Random Encounter

Mike was not a happy, laughing drunk, nor was he a sad, crying drunk. He was a cocky, fight-the-biggest-guy-in-the-bar-drunk. Now Mike wasn't that stupid, or that crazy, usually, he still had some form of reasoning when he got drunk, but when he got into his used, 96' Toyota Camry from a long night at the bar, he had the judgment of a demented squirrel bounding in front of a speeding Sixteen wheeler.

He was going only thirty or so, judging from the dark silhouette of the forest on each side of the empty country road passing him by idly. In reality, they were speeding past him, the speedometer reading 80. Imagine Mike's surprise when a man suddenly ran in front of the car and finding himself rolling into the hood of it.

It wasn't on purpose, of course, the man didn't smile with open arms and say, "Hello car!" He just crossed the road at the wrong place at the wrong time, leaving Mike screaming, swerving, and slamming his brakes as he screeched onto a narrow shoulder of Route 376. Mike didn't stop screaming until he was out of his car, the engine was still running, the headlights staring off into the darkened road. Mike put his hands to his head and slid his fingers through his hair as he looked at the damage.

"Oh shit... Ohshitohshitohshitohshit..."

The headlights gave just enough light to make out what he had hit. The man was tall, and judging from the buckskins, probably a Indian. Well, he was an Indian, laying across the hood of his car like that, he was pretty much dead, his closed eyes staring up into moon lit sky. At least, if it was really any concern at the moment, the windshield was still in tact.

I need to get rid of this guy. Mike thought to himself, it was bad enough to get caught for a DWI, Vehicular manslaughter was a whole different ballgame. He went back into the car and popped open the trunk. He'll just dump the body in the back, get back home, grab a shovel, drive off to the creek and bury the guy before the sun rose. It'll be like it never happened. He was about to scrape off the body off of his car when the man groaned.

Mike jumped nearly a foot in the air, the relief that he was alive and the fear of the eventual lawsuit filled Mike with a mixture of joy and dread.

"Ugh..." The man groaned again, "What happened?"

Mike stuttered as he tried to explain "Ah- Ah- Uh..." Mike steadied his voice, and blurted out, "You just got hit by a fucking car man!"

The man didn't even wince, in fact, he seemed rather peaceful considering that he was almost slaughtered by a speeding Toyota.

"Really?" He asked calmly, staring at the night sky, "What kind of car?"

Mike stared. He was beginning to think this accident did more to the man's head than anything else. He did a double take, the man seemed fine physically, nothing was bent out of place or missing, there wasn't any blood or chunks of brain on the road. In Mike's opinion, the man seemed perfectly okay, save for the massive brain damage that he was going to have to pay the bills if and when the cops eventually found out. He shifted uneasily as he felt the money in his wallet melt away.

"What kind of car?" The man asked, his voice seemed to be shifting from it's dazed, airyness to a more normal tone.

"A- a Camry" Mike stuttered out.

"A sedan?"

"Y- Yeah."

The man grinned, "What a relief, if it was a truck, I would've been a goner." He slowly slid off the hood of the car, the vertebra in his spine cracking loudly as he started to stand up.

"Yeah..." Mike looked down, "Sorry" Crack. "About" Crack . "That."

He stretched his arms as if he just got up from a nap. The man bent back with a Criiiiiiiiick of his spine, and he was fine.

"That's better." The man offered a hand, "Name's Joe, sorry about scaring you like that." He laughed.

Mike coughed out a weak laugh with him shook Joe's hand. Despite the strangeness of the situation, Mike decided that it was probably good for him to humor the guy for a bit while his head wasn't on straight, and leave before the man remembered what had happened. It wasn't necessarily the right thing to do, but the last thing he wanted to do right now was get caught in the web of red tape of injury law.

"Ah, it's okay, cars, what could you do?" He said with a disarming smile and a look in the eye. It may have been a trick of the light, but Mike swore that the man didn't have any color in his eyes, and when there wasn't any, there really wasn't any, no white or irises or anything, just two pools of black shining in the car's headlights.

"Joe..." A voice called from behind him, "You there?"

A witness! Mike spun around, and saw a young woman standing in front of him Her clothes, unlike the well dressed Joe, looked like they were bought from the local Goodwill, her sweater twice as bulky as the small body it covered. Mike would've thought she was kind of cute (In a Salvation army sort of way), if it weren't for the fact that her eyes were a disturbing gold color and that she was gnawing on what looked like a dead squirrel.

"Hi Cori." Joe called from behind Mike.

The girl sighed and walked over to the black eyed man, "What happened?"

"Got hit by a car." Joe said indifferently, pointing to the car. He brushed off his buckskins.

"Ouch, what kind?"

"Sedan."

"Well, that's good, if it were a truck or something, you would've been a goner."

"I know, right?"

Cori spit out a Squirrel bone, "You're one of her favorites, she wouldn't let you go that easy."

Joe frowned a little, "You could too if you stopped doing- You know." He motioned to the squirrel in her hands.

"Not my problem she's squeamish." Cori took another bite of and spoke with her mouth full, "You shouldn't have gotten my hopes up like that, I was planning on which pieces of you I'd save for later and everything."

Joe paled, "You wouldn't!"

"Hey, I gotta eat meat as much as you have to eat grass, you're just lucky to be on her good side!" Cori snarled.

"What are you trying to say?"

"You're just a damn suck up who wouldn't be here if she wasn't watching your ass all the time!"

"At least I don't take handouts from the road like some kind of beggar!"

"Scavenger! Scavenger!" Cori slapped Joe with a sweater sleeve with each word, with Joe protecting himself with his hands, "Get it through your thick, headlight absorbing skull, why don't you?"

"You're just jealous." Joe stuck out his tongue.

"Of What? Being her pet?"

"That I have her blessing, and you don't."

"Well, that's about to change after I get you back home and tell her I rescued you."

"I thought you wanted to eat my remains."

"Whatever gave you that idea?" Cori asked innocently.

"Uh, excuse me?" Mike squeaked into the conversation, "You two alright?"

Cori turned around, "Fine, just peachy! Nothing happened to your car, right?"

"Nothing I can't buff out-"

"Perfect, we'll just be on our way then." He took Joe by the arm, "Come on, you dumbass, before a truck hits you, and I get something descent to eat."

"You don't need a ride or anything?" Mike asked.

"We live close by, thanks though." Joe said, and waved goodbye.

Mike paused for a second, and then called after them, "Wait!"

The pair turned around.

"Uh, Cori, right? Why are you eating" He made a motion to the piece of roadkill in her hands, "That?"

Cori looked down on her meal and threw it into the forest. She shrugged, "Why not?"

Mike got back into his car, and calmly started up the engine. He pulled away from the shoulder, and got back on the road.

"What the fuck was that all about?" Mike mumbled.

It was disturbing enough to watch a man take a car to the ribs and get up like it was no big deal, it got a whole lot more disturbing when Cori came around and made everything twice as awkward. What kind of drugs were people doing nowadays? Crack and acid had nothing on whatever those two were taking. And what was up with that "Her" business? She must've been pretty important if she kept Joe from dying. He shook his head, maybe it was best not to look into it all that deeply, they were druggies after all. Mike drove up the driveway, took the keys out of the ignition, and walked into his house. A shower, and then bed. He closed his eyes, leaving behind what happened before like a bad dream.

The next morning, Mike looked at his car, it seemed that the dent that "He could buff out" was a lot bigger than he thought. He called up his friend Richard, because he was the only one with the tool and the arms to remedy this problem.

"Swerved the wrong way and hit a deer." Mike explained, leading his friend over to the car..

"This must've been some kind of deer then, look at that bump!" Richard pointed at it with the toilet plunger in his hand.

"Think you can fix it?"

Richard looked at the hood closely, "Definitely."

"Thanks."

"You know." Richard said, as he started sucking out the dent with the toilet plunger, "I don't bother swerving out of the way when a deer's coming, I just take em' out."

"That's because you have a Hummer. This is a Sedan, not a tank"

"Yeah, but I like to think I'm doing my share for the environment, all those crows and coyotes need something to eat, ya know?"

Mike's eyes went wide. Suddenly, everything that happened the night before made sense, people might call him crazy but-

But...

Just as soon as he grabbed hold of his idea, it shambled back into confusion. It was a stupid idea anyway.

"Mike? You okay? You look like you saw a ghost."

Mike snapped out of his brief period of enlightenment and looked at Richard.

"Yeah." He said, grabbing the handle of the toilet plunger, "Let me help you with that."