For one week, I was going to be “Florida Man.” I hoped, of course, that unlike the real ones, I wouldn’t find myself in some disreputable legal situation: apprehended for cruising the Suncoast Parkway, naked, on a riding mower, with an alligator strapped to the hood, and five cases of Coors Light and a pizza full of meth on the back. I was hoping for something much quieter. I’m an artist, and I’d been hired by a pediatrician to paint a mural for her office in Tampa. No lawn mowers would be involved.

I’d visited Florida plenty of times. Growing up, Fort Lauderdale was my family’s yearly vacation destination, but I’d only experienced the Atlantic side. Never the Gulf. So I jumped at the chance to see a new coastline while working on a new gig. My wife often tags along on Florida jobs so she can hit the beach while I’m working, but this time she couldn’t make it, so it was just me and Florida.

On the second day, I wrapped up work, cleaned my brushes, and decided to drive a stretch of the coast road until the condos and hotels no longer blocked the ocean view. I’d catch the sunset, relax a bit, and see what was up there. A mile or two outside the city, I spotted a little roadside produce stand that looked like it had survived a few more hurricanes than it should. Probably couldn’t survive another one. Inside, all I could smell was citrus, delivering the quintessential Florida experience. I grabbed a small bag of tangelos and was heavily tempted by a display case of key lime pies. They looked delicious but not a great idea. I made the decision to pass them by.

An older woman in a dirty Buccaneers cap rang me up. Her face looked like a shriveled hermit crab peering from beneath its shell. I asked how far the highway ran before it hit the interstate. She gave me a look. “Why would you want to do that?”

I explained to her that I was a visitor exploring the area and wanted a more hometown experience, away from the billboards, tourist traps, and themed restaurants. Something more real. She shook her head and tugged the brim of her hat down. “If you want my advice, turn around and go back to Tampa. Ain’t nothing up that way worth seeing.” Weird. I watched her for a second as she walked off to empty some fruit crates. I gave her a polite “thanks” and took my bag out to the car.

One of my friends used to joke that I could get lost driving in a parking lot, and it’s true. It’s actually happened. I acknowledge that I have a terrible sense of direction. Interstate numbers and street names are like math to me, and I’m horrible at math. My GPS is my essential, omniscient co-pilot, and without it, I’m about as lost as a golf ball in high grass. But I figured if I kept the beach on my left, I’m heading north, and when I got ready to travel back south, all I had to do was turn around. If I made a wrong turn, my phone would show me the way. A great plan that lasted about five minutes, right up until my phone dropped service and the GPS went dead.

I wasn’t worried, though. North ahead, south behind. Stay on the road, and there would be no problems. It was a beautiful evening with no traffic on the little highway. I had a bag of tangelos and nowhere else to be.

It was a pleasant drive, but after a few minutes, it started to look like every other small-town backroad I’d ever seen. A few palm trees, but mostly cows and scrap cars. After about forty-five minutes, I figured I’d seen enough “small-town Florida” for one night and decided to head back. It was full dark now— “country dark” as we say in East Tennessee. My headlights found a short, narrow driveway, so I swung in, backed up, and started south again, hoping it wouldn’t be long before my phone and GPS would be restored.

A couple of minutes later, headlights came up fast behind me. Too fast. The beams shot up in my mirror and stayed there. Some jerk clearly wanted me to move, but that was the exact way to make sure I didn’t. If he didn’t like my driving, he could go around. I was doing fifty-five in what was probably a forty-five zone, but this guy was riding my tail like he owned the road. He’d pull up within a few feet, back off for half a second, then close in again until his lights lit up the inside of my car.

I squinted in my rearview mirror, trying to make out what kind of car it was. Could be a cop. Hope not, I was speeding for sure. But I didn’t see any blue lights or a light bar. No cop markings at all. Just one person in the driver’s seat, that was all I could tell. After a few seconds, the car squealed and swerved around me, almost making contact, then blew past like I was standing still. Its taillights weaved ahead, wild and erratic, like he was trying to die. We were on a two-lane highway, and this dumbass stayed in the wrong lane way too long, even over hills and blind curves, not caring that he was putting everyone in danger.

Now that he was off my ass, I eased off the gas to give him plenty of space. The second I did, his brake lights flared. His car slowed hard and dropped right in front of me, close enough that I could see the shape of his head through the rear window. He was watching me in his mirror. He started tapping his brakes. Short bursts at first, then harder, like he wanted me to rear-end him. At that point, I realized this wasn’t random. Whoever this was, and for whatever reason, he was screwing with me on purpose.

My little Toyota wasn’t built for road duels. His big Dodge HEMI could have eaten me alive if he’d wanted to. He had to tone it down just to stay near me. That didn’t seem to matter, though. He drifted back into the left lane, pacing me. Speeding up, slowing down, edging forward like he was daring me to race. Race? Couldn’t he see what I was driving? This guy had to be insane. I kept both hands on the wheel and my eyes locked straight ahead. No sudden moves. No eye contact. I didn’t want to give him any excuse to think I was playing along.

I’ve always heard if you ignore bullies, they’ll eventually go away. So I figured if I pretended he wasn’t there, he’d get bored and drive off. But he kept right beside me, inching up and falling back like he couldn’t decide whether to race me or run me off the road. Then he reached out his passenger window and threw something at me. It looked like a red plastic Solo cup and it smacked the side of my car and splattered across the windshield. If that wasn’t tobacco juice smeared on my windshield, I didn’t want to know what it was. Then came a beer can. Apparently, he was going to unleash all the trash from his car on me. I could hear him laughing. I couldn’t figure out how—or why—I’d become his personal target.

I decided to look at him. Could it be someone I knew? He was a bulky guy, sort of a young, muscle-head type. The kind of guy who was always bragging about his high school wrestling days. The most obvious thing about him was his flaming red hair. Not “Conan O’Brien red”—I mean fire-engine red, like a demented clown. A big teardrop tattoo was permanently inked on the left side of his face, and, I swear, a mouth full of metal braces. Not normal ones, these were the weirdest braces I’d ever seen. In the dash lights, they looked like twisted wire—barbed wire, almost.

He leaned halfway out the window, screaming into the wind. I couldn’t understand what the hell he was saying, but it didn’t matter. I could read his lips enough to know it wasn’t polite. Red Hair flipped me off, shouted something else obscene, and laughed like this was the most fun he’d had all week.

I kept my eyes forward, hands tight on the wheel, waiting for something else to come flying out of his car. A bottle. A boot. A half-eaten bag of Purina Gorilla Chow. Then I glanced over again and saw the gun. A real gun. Small, black, and pointed right at me. Holy shit. Before I could think, I slammed the brakes. The front of his car dipped and swerved, and he howled with laughter, like this was all a glorious joke. Then, just as quickly, he jerked the wheel, shot across my lane, almost slamming into my fender, and peeled into an Exxon station.

I kept going. I wanted to get as far away from that idiot as I could, as fast as I could. I started wishing I’d taken that old lady’s advice and turned around and gone back to Tampa. Maybe she knew something I didn’t. Here I was, on a dark country road, trying to deal with some crazy driver who was dead set on making me roadkill. For the next minute, I steadied my breathing and kept glancing at the rearview mirror, waiting to see those headlights blaring around the bend. But it seemed to be just me and the road. I glanced in the mirror again. I thought I saw a glow getting stronger. Are those… headlights—maybe not. False alarm. Just my imagination.

For the first time in several minutes, everything was completely quiet. Peaceful. No streetlights. Just the glow of a half moon giving everything a grayish radiance. A loud grinding noise under my tire broke the silence. My car had drifted onto the shoulder. And there—right in front of me—someone was walking along the road. I spun the wheel and hit the brakes hard. Tires squealed. I heard a girl scream. I threw the car in “Park” and jumped out.

“I’m so sorry! I couldn’t see you! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Who taught you how to drive?”

The hitchhiker stepped cautiously closer. She was young and dressed head to toe in black. No wonder I almost hit her. She was dragging a black canvas duffel bag with both hands. A bag almost as big as she was. She turned and started walking south again without another word.

“What are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere dressed like that? It’s pitch dark. I could have hit you. Anybody could hit you.”

She turned back and shouted through the darkness, “I’m hitchhiking. Isn’t that obvious? And if you’re not going to give me a ride, then leave me alone and let me get the hell on the road.”

I stood there shaking my head. What is going on in Florida? This was officially the craziest night I’d ever had in my life. Red was gone, but now I’d nearly mowed down this runaway kid who didn’t seem to care she was one step away from getting flattened, kidnapped, or worse. The girl couldn’t have weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet, and that duffel bag looked like it weighed more than she did. I couldn’t help it. I felt sorry for her.

“Where are you going?”

“The bridge,” she said.

The bridge? What bridge? This was Tampa; there had to be a thousand bridges around here. Still, if she was walking to it, it couldn’t be very far. “All right,” I said. “Get in.”

She turned and considered the offer for half a second, then hauled her hulking duffel bag to the car. I tossed it in the back seat. She jerked it back out and dragged it to the floor of the front seat. We both climbed in. She planted her feet on the bag, and I eased the car back onto the road.

I know what you’re thinking, so just to be clear, I don’t pick up hitchhikers. Or… I didn’t, anyway. I’ve been tempted to a couple of times, like everybody. Usually when it’s blistering outside and the poor soul looks like they’re about to burst into flames if someone doesn’t stop and give them a ride. But I’ve never gone through with it. This time was different. She was a young person, alone, in the dark. There was imminent danger, in my opinion. This wasn’t Ted Bundy.

Still, the seriousness of the situation wasn’t lost on me. I was in an unfamiliar town with a stranger in my car. A young stranger, but a stranger all the same. She didn’t exactly look like an axe murderer—unless she had a very small axe. I guess that would still do the trick. She didn’t smell like a murderer, either. She smelled like oranges and cinnamon, with a faint sweetness underneath—maybe cherry. Or maybe cheap dessert wine, hard to say. Then again, I don’t actually know what murderers smell like. Just focus on the road, I told myself.

“Have you ever met the devil?” she asked.

“Not formally, no,” I said, “but I think he may have just tried to run me off the road a few minutes ago.”

“That’s nothing. I used to live with the devil.”

As she spoke, I realized this girl was much younger than I’d originally thought—eighteen, maybe nineteen. Possibly twenty, but I doubted it. “In that case, I can see why you would want to get out of that situation. Speaking of which, why are you out walking on a dark road this time of night?”

“Listen,” she said, “the last thing I’m looking for tonight is a daddy.”

“Ouch. Okay, fair enough. But for the record, I don’t have kids, so I’m not anybody’s daddy. Even if I am old enough to be yours. Maybe even your granddaddy… Hold on, no. Let’s keep it at ‘daddy.’”

She stared out the passenger window. “My name’s Kami,” she said, as if she was trying to restart our whole introduction all over. “Don’t tell me yours. I don’t want to know. Once you know somebody’s name, you have to remember them your whole life. And I don’t need to remember a guy who’s just giving me a ride to the bridge.”

Again with the bridge. I really hoped this bridge was close by. I was ready for dinner and bed.

I checked my phone. Still no service. “Forget about it,” she said. “No phones work around here. It’s like 1990 or something.” She brushed lint from her blouse and tucked her black hair behind her ears. She pulled down the visor like she’d been in my car and done it a thousand times before. She clicked on the mirror light and studied her face in it. She ran her thumb along her lipstick, shaping it just right, then flipped the visor back into place.

“Bastard walks out on me—with someone I’m pretty sure I used to be friends with. Then he expects me to hold on to all his stuff until he can come pick it up? Seriously? I have an idea: how about I put all your stupid shit in a big bag and throw it off a bridge, okay? How about that?”

“Ah. Okay, I understand the bridge now.”

“It’s fine. I’m fine. I’ve been over him a long time. I moved on weeks ago, and I guarantee you he’ll be calling me before the year is up, what do you want to bet? Do you mind if I smoke?”

I did, but I didn’t want to seem like an uncool dad. “No, go right ahead.”

She unzipped the duffel bag and dug around inside. “You know, I don’t think boys know what love is until much later in life. I mean, think about it. Little girls are holding and rocking baby dolls while little boys are crashing toy cars and trucks into the sidewalk. We’re trained to love from the time we’re born. Then we get a boyfriend and all we want to do is love, but all he knows how to do is crash you into the sidewalk. Can’t blame him, I guess. He’s had no training.”

She pulled out a ten-inch fillet knife in a sheath and laid it on the dashboard. My eyes widened, and my heart raced a bit. She continued digging.

“From what I understand, things are improving in that area,” I said. “There are just as many boys playing with dolls and girls crashing trucks.”

“Just as many? No. There are some, sure, but most of the time a little boy picks up a doll, Mom or Dad takes it away, and hands him a truck. It’s not his choice. It’s this world.”

She struck a match and lit her cigarette. In seconds, I knew it wasn’t tobacco. If I got pulled over, I was screwed. She inhaled deeply, held it in, then steadily blew the smoke out.

“Why is it so quiet in here? Don’t you have any good music?”

“I have lots of great music. I’ll bet your parents would love all of it,” I said. “I usually listen to podcasts, though. Not very exciting. I apologize.”

Headlights appeared in my rearview mirror. My heart jumped. They sped closer until light illuminated the inside of my car. I watched them inch closer. They stayed steady behind me for a minute or two, then passed. A Subaru. Relief.

“If you could have any superpower, what would it be?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Something where I could make lots of money, I suppose. Invisibility. I could go into a bank and take as much money as I wanted, and no one would ever see me.”

“That’s stupid,” she shot back. “Do you honestly think anyone’s going to sit there watching a pile of money float out the door and not do something about it? You might be invisible, but the money’s not. You just wasted a superpower.”

“Then I choose the power to sleep for a week,” I said.

“How is that a superpower?” she asked.

“I’d do it in a cape.”

“You’re not even taking this seriously,” she said. “Ask me what I would want.”

“Okay. If you could have any superpower in the world, what would it be?”

“I’d like to fly,” she said quickly. “You don’t think that would be amazing?”

“I do. Then you wouldn’t have to rely on complete strangers to take you to your bridges.”

She popped open the glove compartment, took a glance, then clicked it shut. “I believe most humans have superpowers they never use. When I say superpower, I don’t mean power as in ‘strength.’ Men are always testing how much power they can get. Big cars, big talk, big guns—whatever.”

“You sound very anti-man right now,” I said.

She laughed. “I am right now, honestly. Not always, though. But women do the same thing. We just use hearts instead of horsepower.”

“How much horsepower does that knife have?” I asked.

She picked it up and pointed it at me, sheath and all. “This is strictly for protection. But ‘protection’ means different things to different people. I need protection when I’m walking out there. But do I need protection when I’m riding in here? Maybe you do. Right now, the only thing between you and the point of this knife is a thin piece of leather. How do you feel about that?”

I knew she was kidding. But I also knew that I didn’t know she was kidding. I was pretty sure she was just trying to rattle me. “I’ll have you know, my invisible cloak of protection would engage automatically if you ever unsheathed your weapon.”

She tilted her head the way guys like to see girls tilt their heads, and she smiled. I took it that I’d won the banter. She held onto the knife, slid it in and out of the sheath a few times, then leaned back into the seat and stared out the window. She was quiet for a few seconds like she was pondering her next strategic move. “Would you like to make out?”

Whoa! I tapped the brakes without meaning to. “Are you out of your mind? And yes, you might just be. How would I know? I just picked you up off the street after nearly running you over because some maniac was trying to shoot me off the road! What the hell is going on tonight? You’re… you’re a kid! Why on earth would you want to make out with an old dude like me?”

“Don’t have a meltdown. I’m just asking.” She sat quietly for a moment. “I would totally do it, though. What can I say? I like older men. I’m not bragging, but I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have any complaints about me. I like to love.”

“Stop it,” I said. “Just shut up.” She shrugged and took another long drag.

I glanced at my rearview mirror. “First of all, I’m married, okay? And I don’t fool around. Ever. And even if I did, I wouldn’t with you, a complete stranger… who, I’m guessing, still plays with Barbies.”

“Why would you need to tell anyone?” she asked. It’s just me and you out here. Who else needs to know? That’s the thing about strangers. If you don’t know them, you can do anything to them. And it’s like it never happened.”

I drove in silence for a couple of minutes, trying to focus my mind and get a firmer grasp on reason. The secondhand smoke was starting to make my head swim. I ran through it all in my head: everything that had happened that night might have felt like a dream, but it was no dream. It was really happening. As crazy and outrageous as it all was, it was still real. Every person I’d encountered that night was a complete stranger, and I was a stranger to them, but that didn’t make any of it less real. Being strangers doesn’t excuse anything. You can’t run strangers off the road or poke knives at them simply because they are strangers. It’s no different from anyone you actually know.

In that moment, I realized I wasn’t afraid of being run off the road or stabbed with a fishing knife. There was something worse. I was afraid I could screw up the life I had. In a moment of ignoring consequences, I could trash the wonderful things in my life, the important things. The relationships that mattered most to me. It hit me how stupid I’d been to let this hitchhiker into my car, no matter how young or harmless she looked. This wasn’t a good idea. What was I thinking?

“Look, I’m sorry, but I need to let you out here.” Kami looked straight ahead, shook her head, and smiled, like she knew it was coming. “We can’t be far from the city now. It’ll be easy for you to get a ride the rest of the way. Someone will come along soon. You’ll be okay.”

“No problem,” she said. She rolled down the window, flicked out the remaining stump of her cigarette, and slid the knife back into the duffel bag.

I eased the car onto the shoulder and waited for her to grab her things. She hesitated a moment. Then, without warning, she reached over and took my head in both her hands, turning me toward her until I was staring straight into her eyes. “We’re all strangers, you know? Even the people you think you know. The ones you love are the same as the ones you pick up from the side of the street. The ones you’re true to are the exact same as the ones who try to run you off the road. None of us ever truly know any of us.”

She kept her gaze locked on mine while reaching down and unbuttoning the three top buttons of her blouse, letting it fall open just enough. She watched my eyes. Not looking down was harder than passing up that key lime pie. “What do you want to do more than anything right now?” she asked.

I wasn’t going to say a damn word.

She pulled my head toward hers and kissed me. A long, open-mouthed, deliberate kiss that felt much older than she was. I felt her tongue slide along the edges of my teeth. I’m sure I could have resisted more than I did; I can’t remember and don’t want to. All I could think was: I hadn’t been kissed like that since college. Maybe high school. And I wasn’t a hundred percent sure if that was a bad thing or not.

“I need you to get out now,” I said.

She realized the ride was over, but she wasn’t willing to give in completely. She grinned a beautiful, perfect, young grin, leaned in to me, and ran her tongue slowly up my face, from chin to the tip of my nose.

“Goodbye, Daddy,” she said. “It would’ve been fun at the bridge. You’ll never know what you missed.” She hopped out, dragging the heavy duffel bag behind her, and slammed the car door. She walked a few steps in front of my car, stuck out her thumb, and disappeared into the dark. I adjusted my seatbelt and myself, then pulled away.

She was gone, but her scent — orange, cinnamon, and cherries — hung around. It would linger in the car for the next five days.

It was difficult to think about anything else over the next week. Not just the ridiculous string of events, but how to process them. Would I tell anyone? Would anyone believe me if I did? Should I tell my wife? Of course, I should. I hadn’t done anything wrong. But— then again, maybe I wouldn’t. No. There was no sense in getting her upset. I definitely wouldn’t tell her. Come to think of it, no one needed to know what happened. I’d just keep it all to myself.

Toward the end of the Tampa job, I was putting the final touches on the mural when the skies began turning stormy. I pulled up a local news site to check the weather. I scrolled for a couple of minutes, then—wow.

There was Kami.

The picture of her face, clear as day—no shadows, no dim car lights. Just a pretty, young smile, like the one I’d seen up close. Her black hair was tucked behind her ears, dark lipstick perfectly framing her mouth. I knew immediately it was her.

“Woman Charged With Death on Bridge,” the headline read.

What the hell? My eyes raced over the story. Police had found an abandoned car near a bridge just outside the city. In the water, they’d recovered a black duffel bag wrapped around the body of a man, stabbed several times. The man was described as being in his thirties, with braces, a large teardrop tattoo, and bright, fire-engine-red hair.

I knew that description. They could have called me for that description. How that small girl managed to haul that piece of meat and that duffel bag over a bridge was beyond me. She must’ve had help. “Stunned” didn’t begin to describe how I felt.

My stomach twisted as it all sank in. I knew I’d let Kami out on that same road. Red must have come up behind me—he and that big, dumb grin. Maybe he was coming to finish what he started with me. Maybe it was just coincidence. But somehow, he’d found her. He picked her up, took her to the bridge, and ended up being tossed over the side, stabbed, with a duffel bag wrapped around him, sinking deep into black water.

Was it simply because he was a stranger? Because he took her to the bridge? That could have been me. Probably was supposed to be me. I was this close to being the story behind that girl’s smiling photo. The knife had already been pointed in my direction; I’d just refused to go all the way to the bridge.

I don’t want to get too philosophical, but maybe none of us really do know the rest of us. Not like we think. I certainly didn’t know that girl sitting in my car, but when I saw her picture in that article, I couldn’t help feeling a mix of shock, pity, and disappointment. In a strange way, I felt connected to her, even though she was a complete stranger.

A few nights later, driving home after finishing the job, I started getting drowsy. I was exhausted from work and had been on the road too long. I told myself some coffee and loud music would keep me awake, but at one point, my eyes must have closed for just a half-second too long because the rumble strip jolted me awake. My heart was hammering. I pulled off to the side of the road to clear my head and wake up.

The cool night air sobered me quickly. I walked around the car a few times to get my blood moving and heard a pop and crunch under my foot. I looked down. I’d squashed a red Solo cup.

That’s when I was sure I saw a young girl standing ahead of me in the glow of my headlights—thumb out, black hair catching the light. She turned and smiled.

I blinked. She was gone. Only moonlight and moving pine shadows remained. I looked around. Guardrails on both sides. A low trickle of water below. I walked to the edge and leaned over.

Unbelievable.

I had pulled over and was standing on an old highway bridge.

©2025 Rick Baldwin.

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE – This story is under the full copyright of the author who gives permission for royalty-free performance/readings of the story for non commercial purposes. This story must not be changed or altered in any way without permission of the author. Any performance of this story must credit the author, Rick Baldwin. This story may not be reprinted without permission of the author.)