The Maniac in Back!

This is something Debra told me happened to her back in the 80s. True story, man, and the woman it happened to never forgot it. It was, as they say, a real "close shave."

Debra was driving home, tired and out-of-sorts. The teaching conference had been a total bore; she spent most of the night huddled in a corner with a cold cup of coffee and the blues. What was it she had gone there to learn, anyway? She wasn't now certain. She was tired, and the rain-slicked streets and bleary neon lights and street lights, not to mention the traffic lights, all seemed to be melting into some kind of indistinct, dark modern art mess.

She felt the need to pull into a convenience store/filling station. Need gas, she thought to herself sleepily. She had maybe ten minutes more to drive until she made it home.

This neighborhood was bad. There were men loitering outside the convenience store. Homeless, they looked to be. One flashed a big smile at her. He was missing most of his teeth, looked as if he hadn't bathed in quite a while.

She went in. The employee was hidden behind bullet-proof glass. You slipped the money or your credit card into a little slot he could open and close.

She bought a package of little cakes, paid for the gas. The employee, a young man that looked as if he might hail from Bangladesh, said "Thank you," but didn't smile.

Around these parts, she thought to herself, you don't have much use for big smiles or a friendly demeanor. Could almost be a positive detriment.

She got her gas (it was pre-paid here) and sat in the car, munching on her goodies. She turned on the radio, heard it come to static life. An announcer's voice said, "We have a special bulletin coming in folks!"

There was a brief pause. Then:

"Yes, we have a story just coming in that an inmate has escaped from the Chatanoogie Institute for the Criminally Insane! Late this evening, one Chester Muttz managed to overpower an orderly, a trio of doctors, three nuns, a patrol dog, and a custodian named Fred. He is believed to be somewhere in the immediate area, although it is not clear if he was capable of commandeering an auto. If encountered, he should not, we repeat, NOT be directly confronted, as he is dangerously psychotic and very homicidally violent. Listeners are advised to lock their doors and exercise extreme caution if they have to be out. Alone. Tonight..."

That's me. Out alone tonight, Debra thought to herself. Suddenly, she didn't feel so hungry anymore. She looked in the rearview mirror, noting for the first time the car that seemed to be idling at the pump behind her. What? Was he waiting for her to move? He had plenty of room to pull out.

She stuffed her wrapper into the ashtray, turned the key. The car roared to life. Just then though, something happened which set her nerves on edge.

The man behind her threw open his door, leaped from the car, and began to approach her driver's side window, gesticulating wildly. He had a weird, crazed, and (she at least thought) scary expression on his face. Well, all of a sudden, his behavior sent her into a panic. She was fully awake now.

She stepped on the gas, pulled out of that place with a squeal of burning rubber. She looked back in the rearview. The man had dove back into his car, started it up, and was now FOLLOWING HER.

Her heart began to beat faster. Behind her, the ugly, black-and-tan station wagon kept a close pace. What was going on here? She didn't know, but the radio announcer had spooked her bad, and now...this! She turned down a side street, thinking of escaped lunatics and stolen cars.

The station wagon turned with her. She sped up. So did he. She turned down another, unfamiliar sidestreet, through a neighborhood of run-down little houses, many with boarded-up, darkened windows. Her driving was getting more and more erratic the more panicked she became.

She didn't want to become a victim of some escaped lunatic. Turn. Speed up. Turn again. Screech! Where was she headed? When would this end?

He followed her tightly, riding her tail. Finally, she turned again, and then--

"Ohmigod!"

She screamed. A cat darted out in the middle of the road. She swerved to miss it.

The car went screeching into the loose gravel and debris at the side of the street. She slammed on the brake, throwing her forward. Luckily, she was wearing her seatbelt.

Slowly, dazed, certain that whoever it was she had led on this merry chase would now emerge from his car, most likely with a blade or some other instrument of killing, and do her in, she said to herself, "If this is how I go out of this world, then, so be it. But, tonight, obviously, the jig is up!"

She was bleeding where her head had hit the dashboard. Then, before she even had time to process it, the back door of her own car flew open, and a white shape wearing a hospital gown flew from the back seat, racing down the street into the darkness, just as the man in the car behind her also leaped out.

'WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?' she thought madly.

The man whom she had led on a chase approached the driver's side door as she sat there, still stunned. She rolled down the window.

The man, clearly scared, huffing and puffing, said, "Lady, I can unnerstan' how you was scairt," he said, in a thick, country-boy accent. "You led me on a purty good chase. But, I was just tryin' to warn ya.' I saw that lunatic get in the back seat of your car! He was carrying something looked shiny, like a blade. Don't know why he didn't just do you in! Maybe it's cause of the chase you led me. Anyway, that must have been that escaped lunatic! Lady, you had a MANIAC IN THE BACK!"