Chapter Thirty-Eight

Thank God For Insane People

Chase hadn't wanted to get in the truck and leave everyone behind. She'd never desired to be so savage to Squid and the others, she'd just been so upset—so irritated that she hadn't stopped to think about her actions. She hadn't paused to muse over exactly where her legs were carrying her and her mind had become oblivious to the sensible reactions that she was avoiding. It wasn't until she was sitting precariously in the passenger's seat of a musky old pickup truck that she truly understood what events had taken place and just how incredibly dimwitted she had behaved.

The man sitting beside Chase in the driver's seat seemed polite enough. He appeared to be aged well into his late forties, lines of senescence were steadily beginning to creep over his skin and hair was graying at the roots. Clad in a checkered shirt and cap he'd addressed Chase in a friendly manner when she'd approached him, speaking to her gently, almost as a father speaks to his daughter, and graciously accepting her inquiry about getting a ride. Chase had been more then thankful for his willingness and had innerly rejoiced when he'd smothered his cigarette for her sake: he seemed to be a generous guy which imposed that she would be perfectly fine in his company. What Chase hadn't noticed as she'd scrambled into his truck, however, was the peculiar fervency he had about the wedding ring he was wearing as he quickly slipped it off his finger and pocketed it, smiling at Chase all the while.

"So," the seemingly kind man asked after Chase had settled herself beside him and he'd begun to drive again. "Where in the world are you plannin' on goin'?"

"Odessa," Chase replied shortly, ignoring proper etiquette and steering clear of openly speaking with the stranger. She cringed in disgust at the galling country music leaking from the radio speaker beside her knee.

"That's on the way to Pecos, ain't it," the man asked, smiling merrily in Chase's direction.

"Yeah..." Chase uttered slowly. "I guess so." As the man continued to impose cheery glances in her figure's direction she began to feel increasingly uncomfortable, recoiling away from him as much as the car door beside her would allow. She suddenly had a strong desire to be back with her fellow D-tent members, back where it was an obvious fact that she was safe and protected.

"So," the man began, abandoning his peachy veneer and watching Chase lustfully from the corner of his eye. "You been hitchhikin' for a long time?"

"Yeah," Chase replied cautiously, eyeing the stranger fervently as he smiled at her once again. "A really long time…"

"How'd you all get out there?" the man asked, fingering his cold cigarette delicately as he watched the road with much less vigor then when he watched Chase.

"We—we were just," Chase started, avidly raking her brain for a plausible excuse and only coming up with fictional tales. "We were all—uh..."

"What?" the man slurred, leaning in Chase's direction, his eyes leaving the road to stare her down. "Do I make you uncomfortable?"

Chase abruptly jumped back in shock as the man ran his hand over her thigh. She pressed herself flat against the car door to her right, breathing hard, her eyes wide in horror.

The man howled with a twisted sort of laughter that was harsh on the ears and only made Chase's heart thud more violently in her chest. "Jumpy are we?" he crowed, smiling cruelly as he pulled himself back up behind the steering wheel and watched the road again. "Don't worry, Sweet Heart," he continued. "You'll warm up to me real soon: I'm takin' you somewhere mighty nice..."

Chase felt as though she were going to be sick. Her heart pounded so hard in her ears that she couldn't think straight. All she could contemplate was the terrible event that was soon to come, soon to be brought down upon her by her own stupidity. Why had she ever been so incredibly moronic as to leave her friends and hop into the car of some male stranger. She sat there, petrified with anxiety, her skin shivering despite the morbid climate as she miserably dreaded what was to take place once the man had driven her to his "special refuge".

"Come on Sweet Heart," the man cooed, moving towards Chase again, his musky face mere inches from her own. "Don't be afraid. You'll be safe with me. Now give me a kiss..."

The man grabbed Chase by the side, pinning her in place and drawing her slowly to him despite her thrashing and confused attempts to break free of his grasp.

"Come on," he continued to coo, stroking her hair and trying to force her to settle down. When she failed to comply, however, he grabbed her viciously by the back of the head and held her still as he moved in for his desired kiss. Chase struggled helplessly, her ferocious pulse stabbing her ribcage like a knife as she fought to no prevail. Within seconds the man's face was next to her own and she panicked with no indication of what to do: She had a feeling that this grown man would be much more difficult to bite off then the obnoxious boy at Camp Green Lake had been and she had no other bright strategies.

"HELLO!"

The man jumped back from Chase in shock, nearly swerving off the side of the road in his attempts to regain control over the steering wheel. Chase was even surprised out of her wits as she jumped back, free from the man's grasp, and hit her head with a dizzying crack against the window beside her. Regaining her vision she looked back in befuddlement trying desperately to conceive who this new impostor could be. Chase didn't know whether to gasp in confusion or scream in delight when she turned and found Squid sitting up straight and alert in the back seat and watching her avidly. She was about to question him in bafflement but he shook his head in warning before climbing over the seat with a surprising agility. He hopped down into the miniscule seat between Chase and the derisive driver, stared at Chase in obvious concern and then put a single finger to his lips to silence her, winking before he turned to address the owner of the truck.

"What's up?" he asked in a casual voice, sitting back leisurely and grinning idiotically.

"Who the hell are you?" the strange man demanded, abandoning his startled confusion and growing furious at Squid's presence. "And how the hell did you get in my truck?"

"Through the back window," Squid stated obviously, still smiling like a loon.

Chase chanced a glance back at the rear window, which was opened wide. She realized, suddenly, that Squid must have jumped into the bed of the truck as she'd been obliviously climbing into the passenger's seat and then had hid out there, eavesdropping on the awkward conversation taking place in the front of the truck. When things had begun getting rough between Chase and the unknown man, Squid must have unlatched the back window and climbed through without anyone noticing. He'd then waited secretly in the back seat until the precise moment that the strange man had been millimeters away from making contact with Chase before speaking into action and startling the current commotion to an end. She couldn't believe he'd been able to proceed with such a task without anyone espying his actions nor could she really perceive why he would go through such risks just for her.

"Anyway," Squid began, folding his arms and eyeing the man peculiarly. "I think the real question you should be asking here is who the hell are you? Goin' around and just pickin' up random people off the side of the road? What the hell is wrong with you man? Don't you ever once stop to think? I mean come on, what if accidentally picked up an insane person, eh? What would you do if they had a gun in their coat pocket—or an ax hidden down in their pants, huh? What would you do if they just chopped your head clean off your shoulders? It could happen you know: You could just assume they've got some enormous action down in their pants and then they whip out a knife and cut you up into little pieces. Just think, you'd never be able to see your beautiful, sexy, gorgeous wife again all because you had the idiocy to pick up a stranger off the side of the road. Didn't your mother teach you anything, man?" Squid stared at the cowering man with wide eyes as he exhibited the most absurd expression she'd ever seen on him. She supposed it was the vicious approach he usually took when doing X-ray's dirty work—with just a hint of insanity. "Besides," Squid began again, suddenly lowering his voice to a calm and simple tone again as he laid back against the seat once more, propping his feet up on the dashboard. "You really wouldn't want to have sex with this girl anyway," he nodded towards Chase, trying to hold back a grin as Chase gaped at him in disbelief. "Believe me, my friend, she's got AIDS... Oh yeah, I remember when I was like you: Old, butt ugly and naïve. I thought she was beautiful too once... That is before I had physical relations with her and had to start visiting the doctor regularly. Man, it sucks: Do you know how gynecologists check your temperature?" Chase had to clamp a hand over her mouth to prevent herself from snorting with laughter. Squid smiled at her before continuing. "And not only that, but I don't think you'd wanna get a disease and take it home to your beautiful, sexy, gorgeous wife and end up killin' her? I mean, she is a very beautiful, sexy, gorgeous woman. Who else would take care of your dry cleaning? Oh, and by the way, your wife told me to tell you to buy some eggs on your way home. I would, you know, but I'm all worn out from the time we had last night. I'm tellin' ya', man, give that woman some alcohol and she'll be all over ya'!"

"WHO THE FUCKING HELL ARE YOU!!!?" the man shouted, his face red with strenuous anger.

"An insane person," Squid replied simply, shrugging his shoulders. "Is that not apparent?"

Squid protectively grabbed Chase around the waste as they both tumbled from the car seat and landed, sprawled out, over the ground, getting scrapped and bruised in the process, as the aggravated man literally kicked them out of his truck before pressing on the gas and speeding away.

"See the kinds of things I do for you?" Squid grumbled, slowly helping to a sitting position as she choked and coughed against the impact of the ground.

"Yeah," she croaked, clutching her scrapped knee in pain. "Thank you."

"Any time," Squid replied, not noticing that his arm was still around her waste as he examined her cuts. "You okay?" he asked, watching her with absolute seriousness.

Chase nodded meekly.

"What'd he do to you," Squid asked, still using the same intimidatingly deep tone. "Did he hurt you?"

"No," Chase said, not even daring to look Squid in the eye for the sake of her embarrassment. "Not really... He just kind of scared me..."

"Well, I guess next time you'll remember not to hop into some stranger's car," Squid said, not even excusing his statement as the joke Chase had desperately wished he would have told.

She tried to look away as childish tears of shame began to wield up in her eyes. "I'm sorry..." she said, almost inaudibly.

Squid, suddenly noticing his mistake, tried to propose his forgiveness immediately. "It's okay," he stated hurriedly. "I just—just really don't want you to get hurt."

He obliviously stroked Chase's hair back away from her face as she sat there, rubbing the tears away from her eyes. "You're beautiful," he wanted to say. But when the words formed in his mouth he suddenly remembered just where he was, who he was sitting beside and what had just happened. His words were abolished like a snowman in the sun.

"Well," Chase sighed, shakily climbing to her feet and leaving Squid's embracing arm to fall quickly back to his side. "We should probably go find the others now."

"Yeah," Squid replied, pulling himself to his feet as well and brushing dust off his grimy do-rag. "Probably..." He walked along side Chase as they made their way steadily down the empty, dust-washed road.

"So," Chase said after a few moments of silence. "The gynecologist, eh?"

Squid smiled wildly in response.