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Helton shook his head. “Ain’t nothin’ we can do, son, but pray that God see fit ta give Veronnerka back her senses.”

“Yeah.”

“‘Bye, Veronnerka! Merry Christmas!”

Veronica’s only response was a mute glance.

Helton and Dumar, whispering prayers, mind you, got back into the truck and drove away. Dumar cracked open a soda for himself and his father; however, Helton had paused at the exit, idling. Had something that slipped his mind suddenly occurred to him?

“Dang, much as I’d like ta git us back wheres we belong, we still got one more stop ta make.”

Dumar looked up, chin pointing. “Oh, yeah—” but before further discourse could take place, a rapid snapping sound approached.

In the dim headlights, a figure seemed to be trotting toward them.

“Who’s this here?” Dumar asked. “Looks like a gal.”

“Yeah, son, shore is…”

“Ya reckon she helps some help?”

It was a woman, yes, oddly dressed. Out of breath she stopped just below Helton’s window. In spite of the cool night, her legs were bare from mid-thigh down, and she wore flip-flops. She also wore a tacky overcoat riddled with buttons of some sort. Off-blond hair rose in a trace breeze.

Helton sipped his soda, then lowered his window. “Well, hey there, missy. Are you’s in any kind’a distress?”

Wrinkles lined the woman’s face such that her age was impossible to discern, but in a raspy yet high- timbered voice, she replied, “Man, you guys got the trick-time boo-ya all goin’ on! I ain’t never peel-eyed killin’, spillin’, and thrillin’ like that. Fuck, man, I hated those creeps—I was lookin’ for a way to flunk ’em but now I don’t have to! Bunch of poo-putt loser smack-slingers, small-time actin’ big-time.” She winced, deepening her facial wrinkles. “They treated me like shit, man, and I’m talkin’ disrespezzy like you never dreamed.”

Helton made a face of utter incomprehension. “Uh, what’s that, hon?”

A prodigious cleavage became momentarily visible at her neckline when she leaned forward to continue. “I saw it all, man! I was watchin’ through the windows the trunk-poppin’ you and the Wops pulled on the NSG-3! Man, that shit was top as a crown! I didn’t like the Wops, either, but you guys? You guys are Ace Players!”

Helton stalled. “Uh, what’s that, hon?”

Dumar leaned over. “What’cha mean by… trick-time boo-ya?”

“And…lemme see,” Helton reflected. “Peel-eyed?”

“Aw, shit, I guess you guys aren’t phat to street jaw,” the girl assumed, vibrant in some undisclosed excitement. “I see shit like that happenin’ to scumbags? Fuck, man, my pwizzle gets to drizzle, ya know? Makes my cunt beat like my heart!”

Well, at least Helton and Dumar knew what cunt meant, but that was about it. “Missy, we up’n had a dang differ-kult couple’a days, so’s now we’se just hankerin’ ta git on back ta our homestead and have Christmas proper. But, see, we, we, we—”

“We don’t know what the hail yer talkin’ ’bout,” Dumar accentuated.

“Lemme be in your gang!” she pleaded and hopped up and down.

“Gang?” Helton said. “We don’t know no gang.”

“Make me hip to your crib!” Her bloodshot eyes beamed. “You won’t regret it. I wanna be your gal!”

Helton traded a cruxed glance with his son.

“I think she wanna go home with us, Paw.”

“Yeah, I reckon.” Helton’s bushy brows jiggled. He lowered his voice. “But don’t she look kind’a old?”

“Yeah, Paw. She’s all wored out judgin’ by her face.”

“Wait a minute!” she interjected. “What guy really cares about the face, huh? I’ll, like, do shit for ya, serious! I’ll chill ya out.”

Helton swigged his soda, then explained, “Well, girlie. You’re a citified type, we’se backwoods rednecks. You eat at the Mack-Donald’s, we eat gopher we cook on a woodstove.. You’d likely not take to hill life.”

“Aw, shit, man!” she enthused. “I’ll chop wood, cook gophers, wash the shit stains out of your overalls in a fuckin’ metal tub and I’ll fuck and suck you both, like all the time. Let me be your hillbilly bitch!” and with that, the woman rose on her tiptoes and opened her overcoat.

Helton and Dumar both simultaneously spat out mouthfuls of soda.

“Holy sheee-IT, Paw!” Dumar hacked.

Helton chuckled, addressing the woman. “Well, dang, girl! Hop on in! I’d say you just found yourself a home!”

Once their passenger was safely inside, the truck clattered off into the night…

(II)

In the distance, strings of Christmas lights blinked, and even more distantly she heard a chorus singing, “God rest ye merry gentlemen…,” but Veronica’s traumatized mind remained incognizant. She merely stood, looking at the small sedan that men she didn’t know said was hers…

Where am I? her most feeble thoughts ticked. WHO am I?

Lights swept behind her, then came the sound of tires swiftly turning a tight corner. A car engine droned.

“Veronica? Jesus, that is you!” a voice seemed to crack at her…and there was something…just something hauntingly familiar about it.

Footsteps, then hands grabbed her and turned her around. The face of a man—a very handsome man—loomed before her.

“What are you doing here? We’ve been worried sick about you! And where have you been?”

Veronica blinked at this person, and in a sensation akin to a nail being extracted from old wood, her mind extracted something as well. “I,” she mumbled, “I…don’t know…”

The hands shook her by the shoulders. “Don’t you recognize me? It’s Mike!”

Mike, the word dropped in her head like a single bell-toll.

“Mike,” she grated.

“Shit, Archie was right. Something happened to you—you’re out of it. Come on, I’ll drive you home,” and then he whisked her into his pretentious two-seat Japanese sports car.

Heat engulfed her; the door sucked shut. Then this person—Mike—sat next to her.

“Veronica!” he blared. “You’re not on drugs, are you? You’ve been missing for days. Don’t you remember what happened to you?”

Her dazed stare slowly turned to him. “A…a truck, maybe? Some…men? A… table in the truck, I think, and-and-and…a noise like, like a power drill…” Her lower lip trembled. “And…a camera…”

“You’re not making sense.” He rummaged through her knapsack and withdrew a band of $100 bills. “Holy shit! Where’d you get all this money? This is like…ten grand!”

Circumstance continued to drag more nails out of Veronica’s beclouded spirit.

“Mike,” she said.

“Yeah, Mike!”

And then all at once, something did snap in her head, something monumental, and this snap resounded not at all like a pencil but instead a baseball bat cracking.

“Mike!” she shrieked and then awareness seemed to fall into a virtual vat instantaneous awareness, like, for instance, the scene in the Three Stooges where Curly