The Walker: Episode 1
"This woman is spooky," he said. Eve looked up from her phone as they came across the woman somewhat wobbling in her step at the side of the road. She wore a white, flowing summer dress splotched with yellow flowers, which allowed her arms to be bare, slightly purple in the cool air. Green strappy shoes adorn her inconsistent feet, while her greying blond hair hung loose.
Eve watched the woman uneasily step off the fog line of the road and onto the curb, still walking toward the oncoming traffic. Her aged face was hardened in concentration, determination, and stared straight ahead.
"She's just walking," Eve supplied.
"That woman is there, walking up and down this stretch, every single day. At least this time she had the decency to get off the road. I usually have to drive around her."
Eve thought back to a night a few weeks previous, when she had first seen the woman in the dusk, walking along the opposite side of the road, a suitcase rolling behind her. It had seemed odd then, so many miles from Trawsfynydd, and far more to the hotel up the road. Eve had reasoned that there must be a camp site locally that she was aiming for, perhaps meeting friends who had already set up.
It was almost dark, which was what had worried Eve, and the visibility of the woman was minimal in her black jogging pants, green woolly vest, and long-sleeved white shirt. She passed her and found, up ahead, a group of three trying to wave her down. She slowed. It really was an odd place for there to be people, an odd time of night, an odd time of year. Not late enough into the summer to get the regular onslaught of tourists, but after half term.
The woman waving Eve down approached the car and she rolled down her window.
"You folks alright?" Eve asked, and watched as the woman was taken aback slightly at her accent. Welsh, of course, Polish, sure, English, preferred. American wasn't expected though.
"Would it be possible to get a lift?" She asked. English. Another woman joined her along with a man at the car's window. Eve looked toward the back of her little Peugeot, and her own residual camping gear in the back that she had neglected to unpack.
"Where are you headed?" Eve asked.
"Anywhere, really. Out of the rain. But really, we need to get to a phone. Unless your mobile has signal?" The woman looked back down the road, her eyebrows furrowed, her finger tapping on the car door.
Eve shook her head. This was dead land, no signal for a couple of miles. "There's a hotel up ahead, I can maybe get one of you in here, but it'd be a push to get all of you in, I'm afraid."
The three looked between one another, and the man nodded slightly. "We'll hide out in the trees," he assured her.
The woman went to the passenger side of the car and got in, her hair going curly from the thick Welsh rain. She looked back at her companions as Eve drove on.
"Are you guys ok out here?" Eve asked. "I mean, I didn't see a car. Did you walk all that way? Are you with that other woman further back?"
Eve could see the hitchhiker tighten at the last part, and shiver slightly. She was perhaps in her forties, and didn't look like she had intended any outdoor activity with their outing.
"No," she said, only barely audible over the engine. "We were forced off a bus."
"A bus? What did you do?" Eve asked, accompanied by an encouraging giggle.
"It wasn't us," the woman said. "We were on a tour bus, you know the one that goes through the Snowdonia Park?" Eve nodded though she didn't know. There were too many tourist activities to keep up with in the area. "Well that woman sat next to Daniel and kept," she paused, stiffening her neck and shoulders, trying to force the words out, "touching him, inappropriately. I saw the whole thing."
"What? That's crazy!"
"We're not supposed to get up on the bus, but I told him that I'd trade him places across the aisle. The driver didn't like that, and told us to sit down on the loud speaker. I was mortified. Even more to my horror, Daniel decided to tell the whole bus that the woman was being inappropriate! And then--and then--" she exhaled loudly. "That horrible cow began shrieking that Daniel had been groping her, and trying to put his hand up her skirt."
"Oh my god!" Eve exclaimed, shocked at the information this stranger was reviewing about their travels when she was clearly humiliated by it.
"The woman wasn't wearing a skirt, I don't know if you noticed that when you passed her," she continued. "The driver had enough of the drama, clearly seeing the bat was a fibber and not knowing what to do with Daniel, so he shooed us all off."
"That's awful," Eve replied.
"Willa, of course had a go at her when we were all off and the bus had left. The woman just began rummaging through her purse for something, which only infuriated Willa more. Daniel tried to get in between them since Willa was charging at the woman. Then, the woman pulled a handful of white powder out of her bag and blew it off her hand at us! I was shocked! We had no idea what it was. And then—this is the disgusting bit—she threw a handful of toenails at us. My mouth was open in horror and one of them went in! It was utterly revolting. She began saying something in some other language--not Welsh--and staring through us. So, we ran. We didn't know what else to do, so we ran away, like children."
"Jesus!" Eve pulled into the hotel. "I can go back and get your friends if you want."
The woman nodded, pleadingly. She thanked her and hopped out of the car, into the rain.
Eve turned back to find the two remaining people. She didn't see them, or the woman anywhere. It was completely dark by that point, and she parked her car so her lights shone into the trees, remembering the man said they would hide out there. After searching and calling out for a few minutes, she gave up, and went back to the hotel to inform the hitchhiker. She asked in the pub for her, and the front desk, but no one had recalled anyone asking to use the phone.
Eve resigned to carry on her way, hoping the hitchhiker and her friends had gotten somewhere safe.
Now, with her partner in the driver’s seat, commenting on the summery woman trekking along the road, Eve turned back to get another look at her in time to see her topple into the road into, an oncoming taxi, the rise and fall of it going up and over the body, and screech to a halt. As the car behind it rear-ended the first vehicle, Eve watched in horror as the woman rolled out from under the car, stood effortlessly, and continued marching.
Author's Note:
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