As they approached town, Simon slowed the car to look inside the unattended cars that were pulled off into the ditch. They could not see in the window of the car because of the darkness.

“Can you reach into the back and pull out the emergency kit,” Simon asked Penelope. “There should be a flashlight in there. We should make sure nobody is hurt in those cars.”

“I can’t believe you still have an emergency kit in the back of the car,” Penelope said. Simon knew she meant this in good humor. She was always teasing him about how prepared he was for emergencies. While his head may usually be in the stars, he believed that he should be prepared on the earth for any potentially bad actions.

“There are two bags back there,” Simon said. “You have your standard accident bag, and the hurricane bag. Either one will have a flashlight.”

“Of course they do,” Penelope said. “If you have both bags, why wouldn’t you just share their contents? Like have only one flashlight in the bag?”

“What happens if you get into a car crash during a hurricane?” Charles said.

“Exactly,” Simon said seriously, before realizing that Charles was being facetious. “Oh, you are making fun of me, aren’t you?” Before Charles said anything, Simon continued. “Do not answer that. Of course you are making fun of me. I don’t know why I bother with the two of you. Either bag will do,” Simon said.

Penelope reached back and grabbed the turquoise green bag. She unzipped the heavy zipper and searched in the bag. It was a long bag, and she had to go through much of the supplies until she found the overly large flashlight. It was long and black and when turned on would last three days and provide a very bright light. She put aside the small crank-powered flashlight she had located first and turned the flashlight around looking for the on switch. Simon rolled down the window on her side of the car and a stiff breeze blew into the car. The air smelled slightly sour and dank. It smelled as if a rain had passed recently, but had no washed away the smells as it does in cleaner parts of the country.

Penelope pointed the flashlight at the closest car. Simon slowed down so they could get a good look inside the car. It was a late model BMW. It still had its temporary license plates. There were large scratches along the top of the back trunk. The car appeared dark blue in the light of the flashlight. Penelope raised the flashlight a bit higher to look inside the car. Simon brought his car to a full stop to provide time to examine. The light went into the back of the car and threw shadows along the front seats. At first it looked like there was a person in the back seat. It was only after Penelope moved the flashlight’s light that they realized it was a jacket hung on a hanger in the back seat that at appeared as a person. The car was empty except for the suit jacket on the hanger.

The BMW was at only a slight angle in the ditch. At this point in the road, the ditch was not as deep, and the car had been driven or pushed only partially into the ditch, leaving them high enough to see through the front windshield. Besides the jacket, the car was empty. It was difficult to see much else as the window reflected back much of the flashlight. But the car appeared clean inside.

“That cars looks like they have been here for a while,” Charles said.

“What makes you say that?” Simon asked.

“The temporary license plate expired three months ago,” Charles said. Penelope pointed the flashlight at the license plate, and sure enough Charles was right. It always surprised Simon how observant Charles was. Because he spent most of his time telling stories, he did not seem the type of person who paid any attention to what was happening around him. It turned out the opposite was the truth. He spent much of his time, even when he was telling stories, observing the world around him. For the most part, that world consisted only of the people who listened to his stories, what they wore, how they acted, how they responded to his stories. He also knew much about them. When he was alone with a person, he did not tell as many stories. Instead, he spent most of his time listening to their stories, learning about them and judging them. He liked a certain type of person, and another type of person drove him crazy. He always said that smart people are usually too smart for their own good. He believed the good people in the world were not necessarily the smart one. There is no correlation between the morality of the person and their intelligence. He would often follow that up by assuring people that the opposite was also true: dumb people were not necessarily moral either. There was no correlation, and it was ridiculous to believe that morality attached itself to either side of the intelligence coin. You were either moral, or will become moral, or you were not, and would never be moral. At least not until you changed. He did believe that people were capable of changing.

“Very clever,” Penelope said, which, to Simon, was the least clever thing she could have said at that moment. He did not love her and he never loved her. That is how he could say that she was in no way clever. Or at least that is what he would have said if she had said it. But she said something different.

“Perhaps it doesn’t hurt to get a closer look,” Simon said. He looked around the car to see who was going to volunteer. The car grew silent and everyone looked away from him.

“It does not hurt to check,” Penelope said. Simon was unsure of whether he wanted to look inside the cars. Thoughts of late night zombie movies came crashing into his head. He decided not to share those thoughts with the rest of the car. From the way they looked away from him, he was sure they had similar thoughts.

“Give me the flashlight,” Simon said. Penelope handed him the flashlight, butt first. He clicked it on and off, felt the heft of it in his palm, just in case, he told himself.

“Remember, if something goes bump in the car, make a run for it,” Charles said. It was clear he was trying to be funny, and it was equally clear that neither Penelope nor Simon found it so. Simon nodded slightly and opened the door.

He swung the flashlight around and illuminated many different cars. He glanced inside each of the cars and saw that, like the BMW, all the other cars were empty. He walked toward the BMW, leaving his flashlight aimed at the car. He did a few sweeps around the car with the light to ensure that nothing would jump out of the dark. His heart was beating very quickly, and he felt a lump in his throat. For all his bravery in the car, he did not feel very brave. There were tracks on the asphalt that led to the wheels. The tracks appeared black, as if the car had skidded before turning into the ditch. Besides the two black tracks, he did not see anything around the car. The closest cars on either side of the BMW were at least a hundred feet away on each side.

Simon approached the driver’s side of the car, his flashlight moving quickly in the dark. He turned back and saw Charles and Penelope. Both of their windows were lowered and he could see their heads hanging out, watching him searching the car. He waved in their direction, and as he did so, the flashlight’s light danced among the bushes beyond the ditch. When he looked back from his car, he thought he saw something moving beyond the ditch. His arm felt light as a rush of adrenaline flooded his bloodstream. He swallowed hard, the lump having grown bigger since his sighting. He took a deep long breath to try to calm himself. He started walking toward the ditch, allowing the light from the flashlight to sweep firs the ditch, and then the bushes beyond it.

As he approached the rear of the car, he brought the flashlight to bear on the back bumper. He bent down and took a closer look at the mark on the ground. It looked as if the car had tried to stop hard before hitting the ditch. He had seen many such marks on pavement where the kids back home would drive circles or donuts, as they were called. It will such marks as the tires would burn the proverbial rubber on the asphalt. The marks left behind the BMW looked similar but slightly different. The darker parts on the squeal marks were usually near where the most pressure was put. For sudden stops, that pressure would be at the end of the mark, as the car was slowed down. The heavy marks seemed closer to the road in this case. It did not look as if the car was trying to stop before hitting the ditch, but, instead it was trying not to go into the ditch in the first place. Simon could not explain it and stood up.

He looked beyond the ditch. Now that it has been a few minutes, the adrenaline had worn off, and his limbs felt heavy. He lifted the flashlight and it felt heavier. He swallowed again and walked along the side of the car. He aimed the flashlight into the backseat. The beam was blocked by the coat that hung on the hanger. He checked the rest of the car, but he did not see anything. He ran the flashlight along the coat, taking a closer look to see if he saw any clues. The coat was well cut, dark blue with silver pinstripes. It was likely that the coat was part of a suit, and while driving the car, the jacket was hung in the back seat so it would not wrinkle. That was how Simon carried his own jacket when he went on sales trips to the different parts of the country. It was amazing how many pieces of planets can be sold when you take the effort to set up shop in a small town and explain what you were doing. It was not just the city folks who wanted a piece of the future, he found. The true people who wanted a piece of the frontier were people whose family already searched the frontier. People in the small towns or the less travelled parts of the country were from those families, and they were very proud of that fact.

Simon flashed his light along the bushes trying to see where the sound had come from. He walked to the front of the car, he light still moving quickly along the bushes, looking for signs. Beyond the ditch was only a small bank of bushes. They were in a tight line and seemed to have been planted to make access to the road more difficult from the field beyond. His flashlight went a little further but beyond the bushes was only fields. There were no shadows of trees against the sky. The fields were flat and seemed to go straight to the horizon from here. The sky was still a bit light. Only the faintest of starts could be seen. There was no moon. Simon knew that there would be close to a full moon this night. He also knew that in this part of the world, Mars would rise in a few more hours. He spent many hours looking over star charts. Showing property in pictures was important. But pointing to the sky and describing where that property would actually be seen from Earth, there was no better way to sell land.

Word count: 2,033

Word total: 20,642

Words remaining: 29,358

Today was an easy day. It’s amazing how I manage to drag out the simplest of actions. It took me all day yesterday to visit a rest area. Today, my characters managed to get out of the car. It was touch and go for a bit, but after two thousand words, they managed it. Sort of. There’s some sort of monster or something that I’m building up to. Or at least that’s what it looks like.

I’ve given up asking why I bother. Sure, I can meet the goal every day. It’s easy. The real trick is whether any of these words will ever be worth anything. I guess I’ll stop kicking myself and keep writing. It does raise questions about whether I will do this again next year.