Read Shivers 7 for Free Online Page B

backpack sitting on the grassy verge between the entrance ramp and the highway on this side. Another hitchhiker. It’s against the law to troll for rides on an interstate, but there’s always somebody ready and willing to defy laws and take chances.
    Breakbone was looking out the side window at the hitchhiker as we rolled on past. He said suddenly, “Stop the car.”
    “What? No way. I don’t pick up hitchers—”
    “Stop the car.”
    “—and even if I did, there’s not enough room in back—”
    His body turned and one of his huge hands clamped down in a tight squeeze on my right knee. “Stop the car!”
    It was like being caught in the iron jaws of a scoop shovel. I felt cartilage grind; pain shot all the way up into my groin. Reflex made me jam my left foot down so hard on the brake I nearly lost control of the car. The rear end fishtailed, wobbling, the skidding tires smoked and must have laid fifty feet of rubber before I managed to straighten out and then maneuver the Audi off onto the side of the highway. No other car had been close; if one had been….
    “Jesus Christ,” I said, “what’s the idea? You nearly caused an accident.”
    He wasn’t listening to me. He had the passenger door open and was looking back, gesturing. In the rearview mirror I saw the hitchhiker running toward us, his backpack clutched against his chest. Young guy, nineteen or twenty; short and thin, with a long mop of blond hair and a heat-blotched face.
    Breakbone got out and opened the rear door. The kid came to an abrupt stop, staring up at him. “Wow,” he said.
    “Get in,” Breakbone said. “There’s enough room.”
    “Hey, thanks, thanks a lot.” The kid squeezed himself into what little space there was on the rear seat, holding the backpack on his lap. “Man, that air-conditioning feels good,” he said. Then, to me through a friendly grin, “Thanks to you, too, mister. I didn’t think anybody was going to stop and I’d have to spent the night out there.”
    “I almost didn’t.”
    “Yeah, I saw. You sure made up your mind in a hurry.”
    “Didn’t I, though.”
    Breakbone was filling up the passenger seat again. He said, “Okay. Let’s go.”
    I wanted to say something more to him in protest; my knee and leg were still smarting. But with the kid already in the car now, it didn’t seem to be worth making an issue of it. Over and done with and no real harm done. I put the car in gear and pulled back onto the highway.
    We went a mile or so in silence. Then the kid said, “All this stuff back here. You guys moving somewhere?”
    “Just me,” I said. “California.”
    “I’m going to Phoenix. Well, Tempe. Arizona State University. I’m a student there. I don’t suppose you could take me that far? Or at least as far as Flagstaff if you’re staying on Forty?”
    “Well….”
    “I understand if you can’t. I’m grateful for any ride I can get, as far as I can get. My name’s Rob, by the way.”
    “Jack.”
    Breakbone didn’t offer his nickname.
    It got quiet again. I could feel an edginess growing in me. It wasn’t the same having Breakbone along now, after that knee-squeezing business. I didn’t want him in the car anymore. Once we got to the outskirts of Santa Rosa, I’d stop and let him out. The kid, Rob, seemed to be all right; I could take him as far as Phoenix because my route plan was to swing down through there and pick up Interstate 10 into L.A. But I didn’t want him with me, either—no more company at all after Santa Rosa. Why had Breakbone forced me to stop for him? Compassion for a fellow traveler, I supposed, like I’d had compassion for him.
    The quiet kept playing on my nerves. I turned on the radio, thinking: Music, news, call-in show—anything. The station I was tuned to was playing a song by Willie Nelson. Breakbone immediately reached over and turned it off.
    “What’d you do that for?”
    “Don’t like the radio playing.”
    “Well, I do.”
    “So do I,” the