Stephen Herriot had spent most of the night headed towards yet another piss-ant town in Illinois trying to unload a life insurance policy on people who probably already had life insurance and he was pretty god damn tired. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he didn't see the row of jagged, broken glass jutting up from the black top. As a result he was moving over 70 miles-per-hour when he ran over it. Two loud reports followed and his car immediately swerved off the road. Stephen cursed loud and long as his car made its way towards a tree, he slammed his foot onto the brakes, causing the car to fish tail, and ended up softening the impact with the passenger side door. Stephen rapped his head sharply on the window and was out cold.

A constant tapping greeted Stephen as he awoke. "Hey buddy, you alright?" The voice was shockingly loud to Stephen's battered head, he opened his eyes and looked out his window. A very large man in overalls was the one doing the tapping. When he saw that Stephen was now awake he leaned away from the window and grinned, showing off some very long teeth, all of them white as could be. He made a motion with his hand, indicating that Stephen should roll down the window. Stephen did so.

"Hot damn, thought you had died on us for a moment there! You okay? Looks like you had quite a crash!"

"Yeah, I did," Stephen said. He shook his head trying to clear it, then stepped out of the car. He immediately fell over. The man bent over and helped him to his feet. "Shit, hey look can you call me a tow truck?" Stephen asked.

"I can do better than that buddy," the man grinned again, "I have my own tow truck right over there." He pointed down the road, Stephen turned, and sure enough, there was a tow truck, idling away. "You're just lucky I happened along, I'll get your car fixed up in no time!" the man said, " By the way, my name's Lem Tuggle." He stuck out one grease-covered hand. Stephen took it gingerly and shook it. "Stephen Herriot," he said. When Lem released his hand, Stephen wiped the residual grease on his pant leg, and gave Lem a grim smile. "I'll just go get the truck, and get your car off that tree." Lem said, and then bounded away towards his tow truck.

Stephen walked a ways down the road to see what had caused him to crash. He came across the line of broken glass, and bent to the ground to examine it more closely. Stephen frowned, the glass wasn't just littered across the ground, but actually embedded into the blacktop. He tried to work a piece free from the tar, but it was stuck a good inch or so in. Still frowning he got up and headed back to where Lem was hooking the tow truck up to his car.

"Hey, there's glass in your road." Stephen said.

Lem turned to look at Stephen, then glanced at the road behind Stephen. "Yeah, some driver must have dropped a beer bottle, or somethin'."

"No, I mean, there's glass in your road. It's stuck in the tar."

"Huh, I guess the tar must have melted a bit, got real hot here just the other day. The glass must have just gotten stuck in the tar." Lem grinned his disconcerting grin and turned back towards what he was doing. Stephen turned back towards the row of glass. "I guess." After a few minutes Lem clapped his hands. "Alright, let's head into town then. have a shop there that can fix you right up. Actually, we have quite a few shops that can fix you right up." Lem said, and then began to laugh as he climbed into the cab of his truck. "Hop in and let's go." he said. Stephen opened the passenger side door and climbed in, despite his reservations about Lem's sanity.

They drove down the road in silence. Finally Stephen got tired of just sitting there. "So, what's the name of the town?" he said. "Cooper's Town." said Lem, who was now suddenly laconic. "Ah, nice name. Are we far from it?" Stephen said.

"No, only a few minutes."

They continued to drive in silence. Soon they began to pass by houses, and they entered the town of Cooper's Town.

"Here we are! Not far my auto-shop now!" said Lem after five minutes of dead silence. Soon they passed by a used car lot, which was flanked by two car repair shops. The opposite side of the street had a wealth of car part shops. As they continued to drive through the little town Stephen noticed even more auto body shops, car part stores, and used car lots.

"Wow, you weren't kidding when you said there were a lot of places to get my car fixed," said Stephen.

Lem showed his rather frightening teeth again, "We get a lot of business." he said and then laughed. "Ah and here's my shop." Lem said, breaking off his laughing fit.

"Good." Stephen said. He looked at Lem and wondered once again if Lem wasn't a little bit unbalanced. They pulled into a garage that looked almost exactly like the two beside it save the "Lem's Garage" sign that was plastered across the front of it. Stephen and Lem hopped out of the truck and were greeted by a tall, lanky fellow with the name Clem stitched onto his jump suit.

"Got another one Lem?" Clem said, showing off his own set of teeth that could give a fellow nightmares for days to come. "Yep, second time this week! Looks like our luck is changin'. I saw Gomer lurkin' about when we drove in. Probably gonna git mad at us for gittin' this one too."

Clem waved away this last statement with a single long fingered hand. "He needs to watch the traps more closely if he wants to catch anythin'."

Stephen listened to all of this with growing unease. "Traps? What do you mean traps?" he said. Both Clem and Lem laughed. Their faces seemed to elongate as they did so, their teeth shining as white as you could please. "I think you know what the traps are buddy. You ran over one of the ones I helped set up in fact." Lem said.

"The glass? You put it there?" Stephen said.

"Of course, ya know, I think this boy might be a bit on the slow side." said Clem.

"Well, won't affect the taste any. Should we start, or go invite Gomer?" said Lem.

"I don't think Gomer would be a very good dining companion. But we're neglecting our guest. Would you like for young Gomer join us Mr. Herriot?"

"Join us for what?" Stephen was getting progressively more uneasy.

"Why, for dinner of course!" Clem and Lem both threw back their heads and laughed. Stephen decided then that perhaps it was time to go, and bolted. "Lookit Clem, he's tryin' to run!" said Lem.

"Well, we'd better stop him Lem." said Clem.

Their faces changed into terrifying parodies of a human face. Their teeth extraordinarily long, eyes nothing more than pitch black circles on their faces. They loped quickly towards Stephen, who had made it as far as the door, and was trying to lift it back up. Lem reached him first and pulled him away from the door, and held him up for closer inspection. "Well lookee here Clem, looks he tried to run without payin' us for towin' his truck. Very ungrateful of him, doncha think?" said Lem.

"Very ungrateful. Guess we'll just have to eat him now, and get our payment that way." said Clem.

"What?!" said Stephen, still dangling in the air.

"Tsk," said Lem, "You were right Clem. He is a bit on the slow side. Yes, we set the traps, and yes, we're going to eat you. Lord boy, couldn't you have figured that out without us tellin' you?"

"And after we're done with you, we'll take your car over to Hank's next door, and he'll chop your car up, and sell the parts over in the next town. Though it'll cost us and arm and a leg."

Then Lem and Clem laughed again. "Actually, it won't cost us an arm and a leg, just yours."

Lem and Clem laughed, and Stephen screamed.

The next day, Stephen's car was taken over to Hank's Auto Shop. Lem chatted with him for a moment and then handed him a rather bloody package. Hank grinned with rather large teeth.

And they both laughed.