Camping Tip # 10: It can be really tempting. You see some poor soul standing by the road with a sad look on his face and a sign begging for a ride but please, for the love of God, do NOT pick up random strangers from the highway.

I hadn't said anything to Jack since I hopped into the car. I mean, what was I supposed to say to him? What were you supposed to say to your ex-boyfriend? Jack and I had ended badly, so we never really spoke to each other, well any conversation was comprised of a simple yes or no and then we would try to get away from one another as quickly as possible. We’d said all we needed to say when we ended things two months ago.

        I looked out of the car window, glumly watching the people and places that passed by. It was supposed to be just me and Callie on this camping trip. No one else. Obviously Callie didn’t understand that. Actually, Ruby would be on this trip too but she was in New York. I contemplated whether or not it was too late to back out. I could make up some excuse about needing to help my mom with organizing the wedding.  There was a crisis with the seating plan Mom had been freaking out over for two weeks now. It was a justifiable reason.

        I frowned. That justifiable reason would have worked an hour ago when we were still in Vancouver. Callie was now happily driving the highway, so there was no turning back now.  

         “Aw come on guys!” Oliver said glancing back at us, “the sun is shining, Beyoncé is singing and it’s a beautiful day for camping! Why are you so unhappy?”

        Oliver couldn’t stop laughing and jumping and singing like he was a little kid on Christmas day. It was hard to believe the boy was seventeen years old. Then again, Oliver Kaminski had always been immature and he was always making jokes or doing some stupid stunt. At school he had a reputation for being the class clown, the guy who could make anyone laugh in any situation.

        The reason I was failing Spanish was because he was noisy and kept disrupting the lesson with some wise crack, that I admit even got me laughing sometimes. I think Oliver’s hyperactive behaviour was due to all the energy drinks he had consumed. Callie was catching up with him, she was already on her fourth can and I dreaded to think just how hyperactive and antsy she would be in a few hours.

        “Oliver, you need to stop with the energy drinks,” Jack said, “You know you don’t metabolize sugar well.”

        He snorted, “What are you talking about? I’m fine!”

        “Dude, your left eye is twitching.”

        “Eyes do that!”

        “No they don’t,” Jack said, “Just stop with the energy drinks.”

        Oliver rolled his eyes as he looked to the front again. He slumped back in his seat. “Sorry, Mom.”

        “Moron,” Jack muttered.

        Callie kept one hand on the wheel as she leaned forward and pressed a button on the radio, the Beyonce track that was playing instantly stopped and in its place came the upbeat sound of Super Bass by Nicki Minaj. It wasn’t long before Callie and Oliver were rapping along to the song together. I stared at the two of them as their heads bobbed up and down in a ridiculous manner. Now they were taking turns in rapping the verses. Shaking my head, I returned to staring miserably out of the window. I started thinking about opening the car door and flinging myself out onto the highway.

        I felt a gaze on me, light and niggling at the back of my neck. I turned and caught Jack’s eyes for a split second before he instantly looked away, his eyes flicking down to the cellphone in his hands, there was a noticeable blush dusting his cheeks. My eyes narrowed. Had he been watching me? I batted the thought away and looked out of the window again.

        My thoughts returning to means of escape from this camping trip and the excuses I could use. Did I even need an excuse? No. I could just open the car door and leap out right now. If Bruce Willis could do it and survive then so could I. For the second time, I felt the weight of Jack’s gaze on me again. I frowned. What was his problem? I looked over at him. I expected him to look away but this time, he kept his attention on me.

        “Can I help you?” I said, surprised at how irritated I sounded.

        Jack scratched the back of his neck. The blush was still on cheeks, he always did look adorable when he blushed. Dropping his hand, he cleared his throat and went back to playing his cellphone as he mumbled an apology to me. If my heart clenched a little at his shy apology then I didn’t acknowledge it.

        “How’s the chess club?” I suddenly blurted out. I really wanted to fling myself out the car then. At the beginning of eleventh grade, Jack secured the role as president of the school’s chess club and I remember how happy he’d been when he got it. He couldn’t stop grinning and hugging me all day. He was so adorable.

        Jack looked up at me, confusion on his face and bewildered that I was talking to him, “Uh...Good.”

        I nodded, “Good.”

        I didn’t know what to say so I looked out of the window once more. It took me a few seconds to realize that we were slowing down. My eyes skipped to the front of the car where Callie was pulling over at the side of the highway.

        “Callie,” I said, “What are you doing?”

        “Just being a Good Samaritan!” she chimed.

        “What are you talking about?”

        Oliver turned in his seat, the same bright smile as Callie’s plastered on his face. I think they were both so deep into the energy drinks they were feeling euphoric. He lifted his hand and pointed to the outside of the window Jack was sitting next to, “Look, there he is!”

        Jack and I looked where he was pointing. Callie had parked the car at the side of the highway as cars, trucks, coaches and various other means of transportation whizzed past us in a heated rush. I noticed a figure cautiously crossing the highway. I’m near-sighted so it was only until the figure was only a few feet away from the car that I could see him properly. My eyes widened when the person came into focus.

        It was a man. A tall and overweight man with the scruffiest beard and grubbiest clothing I had ever seen. He was carrying several white Abercrombie and Fitch bags, he had man boobs and a pot bellying hanging out for all to see but the most disturbing thing about this man was the fact he wasn’t a wearing a shirt, just a leather jacket that was way too small for him. His chest looked like the matted, clumpy hair you’d find in the bathroom sink. It made me feel sick.

        Oh my God, I thought.

        He was heading for our car. He was heading straight for our car.

        “Callie,” I hissed, “Callie! There’s a weird half-naked homeless guy walking towards our car! Go! Go! Go!”

        “Calm down, I invited him,” she said.

        I stared at her.

        “You what!” Jack and I shouted in unison.

       Callie jumped at our sudden shouts of indignation, she glanced back at us with a frown, “What’s wrong with you guys?”

        “W-what’s wrong...w-with us?” I sputtered, “You’re about to pick up a freaking hitchhiker! You’ve seen enough horror movies to know that nothing good ever happens when you pick up hitchhikers!”

        She rolled her eyes, “You’re overreacting! Remember what those women who came to school said? Be a Good Samaritan! When someone needs help, you offer it.”

        “Callie, those women were fucking crazy and you know it!” I said, “One of them punched Mrs. Roderick in the face.”

        “Well, Mrs. Roderick is an asshole,” she said with a shrug, “you can’t blame them. Hell, I’ve been planning on punching her since tenth grade.”

        Oliver nodded in agreement, “She’s got a point there Peryn, Mrs. Roderick is an asshole.”

        “Doesn’t mean they can punch a fifty-year-old woman,” I almost hissed.

        Callie shook her head, “This is good for our karma! You do something good and something good happens in return!”

        “Callie, don’t be stupid,” Jack said in a calm tone, “you can’t just go round picking up–”

        The door on Jack’s side was suddenly yanked open and the hitchhiker bent his head down to look at us. I squeaked. The sweat on his bare chest was glistening so much it almost blinded me. I blinked, staring at him with a slack jaw. He was even fatter and more horrifying close-up.

        “How are you all doing?” the hitchhiker beamed. He grinned, revealing an array of blackened teeth.

        “Come on in!” Callie said, “Jack, move up.”

        As the hitchhiker started climbing into the car, Jack immediately shuffled down towards me. Once the hitchhiker had sat himself down and shut the door, he grinned again. I moved again so I was pressed against the door and Jack did the same, trying his best to separate himself from the hitchhiker.

        “Thanks for the help,” the man said, “I’ve been standing there all day, so thank you!”

        “No problem! Anything to help a fellow Canadian!” Callie smiled, “Where are you going?”

        “You don’t happen to be passing by a little town called Kamloops do you?” the man asked.

        Callie nodded, “We actually are! Our campsite’s near there!”

        “Thanks so much!” The hitchhiker said, clapping his hands loudly and making Jack and I jump in our seats. “I’m Bosco by the way!”

        “Pleasure to meet you Bosco,” Oliver said and pointed to everyone as he introduced us, “That’s Callie, Jack, Peryn and I’m Oliver.”

        The hitchhiker, Bosco, nodded and grinned at all of us, “Nice to meet you.”

        Jack and I just stared at him with open mouths. We looked at each other and I found an odd comfort when I saw he was just as freaked as me.

        “And we’re off!” Callie announced as she started driving down the highway.

        If we were killed and chopped up by this Bosco guy, I was going to make sure Callie’s afterlife was worse than any hell she could ever imagine. We’d been driving for a total of four hours with the hitchhiker riding in the back with Jack and I. Oliver and Callie had coaxed Bosco into singing along with them. It was traumatic. He was jiggling and waving his hands around and I’m pretty sure, one of Bosco’s man boobs hit Jack in the face. I was finding it hard to concentrate or drown out the horrendous sound of singing because Jack was pressed up against my side. He smelt so familiar, so woodsy and clean and it was causing fluttering feelings I hadn’t felt in a long time to return. I didn’t like it one bit.

        “Callie, we’ve been driving for four hours, we should have reached Kamloops by now,” Jack said. She didn’t respond, just continued bobbing her head to the music that was playing. Jack said her name again, “Callie!”

        “Okay,” she sighed, “Now, I-I don’t want you guys to panic.”

        I eyed her suspiciously, “Why would we panic?”

        “Because...we may or not be lost,” she chuckled nervously.

        “What?” I said.

        “I missed the exit like three hours ago and I’ve been trying to find another ever since and, yeah, we’re lost.”

        I gaped at her, “Are you kidding? So, for the past three hours you’ve been driving in the completely wrong direction and you didn’t tell us?”

        “I’m telling you now!” She said and she had the nerve to sound like we were the assholes.

        I shook my head, “You have got to be–”

        “Guys,” Jack interrupted, “Look, I saw a sign for a gas station a few miles back, we’ll just stop there and ask for directions, okay?”

        Oliver nodded, “Yeah, I saw it too, it’s near here.”

        He didn’t seemed as distressed at the fact Callie had been driving in the wrong direction for three hours. I frowned when I realized he’d probably known this little fact from the beginning. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the one who’d suggested she didn’t tell anyone.

                                                                              *

        “You guys stay here,” I said, eagerly hopping out of the car, “I’ll be back.”

        I shut the door behind me and began trudging towards the shop. As Jack had said, there was a gas station. It hadn’t taken long to find it, only about ten minutes or so. Callie was parked by the main road, I glanced back at her, she grinned and threw me a thumbs up as some sort of encouragement. I rolled my eyes. It was empty and unnervingly quiet, the bell jingled as I entered the store. I approached the till where a scrawny man with a goatee was standing behind the counter.

        I cleared my throat to get his attention. He looked up from the fishing magazine he was reading. I said, “Excuse me, uhm, do you know how to get to Kamloops?”

        “The city?” he asked.

        I nodded, “Yeah.”

        He laughed, “You’re a long way away from there, sweet cheeks. You’re long way away from anywhere, actually.”

         “Yeah, there’s a camping site near Kamloops, my friends and I are a little lost, so do you know how to get there?”

        “Just keep going straight and after two hours you should come to an intersection, take route two-ten and that should take you straight to Kamloops.”

        I nodded, “Okay, thanks!”

        I threw him a grateful smile and walked out of the shop, repeating the directions in my head. I froze. Callie, Jack and Oliver were all standing outside with some of our bags by their feet. I frowned when I noticed the car wasn’t where it had been parked. I looked around – in fact – the car was nowhere to be seen.

        My eyebrows crumpled together as I looked at Callie in confusion, “Where’s the car?”

        Oliver chuckled, “You will not believe what happened.”

        I folded my arms across my chest, “Try me.”

        Jack started pacing up and down as he dragged a hand through his dark hair. He said, “We got robbed.”

        “What?” I said, not quite believing what I was hearing.

        “Bosco took the car,” he explained, “when you were in the store, he pulls out this revolver and tells out to get out of the car and as soon as we took our rucksacks out of the trunk, he drove off.”

        I waited for one of them to burst out laughing and tell me it was all a joke, that the car was just around the corner and that we could go home and forget this whole horrible ordeal. Of course none of that happened. They just stared back at me, looking as morose as ever.

        “Oh my God," I breathed, "I told you not to pick up that bastard hitchhiker!"

        “How was I supposed to know the guy was going to steal the car?” she snapped.

        I threw my arms up in the air and let them flop to back down, “We’re screwed! We are officially screwed!”

        “Shit,” Jack muttered as he continued pacing, “We’ll need to call my mom, hopefully she can come to pick us up.”

        Callie’s eyes widened, “No! Jack, she’ll kill us!”

        “And what do you suggest?” Jack said, swiveling round to face her, “We walk four hundred miles back home?”

        “Four hundred miles isn’t so bad,” she grinned, “it’ll be good exercise!”

        “Nobody’s walking home,” I frowned at her, “We’ll just have to call your mom, it’ll be fine.”

        Callie ran towards me. She grabbed my hoodie and yanked me against her. Her blue eyes were wide with fright. She looked absolutely insane.

“Fine?” she hissed, “Per, my mom is going to disembowel us! Do you know how much that car cost? It is worth more than me and Jack’s life combined! She will kill me!”

        “Well, maybe, you should have thought of that before you picked up some random hitchhiker called Bosco,” I said, prying her hands off of me and pushing her back. “What the hell kind of name is Bosco anyway?” I looked at Jack, “Damn it, call your mom.”

        “We tried using our cellphones, there’s no signal,” Jack said, “we’ll have to use the store, maybe they have a phone.”

        “I’ll come with you,” I said.

        I followed him as he turned and walked towards the store. He tried to push the door open but it wouldn’t budge. I stepped next to him and I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered into the shop. I banged on the glass when I saw the owner sweeping up a few feet away. He looked up at me.

        “Shop’s closed,” he said.

        “What? No!” I shook my head fervently, “We need to use your phone! Our car got jacked and we need to call someone.”

        The man frowned, “Sorry, shop’s closed.”

        “Dude, it’s only six o’clock,” Jack said.

        “Exactly,” the man said, “Shop closes at six, and it’s six o’clock now so the shop’s closed.”

        “Please, we need to make a quick call, it will only take a few minutes,” I pleaded.

        “I’m sorry but the shop is closed, I have a shotgun and it would do you well not to piss me off,” he said, “Come back tomorrow morning, the shop opens at six, I can help you then.”

        Despite our pleas and protests for him to help us, the man simply shook his head and went back to sweeping the floor. My forehead hit the door and I let out a long sigh.

        “We’ll have to come back tomorrow then,” Jack concluded glumly.

        I lifted my head off the glass window and glanced at him, “And where are we supposed to sleep Jack? On the floor?”

        “We’ve got our camping gear,” Jack said, “We can just camp out in the woods for tonight and come back tomorrow.”

        I groaned. I let my forehead hit the door again and again and again until I sighed again. This day could not get any better.

         “Okay,” I said, feeling defeated and angry, “looks like we’re spending the night in the woods like a merry band of homeless people.”

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a/n : idek this chapter was so fun to write, i dont why but i really like bosco even though he's a bastard hitchhiker. if youre wondering why callie and oliver wanted to pick him up so bad, blame it on all those energy drinks. anyway, i hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a comment. best comment, gets a dedication after all! (dedicated to gothicreckless bc her comment just made my day)

                     - rose xoxo