The playlist shuffle had shuffled beyond music that he liked, he needed a coffee and a piss. So dark out here he could pull over and piss anywhere, but there weren't gonna be any coffee spots.
He missed Aaron.
Aaron would be looking for live animals in the dark woods, and empathetically counting the dead deer on the side of the road and trying to calculate what they weighed and how many homeless people they could feed.
Nick Lazwell had no idea if his son's calculations were correct, but he had never gotten a math question wrong, ever and he would start 6th grade next fall.
Gravel shot from underneath Nick's tires and he steered more toward the center of 122.
Lots of twists on this road.
Got paranoid he'd clip a car on the other side, though he hadn't seen one for 20 minutes.
Decided to hug the gravel shoulder.
Saw a live deer bound across 122. Big one. He'd have to tell Aaron.
On his right, 50 yards up there was a dead one.
Nick wondered how his son calculated the venison ounce portions for the homeless population in his head.
Nick hit the brakes as hard as he had ever hit them in urban traffic.
Not a dear at all.
A person in a Carhartt. Same damn color as a whitetail.
Nick pulled the car over and ran back, too shaky to put the car in reverse on a road like this.
Nick saw movement.
Thought he might have imagined it.
Hit his flashlight on his phone. The man was moving, barely, trying to rollover.
No cars.
No reason a person should be out here.
Not in jogging clothes…
Call 911 dumbfuck, Nick screamed internally.
They would ask him the nature of the emergency.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Jimmy Doom's Roulette Weal to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.