it. It was only a few dollars.”

Bob grunted. “I suppose so. You headed anywhere?”

“Nah. Just killing time, I guess,” Chance said. Despite the trucker’s intimidating appearance, the man was oddly easy to talk to. If Bob just got rid of the omnipresent smell of processed cheese hanging around him, it could have been a normal conversation. That, of course, would have been far too easy.

They walked out of the gas station and Bob sat down on a bench, gesturing for Chance to join him. With a shrug, he did.

Not like I’ve got anything better to do.

“Shouldn’t you be in an academy or something?” Bob asked, flicking the cap off his bottle and taking a large swig. Chance carefully popped open his milk carton, making sure not to spill a single drop.

“You mean high school? I already graduated. And I’m not going to college – don’t have the money.”

“You just bought me a drink.”

“That was a few dollars,” Chance said with a laugh – but not one hard enough to make him drop his drink. There was very little that would cause Chance to spill milk, especially when it was a rare treat. “College is a lot more expensive than that.”

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“Never heard of saving up?” Bob asked, giving him a yellow-toothed grin.

“I’d be saving forever. Hard to keep money when you don’t have anywhere to put it,” Chance said, rolling his eyes. He’d long since gotten over the fact that he wasn’t going to be going anywhere far in life. You needed resources for that – and he had none.

“You look a little young to be having nowhere,” Bob drawled. “Stick it under your bed.”

“Don’t have one,” Chance said. “I’m a free spirit.”

Bob lowered his beer, studying Chance for a moment with his small, dark eyes. “You mean you ain’t got no home.”

“That’s one way to put it.” Chance shrugged, preparing a line he’d said dozens of times to people that wanted to ask a few too many questions. “It happens. The recession hit hard. And a truck hit my parents harder.”

“Really? What make?” Bob asked, his expression becoming unreadable.

Now that isn’t the response I was expecting.

Normally, that put an end to the awkward questions. Nobody had asked him what kind of bloody truck had been the one to mow through his parents, flattening their tiny car and killing them both.

“I – I’ve got no clue. Why would I know that?”

“Ah. Weren’t there yerself then.”

“No. I would have been dead if I was,” Chance said. At least Bob wasn’t pitying him. He hated that more than anything else. “Lucky me.”

They drank in silence for a few minutes. Then Bob let out a loud belch.

“What are the plans now, kid? Just gonna free spirit it around for the rest of your life?”

“Until something happens, I guess,” Chance replied. “I could get a job, but I don’t really want to join the rat race – not that I’ve got the education to get anywhere in the first place.”

“Tell me about it,” Bob said. “Bureaucrats. Politics. It’s the absolute worst. Bunch of assholes at the top, I tell you.”

Chance laughed. “Do you deal with a lot of that in your job?”

“More than you could ever imagine.”

Bob tipped the last of his drink into his mouth. He squinted into the bottle and sighed, tossing it into the trashcan behind them. He studied Chance for a second, something unreadable passing through those tiny eyes of his.

A shiver ran down Chance’s spine as goosebumps across his skin. That didn’t feel right, but he couldn’t quite place why. He still had a fair amount of his milk left – Chance always savored his milk – so he took another small sip.

“You don’t like it here, do you?” Bob asked. His voice was different – deeper, like he was speaking from lower in his chest.

“I mean, it’s not the worst,” Chance said. “I’m alive and here. That’s more than most people.”

“What if you didn’t have to be?” Bob asked. “Here, that is. What would you do?”

“That’s a dangerous line of thought, I think,” Chance said carefully. “I mean, if I’m dreaming about what could be, I’ll never enjoy what is. My dad taught me to be content and optimistic, no matter what happened. I think those were good rules to live by.”

“And he got trucked,” Bob said, but it didn’t sound like he saw that as a particularly negative thing. “Sounds like a good man.”

Is Bob trying to imply that only good people get hit by trucks?

Chance shook his head. The unease died in his chest as soon as it arose. Bob was a little weird, but he knew that the trucker didn’t mean any harm by it. The man was just a little awkward.

“He was. I miss him and my mom every day. That’s why I try to live how they did. Maybe I’m patting myself on the back, but I think I’m doing a good job.”

Chance looked at the ground, where the cap of Bob’s bottle laid near his feet – bent almost perfectly in half. The tiny flick the trucker had given the cap had nearly sheared it in two.

“But what if you had a shot to take another shot at things somewhere else, where you actually had control over your life?”

“What, like if I had magic powers? Or if I was just rich?” Chance replied. “That sounds amazing, to be honest. I guess I’m ‘free’ right now, but it’s not the same as being free. I’d love to be able to just do whatever I wanted. But that isn’t how life works. You deal with the hand you’ve been dealt, and you do it as best as you can.”

“Look, kid. I hate this job most of the time. It’s just quotas and awful, bumpy rides. I know how you feel, but I feel for you. Enough to do a little work off the clock. Thanks for making my day a little more interesting.”

“No problem. I should probably get going, anyway. It was nice meeting you, Bob.”

Bob didn’t respond. Chance blinked. There was no sign of the trucker. All that remained was the faint, lingering scent of cheese. He looked around, baffled. Then his eyes caught on the bent bottlecap on the ground.

Okay, not a hallucination. But where the hell did he go?

Chance knelt and picked the bottlecap up, turning it over in his hand as he tried to make sense of what was happening. He grimaced as light reflected off the shimmery cap and straight into his eyes.

It wasn’t the light that Bob had been putting off. It was too bright – too focused. Chance’s addled brain spun to life and he jerked his gaze up, right into the twin beams of a semitruck that was hurtling toward him.

It was strange. As death hurtled toward Chance, going well over fifty miles an hour in the middle of a barren parking lot, his brain seemed to pick out the oddest details. The squeal of rubber on cement. A tiny, angel shaped ornament hanging from the rearview mirror. The spilled milk seeping into his shoes. On the grill, a license plate read GODTRCK.

The horn blared, and in the window, Bob raised a hand in a sharp salute, a grin crossing his flabby face. Then the truck hit him. There was a flash of pain, and Chance knew no more.

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