Nick sticks his head out his hotel room door and looks down the hallway. As soon as he is sure that no one is around he walks out of the room dragging a duffel bag that is filled to the maximum extent. He looks at his watch and sighs. It was three in the morning on March 7, 2001.
Nick heaves the duffel bag onto his shoulder and walks down the hall to the elevators. He gets in one quickly and takes it down to the first floor. As soon as the doors open he quickly walks down the hall to a room and pulls out a card unlocking the door and walking in.
“Here goes nothing,” he says exhaling a deep breath and throwing the card onto the bed.
He walks over to the window and takes off his duffel bag then opens the window and sticks his out looking around. There was no one out that he could see so far. He throws the duffel bag out of the window onto the hotel lawn and then takes one final deep breathe of air and lets it back out.
“Bye guys,” he says to himself looking around the small room before throwing one leg out the window and then the rest of his body follows until he is standing on the hotel law looking up at the large building.
Nick picks up his duffel bag and walks over to the hotel parking lot. He walks up to a small black civic and gets in throwing his duffel bag onto the passenger’s seat. The car moves from it’s space back around to the front entrance of the hotel building. He takes one last look up at the building before driving on.
“Goodbye Nick Carter,” he says to himself as he drives the car out onto the road.
After about three miles he parks the car by the side of the road and gets out pulling his duffel bag with him. He locks the car up and walks off the side of the road down a small embankment then drops his duffel bag onto the ground. He starts throwing off his old clothes and when he stripped down to his boxers he pulls out some clothes from his bag. He throws on a black Def Leppard T-shirt, a pair of dark green cut off shorts, white tube socks that he pulls up all the way, a pair of converse sneakers, a baseball hat and a pair of black sunglasses. As soon as he is finished getting dress he heads back up the embankment leaving his old clothes behind and starts walking down the road with his duffel bag slung over his shoulder.
He was almost there.
First things first, he thinks as he walks into a truck stop along the road and walks inside.
He grabs a bag of chips, a sandwich and a bottle of water then walks up to the cashier who couldn’t of been older then himself.
“That all?” the cashier asks?
“Um yeah.”
“10.34,” he says
“Ok,” Nick says and digs a twenty out of his pocket handing it to him, “Um can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” he says handing him is change.
“Whose car is that?” he asks pointing to a small beat up Toyota parked in the parking lot with a For Sale sign in it.
“Mine. Why?”
“How much do you want for it?”
“I dunno. I mean it means a lot to me…”
“I’ll give you three thousand cash upfront now.”
“Cash?”
“Yeah.”
“I dunno about the three thousand thing. I mean…”
“Fine, three thousand five hundred, but that is far as I go.”
“Deal.”
“Ok,” Nick says and reaches into his pocket and takes out a handful of bills, “Gimmie the keys first.”
“I dunno. How do I know those aren’t counterfeit?”
“Fine,” Nick says walking away.
“Whoa. Whoa. I mean here,” he says fishing keys out of his pocket and throwing them to Nick.
“Thank you,” Nick says and throws the wad of bills at him then quickly walks out of the truck stop over to the car.
He takes the keys out and unlocks the small car then throws his duffel bag in before climbing in himself. He drives it over to the gas pumps and fills up the tank before heading off back onto the road.
After driving for about five hours straight he pulls over to the side of the road again and climbs out pulling his duffel bag out too. He once again locks the car up and begins walking down the road. It was morning by now and he was praying to God no one would recognize him. Of course he looked like a reject from Blink 182, so he figured he was safe. He holds up a thumb as he sees a truck driving up and lets out a sigh of relief as the truck screeches to a halt. The passengers side door is thrown open and he looks up at a middle age woman who is smiling at him.
“Hey hun where you going?”
“Where can you take me?”
“You heading towards that rock concert festival for the radio?”
“Yeah. Yeah, how did you guess?”
“Just a lucky guess. C’mon in sweety. I can take you into the city, but that is as far as I can take you.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Ok.”
Driving for four hours in a big rig talking with a woman named Betty the whole time isn’t as bad as it sounds, well at least according to Nick. So Nick road with her and looks at the passing signs until he sees a sign exit for the airport.
“Wait, can you let me out here?”
“Here? The city isn’t for a few more miles.”
“I know I have a change of plans.”
“Ok sweetheart,” she says pulling the truck over to the side and he opens the door getting out, “You take care of yourself.”
“Thank you,” he says shutting the door and walking away as she drives off.
He begins walking up the road to the airport pulling some things out of his pocket. He was the afternoon by now and he knew that there were going to be people who could recognize him, so he puts on a small pair of clip on hoop earring he had bought earlier. He sits down for a second and pulls out a contact case containing green contacts. He opens the case and carefully puts the contacts in and curses as they sting his eyes from not washing his hands.
There is a sudden screeching sound and he looks behind himself as a Navigator slams into a smaller Focus. The Focus goes spinning out of control and Nick’s eyes grow wide as it starts spinning straight toward him. The next thing he hears is the sound of screeching tires, crunching metal and the feel of the ground as his body is thrown.
