FREEWAY GAMES 
by 
Orson Scott Card 
Except for Donner Pass, everything on the road between San 
Francisco and Salt Lake City was boring. Stanley had driven the 
road a dozen deadly times until he was sure he knew Nevada by 
heart: an endless road winding among hills covered with sagebrush. 
When God got through making scenery, Stanley often said, there 
was a lot of land left over in Nevada, and God said, Aw, to hell 
with it, and thats where Nevadas been ever since. 
Today Stanley was relaxed, there was no rush for him to get back to 
Salt Lake, and so, to ease the boredom, he began playing freeway 
games. 
He played Blue Angels first. On the upslope of the Sierra Nevadas 
he found two cars riding side by side at fifty miles an hour. He 
pulled his Datsun 260Z into formation beside them. At fifty miles 
an hour they cruised along, blocking all the lanes of the freeway. 
Traffic began piling up behind them. 
The game was successful  the other two drivers got into the spirit 
of the thing. When the middle car drifted forward, Stanley eased 
back to stay even with the driver on the right, so that they drove 
down the freeway in an arrowhead formation. They made diagonals, 
funnels; danced around each other for half an hour; and whenever 

one of them pulled slightly ahead, the frantically angry drivers 
behind them jockeyed behind the leading car. 
Finally, Stanley tired of the game, despite the fun of the honks and 
flashing lights behind them. He honked twice, and waved jauntily to 
the driver beside him, then pressed on the accelerator and leaped 
forward at seventy miles an hour, soon dropping back to sixty as 
dozens of other cars, their drivers trying to make up for lost time (or 
trying to compensate for long confinement), passed by going much 
faster. Many paused to drive beside him, honking, glaring, and 
making obscene gestures. Stanley grinned at them all. 
He got bored again east of Reno. 
This time he decided to play Follow. A yellow AM Hornet was just 
ahead of him on the highway, going fifty-eight to sixty miles per 
hour. A good speed. Stanley settled in behind the car, about three 
lengths behind, and followed. The driver was a woman, with dark 
hair that danced in the erratic wind that came through her open 
windows. Stanley wondered how long it would take her to notice 
that she was being followed. 
Two songs on the radio (Stanleys measure of time while 
travelling), and halfway through a commercial for hair spray  and 
she began to pull away. Stanley prided himself on quick reflexes. 
She didnt even gain a car length; even when she reached seventy, 
he stayed behind her. 
He hummed along with an old Billy Joel song even as the Reno 
radio station began to fade. He hunted for another station, but found 
only country and western, which he loathed. So in silence he 
followed as the woman in the Hornet slowed down. 

She went thirty miles an hour, and still he didnt pass. Stanley 
chuckled. At this point, he was sure she was imagining the worst. A 
rapist, a thief, a kidnapper, determined to destroy her. She kept on 
looking in her rear-view mirror. 
Dont worry, little lady, Stanley said, Im just a Salt Lake City 
boy whos having fun. She slowed down to twenty, and he stayed 
behind her; she sped up abruptly until she was going fifty, but her 
Hornet couldnt possibly out-accelerate his Z. 
I made forty thousand dollars for the company, he sang in the 
silence of his car, and thats six thousand dollars for me. 
The Hornet came up behind a truck that was having trouble getting 
up a hill. There was a passing lane, but the Hornet didnt use it at 
first, hoping, apparently, that Stanley would pass. Stanley didnt 
pass. So the Hornet pulled out, got even with the nose of the truck, 
then rode parallel with the truck all the rest of the way up the hill. 
Ah, Stanley said, playing Blue Angels with the Pacific 
Intermountain Express. He followed her closely. 
At the top of the hill, the passing lane ended. At the last possible 
moment the Hornet pulled in front of the truck  and stayed only a 
few yards ahead of it. There was no room for Stanley, and now on a 
two-lane road a car was coming straight at him. 
What a bitch! Stanley mumbled. In a split second, because when 
angry Stanley doesnt like to give in, he decided that she wasnt 
going to outsmart him. He nosed into the space between the Hornet 
and the truck anyway. 
There wasnt room. The truck driver leaned on his horn and braked; 

the woman, afraid, pulled forward. Stanley got out of the way just 
as the oncoming car, its driver a father with a wife and several 
rowdy children looking petrified at the accident that had nearly 
happened, passed on the left. 
Think youre smart, dont you, bitch? But Stanley Howards 
feeling rich. Nonsense, nonsense, but it sounded good and he sang 
it in several keys as he followed the woman, who was now going a 
steady sixty-five, two car-lengths behind. The Hornet had Utah 
plates  she was going to be on that road a long time. 
Stanleys mind wandered. From thoughts of Utah plates to a 
memory of eating at Aliotos and on to his critical decision that no 
matter how close you put Aliotos to the wharf, the fish there wasnt 
any better than the fish at Brattens in Salt Lake. He decided that he 
would have to eat there soon, to make sure his impression was 
correct; he wondered whether he should bother taking Liz out again, 
since she so obviously wasnt interested; speculated on whether 
Genevieve would say yes if he asked her. 
And the Hornet wasnt in front of him anymore. 
He was only going forty-five, and the PIE truck was catching up to 
him on a straight section of the road. There were curves into a 
mountain pass up ahead  she must have gone faster when he 
wasnt noticing. But he sped up, sped even faster, and didnt see 
her. She must have pulled off somewhere, and Stanley chuckled to 
think of her panting, her heart beating fast, as she watched Stanley 
drive on by. What a relief that must have been, Stanley thought. 
Poor lady. What a nasty game. And he giggled with delight, silently, 
his chest and stomach shaking but making no sound. 

He stopped for gas in Elko, had a package of cupcakes from the 
vending machine in the gas station, and was leaning on his car when 
he watched the Hornet go by. He waved, but the woman didnt see 
him. He did notice, however, that she pulled into an Amoco station 
not far up the road. 
It was just a whim. Im taking this too far, he thought, even as he 
waited in his car for her to pull out of the gas station. She pulled 
out. For just a moment Stanley hesitated, decided not to go on with 
the chase, then pulled out and drove along the main street of Elko a 
few blocks behind the Hornet. The woman stopped at a light. When 
it turned green, Stanley was right behind her. He saw her look in her 
rear-view mirror again, stiffen; her eyes were afraid. 
Dont worry, lady, he said. Im not following you this time. Just 
going my own sweet way home. 
The woman abruptly, without signalling, pulled into a parking 
place. Stanley calmly drove on. See? he said. Not following. Not 
following. 
A few miles outside Elko, he pulled off the road. He knew why he 
was waiting. He denied it to himself. Just resting, he told himself. 
Just sitting here because Im in no hurry to get back to Salt Lake 
City. But it was hot and uncomfortable, and with the car stopped, 
there wasnt the slightest breeze coming through the windows of the 
Z. This is stupid, he told himself. Why persecute the poor woman 
any more? he asked himself. Why the hell am I still sitting here? 
He was still sitting there when she passed him. She saw him. She 
sped up. Stanley put the car in gear, drove out into the road from the 

shoulder, caught up with her quickly, and settled in behind her. I 
am a shithead, he announced to himself. I am the meanest asshole 
on the highway. I ought to be shot. He meant it. But he stayed 
behind her, cursing himself all the way. 
In the silence of his car (the noise of the wind did not count as 
sound; the engine noise was silent to his accustomed ears), he 
recited the speeds as they drove. Fifty-five, sixty, sixty-five on a 
curve, are we out of our minds, young lady? Seventy  ah, ho, now, 
look for a Nevada state trooper anywhere along here. They took 
curves at ridiculous speeds; she stopped abruptly occasionally; 
always Stanleys reflexes were quick, and he stayed a few car 
lengths behind her. 
I really am a nice person, young lady, he said to the woman in the 
car, who was pretty, he realised as he remembered the face he saw 
when she passed him back in Elko. If you met me in Salt Lake 
City, youd like me. I might ask you out for a date sometime. And if 
you arent some tight-assed little Mormon girl, we might get it on. 
You know? Im a nice person. 
She was pretty, and as he drove along behind her (What? Eightyfive? 
I never thought a Hornet could go eighty-five), he began to 
fantasise. He imagined her running out of gas, panicking because 
now, on some lonely stretch of road, she would be at the mercy of 
the crazy man following her. But in his fantasy, when he stopped it 
was she who had a gun, she who was in control of the situation. She 
held the gun on him, forced him to give her his car keys, and then 
she made him strip, took his clothes and stuffed them in the back of 
the Z, and took off in his car. Its you thats dangerous, lady, he 

said. He replayed the fantasy several times, and each time she spent 
more time with him before she left him naked by the road with an 
out-of-gas Hornet and horny as hell. 
Stanley realised the direction his fantasies had taken him. Ive been 
too lonely too long, he said. Too lonely too long, and Liz wont 
unzip anything without a licence. The word lonely made him 
laugh, thinking of tacky poetry. He sang: Bury me not on the lone 
prairie where the coyotes howl and wind blows free. 
For hours he followed the woman. By now he was sure she realised 
it was a game. By now she must know he meant no harm. He had 
done nothing to try to get her to pull over. He was just tagging 
along. Like a friendly dog, he said. Arf. Woof. Growrrr. And he 
fantasised again until suddenly the lights of Wendover were 
dazzling, and he realised it was dark. He switched on his lights. 
When he did, the Hornet sped up, its taillights bright for a moment, 
then ordinary among the lights and signs saying that this was the 
last chance to lose money before getting to Utah. 
Just inside Wendover, a police car was pulled to the side of the 
road, its lights flashing. Some poor sap caught speeding. Stanley 
expected the woman to be smart, to pull over behind the policeman, 
while Stanley moved on over the border, out of Nevada jurisdiction. 
The Hornet, however, went right by the policeman, sped up, in fact, 
and Stanley was puzzled for a moment. Was the woman crazy? She 
must be scared out of her wits by now, and here was a chance for 
relief and rescue, and she ignored it. Of course, Stanley reasoned, as 
he followed the Hornet out of Wendover and down to the long 
straight stretch of the highway over the Salt Flats, of course she 

didnt stop. Poor lady was so conscious of having broken the law 
speeding that she was afraid of cops. 
Crazy. People do crazy things under pressure, Stanley decided. 
The highway stretched out straight into the blackness. No moon. 
Some starlight, but there were no landmarks on either side of the 
road, and so the cars barrelled on as if in a tunnel, with only a 
hypnotic line to the left and headlights behind and taillights ahead. 
How much gas would the tank of a Hornet hold? The Salt Flats 
went a long way before the first gas station, and what with daylight 
saving time it must be ten-thirty, eleven oclock, maybe only ten, 
but some of those gas stations would be closing up now. Stanleys Z 
could get home to Salt Lake with gas to spare after a fill-up in Elko, 
but the Hornet might run out of gas. 
Stanley remembered his daydreams of the afternoon and now 
translated them into night, into her panic in the darkness, the gun 
flashing in his headlights. This lady was armed and dangerous. She 
was carrying drugs into Utah, and thought he was from the mob. 
She probably thought he was planning to get her on the lonely Salt 
Flats, miles from anywhere. She was probably checking the clip of 
her gun. 
Eighty-five, said the speedometer. 
Going pretty fast, lady, he said. 
Ninety, said the speedometer. 
Of course, Stanley realised. She is running out of gas. She wants to 
get going as fast as she can, outrun me, but at least have enough 
momentum to coast when she runs out. 

Nonsense, thought Stanley. Its dark, and the poor lady is scared out 
of her wits. Ive got to stop this. This is dangerous. Its dark and its 
dangerous and this stupid game has gone on for four hundred miles. 
I never meant it to go on this long. 
Stanley passed the road signs that told him, habituated as he was to 
this drive, that the first big curve was coming up. A lot of people 
unfamiliar with the Salt Flats thought it went straight as an arrow all 
the way. But there was a curve where there was no reason to have a 
curve, before the mountains, before anything. And in typical Utah 
Highway Department fashion, the Curve sign was posted right in 
the middle of the turn. Instinctively, Stanley slowed down. 
The woman in the Hornet did not. 
In his headlights Stanley saw the Hornet slide off the road. He 
screeched on his brakes; as he went past, he saw the Hornet bounce 
on its nose, flip over and bounce on its tail, then topple back and 
land flat on the roof. For a moment the car lay there. Stanley got his 
car stopped, looked back over his shoulder. The Hornet erupted in 
flames. 
Stanley stayed there for only a minute or so, gasping, shuddering. In 
horror. In horror, he insisted to himself, saying, What have I done? 
My God, what have I done, but knowing even as he pretended to 
be appalled that he was having an orgasm, that the shuddering of his 
body was the most powerful ejaculation he had ever had, that he had 
been trying to get up the Hornets ass all the way from Reno and 
finally, finally, he had come. 
He drove on. He drove for twenty minutes and came to a gas station 
with a pay phone. He got out of the car stiffly, his pants sticky and 

wet, and fumbled in his sticky pocket for a sticky dime, which he 
put in the phone. He dialled the emergency number. 
I  I passed a car on the Salt Flats. In flames. About fifteen miles 
before this Chevron station. Flames. 
He hung up. He drove on. A few minutes later he saw a patrol car, 
lights whirling, speeding past going the other way. From Salt Lake 
City out into the desert. And still later he saw an ambulance and a 
fire truck go by. Stanley gripped the wheel tightly. They would 
know. They would see his skid marks. Someone would tell about 
the Z that was following the Hornet from Reno until the woman in 
the Hornet died in Utah. 
But even as he worried, he knew that no one would know. He 
hadnt touched her. There wasnt a mark on his car. 
The highway turned into a six-lane street with motels and shabby 
diners on either side. He went under the freeway, over the railroad 
tracks, and followed North Temple street up to Second Avenue, the 
school on the left, the Slow signs, everything normal, everything as 
he had left it, everything as it always had been when he came home 
from a long trip. To L Street, to the Chateau LeMans apartments; he 
parked in the underground garage, got out. All the doors opened to 
his key. His room was undisturbed. 
What the hell do I expect? he asked himself. Sirens heading my 
way? Five detectives in my living room waiting to grill me? 
The woman, the woman had died. He tried to feel terrible. But all 
that he could remember, all that was important in his mind, was the 
shuddering of his body, the feeling that the orgasm would never 

end. There was nothing. Nothing like that in the world. 
He went to sleep quickly, slept easily. Murderer? he asked himself 
as he drifted off. 
But the word was taken by his mind and driven into a part of his 
memory where Stanley could not retrieve it. Cant live with that. 
Cant live with that. And so he didnt. 
Stanley found himself avoiding looking at the paper the next 
morning, and so he forced himself to look. It wasnt front page 
news. It was buried back in the local news section. Her name was 
Alix Humphreys. She was twenty-two and single, working as a 
secretary to some law firm. Her picture showed her as a young, 
attractive girl. 
The driver apparently fell asleep at the wheel, according to police 
investigators. The vehicle was going faster than eighty miles per 
hour when the mishap occurred. 
Mishap. 
Hell of a word for the flames. 
Yet, Stanley went to work just as he always did, flirted with the 
secretaries just as he always did, and even drove his car, just as he 
always did, carefully and politely on the road. 
It wasnt long, however, before he began playing freeway games 
again. On his way up to Logan, he played Follow, and a woman in a 
Honda Civic smashed head-on into a pickup truck as she foolishly 
tried to pass a semitruck at the crest of a hill in Sardine Canyon. The 
police reports didnt mention (and no one knew) that she was trying 

to get away from a Datsun 260Z that had relentlessly followed her 
for eighty miles. Her name was Donna Weeks, and she had two 
children and a husband who had been expecting her back in Logan 
that evening. They couldnt get all her body out of the car. 
On a hop over to Denver, a seventeen-year-old skier went out of 
control on a snowy road, her VW smashing into a mountain, 
bouncing off, and tumbling down a cliff. One of the skis on the back 
of her bug, incredibly enough, was unbroken. The other was 
splintered into kindling. Her head went through the windshield. Her 
body didnt. 
The roads between Cameron trading post and Page, Arizona, were 
the worst in the world. It surprised no one when an eighteen-yearold 
blond model from Phoenix was killed when she smashed into 
the back of a van parked beside the road. She had been going more 
than a hundred miles an hour, which her friends said did not 
surprise them, she had always sped, especially when driving at 
night. A child in the van was killed in his sleep, and the family was 
hospitalised. There was no mention of a Datsun with Utah plates. 
And Stanley began to remember more often. There wasnt room in 
the secret places of his mind to hold all of this. He clipped their 
faces out of the paper. He dreamed of them at night. In his dreams 
they always threatened him, always deserved the end they got. 
Every dream ended with orgasm. But never as strong a convulsion 
as the ecstasy when the collision came on the highway. 
Check. And mate. 
Aim, and fire. 

Eighteen, seven, twenty-three, hike. 
Games, all games, and the moment of truth. 
Im sick. He sucked the end of his Bic four-colour pen. I need 
help. 
The phone rang. 
Stan? Its Liz. 
Hi, Liz. 
Stan, arent you going to answer me? 
Go to hell, Liz. 
Stan, what kind of game is this? You dont call for nine months, 
and now you just sit there while Im trying to talk to you? 
Come to bed, Liz. 
That is you, isnt it? 
Yeah, its me. 
Well, why didnt you answer me? Stan, you scared me. That really 
scared me. 
Im sorry. 
Stan, what happened? Why havent you called? 
I needed you too much. Melodramatic, melodramatic. But true. 
Stan, I know, I was being a bitch. 
No, no, not really. I was being too demanding. 
Stan, I miss you. I want to be with you. 
I miss you, too, Liz. Ive really needed you these last few months. 
She droned on as Stanley sang silently, Oh, bury me not on the 

lone prairie, where the coyotes howl  
Tonight? My apartment? 
You mean youll let me past the sacred chain lock? 
Stanley. Dont be mean. I miss you. 
Ill be there. 
I love you. 
Me, too. 
After this many months, Stanley was not sure, not sure at all. But 
Liz was a straw to grasp at. I drown, Stanley said. I die. Morior. 
Moriar. Mortuus sum. 
Back when he had been dating Liz, back when they had been 
together, Stanley hadnt played these freeway game. Stanley hadnt 
watched these women die. Stanley hadnt had to hide from himself 
in his sleep. Caedo. Caedam. Cecidi. 
Wrong, wrong. He had been dating Liz the first time. He had only 
stopped after  after. Liz had nothing to do with it. Nothing would 
help. Despero. Desperabo. Desperavi. 
And because it was the last thing he wanted to do, he got up, got 
dressed, went out to his car, and drove out onto the freeway. He got 
behind a woman in a red Audi. And he followed her. 
She was young, but she was a good driver. He tailed her from Sixth 
South to the place where the freeway forks, 1-15 continuing south, 
1-80 veering east. She stayed in the right-hand lane until the last 
moment, then swerved across two lanes of traffic and got onto 1-80. 
Stanley did not think of letting her go. He, too, cut across traffic. A 

bus honked loudly; there was a screeching of brakes; Stanleys Z 
was on two wheels and he lost control; a lightpost loomed, then 
passed. 
And Stanley was on 1-80, following a few hundred yards behind the 
Audi. He quickly closed the gap. This woman was smart, Stanley 
said to himself. Youre smart, lady. You wont let me get away 
with anything. Nobody today. Nobody today. He meant to say 
nobody dies today, and he knew that was what he was really saying 
(hoping; denying), but he did not let himself say it. He spoke as if a 
microphone hung over his head, recording his words for posterity. 
The Audi wove through traffic, averaging seventy-five. Stanley 
followed close behind. Occasionally, a gap in the traffic closed 
before he could use it; he found another. But he was a dozen cars 
behind when she cut off and took the last exit before 1-80 plunged 
upward into Parleys Canyon. She was going south on 1-215, and 
Stanley followed, though he had to brake violently to make the tight 
curve that led from one freeway to the other. 
She drove rapidly down 1-215 until it ended, turned into a narrow 
two-lane road winding along the foot of the mountain. As usual, a 
gravel truck was going thirty miles an hour, shambling along 
shedding stones like dandruff onto the road. The Audi pulled behind 
the gravel truck, and Stanleys Z pulled behind the Audi. 
The woman was smart. She didnt try to pass. Not on that road. 
When they reached the intersection with the road going up Big 
Cottonwood Canyon to the ski resorts (closed now in the spring, so 
there was no traffic), she seemed to be planning to turn right, to take 
Fort Union Boulevard back to the freeway. Instead, she turned left. 

But Stanley had been anticipating the move, and he turned left, too. 
They were not far up the winding canyon road before it occurred to 
Stanley that this road led to nowhere. At Snowbird it was a dead 
end, a loop that turned around and headed back down. This woman, 
who had seemed so smart, was making a very stupid move. 
And then he thought, I might catch her. He said, I might catch you, 
girl. Better watch out. 
What he would do if he caught her he wasnt sure. She must have a 
gun. She must be armed, or she wouldnt be daring him like this. 
She took the curves at ridiculous speeds, and Stanley was pressed to 
the limit of his driving skills to stay up with her. This was the most 
difficult game of Follow he had ever played. But it might end too 
quickly  on any of these curves she might smash up, might meet a 
car coming the other way. Be careful, he thought. Be careful, be 
careful, its just a game, dont be afraid, dont panic. 
Panic? The moment this woman had realised she was being 
followed, she had sped and dodged, leading him on a merry chase. 
None of the confusion the others had shown. This was a live one. 
When he caught her, shed know what to do. Shed know. 
Veniebam. Veniam. Venies. He laughed at his joke. 
Then he stopped laughing abruptly, swung the wheel hard to the 
right, jamming on the brake. He had just seen a flash of red going 
up a side road. Just a flash, but it was enough. This bitch in the red 
Audi thought shed fool him. Thought she could ditch into a side 
road and hed go on by. 
He skidded in the gravel of the shoulder, but regained control and 

charged up the narrow dirt road. The Audi was stopped a few 
hundred yards from the entrance. 
Stopped. 
At last. 
He pulled in behind her, even had his fingers on the door handle. 
But she had not meant to stop, apparently. She had only meant to 
pull out of sight till he went by. He had been too smart for her. He 
had seen. And now she was caught on a terribly lonely mountain 
road, still moist from the melting snow, with only trees around, in 
weather too warm for skiers, too cold for hikers. She had thought to 
trick him, and now he had trapped her. 
She drove off. He followed. On the bumpy dirt road, twenty miles 
an hour was uncomfortably fast. She went thirty. His shocks were 
being shot to hell, but this was one that wouldnt get away. She 
wouldnt get away from Stanley. Her Audi was voluptuous with 
promises. 
After interminable jolting progress up the side canyon, the 
mountains suddenly opened out into a small valley. The road, for a 
while, was flat, though certainly not straight. And the Audi sped up 
to forty incredible miles an hour. She wasnt giving up. And she 
was a damned good driver. But Stanley was a damned good driver, 
too. I should quit now, he said to the invisible microphone in his 
car. But he didnt quit. He didnt quit and he didnt quit. 
The road quit. 
He came around a tree-lined curve and suddenly there was no road. 
Just a gap in the trees and, a few hundred yards away, the other side 

of a ravine. To the right, out of the corner of his eye, he saw where 
the road made a hairpin turn, saw the Audi stopped there, saw, he 
thought, a face looking at him in horror. And because of that face he 
turned to look, tried to look over his shoulder, desperate to see the 
face, desperate not to watch as the trees bent gracefully toward him 
and the rocks rose up and enlarged and engorged, and he impaled 
himself, himself and his Datsun 260Z on a rock that arched upward 
and shuddered as he swallowed its tip. 
She sat in the Audi, shaking, her body heaving in great sobs of relief 
and shock at what had happened. Relief and shock, yes. But by now 
she knew that the shuddering was more than that. It was also ecstasy. 
This has to stop, she cried out silently to herself. Four, four, four. 
Four is enough, she said, beating on the steering wheel. Then she 
got control of herself, and the orgasm passed except for the 
trembling in her thighs and occasional cramps, and she jockeyed the 
car until it was turned around, and she headed back down the 
canyon to Salt Lake City, where she was already an hour late. 
The End 

