He emerged from the tall grass on a hill overlooking The City without a scratch on him. He was relieved. Surely a bulky cut of grass or a thorn hidden somewhere in the thick of things would have sliced into his skin. The young man had barely been able to see a foot in front of him in the dead of night.

            “Okay,” he said to himself. He still had a bitter taste on his tongue. “Okay, get the story straight. Get it right and get it quick.”

            The grass ended right at the curb of a paved, winding road that led directly into The City, a far distance to walk indeed. He would take the bus to the grassy flatlands with a group of friends from the university and even that took over twenty minutes to get to where they wanted. From where he was now, an hour’s walk stretched ahead of him.

            “We just had to have another bonfire,” he told himself, repeating it aloud over and over. He laughed. “Damn you, Marty. I told you not to pour the entire bottle of fluid on the twigs right from the get-go. We needed to preserve it, make it last, keep us warm.”

            Keep us warm, he thought. There were five of us, including me. It was Marty, my best friend from school. Then Christine, who was a real bitch tonight. And…and who else? Shit. I can’t remember. It’s too cold to think.

            It was quite cold for Halloween night. All he had on was a white tee-shirt and some worn-down blue jeans he probably had since junior year of high school.

            He started walking down the winding road in just about complete dark. Not a single street lamp hung over him or any of the blacktop for that matter. No trick-or-treaters would follow in his footsteps. He shivered a bit and dug his pale white hands into his jean pockets. He had no cell phone either. That’s another thing he needed to concern himself with. But covering all his bases before heading back into The City was prior number one.           

            “I left it at the bonfire,” he said disappointedly. “Hopefully Christine will bring it back to the dorm with her. I’m not sure if she even saw it resting next to her on that stump. Damn, we were in a hurry.” He continued to talk as if telling the story to a person strolling next to him. Something about speaking out loud makes a person feel a bit less uncomfortable when alone and a tad scared. “Who knows what we all missed. And you know what? Even if she did see it, I bet she would leave it there and make me go back and get it…or just let the fire department collect it after putting out the bonfire we left blazing.”

            Christine was his on and off girlfriend. When she was on, she was on top—just the way the young man liked it. When she was off, she was a nice piece of ass to stare at and nothing more. That gal Christine could spit fire from her eyeballs if she looked at you the way she glared at him on those off days.

            “Tonight was an off day,” the young man spoke to his invisible companion. “The only reason she came along was to tease me into thinking we’d soon switch on again. Girls can be evil sometimes. I know that all too well.”

            No matter, he wouldn’t see Christine any time soon.

            After ten minutes of walking the winding road, a car whizzed by at a wicked speed nearly causing him to jump back into the tall grass. And then another thought popped into the young man’s mind, nudging at the bonfire one he intended to keep clear.

            “I should just hitchhike my way back into The City,” he said. “No sense in walking the whole way. Hell, I don’t need the exercise to begin with. I just ran a good distance from…from the bonfire and I could use a break. I know these feet could.”

            He had read a few stories about people hitchhiking and the dos and don’ts of the craft. The one do: be the hitchhiker. The one don’t: don’t be the one behind the wheel. Hell, those stories of hitchhikers never ended well at all. Hollywood even made a film or two about the dangers it. You just didn’t know who would end up in that passenger seat with you. He could be a good ole boy just wanting to get back home or a goddam prisoner fresh out of the joint and not in the legal sense. Hitchhiking is a dangerous craft. But as he reminisced about those stories he read and films he viewed, one constant flashed in his mind.

            The hitchhiker is the one to be afraid of, never the driver.

            A smile quickly appeared on his sweaty face. The final beads just about dried up on his forehead but left a greasy residue everywhere on his circular mug.

            “I’m the one the driver needs to be afraid of,” he said, now just about skipping down the winding road towards The City. “There has to be another car speeding by any minute now from the shopping plazas up the hill. I’ll just stick my thumb out like this,” he said doing so, “turn around, walk backwards, and wiggle it.” His thumb moved up and down frantically. “And I’ll see a pair of bright headlights.”

            A pair of bright headlights drove toward him as he paced backwards. The high beams blinded the young man but he kept his thump jiggling regardless.

            “And then the car will stop, and I’ll just hop on in,” he said with a grin. “That’s if they aren’t too scared to let me in the car,” he jokingly added as the car came to a complete stop. Oh how easy it appeared, almost too easy.

            He reached for the handle of the 1965 Buick Riviera—reading those car magazines and attending every car show at the annual fair paid off for the first time—and pulled the door open, hearing the driver mutter “Perfect” as he hopped in.

            “Thanks,” he said and got cozy in that front passenger seat, staring at the mint condition-looking console in front of him. The passenger door slammed shut and the hitchhiking began.

            “Not a problem,” the driver said in a hoarse voice.

            The young man looked up at the figure driving the Buick. He had a long face with a black goatee, short hair combed back like some old-school Italians do back on the east coast. He was slender looking, but it was difficult to tell from the sitting position. He wore a black leather jacket buttoned up halfway covering a white tee-shirt. His jeans matched the black jacket. The first thought that ran through the young man’s mind was the driver must be associated with the mob or, hell, even be a boss. He knew about those families that worked in The City back in the 70s, dipping their hands in Vegas cash only to be met with FBI agents in the end, fucking up a good thing because they got sloppy.

            But the young man deleted that thought from his mind as it caused him great concern. If the driver was indeed a mobster, then the young man had already lost control of the situation to begin with. So he decided to settle on the fact that the brave soul who pulled over for the young man was just a good civilian…

            …who made a terrible mistake picking me up, the passenger falsely thought.

            “What’s your name?” the driver asked. “And where are you heading?” He sounded intimidating but the young man needed to remember: he was the hitchhiker. He was in control. He was the one to fear.

            “I’m heading to the university,” the young man said in a strong voice. “And the name is Arnie.”

            Arnie, he thought. That’s not a strong, scary name. I mean it is my name but damn I wanna strike fear into this guy. He was brave enough—or foolish enough—to pull over and let a complete stranger in his car. I gotta do better than that.

            But before Arnie could think up a better name in order to plant the seed of terror in the driver, the man in control of the Buick introduced himself.

            “Name is Occam. No need to call me mister or sir and definitely don’t call me man or dude. You use my name when you speak to me for the duration of this ride.”

            Arnie snapped a finger and shaped it into a gun. “You got it…Occam. Sweet ride you have here by the way. Where’d you get it?”

            Occam kept his dark eyes on the road.

            “That’s none of your concern right now, Arnie. All you need to be worried about is that this car is your ticket out of here.”

            “Out of where?” Arnie asked. Remember you’re the hitchhiker. Who ever heard of the driver being the intimidator in this situation?

            “Out of the grassy area I found you in,” Occam clarified. “And what were you doing back there anyway? It’s a dangerous road to be trekking on your own, especially on a night like this. All the ghouls and creatures come out and play.”

            Arnie laughed and agreed. “Yeah I know. I just lost track of time. What is the time anyway, Occam?”

            Occam pulled back the left sleeve of his leather jacket, revealing a classy Rolex. “From what I can tell, it’s about a quarter to ten.”

            “Oh, that’s not that late,” Arnie replied. “The night is young for me.”

            Occam finally took his eyes off the road and stared at his passenger. The boy seemed on the shorter side and very skinny. His hair was a brownish shade cut so that it parted more towards the left than right. His skin was pale, his eyes blue and he just had that look which indicated his family was probably made of money.

            “Is that a fact, Arnie?” Occam asked with amusement. “The night is young, huh?”

            Arnie nodded but Occam had already looked out towards the road again. “Got that right. Once I get back, I’ll meet up with my buddies and the party will continue. There are a couple Halloween parties I got invited to, so don’t take your time on this drive into The City. Let’s make it snappy. I’m the life of the party, and my boys are counting on me to get back.”

            Occam excused the young man’s arrogance for now. “So it was partying? That what was going down in the tall grass?” he asked Arnie. He kept a steady pace behind the wheel, never accelerating and driving perfectly centered in the right lane.

            “Yeah,” Arnie replied, noticing Occam’s meticulous driving. It made him feel a bit uneasy. Only people who are trying to hide something drive the way Occam did for fear of getting pulled over by a cop down on his ticket quota for the month and in search of even the most minute traffic violation. “We had ourselves a bonfire going,” Arnie said, shaking off yet another feeling of nervousness the driver imposed on him inadvertently, or so the young man thought. “Actually, the damn thing was blazing like crazy. You see my friend Marty had—”

            Occam cut the young man off. “I don’t care about what Marty was doing. I care about what you were doing.”

            Slowly but surely, Arnie felt his grasp of intimidation loosing.

            No, it can’t. I’m the one in the passenger seat, the one he picked up. I have to keep control.

            “Look, Occam, I really don’t think it’s any of your business what sort of things I do in the tall grass. I wouldn’t want you to get into any trouble with the law if you heard the sort of shit my friends and I do out there.” He couldn’t believe the bullshit he was spewing from his own mouth. Sooner or later, these lies were going to catch up to him. “That last thing I want is for you to become an accessory to something. Those charge stick to a man just as much as the actual crime-doing. And you can believe that, Occam.”

            Occam let out a chuckle which sounded more like a grunt to Arnie. “Don’t be talking to me about crime and charges and accessories, Arnie. I know all about that stuff.”

            Great, Arnie thought. The one car I get into is being driven by a criminal. I knew it! He is part of the mob, probably even has connections out west like those old bastards did. But don’t worry. I still have control. I can still keep the fear going. I’ll tell him about stunts Marty pulled last summer and pretend they’re my own. I don’t need to be buried alive in an Indiana cornfield tonight. If anybody’s doing any burying it me! I’m the hitchhiker!”

            “You ever stage a robbery?” Arnie asked and gave Occam no time to respond. “Well I did, last summer actually. It was at a corner deli back home, and I had a buddy of mine fake an injury in the frozen food section because the floor was wet but there was no caution sign. For a brief second we thought we’d sue the Indian pricks for not warning us that the floor was wet but decided against it because we put a lot of thought into stealing some cash just for the fun of it. That’s how I roll, Occam. I do shit like that for fun and don’t care about the consequences.” Oh my God, Arnie thought stopping mid way through his make believe crime story. What the hell am I telling this guy? The young man continued, hoping the driver would play off Arnie’s words as nothing but fantasy. “So when he fell, I just went to the cash register and—”

            Again, Occam stopped the young man from finishing another one of his stories. “That doesn’t interest me one bit. You could have stolen money from every deli and drug store on the east coast or wherever the hell it is you’re from,” the driver said—Arnie feeling a wave of relief wash gently over him—and then said, “but you’ve got nothing on me.”

            The Buick continued to drive smoothly down the road as The City’s lights brightened the interior of the car. Arnie noticed he sat on a red-colored seat and, by the look of it, the car was a turquoise color.

            “Oh I don’t know about that, Occam,” Arnie replied with a tremble in his voice. He took another stab at causing anxiety to build in Occam. “I can’t tell you everything I’ve done. We college kids aren’t as innocent as people claim us to be.” He leaned towards Occam’s shoulder.  “Some of us have demented minds,” Arnie whispered.

            Occam laughed, this time no grunts just an all-out giggle. “Oh, Arnie. You crack me up. I hope you know that.”

            Arnie joined in on the laughter but the more he laughed, the more nervous he got, and the more nervous he got, the more pissed he became because it wasn’t he who was supposed to feel that nervousness crawl underneath his skin. It should be Occam, the one driving the car, the one who picked up the stranger in the dark who happened to appear from the tall grass where God only knows what occurred! Arnie tried to convince himself the driver was a complete fool if only for a short while. But the continuous laughter howling out of Occam’s mouth told Arnie of a different truth.

            “We’re almost there,” Arnie pointed out, wanting out the Buick more badly than he initially sought in it. “You just might survive this little trip to the university.” Dear oh dear, the boy just didn’t know when to quit.

            Occam sniggered even harder—a deep roar of laughter emanated from his thick throat. “Goddammit, Arnie. You are one funny son of a bitch.” And then as the laughter died down, Occam laid it on Arnie. “We’re not almost there at all.” He passed by a parade of trick-or-treaters marching toward the residential area—the line of children turning to face the car with demented masks poking twisted fun at celebrities (one child even appeared to hold a real knife covered in blood).

            Arnie’s eyebrows propped up. Shock rushed through his body. “What’s that?” he said loudly and assertive, though not feeling like the assertive kind at all.

            “I said,” Occam began, “we’re not there at all.”

            The Buick passed a sign for the university indicating where the main parking lot was for the heart of the campus.

            Arnie watched as the Buick drove by the turn Occam was supposed to take. “Okay buddy, this is what is gunna happen!” Arnie started to command the driver and put that hitchhiker mentality to use once again.

            “No, Arnold, you listen to me,” Occam snapped back and pulled the Buick over underneath an overpass where two grotesque men stood by injecting needles into their arms and howling like wolves while doing so. The orange lighting from above dimly lit the Buick’s interior, the speedy cars passing above shook the ground and resonated through the metal skeleton of the car.

            Arnie muttered: “How do you know my real first name?”

            Oh what a stupid question, the young man thought. Anybody could figure that out. Who’s never heard of the nickname Arnie before and thought it belonged to another name besides Arnold. Damn, I screwed this one up.

            “I know more than that, Arnold,” Occam said, and the control Arnie thought he once had secure, the control he conjured out thin air and false pretences, diminished as quick as he concocted its existence once leaving the grass. “Let’s see who we have sitting next to me.” Occam tapped a finger on his chin. “Oh I know! Arnold Walker, a student at this prestigious university.”

            Arnie frowned. “You listen, Occam. I want to know how you know this. Right now! Do you understand me?”

            “No,” Occam hissed, “you have to understand me. We are not going to the university. We are going somewhere else. You are the lucky one chosen to be my companion on this little excursion of mine.”

            Arnie pointed a firm finger at Occam—still convinced he controlled everything from that passenger seat regardless of how further from the truth things could be at this point. “I’m not going anywhere with you, buddy. You remember that friend, Marty, of mine? Well he goes to school with me, and you can bet your life I won’t hesitate to give him a ring and have him join me in beating the shit out of you! Now you take me to that fucking university or things are going to get very ugly very fast!”

            “You’re right,” Occam said calmly. “Things will get ugly.”

            “Fuck you,” Arnie snarled and had enough of trying to hold onto the hitchhiker attitude. As he turned to reach for the handle to exit the Buick, the doors locked and Occam swiftly exposed a gun he had in the pocket of his leather jacket, faster than a dueler hearing the word draw. He pointed directly at the back of Arnie’s head.

            “I’m killing five people tonight, Arnold Walker,” Occam said so smoothly it sounded rehearsed. “And I can promise you I will not make it six. Oh no, it definitely will not be six.” He sighed. “Now we have two options here. One is that I let you out of this vehicle and trust that you do not speak a word of what I just told you to anybody. Odds are you won’t make it far before being eaten alive by The City’s coyotes. Option two: you assist me and I leave your family alone.”

            Arnie slowly turned back toward Occam, facing the pistol now aimed at his forehead. “What do you know about my family?”

            Occam whipped out Arnie’s wallet and took out his driver’s license. “It says here you live at 233 Tyler Street in Liberty, Maine. Now I take it that since we are nowhere near Maine this would be where the rest of your family resides. Mommy, daddy, brothers, sisters, perhaps an aunt and a cousin or two?” He cocked the pistol and stiffened his arm toward Arnie’s head. “And it wouldn’t trouble me one bit to take a drive up that way and kill them all. I’d do it while they’re sleeping so I don’t disturb them. Hell, I’ll even attach my silencer. Then they really can’t hear shit. And the neighbors? We don’t want them hearing anything either. I don’t like making two house calls in one night if I don’t have to.”

            A terrified revelation occurred to Arnie. The young man was not in control at all and never was for that matter. He was the lucky one who found the one driver that was scarier than the hitchhiker, the one driver that had control from the start, the one driver that called the shots.

            “Where did you get that?” Arnie asked now pointing the finger at his wallet in Occam’s large hand.

            The driver smirked. “I have sneaky hands, came with the neighborhood during my early childhood years. Picking pockets was to us what street basketball was to you. And besides, it was just calling my name once you stuck your ass in my car. I figured I’d take a whack at snatching it for old time’s sake. I guess I still got it.” Occam stared at the wallet, stretching the smirk into a full smile.

            Poor Arnie could only gulp a lump of air. Nothing he could say could turn the tide of control back to him. Hell, it hadn’t washed toward him in the first place.

            Occam continued. “Now back to those two options. If I had to choose for you, the first one would seem like it would benefit you. You’d probably run back to the university, find a phone, and warn your folks that a madman was on his way to murder them while wondering what to say to the police about the mysterious person who picked you up just after you and a group of friends were taking part in trespassing on the hill to start a fire.

            “But option two sounds so much more enticing to me. You stick with me the rest of the night. I know where you are at all times. You help me in any way I tell you to. Your family gets left alone, and you never hear from me again. You have my word that when this night is over your family will be safe and you will never see me again. I cannot make that last point any clearer to you.”

            Arnie’s mouth dried up, his throat feeling as though he had just gorged on saltines, one after another after another. “How…how do I know I could trust you?”

            “I’m a man of my word,” Occam stated with confidence. “If I say I won’t do something, I won’t do it. If I say I will, oh I most definitely will.”

            Arnie turned back toward the locked door, eyeing where the handle was and feeling the pistol inch closer to his head.

            “You don’t have a choice in this matter, Arnie. I’m making it for you, and I’m going with the one that has the fewest complications attached to it.” Occam put the Buick back in drive, kept the doors locked, and tucked the pistol back in his pocket. “Don’t bother unlocking the door and jumping out. I’ll put this fucking car in reverse and squash your head like a pumpkin. So sit tight.”

            The young man sat upright in his seat, wondering just what the hell he got himself into. Now that hour’s long walk seemed like the perfect choice for him to make. Oh, stories and films can be so misleading.

            “Where are we going now?” Arnie asked. He wanted to pitch the cliché ‘why me’ question but decided against it…for now. That question would come at a later time—a perfect time as Occam deemed it.

            Occam kept his eyes fixed on the roads of The City. Its yellow and orange lights covered the streets, buildings, and rundown apartments. Toilet paper slithered on the streets. Egg residue was left on parked cars. Candy wrappers wisped through the air. Children hopped, skipped, and jumped for more candy and more mischief.

“To our first stop of the night,” Occam said. “He’s one of two whose current location I know for certain.”

            Arnie sighed. “What…what about the other three? How will you ever find out where they live? For all you know they could just have taken off if they realize you’re after them. You might just be wasting your time. I think you should hold off and wait until you get all the information that you need. Hey, you know what? There’s a computer lab that’s always open at school. We could stop there and I’d even let you in to use the computers, put in my password and everything. What do you say?”

            Occam’s grip on the wheel tightened with annoyance. “Look, Arnold, here’s some advice. Keep the suggestions and questions to a minimum this evening until told otherwise. I’ll let this one slide because you’re new at this criminal game. I don’t buy that story about the deli one bit. And to answer your initial question, I know the perfect someone who will help us out. I won’t need your computers or password or anything like that. Now hush up.”

            “Do you mind calling me, Arnie?” the young man dared to ask.

            Occam huffed. “Fine. Why’s that?”

            Arnie rested his head against the red-colored seat and peered out the large window. “It’s what my mother calls me.” A little remembrance of home was what he needed to get through that night, a home that felt oh so far away. As the extended car ride continued, Arnie daydreamed about that home in Liberty like a soldier heading into battle with the horrible impression that he’d never see home again.

It’s winter now as he looks outside and spots the wooden swing his father built with his own hands when Arnie was just a newborn. It’s covered in snow and ice. He sees his mother in the kitchen baking Christmas cookies and smelling the sweet scent in the air while his older sister and younger brother play Scrabble on the living room rug and argue over what is and isn’t a two letter word. Father is now on the couch tuning into the Patriots game, hollering at the zebras for no apparent reason and hoping for another Super Bowl victory before the golden boy ends his career. Grandfather is upstairs in the guest bedroom reading a biography on one of the presidents.

            Summer is here. He could feel the mist from the lake hit his hot face during a heated afternoon. He could smell the barbeque father is tending to behind him while talking on the phone with his friend, the governor. He can hear grandfather’s fishing reel buzz and click as he pulls in another line of seaweed; the smile on the old man’s face warms Arnie up even more than the hot sun. Sister and brother are swimming in the lake, taking turns hoping on a blown up alligator. Mother is inside the family lake house preparing the side dishes for the chicken and burgers. A picnic table is beautifully set by the backdoor of the lake house, another craft father made with his bare hands.

            Now he’s back inside that cozy warm house in Liberty as winter stings the northeast again. The swing in the back is frozen stiff, the carpet scattered with small wooden squares with letters etched into them. The television is muted as the game continues to play on. Though, something is not right though. Something is different. The smell of cookies is now suppressed by the smell of blood. He turns towards to kitchen to see if mother left something in the oven for too long. But, there is nothing in the oven at all, for mother is dead with her throat slit open. He races into the living room, wooden puzzle pieces are floating in puddles of blood as brother and sister are oozing from their necks. Father is limp and white, his clothes cloaked in crimson. Surely grandfather has faced the same fate as he looks above and notices a red stain forming on the ceiling.

            Summer is here as well as that same smell of menace. The mist smacking his face gently is no longer water but tiny pellets of blood. He turns to grandfather. The fishing pole is on the ground, line knotted into a huge ball. The old man’s neck is cut open. Brother and sister are swimming on their stomach over a clouded sea of red. Father’s throat is slit from ear to ear as he lies dead near the barbeque, the phone coated with red and beeps emanating from the speaker. Mother’s blood pours into the side dishes on the picnic table, her body draped over it like a sheet on a clothesline.

            “You like music, Arnie?” Occam asked what turned out to be a rhetorical question. He flicked the radio on and blasted “Highway to Hell” as they made their way to Toasty’s.

            Arnie awoke from the horrific daydream and realized with terror that he needed to do everything he could to prevent such a nightmare from becoming a reality. The consequences that come from being in the mess of things are impossible to fathom unless experiencing them first-hand. And the young man most assuredly found himself in a hell of a mess, however larger it was than what seemed like a car ride to a man named Toasty.

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