Rain is drumming on a tin roof overhead when I open my eyes to darkness. My nostrils inhale the scent of wet hay, dust, and a far gone hint of manure: a barn. I am up high, in the hayloft. Below I catch small noises–dripping water, scurrying sounds along the walls. I sense no humans, no large animals. I exhale in relief. Animals always seem to know.

I can't have been sleeping here long; my muscles are sore and my eyes grainy. I burrow into the moldy straw, trying to curl around this temporary safe feeling. Shivering, I pull my torn ski jacket tight around me and squeeze my eyes shut. They pop back open.

As always after my blackouts, dread sits in my stomach. Something bad has happened. I'm not going to be able to go back to sleep until I know what.

Still, I try.

Listening to the rain, I have no idea what time it is, and my cracked watch is no help. The hands point to quarter past twelve as they have for the past three years – almost three years, I remind myself, then shudder.

don't want to remember

I try to think of nothing, but my senses won't allow this, so I focus on the smells, and catalog the scents in my head. There are crops nearby, corn mostly, also tomatoes and sunflowers, cucumbers and snap peas and peppers. Traces of hours-old car exhaust. A bit of fuel left in a can down below. I'm thankful for the rain, which drowns out most noises and washes away heavier traces of scent.

My eyes are half-closed, staring into a darkness which slowly grows clearer.

The last thing I remember is hitchhiking.

"Where you headed, son?"

The man driving the rusty blue pickup is older, his hair mostly gray and covered with a worn cap, his paunch straining the stomach of his flannel shirt.

Regarding him warily. "As far as you're going."

"Hop in."

Hesitating a beat, glancing at the heavy sky before climbing into the truck cab. Keeping to my side of the seat, my hand on the door handle and my senses on the alert. Perverts have a smell about them, a dirty semen smell masked by something minty. This man at least smells honest.

"You from around here?"

"No."

"You're lucky it was me who picked you up. Lots a trucks comin' down this road. Lotsa men who'd take advantage of a young boy."

Saying nothing, staring out at the countryside passing by the window. The houses here far apart, the landscape lonely and isolated. Rolling over the miles in between.

"You're young. I know you'll tell me you're older, sixteen or eighteen or whatever you think I want to hear." Fat raindrops splatter on the windshield and the man flicks on the wipers. "You oughtn't to be out on the road alone."

Still I remain silent.

"What's your name, if you don't mind me askin'?"

"Dan."

Wishing briefly that he would stop talking, and a wave of nausea hits me like a wall.

Gripping the door handle.

"Good name. So many kids these days with weird names. Parents namin' their kids after soap opera stars or fruit or some shit like that..."

Shut up, old man...

My stomach lurching.

There's a dark farmhouse up ahead, deserted. Good. "Can you let me off here?"

"I'm not going to leave a young boy stranded on the side of the road in this weather. Not this close to the city. Hey, you okay?"

"Fine." Black spots dancing across my vision. "Here's fine. It's fine."

"You can stay the night with me, eat something. Look at you. You're nothing but skin and bones. You can stay at my place, and head out in the morning. It's only a couple minutes up the road."

Blinking hard, swallowing, but it doesn't help.

"Please, sir, let me off?" My voice a croak.

"Seriously, kid. Two minutes."

Can't you feel it coming, old man?

The pressure in my head increasing, and I surrender myself to the darkness.

My stomach growls.