Truckers carry the anonymous metal boxes that keep the country running. A driver’s entire job — his entire life,
when you look at the hours — centers on picking up loads, getting them where they need to be and picking up the next one as soon as he can manage. Traffic’s a frustration, but downtime is the true enemy: being stuck in an anonymous parking lot, out at some shipping terminal in the middle of nowhere, that’s a trucker’s nightmare.
Most truck lines offer downtime pay after a day or so stranded, but they tend to find more work just in the nick of time. Drivers often get comfortable, if disgruntled, spending a night or two between boring, gray days in their trucks. That kind of complacency can be dangerous.
Prostitution
Sex, like drugs, is a commodity that was more available in truck stops back when there was more money to spend on it. Nonetheless, many women and a smaller number of men prostitute themselves at stops. Most truck stops make a token effort to keep prostitutes off the premises; anybody who isn’t getting hassled is probably paying a cut to management. Drivers, whether they employ prostitutes or not, tend to hold them in low regard. “Lot Lizards” are resented for their brazen solicitations and their profession in general. Truck stop prostitution is dirty, unpleasant work, with the threat of being stranded joining fears of nonpay- ment, assault and HIV.
Although truckers are less keen to admit it, many regard prostitutes with a measure of fear, as well, afraid the “lizards” will turn to robbery or murder if they see the opportunity. The fear goes both ways; anyone who’s been hooking long enough knows someone who disappeared or was found dead. After a while on the job, most learn to co- ordinate with each other, taking down the license numbers of each other’s johns. In the World of Darkness, a lot more of everybody gets assaulted or kidnapped, but prostitutes still regard it as a particular hazard of their trade.
Much business is conducted over CB, where the sex workers use aliases and avoid explicitly describing their work. Police are often listening, but an ever-changing selection of jargon makes it difficult for them to track prostitution-related activities. Prostitutes arranging ren- dezvous with regular johns will often communicate by cell phone or text message, and may use those connections to find their rides back.
Unlike truckers, prostitutes usually aren’t in for the long haul. Typically, a prostitute will adopt a route between two or three truck stops, catching a ride out and then one back in. Some truckers, tired of fending off knocks on windows in the middle of the night, have adopted stickers or signs to tell prostitutes their attention isn’t wanted. One popular design is a gecko with a red ‘X’ drawn across it. A disturbing variation shows the lizard crushed by red tire tracks.
Plot Hooks
• What exactly is it that keeps the country running? Usually, it’s the trash that consumers consume, the bits
used to build it or pieces of the packaging used to hock it to them. Sometimes, it’s industrial parts and even chemicals (although dangerous chemicals are supposed to be shipped specially). What if it were something else, though? What if the truck lines are hauling sacrificial victims or the mummi- fied remains of monstrous gods? What if that’s what keeps the United States running? Suppose one of these special con- signments falls into the characters’ hands, a gigantic corpse wrapped in bandages and spices, along with its recently murdered human servants. The characters are supposed to take it to a government building near Seattle. Will they? Or will they sell the consignment to the strangely accented, too-tall man who approaches them en route?
• How long can the characters wait for their next big load? They’ve been waiting 33 hours in this lot, now, and there’s still nothing on the dispatch. There are other truckers waiting here, too, and they’re suspiciously quiet and exhausted. How long have they been here? Is there really anywhere else to go?
• A tractor trailer could be turned into a mobile com- mand center, if a group of capable men were to spend a few weeks on it and maybe a few thousand on parts and equip- ment. The Stumph Trucking Company isn’t a trucking com- pany at all. It’s a small band of men who are systematically
hunting down the creatures that slaughtered their friend at a truck stop one night. The creatures are werewolves, the truckers are sure of that, and so these men carry guns with silver bullets and weapons with silver-plated blades. They live in the truck, constantly searching, taking turns playing “bait” at the truck stops.
Hitchhiking
You don’t have wheels. You can’t hire wheels. Some- how, you’ve got to get halfway across the country, and you don’t have long to do it. What do you do? Hitchhike. Hitchhiking became popular in the United States during the Great Depression. Poverty-stricken Americans would trade company and sometimes sex for rides between towns. In those days, hitching was legal across the country, and carried less risk than riding the rails. The open road was even more dangerous than it is today, though, without even the illusions of safety provided by modern technology. If a hitcher was never heard from again, his family might never even get suspicious.
Hitchhiking continued to grow in popularity, paral- lel with long-distance car travel, into the 1970s. Well- publicized serial murders, such as those perpetrated by Ed
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friends hitchhiking separately, then regrouping to swap tales and nurse wounds, could make an excellent, if unconven- tional, chronicle.
Gear
Hitchhikers need more than a thumb and an in- nocent look. A sign helps, especially if the hitcher’s looking for a ride someplace unusual or someplace cars wouldn’t usually stop. (A sign that can be hid- den is even better, in case the cops take an interest.) Hitchhikers should be prepared for some light camping, and be ready to spend a lot of time outdoors even when they’re skulking around civilization.
Stops
Part of the beauty of hitchhiking is stopping and starting wherever your ride does. Hitchhikers piggyback on existing transportation networks, grabbing rides at highway on-ramps, truck stops, gas stations, you name it. With such modern equipment as Internet-connected cell phones, a hitchhiker can even plan rides in advance, while she’s already on the road.