The kiosk owner stubbed out his cigarette and took the coins Caleb handed him.
“Obrigado.”
I began chugging back the water and munching on the bread as we walked back along the road. I was silent for the next ten minutes. I finished the whole loaf and three quarters of the water. Caleb was still poring over the map. He was walking with his back facing the sun, so his hands wouldn’t get burned. It made the glare somewhat more bearable, I imagined.
“We should start heading north, toward Boa Vista.”
I peered at the map.
“But how? You can’t possibly run that far with the sun beating down on you like this. You can barely walk.”
“We’ll need to travel by vehicle. As soon as darkness falls, we’ll get off and I’ll run. We won’t get far by car compared to the distance I can travel by running at night, but we can’t just waste time during the day. We ought to start heading in the right direction. If I run non-stop tonight, we could be halfway across Venezuela by morning.”
“And then what are you thinking?”
“We need to make it to the coast, either in Panama or Colombia. Panama is closer to The Shade. If we make good progress tonight, we could well arrive at Panama Bay within three days. We’ll have to find a speedboat. That will leave us a few more days to navigate the seas back to The Shade. Assuming we don’t get lost in any jungles or have some other major disaster…”
“Hm. So how do we get a vehicle?” I frowned, looking up and down the busy road.
“This highway leads north. We’ll have to hitchhike.”
I stared at Caleb, his face masked, his body covered from head to foot in the long black suit. He looked like a bank robber. I couldn’t imagine anyone in their right mind stopping for us. Still, it didn’t look like we had much of a choice but to try.
I looked up and down the road again, squinting as a van came thundering past, blowing up a dust storm around us.
“Which side of the road do we stand on? Which way’s north?”
Caleb consulted the map again, then looked at the road sign towering above us. He pointed to the other side of the highway. I looked nervously at the velocity the vehicles were passing by, barely leaving a few seconds’ gap between them.
I climbed once again onto Caleb’s back and tried to help shelter his eyes from the blazing sun, which was almost at its peak in the sky by now.
He looked left and right, then lurched forward, knocking the breath right out of me. We reached the narrow partition in the center of the highway. Caleb waited another few seconds before darting forward and arriving safely on the other side.
He groaned again as he turned his back on the sun, covering his eyes with his hands.
I looked at the road again and my stomach sank as I thought about what we were about to attempt.
“Caleb,” I said, pointing to a shaded area ten feet back from the road. When he hesitated, I reached for his sleeve and tugged him.
“What?”
“You can’t seriously expect anyone to stop with you looking like that.”
He didn’t have anything to say to that.
“I’ll have to try pulling a car over by myself,” I said. “You should go and sit in the shade.”
At least he could take the suit off if he sat there. He didn’t argue with me and did as I’d requested, though his gaze didn’t leave me.
Of course, I’d never hitchhiked in my life. I’d seen it done in movies, however. I reached out an arm and stuck out a thumb. Caleb had removed his hood, so at least he looked a little less scary. Although his appearance was still a disadvantage, hitchhiking with a vampire certainly had its perks. I didn’t have to be as selective in choosing a driver, because Caleb wouldn’t have trouble protecting us.
As it turned out, we couldn’t afford to be selective. I stood for an hour with my hand outstretched. Nobody would stop. I spotted a police car hurtling toward us more than once. I ducked into the bushes with Caleb, paranoid that news might have spread about my stall robbery.
After an hour and a half, a car stopped with two men in the front seats. They seemed interested in giving me a ride. But as soon as I pointed to Caleb, they lost interest and sped off again.
Finally, during the third hour, as my arm drooped from exhaustion, a long red pickup truck pulled over. Its windows were tinted, so I couldn’t see inside. A tan man sporting dark sunglasses and a goatee in the driver’s seat rolled down his window and beckoned me over.
I approached cautiously, looking past his shoulder to see another man. Smoking a rolled-up cigarette, he was tattooed and muscular, just like the driver.
“Hello, sir,” I said to the driver. “Do you speak English?”
“English.” His voice was deep and gravelly. He exchanged glances with the man next to him in the passenger seat. “Yes, I speak English.”
I exhaled in relief. That was half the battle won right there.
I pointed to Caleb, who had stood up, pulled the suit over himself again—his hood only partially covering his face—and approached us. “My friend and I are hoping to catch a ride to Boa Vista. Where are you heading?”
His face dropped slightly, but he replied all the same.
“Venezuela. We will be passing through Boa Vista.”
I looked up at Caleb who was eyeing the men closely.
“Can you just give me a second?” I said, looking back at the driver.
He grunted. Caleb and I stepped back from the vehicle where we could talk out of earshot.