He looks at Alice. Alice stares back at him and pokes his shoulder with her finger.

He shrugs, his attention returning to the road. His face is amused.

It’s Alice who answers.

“His name is Mickey Mouse!” she says. Then she laughs.

The man smiles and I realize this is a little game they play. Alice gets to make up his name for strangers.

I play along, though I feel ill.

“Should I call you Mickey or Mr. Mouse?”

He laughs out loud but doesn’t answer.

The truck moves slowly through the storm. The storm moves quickly around us. Time and distance lose their calibration.

I cannot see beyond the headlights. The wind is powerful, rain blowing sideways. Falling hard. Turns and turns, avoiding fallen trees, the man tells me, though I can’t see them from the second row.

He does not make conversation. He does not ask the obvious questions, like who I am or where I’m from. I think then that he is just nervous about the storm, about getting Alice home safely.

I taste the blood on my lip from where I have bitten down too hard. I am warm now but I can’t stop shaking.

The truck slows again and this time stops fully. Alice perks up. She looks out and sees what I see—a tall metal fence. There is a gate with a lock and we are stopped in front of a dirt driveway.

The man gets out. Alice doesn’t ask why. He pulls up the hood of his jacket but it does little to keep him from getting drenched. He runs up to the gate and stops at a large chain that winds between two of the fence posts. It looks as though he’s turning a manual lock. One hand holds steady. The other twists, then pulls hard. He unwinds the chain and a section of the fence swings open.

I look at the lock on the car door which brushes against my right arm. It did not release when he left the truck, but still, I slide my hand to the handle and pull as softly as I can. It does not click open. A child lock must be on. I see through the console and wonder if my body will fit between the seats—if I can climb over into the driver’s side and make an escape through that door. Alice is too small to stop me. But loud enough to call to the man and, surely, he would catch me in fewer than a dozen strides.

Then I stop myself. We are at a house. A family lives here. Maybe there’s a wife, more children. Alice and her father were just out to get the gas in the cans which sit on the floor beside me. And some bottles of water. I see them in the front seat by Alice’s legs. They happened upon me. They offered me a ride.