The 1972 Plymouth Duster, its Illinois plates dulled by road dust, rolled steady down the forgotten stretches of Route 66. Behind the wheel, Jake drove with a faint smile, humming tunelessly. He called it his grand tour, his own bicentennial celebration. Two hundred stops before the Fourth of July. This town ahead might be number twenty-nine.

He pulled into a gas station. The attendant, an old man, moved slowly, eyes sunken and distant. He filled the tank, took the cash, and handed back the change. Not a single word.

“Quiet town,” Jake said.

The old man gave a stiff nod and turned away.

Jake frowned but carried on down the main street. Empty sidewalks, windows shuttered, a single diner with a neon sign buzzing faintly.

The bell over the door rang as he stepped inside. A few locals sat in silence, chewing their meals as if words were rationed.

The waitress, Marla, poured him coffee without asking.

“Thanks,” Jake said, cheerful. “Quiet town, huh?”

Her body locked. Her face went blank. When she spoke, her voice was drained of all life.

“It’s always quiet. The last time I answered a question, my husband asked if I was happy. I told him no. He hanged himself in the garage.”

The room froze. Jake’s stomach knotted. Marla gasped, clapped a hand to her mouth, then fled into the kitchen, leaving the confession hanging heavy in the air.

Jake pushed the pie aside. His curiosity burned hotter than his appetite.

Later, when she slipped out the back after her shift, he followed. She walked fast, head down, until his voice stopped her.

“Wait. Why won’t anyone in this town just talk?”

She shook as the same dead tone returned. “Because questions take the truth out of us. We can’t lie once asked. Doesn’t matter if we want to. Doesn’t matter if it ruins us.”

Her tears glistened in the dim streetlight. She hated every word spilling from her mouth, yet she couldn’t stop.

Jake stepped closer. His heart raced. “So every truth’s just waiting, buried, until someone digs it out?”

She nodded, trembling.

And something shifted inside him. The silence of the town wasn’t a curse. It was a stage. He felt his grin grow.

“Twenty-eight stops so far,” he said softly. “Each one unforgettable. And I’ll have two hundred before I’m finished.”

Her eyes widened in terror.

“The way my knife slides in,” he whispered, almost reverent. “It’s a feeling I can’t describe.”

Marla’s voice cracked. “I didn’t ask you a question.”

Jake smiled, calm and gentle, as if her terror was a kindness.

“Oh, I know. But I would’ve told you anyway.”

He stepped forward.

“You’re number twenty-nine.”

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