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They all started cramming dope into their mouths as the van pulled over onto the shoulder and stopped.
The two police cruisers shot right past them without even slowing down.
For a second, they all stared out through the windshield with disbelief, and then they sighed with relief. A few seconds later, it occurred to them that they had eaten almost all of their stash.
“Oh, man!” moaned Chuck.
“Oh shit!” said Chili, trying to scrape together the grass they’d dropped onto the floor of the van.
Chris wondered where the police cars could possibly have been going that they had ignored her like that. She had been driving well over the speed limit, trying to buy the others some time to get rid of the dope. A few miles down the road, she had her answer.
To the left, there was a turnoff sloping downhill to a small roadside grocery store at the foot of the highway embankment. The police cruisers pulled in with screeching tires, and the officers jumped out of their cars and hurried over to the store.
“Okay, you guys, show’s over,” one of them said, beckoning the small group of people away from the store entrance. “Let’s move it back over here, all right?”
There was ambulance parked in front of the entrance to the market. Chris slowed down as the road followed the curve of the embankment so that they could look down as they passed and see what was going on. As they drove past the market, the ambulance attendants came out, carrying two stretchers with sheet-covered bodies strapped to them. Chris couldn’t take her eyes off the sight. She swerved sharply and snapped out of it, quickly returning her attention to the road.
“Hey kiddo,” said Debbie gently, seeing the expression on her fact, “don’t let your imagination run away with you.”
Chris swallowed hard, trying to calm down. Her nerves were already more than a bit on edge just at the though of coming back to Crystal Lake again. And now this . . .
“Chris, stop the van!” cried Debbie.
“What?” she said, startled, snapping out of her reverie. “What is it?”
“Stop!”
Chris slammed on the brakes.
She was not a moment too soon. The van screeched to a stop inches away from an old man lying in the center of the road.
“What are you doin’?” Andy said. “You almost ran over him!”
“I . . . I must have been daydreaming,” said Chris, shocked at what she almost did. “I didn’t even see him!”
They piled out of the van and approached the motionless figure. He was lying on his back in the middle of the road, his head pillowed on a duffle bag. It was a hell of a place to take a nap. He was in his late sixties or seventies, and had stringy gray hair and a long beard. He was as skinny as a rake, his old baggy clothes were badly in need of a washing and his face was covered by a beat-up straw hat. He didn’t move a muscle.
“Hey, man, he looks just like my grandfather!” said Chuck, bending over him.
They stood around the old man, looking down at him with concern. As their shadows fell across him, his eyes fluttered open.
“Why,” he said, looking at Debbie and Vera and speaking in a wheezy voice, “I must be in heaven!”
Chuck grinned. “What’re you doin’ down there, old guy?” he said.
“You all right?” Chris asked him in a worried tone.
“Get him up,” said Andy.
“Don’t touch him!” Shelly cautioned, keeping well back from the old man. “You don’t know where he’s been!”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” the old man said as they helped him to his feet. “You are, indeed, all of you, kind and generous young people. Look upon what His Grace has brought me!”
He reached into his pocket and withdrew a curious-looking, slimy, whitish object. His hand trembled as he held it out, directly under Shelly’s face.
Shelly winced, looking down at the disgusting looking object and wrinkling his nose. “What is that?” he said.
“I found this today,” the old man said, gravely. “There were other pieces of the body . . .”
