To those who wonder why I seem to fixated about the weed that has been perpetually down Rob's pants, I must say that it does have a point, specifically for this chapter! I don't spend my time wondering about stuff down guys' pants... Okay, I'm going to quit while I'm ahead. Here's the chapter, and I hope that you guys enjoy it.

Date Uploaded: 14 September 2004

Never Pick Up Strangers

"Guys, do you realize we forgot Mick?"

"Screw that, junior, do you realize we've forgotten all our fucking stuff??" Jericho exclaimed to Gregory Helms.

The two of them plus Matt, Rob, Rene, Spanky and John Cena had left McKinney Motel about half an hour behind them. Right now the highway they were on inexplicably had no streetlights, and so the entire place was pitch dark save for their high beam headlights. Matt was still at the wheel, and yes, he still looked freaked out.

He wasn't the only one. "Seven days!" Spanky yelled hysterically. "Do you guys understand that?? We only have one more week to live!!"

"Will ya shut up??" Cena snapped at him, chucking the pillow Rob had mistakenly taken from the motel in their hurry to leave. "Nobody here's gonna die, you got that??"

"But if you scream one more time, Brian, that's all going to change!!" Matt threatened from the driver's seat.

Rene had been sitting thoughtfully for the past few minutes, but then he spoke up. "Uh, people, did anybody think about grabbing the tape before we left?"

All of them except Matt and Rob looked at him. "What for?" Gregory asked.

Rene rolled his eyes. "Did any of you actually understand the ending of 'The Ring?' The only way we can get the fucking curse alleviated from us is to make a copy of the tape and show it to somebody else." He said impatiently.

"So you're telling me dat if we go and get some other sucker to watch the tape, we won't have to die?" Cena said. "I knew I should have stuck around for the end of that movie!"

Jericho grabbed Matt's arm. "Turn the vehicle around, jackass! I'll recopy that tape three dozen times if I have to, and show it to the McMahons, Triple H and whoever sorry moron who gets in my way! Just as long as the King of Bling-Bling gets off the hook… I'm much too hot to die!"

"Maybe we should tie him up again, along with Spanky." Cena said.

Spanky looked like he would say something, but then he stopped and sniffed. "You guys smell that?"

All of them stopped. Gregory lifted his head and looked around. He caught a curious and slightly familiar whiff of a substance in air. It was then that he turned in Rob's direction. RVD was the only one in the van who had been quiet since the seven of them had jumped into it previously. Now he realized why. "Rob, what are you doing?"

Rob simply blew a trail of smoke in the air. In one hand he held a joint that he had made much earlier in the day. "Smoking, what on earth does it look like I'm doing?" he answered easily enough. He held out the bag to them. "Want some?"

"Only you could smoke pot when you know you've only got seven days to live!" Spanky yelled at him.

"Rob, this isn't the right time!!" Matt said from the front.

"Au contraire, dude, this is the perfect time." Rob said, grinning. "Think about it. If we've only got seven days, what's the point of eating right, living safely and staying clean and sober? We might as well take advantage of it, am I right?"

"He's got a point, ya know." Cena said thoughtfully.

"Rob, you do know that that's illegal, don't you?" Gregory reminded.

Rob simply shrugged and took another pull. "If you don't want any then suit yourself. More for me."

"Screw this, fork over the bag, pothead." Jericho demanded. "I'm not spending the last seven days of my life in a jail cell because of you. Do you know what would happen to a guy as good-looking as me in there??"

Before Rob could answer him Jericho lunged for the bag. The two of them began to struggle, each trying to get the stash of illegal joysticks away from each other as Rene and Gregory groaned in exasperation. To Matt's horror he suddenly realized that he could faintly see someone off the other side of the road, a tall, imposing figure carrying a large parcel. "Shit, there's somebody out there! It could be a cop on a late shift!"

"Hide the dope!" Jericho immediately ordered. Spanky quickly grabbed the bag, seeing as Rob was caught off guard, and tossed it in the back. "I meant both of them!" Jericho said, pointing to Rob as well.

"Hey guys, really, I can get in the back myself-???" Rob was cut off as Rene, Cena and Jericho tossed him abruptly in the back, making the vehicle give a horrendous jolt.

Matt took a deep breath and slowed a bit. When the headlights focused on the figure on the side of the road, he noticed that it wasn't a police officer. It was just an unshaven man with plain, scruffy clothes, with a package slung over his back. His right thumb was out in the classic hitchhiker stance.

"My bad, it's just a hitchhiker." Matt said with a sigh of relief. He started to speed up again when Gregory stopped him.

"Matt, you're not seriously going to leave that man out there alone in this dead of night, are you?" the mild-mannered reporter asked him.

"Hey, if he found his way out here himself then he should be fine." Matt argued. "Besides, didn't your parents ever teach you anything, Helms? Never pick up strangers."

"What's more, I thought we were going back to get that tape?" Rene reminded.

Gregory shook his head. "Put yourself in his position, guys. Out there, alone, with the possibility of criminals and wild animals running around; wouldn't you want somebody to stop and help you out? It's the humane thing to do."

"He could be a criminal!" Spanky pointed out, suddenly remembering his conversation with the hunter a few hours earlier. "Ever considered that possibility?"

"Can I get out of the back now?" Rob asked, blowing a trail of smoke in the air.

Gregory, exasperated that his companions seemed to lack any human dignity, leaned over to the front to glare at Matt Hardy. "We can at least give him a lift to the motel where he can spend the night."

"Right, if he doesn't skewer us first." Matt snapped back.

"Yeah, do ya know how many serial killers wander around dis place?" John Cena interjected.

"Have a little faith!" Gregory said, jerking at the wheel.

"Forget it, you little gullible, comic book nerd!" Matt yelled, grabbing the wheel back.

"Wholly shit, watch out!!" Cena warned.

Matt and Gregory focused their eyes back on the road, only to scream as the headlights bore down onto the unfortunate hitchhiker. The hiker for his part, turned deathly white under the lights and dove for cover. There was a squeal of tires followed by a sickening thump.

The vehicle stopped. Matt and Gregory looked up and then tried to peer out of the windshield as the other guys slowly recovered.

"Fuck… did we hit him?" Spanky asked incredulously.

"No, junior, WE did not hit him, the TWO ASS CLOWNS fighting over the wheel hit him!!" Jericho immediately said, in an effort not to implicate him in this mess. "That's my testimony and all the rest of us, including the stoner in the back, are sticking to it!"

"We have to see if he's okay." Gregory said.

"We don't have to do anything!" Rene said. "Nobody saw us, right?? We can just drive away and pretend it never happened!" he gave one or two strained laughs. "Come on!"

"That's not cool, man." Rob spoke up, propping himself up from the back.

"What if he's dead?" Spanky asked.

As if to answer that, there was a thump as a hand rose and grabbed onto the side window. All of them, with the exception of a stoned Rob Van Dam, screamed as a face appeared. The hitchhiker, looking shocked yet otherwise unhurt, glared angrily at all their stunned and horrified faces. "You dickheads hit my bag." He growled, holding up the now grotesquely misshapen package that he had been carrying.

Matt, in his relief, slammed his head onto the wheel, making the vehicle emit a loud beep from its horn. Gregory leaned over and pulled the door open. "We're sorry about that, sir." He said apologetically. "Please get in, we're headed for the nearest motel and would be happy to drop you off there."

"Didn't you see me??" the hitchhiker asked crossly, even as he got inside and Cena shut the door.

"It's pitch black out there, how in the fuck did you expect us to see you properly??" Jericho immediately shot back.

"Listen, sir, we're sorry about the bag and we'll be happy to compensate for the loss." Gregory said as Matt once again started the vehicle up and made a smooth U-turn to head back to the motel.

"Well, it wasn't much anyway." The hiker said gruffly, settling back into the chair. He put the package in one corner of the van. "In fact it was even broken prior to this. But I still say you boys should have been more careful. You were swerving those last few minutes before you nearly hit me!"

"Dude, seriously, chill…" Rob suddenly said, startling the hiker, who hadn't seen him yet. Rob's head poked up to give him a goofy grin. "At least nobody got hurt, right?"

The hiker frowned and sniffed. "And you're smoking pot too?"

"Uh…" Spanky gave Matt a worried look. Matt was thinking the same thing. If this guy decided to take them to court over this shit, it would be pretty bad for them.

Surprisingly it was Rob who saved them. "You've got to loosen up, man, you look really tense." He said, seemingly forgetting that the guy had nearly been crushed by a SUV minutes earlier. He held out a joint in the hiker's direction, much to Rene's horror. "Here, have one. It ought to calm you down."

"Rob, are you insane??" Rene demanded, grabbing his arm back.

"It's not going to hurt anyone." Rob said, shrugging.

"You know wat, Rob, give me one too." Cena said, taking a stick. "After tonight we all need calming down, right dawg?" he said, nudging the hiker as he lit up the joint. "Come on, Chris, we ain't smoking no more pot after we die."

Chris looked like he would point out the error in Cena's double negative, but then surprisingly shrugged and took a stick as well. "To hell with it." He muttered, tossing one in the hiker's direction as well. "What do you say?"

"Well…" the hiker looked apprehensive.

It didn't last for long, though, as moments later every single one of them, except for Gregory and Rene, who had refused to have any, were smoking up a storm inside the crowded SUV. Well, technically having had none really didn't matter for Gregory and Rene, as being around the fumes was enough to get them as high as the smokers themselves. Within minutes Matt had pulled the van over and the eight of them were singing songs, hugging and laughing while discussing the mysteries of life as best as their now hazy minds allowed them to like they had been best friends for years. This drug-induced behavior continued until the wee hours of the morning wherein all of them soon dropped off one by one.

»»»

The next day found Mick Foley stretching outside the main office of the McKinney Motel. He had gotten up early and had breakfast with Tiffany and Laura, who had both been delighted to cook for him. During the meal the girls had confessed the little trick they had played on them with the tape and the phone call, and after Mick had had a good enough laugh he had returned the tape to the girls and firmly decided that, as a means of payback for leaving him last night, he wouldn't tell the guys about it and leave them to suffer.

Mick continued to stretch and wondered where his seven idiotic companions had gone to when he squinted and spotted something across the highway. It was relatively early and no cars were around, but Mick still looked both ways before hurrying over to the clumsily parked SUV. Once there he peeked inside, bracing himself for whatever he might come across.

It was bad enough. John and Jericho had somehow fallen asleep in each other's arms and were now cuddled up at one end, a mysterious man lying on top of them and snoring his ass off. Rob was still in the back, sprawled out and drooling from one corner of his mouth. Spanky and Rene were practically intertwined near the door. Matt and Gregory were in the front, Matt asleep at the wheel and Gregory's head on his lap in a very suggestive position.

Somehow Mick miraculously managed to keep a straight face. It was also with dumb luck that he had his disposable camera in his pocket. He whipped that out now and began to snap some extremely incriminating black mail photos of his fellow WWE superstars. And then he reached inside and pulled the side door open.

Spanky and Rene nearly fell out, but with much pushing and grunting Mick managed to heave them back in. He caught sight of a package in one corner, obviously not belonging to him or any one of them. Curious, Mick pulled it out and examined the contents, his face cringing in horror. He now knew what the mysterious hiker really was. It was terrible, this man was one of the most aggravating beings to ever walk the earth: a door-to-door salesman.

"How he got this far sure beats me." Mick said, dumping the package holding the crushed vacuum cleaner off the side of the road. He then took hold of the snoring and still incredibly out of it hitchhiker/salesman and lifted him out of the vehicle, setting him down beside his stuff. Mick then fished Matt's wallet out from the back of his pants and took a couple of bills from it, putting it in the hiker's pants. After a moment of deliberation, Mick mischievously took out a pen from his shirt and penned the words, 'Thanks for last night,' on the parcel. Let him wonder about that when he woke up.

When all that was done, Mick closed the side door and then walked over to the driver's seat. He pushed Matt out of the way, who promptly fell on top of Gregory in an even more suggestive position, and then got in. Mick started the engine and drove the van back inside the grounds of the McKinney Motel.

Tiffany and Laura had some out for a breath of fresh air when he stopped in the parking lot. "So the others are back?" Laura asked.

"In a matter of speaking." Mick said, getting out of the van. He opened the back and the side door, allowing the girls to see his stoned and unconscious companions inside. "You girls wouldn't mind helping me load up the stuff, would you?" he asked with a grin. "I don't think any of the guys are up to it."

"Oh, they did something naughty and didn't invite us?" Tiffany said, pouting.

Laura shrugged and sighed. "Oh well, I guess people just choose to swing that way." She said as she and Tiffany followed a snickering Mick back to room 13 to get the luggage.

After they had dumped everything inside the SUV and Mick had thanked the two ladies for their help, Mick once again got back in the driver's seat. Not one of the guys had stirred during the entire time. Now Mick Foley waved to Laura and Tiffany as he drove off with his incapacitated crew.

cont'd

Aaauugghh!! Was that as bad as I thought it was? Anyway, is the weed all gone now, or is there still some left? What'll that hitchhiker/salesman think when he wakes up on the side of the road? On that note, what'll the rest of the guys' reaction be when they wake up and find themselves all bundled up with each other? Will I EVER stop with the homosexual innuendos? What will Mick do with those photos? What about the guys' obsession with the thought of them only having less than a week to live? Possibly that and more in the next chapter!