Labor Day weekend is always a good time to pick up students hitchhiking, but that wasn't why I pulled into the rest stop on the Massachusetts Turnpike. While I had fourteen empty burlap sacks in the back of the van that needed to be filled before heading back home, along with more than enough rope and gags to take care of things, I didn't expect to be picking up any of them here. While there's always the chance of finding a hitchhiker at a place like this, it's a small one and I was expecting that most of the stragglers I'd be getting would be in cities off the Turnpike. Hartford, Bridgeport, and if need be, New Haven. For this trip I hoped to get mostly students. They were generally healthier and leaner than the usual types – the prostitutes, drifters, homeless, and other such stragglers that I'd often have to collect. Students also tended to carry more books, clothes, and money on them than those others, all of which was good to bring back to the homestead. If I ended up needing those others to fill up the back of the van, I would. But I was hoping for mostly students.

Another reason I didn't expect or care about getting one of them at this rest stop was it's safer and easier to collect them at night when it's dark and you don't have to worry about prying eyes. But it's not impossible to collect them during the daylight. It's not even that hard, and I've done it plenty of times in the past. You just have to be careful. So why did I stop? Only because I'd been traveling for over five hours, and I wanted to get a bite to eat and stretch my legs.

As you'd expect on the Saturday before Labor Day, the building housing the small food court and restrooms was teeming with travelers, even though it was only a little after ten thirty in the morning. I stood among them fantasizing how much simpler things would be if I could just pick fourteen of them out, take a club to them, and load their unconscious bodies into the back of the van. If I could've done that, I'd be heading home shortly afterwards and arriving at the homestead well before sundown. But these trips are never that easy. Not hard, exactly, but they take time. Almost always at least a full twenty-four hours, and there have been times when it's been double that.

I purchased a newspaper and then searched the food kiosks until I found the one I'd frequented the last time I came this way. At the kiosk I bought a large black coffee and what was advertised as a vegan chocolate-covered doughnut, and took it to a small table in the back. For the next twenty minutes I stretched out my legs fully, read the newspaper all the way through, ate my doughnut, and sipped my coffee. After that I sat with my eyes closed and listened to the hubbub they made, letting my mind drift. What knocked me out of my daydreaming was realizing there was a heated argument going on nearby. Lovers were fighting. From their raised voices, the man was angry and getting angrier, and the girl tearful.

I glanced casually in their direction. They were two tables away. The girl's back was to me, so I couldn't tell much about her other than that she had long yellow hair and seemed to be a slight thing, at least from her slender shoulders and how narrow her back was. The man I was able to get a good look at. Red-faced, beefy, cruel mouth, eyes even angrier than his voice. He looked young, but that didn't mean much. The healthy ones always look much younger than we do because of the soft, pampered lives they lead. Even after all the forays I've made into their world, I still have a difficult time judging their ages.

I glanced away, but soon after that my ears perked up when he told her in a strained and lowered voice that he was done with her. This meant there was a chance of me being able to get him safely, assuming he had been a passenger in her car and now needed to find another ride to wherever he was heading. He'd be a good one to pick up. The women back at the homestead would get a lot of meat off of him when they stripped him to the bones. But it was more than just that. Because of his cruel mouth and the way he left that girl sobbing, I wanted him to be the first one I left trussed up in the back of the van.

I kept him in my peripheral vision and watched as he left the table. Soon he was crossing diagonally in front of me as he made his way toward the exit. I found myself holding my breath, hoping he'd put out a thumb and start hitchhiking. I could see him through the glass as he stepped outside and moved doggedly in a straight line as if he knew exactly where he wanted to go. That didn't mean he wasn't going to be hitchhiking. He could've quickly decided where he was going to try to flag down a ride.

I decided to give it three minutes before heading out after him, and was still counting down to zero when a small green-colored sedan pulled up in front of the entrance. That same man I'd been hoping would be my first pickup got out of the car, walked to the trunk, opened it, and flung a duffel bag toward the door. After slamming the trunk closed, he got back into the driver's seat and sped off.

I couldn't help feeling disappointed as I glanced over at the girl, and it wasn't because of how much less meat we'd be able to get off of her.

Even though she had to know her duffel bag was lying unattended on the pavement outside, she didn't bother getting it, or even looking in its direction. Instead, she sat as if in a daze for the next forty minutes before slipping a backpack on and finally leaving the table. She must've been hoping her boyfriend would have a change of heart and come back for her, and it took that long for her to finally accept that he wasn't. Or maybe the ordeal had weakened her to such an extent that until then she lacked the strength to stand on her feet. Whichever it was, the rush of travelers entering and leaving the building during that time all stepped around the duffel bag, with none of them bothering to locate who it belonged to or check whether that person needed help.

I didn't want her to notice I was watching her, so I looked away as she wandered somewhat aimlessly toward the door. I then waited five additional minutes before following her outside.

She sat cross-legged on her duffel bag, her face buried in her hands. She looked so tiny it again made me think there just wouldn't be enough meat on her to justify the bother. But I had already invested time in her, and I knew the elders in the clan would've expected me to collect her if possible. They might not be able to trim more than forty pounds from her, but it would be high-quality meat, leaner, tastier and more nutritious than much of the meat I brought back. I stood in front of her making up my mind before telling her that I had been sitting nearby when she had her fight with her boyfriend. She didn't move at all, and I wasn't sure she heard me or realized I was there. I tried again.

'That was rotten what he did to you,' I said. 'Abandoning you like that. Where I come from, we'd skin a boy alive doing something that mean to a pretty gal like you.'

I made sure I was smiling, so when she looked my way she'd think I was joking about the skinning alive part. She slowly lifted her head, and as her eyes caught mine I felt a hitch form along the side of my mouth. Even as red-rimmed as her eyes were from crying and as blotchy as her skin was around those eyes for the same reason, she looked younger than I expected, much more so than her boyfriend. She also struck me as very pretty. Usually...