Part V: Deja Vu

Devi leaned up a bit to whisper in Tenna's ear. "Tenna… I don't recognize this place… Where are we?"

Tenna scrunched her nose up in thought, then looked at Johnny. "Hey, Mr. Johnny, where are we?"

Devi smacked her forehead and sighed. I should've known she'd do that…

Nny drummed his fingers absently on the steering wheel, glancing over at Tenna. "Don't worry, this is just a shortcut to Kris's. Well… er.. I think. I haven't been down here in a while, but… yeah. It's a shortcut."

Tenna turned to look at Devi and smiled brightly. "Johnny says it's a shortcut."

Devi glared at her friend, sinking back into the soft seat.

"Isn't this fun Spooky? *Squeek!* It must be the scenic route!" Tenna commented.

Nny raised his eyebrow in curiosity as Tenna waved the little skeleton toy around her head, squeaking it. "What is that thing?"

"Ooh, that's right! You two haven't met! Johnny, this is Spooky! *SQUEEK!!* Spooky, this is Johnny!"

"Er… Nice to meet you…? And you can call me Nny, um… Devi's friend."

"Tenna," Devi muttered.

Nny glanced in the rearview mirror at Devi. "Um… What?"

"Tenna." Devi raised her voice a bit. "Her name is Tenna."

"Oh, well, nice to meet you, Tenna."

Tenna turned around in her seat to look at Devi. "He doesn't seem so bad."

Devi bowed her head slightly, thinking. He does seem different… Like he did at the beginning of that night… She shook her head. What am I thinking?! He's insane! He's probably driving us out to the middle of no where so he can kill us… I knew I should've stayed home.

Everyone jumped slightly when the car made an ominous sputtering sound and slowed down drastically.

"Oh dear…" Nny said quietly as he watched the speedometer.

Tenna turned back around. "What happened?"

Johnny looked at her as the car putted a few more feet before stopping. "Well, it seems as if the car has… broken down."

"Ooh! I bet it's the radiator!"

Taking this as her chance to get out of the car and away from Nny, she shoved the door open climbed out, quickly putting quite a few yards between herself and the vehicle.

Tenna and Johnny both got out as well, Nny turning and leaning against the car as Tenna went after her friend.

"Devi, what are you doing?"

"Getting away from HIM!" Devi whispered harshly, pointing at Nny.

Tenna frowned. "Devi… I really don't think he's going to hurt you. You heard him when he first picked us up. He sounded so sincere."

"I don't care…"

Tenna heaved a great sigh, grabbed Devi by the arm, and dragged her back over to the car, where Johnny was now looking under the hood.

He glanced at them as they approached. "I'm really sorry about this… I just.. I wanted to get you where you were going as fast as I could, and I guess I forgot to pay attention to the warning signs that the car was nearing break-down mode."

"Aww, don't worry about it!" Tenna said brightly, squeaking Spooky as she sat down in the grass. "Hey…" She made one of those "what the hell?" faces and reached into her back pocket, producing a cell phone. "What d'ya know!"

Devi stared at her. "You had a cell phone the WHOLE TIME?! What's WRONG with you?! God! We could've just called someone after OUR car broke down!" She snatched the phone away, flipped it open, and started dialing.

* * *

*RING!* *RING!* *RING!*

"'Scuse me a minute, folks," Kris said as she got up from the couch and went over to a phone hanging on a nearby wall.

She picked up it and put the receiver to her ear. "Yeeees? Oh, hi! Seriously? No kiddin'? Wow. She what?! Holy fook! Yeah, okay. Bye."

"Who was it?" Akira inquired.

Kris shrugged. "Wrong number."

She was about to sit back down when the phone rang again.

"Hello? Oh, hi, Devi. Yeah, Nny's car kinda sucks. What? Oh, okay. Middle of nowhere? What street is that on? All right. Be there in a few."

She hung up.

"What's going on?" Akira asked.

"Devi and Tenna caught a ride with Nny after their car broke down and, oh man, you'll never believe this, then Nny's car broke down! Ha! Isn't that funny?!" Kris burst out into insane laughter.

"… Er.. yeah… hilarious. Aren't you gonna go pick them up?"

Her laughter ceased. "But I caaaaan't… I hafta stay here and greet the guests! It's almost time for the party! Won't you go, 'Kira? Pleeease? PLEASE?!"

Akira got to her feet. "Okay, okay, just shut up."

"Yay!"

So Akira was shortly out the door and on her way to pick up the unfortunates, after a few nonsensical directions from Kris and a cookie hitting her in the head ("Don't look at me! It was Ragamuffin!").