A/N: OMG guys I'm back! I am SO sorry that my last update was OCTOBER 6TH 2011. I realize I'm one of those authors; the kind that let their stories sit in purgatory while others are patiently waiting for them to update.
Anyways, I want to formally apologize for my long hiatus and just let you know that I NEVER STOPPED THINKING ABOUT THIS STORY. I had written bits and pieces of a 3rd chapter but 1) I spilled water on them and, 2) they were terrible. Then I had worked on it on my old computer and then, guess what? Techies "cleaned" my computer and deleted everything and then fried my motherboard. I had to start from scratch with EVERYTHING.
Now there's some things I need to get out of the way. Let me dust off my writing skills, polish the Disclaimer plaque and then we can get this show on the road!
DISCLAIMER: I do not own The Hitcher, its characters, its canon dialogue or plot. I am just using the main character and my OCs (which do belong to me) for my own entertainment purposes.
So without further ado, I present to you the newest chapter of Animal I Have Become.
Quick P.S. I feel like this chapter is pushing us closer to a relationship between John and Cat. 3 Woo hoo!
Please enjoy it! I'm sorry it's a little short, I have to get used to writing again, especially such long chapters with these characters. I send you my love.
John couldn't stop thinking of the unusually kind girl he had met seemingly so long ago, although it'd been just around 3 days. Even when he was taunting and torturing people, his mind was busy thinking of her He didn't understand why. It wasn't normal for him to be so caught up in some... girl.
Just the fact that he didn't kill her was a huge surprise.
His mind was miles away every day. Every time he asked for a ride, every cut he inflicted on smooth skin, every threat he sang out was far away. His conscious mind was flittering around with that brunette woman in the black Volvo.
No. This wouldn't do. He didn't like her. He couldn't. It was unnatural. He chalked it up to frustration. It was just the thought of a woman that had him feeling strange. Who knows when the last time he'd rolled around in bed with some sweet, pouty-lipped girl was? He tried to remember but nothing surfaced. Perhaps it'd been longer than he originally thought.
He couldn't tell if he was turned on by the thought of her under him, bleeding and crying with a blade pressed against her throat, or just the thought of her. Either way, it was getting annoying. He tried to distract himself by killing more often, faster, slower, slicing and dicing and stabbing and sticking, but no matter what he did, her face was in his mind. It was starting to make him angry. Why her? She was so average. She didn't have that big of breasts, she wasn't incredibly thin, she held her arms awkwardly, her hips were... okay, her hips were pretty nice. But she wasn't over-sexualized in any way. She looked like an average girl – she looked like a nice girl, and that was the rub. He knew he'd never be able to get her.
But how did he want to get her? Get her in bed? Get her in line with his knife? Get her back into his life? He just knew that right now, he wanted to get her out of his thoughts.
100 miles away, Cat had met up with her friends at a small hotel and were heading to the beach. The sky was overcast and a wind was picking up, but they all figured that it was the best time to go. Everyone had cleared out of the beach once the sun disappeared behind gray clouds, so they slipped on their sandals and trudged down the sand, eager for a few splashes in the water before they were rained out. As she kicked her foot out and splashed Ryan, she noticed someone else on the beach. She stared at them for a while, straining her eyes to see who they were.
They wore heavy, dark clothes with a scarf over their head. They stood on the grassy hill that gradually sloped down into sand. Their skirt billowed in the growing wind and she swore she heard a sob carry over towards them. Ryan rushed at her, splashing water everywhere and grabbing her by the shoulders. She nearly toppled over and turned around to cup water in her palm and throw it in his face.
"Oh! In the face!" Amy shouted from a few meters away, laughing. Ryan wiped his face off with his own wet hands and spit into the water.
"Yeah, come on over here Ames and see if you think it's so funny when you get a face full of sea water."
"It's not sea water," Cat dragged out, "stop being so dramatic."
"I will as soon as you stop causing so much drama."
Cat rolled her eyes playfully and turned back to look at the person, who she gathered was a woman, standing still in the wind. She held their hand to her face, a white tissue rippling along her nose. Ryan tried to get Cat's attention but she just shrugged him off. He scoffed and pouted, "Rude!"
"No, Ryan, shh."
"What?"
She nodded at him then pointed towards the woman. It appeared she hadn't noticed them yet for she was still gazing forward out to the water. Ryan squinted, leaning forward over Cat's shoulder.
"Who's that?"
"I dunno. But... I think she's crying."
"What? That's ridiculous. You don't cry at the beach. The beach makes everyone happy."
Cat elbowed him in the ribs and cast a glance at him, "Ryan, this is serious. She's wearing black and she's crying. She probably just came back from a funeral or something."
"Should we go talk to her?"
"What do we say?"
"I don't know. Sorry for your loss. Did you bury them at sea?"
"Ryan!"
The sound of excited splashing drew their attention to Amy who was waddling towards them as fast as the water would allow. She finally reached them, panting and red-faced.
"What's going on guys?"
"That lady over there."
"Over where?" Amy whipped around to survey the beach. Cat started to point but she noticed she was gone.
"What? Oh. She's... gone?"
Amy glanced at her, "Are you sure there was a lady?"
"Yeah I'm sure. Ryan saw her too."
"Saw who?"
"The lady."
"What lady?"
"Haha very funny Ryan. You're such a comedian. Don't make me feel like I'm crazy."
"You don't need any help in that," he shrugged. Cat crossed her arms and sighed heavily.
"That's so weird, though. She was right there," she pointed towards the grassy knoll, "on that hill. She was like.. wearing a lot of black and was crying. She looked like she was from a funeral or something."
"Like the lady in Jaws?" Amy queried.
"Yeah... I guess. I mean I …" Cat pressed her lips together and glanced at the deeper water. "Well now that you've mentioned Jaws..."
"Uh, hey guys? I just … might have felt something against my leg... You … wanna get out of the water?" Ryan asked, raising his fist to his mouth.
Amy and Cat exchanged glances before both muttering, "Yes!"
Cat sat on the hotel bed cross-legged, flipping through various channels. The farther she went, the more static-laced the channels became. Finally it was nothing but white noise. She sighed and turned off the T.V. Amy came out of the bathroom, drying her hair off with a towel. Ryan was laying in the bed next to Cat's, spread out and staring at the ceiling.
"So, Cat. You never did tell us. How was your drive up here? I hear it's a pain from where you were coming from."
"Oh yeah. It was okay... I mean, I didn't get into any accidents."
"Did you see any?" Ryan asked from his bed, raising his arms up and rotating them out of boredom.
"No, I don't think so. Wait. Yeah, there was one. Like halfway here I saw a bunch of police cars with their lights on surrounding this one kind of turn off place at a field. They were surrounding some little car and they had roadblocks around the right lane so they had to slow down traffic."
"Wow. Did you see what happened? Why'd they do that?" Amy piped up.
"I dunno. I tried to see what was wrong. They had so many officers there and an ambulance. I thought it was a wreck or something, like they went off the road, but the car looked fine. The paramedics weren't in too big of a hurry either, so..."
"Jeez. That's so weird."
"I know."
"Maybe it wasn't an accident," Ryan stated aloud, still looking at the ceiling. "At least not the kind we're thinking of."
Cat and Amy looked at him. "What are you talking about?"
"You guys know the legend right?"
Cat gave a suspicious glance towards the blonde girl who shook her head in return.
"No... what legend?"
"The legend of the hitchhiker?"
The girls were silent and stared at the boy. He sat up quickly, suddenly charged with energy. "You guys seriously mean you don't know the story of the hitchhiker?"
They both shook their heads.
"Oh man. Oh man, oh man, oh man, oh man." He leaped off the bed and began pacing around the room. He had his hands to the sides of his face and he stared at the ground. "Ooooh, you guys don't know!" He sounded giddy.
"No, we don't," Amy replied, dropping the towel to the floor, "so tell us!"
Ryan gave a knowing laugh and stood in front of the bed. He motioned for Amy to sit and she did, wiggling around to make herself comfortable.
"Okay, so legend has it that there's this hitchhiker who is like totally crazy."
"... like every hitchhiker," Amy added slowly.
"Yeah, but no. This guy is like super crazy. He likes to carry around a pocketknife. He pretends that his car has broken down or something real sappy that a nice person will help out with. Then he hitches a ride with them and then, when they're driving in the middle of nowhere, he slashes them."
They both remained silence. Ryan stared at them wide-eyed with excitement. Finally Cat spoke up.
"That's it? He just … slashes them?"
"Yeah."
"I don't understand how that story is so important to us."
"Okay, first of all it's not a story," Ryan defended, "and second of all, he's been working around here lately."
"You mean recently?" Amy hissed, her voice thick with worry.
"Yes! There's been so many abductions and murders around here lately – in Texas and Arizona and I just … you guys we're right in the MIDDLE of his hunting grounds!" Both girls felt goosebumps prickle their arms and legs.
"What do you mean 'hunting grounds'?" Cat asked warily. Ryan grinned at her, clasping his hands together .
"Okay, so you know how serial killers sometimes work in a certain area? Like around a landmark, like a river or a water tower or something? Well, this guy, since he hitches, is usually around the same area because he kills his ride before they get to where they're going. So he tends to be in the same area, until someone takes him out of state. So, with all of these mysterious car accidents, I am guessing we're right in the middle of it all."
Cat stiffened her jaw. Amy leaned back to get a pillow, sat up and threw it in Ryan's face.
"Why are you so happy about this?" Amy questioned angrily.
"Relax," Ryan huffed, hugging the pillow to his chest, "I'm sure we're all safe. I mean, none of us are dead, right? And none of us saw any hitchhikers, right? None of us gave any rides to hitchhikers, so I'm sure we're all perfectly safe."
Amy and Ryan continued bickering as Cat sat in stunned silence. She felt cold all over, goosebumps all along her spine. She had seen a hitchhiker. She had given a ride to a hitchhiker. Yeah, she was still alive, but … Did she tell him where she was going? She strained to remember, but it was too far away to recall. No, no, no. She was alright. He was a nice man. He had asked for a ride because his car had broken down, just like Ryan said he'd say, and he had casually chatted with her until they reached the motel. He didn't pull a knife out, he didn't threaten her. He had smiled at her, right? And he laughed. Crazed murdering psychopathic pocketknife-wielding hitchhikers didn't laugh or smile or chat around.
It wasn't him. That was it, simple and plain. It wasn't him. He wasn't the mystery killer. He wasn't a psycho. He was nice and kind and handsome.
"I can't believe you guys haven't heard of him before," she heard Ryan say, "he's been all over the news since like, forever."
"Well sorry I don't watch the news," Amy cried.
That was good. Cat watched the news sometimes. She didn't recall any specific "killer hitcher" story on the news bulletin, but she might have recalled a police sketch or photo if there'd been one. Maybe a passing glance between changing channels... His face wasn't familiar to her, though. What was it? John. Right. John didn't look like a murderer. He looked...
"Hey are you okay?"
Cat snapped out of her thoughts and turned her head up towards Ryan. He was staring intently at her, worry etched across his face. She licked her lips and nodded.
"Yeah I'm fine. Um... turn on the news, maybe they'll have something about this guy." Cat remembered that she had the remote and grabbed it off the bed, switched on the TV and surfed the channels until a crackling news report appeared on the screen. She increased the volume, the reporter's voice cut through with static.
"But more on that story at 10. Four highway murders in the last week and two abandoned cars found driven off the side of a road have police officers scrambling for answers and looking for a murderer. The Highway Hitcher has been at it again, slaughtering a family 10 miles out of a tiny town in Texas and moving on to another unsuspecting group of people. It is unknown how long the Highway Hitcher has been at work, selecting his victims and leaving their bodies in the cars they had picked him up in. There have been strings of murders from Maine to California and every state in between but still police have no idea who or where this stranger is.
"Every time police believe they are close on his trail, they discover that the I.D. the man used had been stolen from a previous victim. As of now, there is no way to know the current name of the Hitcher and audiences are cautioned to not pick up anyone, regardless of their apparent need. A composite sketch has been created. The information was given to us by a cashier at a service station between two small Texas towns. The sketch showed here is what we believe the Highway Hitcher to look like. There has been no photographic evidence or video footage of the man and the composite is from a single eyewitness account. If anyone has any information, or if you see a hitchhiker and you are unsure of their nature, please do not hesitate to call us at ….."
The voice faded out as the three stared in silence at the charcoal sketch splayed across the screen. Amy gripped her hands tightly in her lap, Ryan sighed heavily and turned his eyes away but Cat continued to stare. It … kind of looked maybe similar to the man she had picked up. But not really. Same heavy brow and short hair. But the drawing's chin was too sharp, too pointed. His jaws were too angular. His eyes.. She shuddered. His eyes were too cold. They looked dead.
It wasn't, she decided. It wasn't him. She wouldn't let it be. It couldn't be.
"..at?" Ryan looked at her, waving a hand in front of her eyes. She blinked a few times and looked at him.
"What?"
"Are you okay? You look super pale."
"I'm fine," she murmured.
"I don't think you are. You've been spacing out lately. Is there something wrong? Is it this whole hitchhiker thing? I didn't mean to scare you, I just thought you should know."
"You scared her, Ryan! And me too." Amy punched his arm but he took no notice.
"Cat? I'm really sorry if I scared you. But you really ought to know these things. I don't want you going around picking up strange people and giving them rides. They could be this guy, you know?"
She nodded wordlessly. Amy leaned over and pulled Cat into a tight hug, "It's okay Cat. We're all safe here. We have locks on the doors and windows and it's not like anyone's going to break into a cheap hotel anyways. Especially not out here."
Cat exhaled sharply and nodded, forcing a smile. "Thanks. I feel so silly for worrying. Honestly... who would come all the way out here to this hotel and break in? It's just ridiculous." She bit her tongue as Ryan and Amy patted her arms and head, comforting her. She decided not to tell them that she had indeed picked up a hitchhiker along the same stretch of road that several other people had been stalked and killed. There was no need to worry them, especially since she was frightened enough for all three of them.
