A Good Samaritan

It was dark, and foggy, and as perfect as it could be for a late night horror story, thought Beatrice McClaine. Driving home from her job in the city always took much longer than she would have liked, and the radio never received reception this far from the towers. It was absolutely wonderful, she concluded, for telling an urban legend to herself. She was alone, and so this was the best time to be scared, since her headlights on the road before her were her only light, and the country road that stretched on for miles wouldn't be ending for some time.

Beatrice was a sensible woman. She didn't believe the stories about that teenage pothead that cooked a baby in the oven. She didn't believe the Mafia lined telephone receivers with strychnine. She of course would never pick up a hitch hiker in this day and age, but she didn't fear them, and nor did she think there was some strange man hidden away in her back seat, or disguised as an ugly little statue in her home. They were not exactly idiotic fears, naturally, they were just not things Beatrice believed likely to happen to her. She worried for her adult daughter, Carrie, alone in their home, but these were the typical worries of a mother, not the worries of someone reading a horror story and knowing the ultimate ending for the characters within.

She started with the story of a young woman driving alone, late at night, down an abandoned road. Beatrice smiled as the thought came to her, and though her eyes were on the road, her mind was on the story developing inside. The young woman was successful. She had an important job, and important life, and no children to worry about. She wasn't married. Maybe her name was Jo or Susie or Melinda. A nice, plain name. The kind of name that nothing bad ever happens to.

Well, Jo or Susie or Melinda was on one of her usual midnight drives home from work, or maybe the pub, where she'd already had too much drink. She was a jolly old girl, warbling along to whatever songs came on the radio, her blonde head swaying and smiling and singing. Anything but paying attention to the road in front of her. She drove down the middle of the road, suspecting she was alone, and so when a car swerved out in front of her she was completely unprepared.

She turned her car sharply, crashing into a barbed wire fence, which mercilessly scratched the expensive paint job off her car. She gasped for air, arms flailing, but she was alive, and mostly unharmed. For what felt like ages she simply sat in the car, her foot pressed to the brake as though her very life was hanging on it. She shifted the car into park, and stared around, the joy gone out of her radio singing, straining and trying to find the car that had caused her wreck.

It had stopped, and a man was getting out, and Jo (or Susie or Melinda) was relieved, and hastily unbuckled her own seatbelt, leaping out of the car to greet him. “I'm so sorry!” She apologized frantically, but the tall man, a dark man, shook his head from side to side.

“No problem,” he said slowly, his hands in his pockets. His back was to the only source of light, and Jo could not see his face. “I didn't see you coming either.” He pulled a thin stick out of his pocket, and it glowed red when he lit the end. He pulled the cigarette away from his mouth, blowing out the smoke at a measured pace.

“You need some help, don't you?” He asked when Jo remained silent, and she nodded slowly.

“Yes, yes; I'll just get my phone,” Jo declared, diving back inside her car to grab her tiny cellular phone. She tucked it within her pocket and then thought, I should stay here. I should stay in my car. It still runs, doesn't it? She sat inside it momentarily, tested the gas. It sputtered and roared and protested so horribly that Jo jumped and swore. Outside her car, the man was waiting, and she smiled apologetically at him, though she was sorry for no one but herself.

“Let me get you home,” the man offered, and Jo stared at him. “'Least I can do,” he drawled on, and Jo's hands fidgeted at her side.

“Well, now, that's not necessary. I'll just call the tow company and try to find the land owner. Really, it's not any trouble,” She said, a little too quickly. The man pulled the cigarette away from his mouth, and smoke poured from his nostrils and snaked in the air above his black, faceless form.

“It's not any trouble for me, neither,” he said, and Jo felt defeated. She did not want to go with this strange man. It was dark, it was too late for a coincidence, and Jo just wanted to get back in her car and go home. Hell, she would have been glad just to sit inside it for the rest of the night! Anything but go with this dark stranger.

“Come on now. You can't stay here all alone all night. There's creeps out, this time of night.” Jo found that rather ironic, but said nothing, and did not move away from her car. The man continued, “I'll just get you home. You got a kid? You call them to come get you when that tow truck shows up. Come on, now, miss. Just go ahead and call. Let whoever know you're alright. I'll wait.”

Jo realized she was not being given a choice, and her pretty little hands shook as she dialed the number for the tow truck company first. She gave them all the information they needed and, after some hesitation, turned off her car and removed the keys, placing them in her pocket.

“You gonna call your kid?” The man asked, but Jo shook her head.

“I don't have any. No husband,” she answered quietly, and the man nodded his head.

“Guess I'll drive you back, then. Don't worry, miss. I'll wait if you want me to.” He was walking towards his car, and Jo recognized once again that she would have no say in the matter. This man would stay at her house whether she wanted him to or not. He would do what he wanted, and she prayed to God she was not part of some bigger scene.

She climbed into his car, a sleek black machine, and buckled herself in. In the small amount of light that appeared inside the car, before it disappeared as the doors shut, Jo caught sight of the man's face.

He was smiling.

Beatrice shook herself suddenly, imagining that man's face, thinking it up something horrible and scared deeply and exaggerated by the dim light; flesh torn and healed improperly. And with a lopsided grin, like some wild beast. “Get a hold of yourself, B, just a little story,” she murmured to herself, and turned on her wipers as she noted with disappointment that it had begun to rain.

Oh, but what if he had a kind face? Would that be scarier? Or maybe this monster had a kind heart, just wanted to make people see he was still human? She pondered on it for a time. A Good Samaritan helping out a poor woman he had nearly caused to wreck. You didn't hear many stories about those, now did you? But it wouldn't be as scary if he was a kind man, she decided, and she turned her little car down another country road. Almost halfway home now, she told herself, and settled back into her story.

Jo stared at the man with the monster face and knew she had made a mistake. She should have never accepted his help—she should have stayed in her car! But he was driving now, driving fast, and she could not make a move without making it seem suspicious.

“I saw you leaving the bar,” he told her, and Jo wondered how long she had been followed. “Didn't mean to follow you, but I live out here, too. Small world, innit?”

“Yeah,” Jo replied distantly, wondering what would become of her. She had heard all the stories. Stories of young women getting into cars with strange men, late at night. Never coming home. And who would miss her? Her parents lived all the way in Illinois. She had no children. No husband or boyfriend. Not even a pet. She was very alone, at that moment, more alone than she had been in her entire life.

“You just tell me where to turn, miss,” he instructed her after a while of silence, and Jo signaled briefly the right turns, wanting and yet not wanting to return to her own home.

“Now, I hope you're doing all right, miss. You had an awful lot to drink at that bar.” Jo frowned. It's none of your business, she thought bitterly, snapped it in her mind, but said nothing. “You just tell me where to turn,” he repeated softly.

Jo grew worried. She was giving the right turns, but nothing looked familiar. The road grew bumpier, rocks flew up as the man's wheels drove over them. A great stretch of land and empty road appeared before them.

“This is wrong,” Jo cried suddenly, staring into the dark, dark night. “This is wrong, wrong! You turned wrong somewhere,” she flapped, and looked at the dark shape driving her to her fate.

“I didn't turn nowhere you didn't tell me to,” the man replied calmly, and Jo wanted to scream and cry. “I didn't do nothing you didn't tell me to, miss, but I'll have to ask you to settle down. I don't do too well with jumpy things.”

“What? What?” Jo repeated emptily, her head swimming in her own fears. What was he talking about? Where was she being taken? Was she going to die? No one would miss her! Oh God, no one would even know she was gone! Oh God, oh why?

“Just you calm down, miss,” the man was saying, but Jo cried and stared at him like a frightened animal. “Just calm down!” he shouted suddenly, and Jo sunk into the passenger seat, trying to find that face in the dark, trying to guess what the man looked like.

“Now miss, I was just gonna wait 'til we got to your house, but you ain't giving me much choice,” he said, and Jo felt her heart flutter and sink. Flutter, sink. Flutter, sink. Flutter, gasp, sink.

Sink, sink, sink.

The man was pulling over, into an abandoned side road. A decaying shack held on to its last supports and stood like a deathly altar. As the man stepped out of the car, Jo knew.

I am going to die, she thought to herself, and as the man got to her side of the car and reached in, grabbing her by the hair she had worked so hard on and dragging her out, she thought it again. I am going to die.

“I been following you since before the bar, miss. I usually let off when it gets to my turn, but you got distracted, went the wrong way. I had to circle round to meet you on the other side. It was a good opportunity. I couldn't let it slip away, miss, I hope you understand,” he explained himself, and Jo sat beside the car, on the ground, knowing it was useless. If she screamed, no one would hear. If she ran, there was nowhere to go for miles.

She was alone.

“You're real pretty, miss, and it's a darn shame n'body else thought to tell you that,” he told her sadly, and Jo stared at him blankly.

“Just let me go. Just take me home. You know where I live,” Jo sobbed suddenly, staring pleadingly up at him. His face was out of the light from the car; the passenger door was still open. She couldn't read his expression. “You know where I live!” She repeated suddenly, and the man shook his head, slowly, from side to side.

“Can't do that, miss. It's just too good.” Jo watched him pull out the knife from his pocket. Watched the little flip blade gleam in the low light. “It's just too good for me to let it slip, miss.”

Beatrice glared as the rain became heavier, flipping up her wipers to go faster, and leaning forward, squinting into the night. Damn it to Hell, she thought bitterly, not wanting to leave her story unfinished. Damn it all!

She grumbled to herself, and thought of that man. What a thought! If he existed, somewhere in this world. Somewhere, maybe even on the very same dark, country road Beatrice was driving tonight. How many Jo's or Susie's or Melinda's had he brought to the same fate? The same, lonely end. It was horrible. Dying alone.

And maybe Jo would have been left alone if she hadn't taken that wrong turn, listening to her radio, and not paying attention to where she was going. What if? Beatrice thought of the what ifs. What if she had gone the right way; what if the man was kind; what if he was more trusting; what if she did have someone to help her. But these would have changed Beatrice's story, and Beatrice liked it just the way it was.

“This rain!” She exclaimed exasperatedly, and hit her hand lightly against the steering wheel. She thought about her daughter. How was Carrie? What would she be doing? Reading a good book, Beatrice answered own question. She smiled. Carrie would be curled up in the big chair in the living room, reading a horror story, much like Beatrice herself might be doing if she were home now instead of driving in this terrible weather.

In fact, her mind was so far in her other world that she didn't expect the sudden call on her cell phone. Beatrice jumped, her wheel swerved wildly and her car spun. She didn't even see the bright lights coming up the other side of the hill, driving too fast. Beatrice didn't see the lights until they were in front of her, and then it was dark.

Carrie Baby, the phone announced, as it peeled through the night and its electronic face lit up with the report. Carrie Baby calling. Carrie Baby. Pick up the phone, it's Carrie Baby. Carrie Baby. Hello? Hello? Pick up the phone. Carrie Baby calling. Hello? It's Carrie Baby. Pick up the phone.

Beatrice lay on the cold ground, flung from her through the windshield, wet below and above. She smelled the smoke from her destroyed car, felt the pain all around her body. Saw rain pelt against the rocks she lay on. The cell phone sang out to nobody in the night. The driver of the second car had stopped, was shouting something.

“Miss, miss?” Drawled a slow voice. “You need some help, miss? Can you hear me? Miss!”

The phone ended its swan song. Its lit face died. Beatrice closed her eyes.

And everything was dark.