Alright, so it occurs to me that I'm not particularly happy with the way the first installment of this tale turned out. So changing the style somewhat, returning it to first person. Names remain changed for the protection of the indeterminately-sinful. ;-)
So here we are, six guys and a blonde haired girl - Tiger, Coyote, Lone Wolf, Ferret, Gopher, Toad, and Dove - gone for a walk at midnight down Turnpike Road out of E-Town. Now, that particular combination becomes important later when the cops get involved, but we weren't thinking like that at the time, of course.
So we'd decided to head out Turnpike Road instead of going past the Masonic Village (Old Folks Home) and turning 'round. Gopher and Toad are mildly iffy about this since they only really came along cause nothing else was going on... the whole "epic walk till morning" thing they're not sure about. Ferret, as is his wont, is all about going wherever, whenever for exploration's sake (hence his climbing Mt. LeConte with me), and Tiger the same. Wolf and Dove are mostly just hanging out and the adventure appeals to them too.
Anyway, so Tiger's disappeared, run off into the woods. At some point, he rejoined us, coming up fairly quietly from behind. Somebody - not sure if it was Dove, Gopher, or Toad - near jumped out of their skin when he showed up next to them and just jumped into the conversation. Especially as we were discussing how this could turn into a horror movie and deciding what order we'd all die in. We decided Ferret would be first, since he was the funniest of us. Dove would be last, being as she's the only girl and you always have to have a girl survive. Couldn't decide whether Wolf would hang on till next-to-last, preserving the couple longer, or earlier in some sort of foolishly-noble self-sacrifice. Either one would work.
It was sometime around this point when somebody piped up that we'd seen an awful lot of red candles in windows (by an awful lot, I mean maybe 3 - we're out of town now and into the Lancaster County non-Amish sticks), which clearly meant we'd somehow stumbled into the Lancaster Co. red-light district... we kept an eye out for awhile for any plain-dress girls with their socks rolled down.
One of the more disconcerting (not the most, no) moments happened when somebody - Toad or Gopher, maybe? - looked over on the side of somebody's house and yelled "Holy S&^T!" Well, we were all wondering what he'd seen, and when he pointed it out we were all a little shaken too - even after we figured out what it really was. Turns out somebody's yard light, illuminating some decoration or other, also had the unfortunate effect of catching a little knotted pull-string in its beam. Which was magnified full sized onto the side of the house looking like a big old noose. Yeesh.
A little further on, we notice some deer statues in somebody's yard. Well, most of us know they're statues. Tiger and Dove aren't so sure and wonder if maybe they're real deer just standing *really* still. Yes, it was kinda rediculous even if it was very dark. Though in their defense, the two of them are from way downtown Philly... I'm not sure they knew what deer looked like outside of the Franklin Institute or textbooks. Oh wait... I was supposed to be defending them. ;-)
Tiger really wants to run up to the deer statues just to make absolutely sure, but we convince him it's a bad idea... we don't wanna be on the wrong end of a shotgun, after all. Instead, I go along with his suggestion that we take a side road up into a woodsy area for awhile, see what it's like or if there's anything interesting up there. The others more or less refuse... it's pretty dark and creepy looking, and Ferret would rather press on because he wants pictures of Three Mile Island, which he's convinced we'll be able to see at some point. So Tiger and I go up the side road by ourselves, we'll catch up with the others in a bit.
Well, it was definitely dark and creepy, and not just a little bit foggy as well. It went on for a while, as roads tend to do, and we followed it to the top of the first rise. There was a Caterpillar of some sort sitting just off the road at some sort of worksite, but that wasn't what caught our attention. Well, I'm not sure what caught our attention, but one of us saw something move in the trees out the corner of our eye, and the other heard something rustle. Already a bit spooked, and not wanting to tarry too long and get real behind the others, we turn around and head back, jogging at a brisk (for me, not him) pace.
Now, as I'm sure has become clear, Tiger's a real mischievous, prankster kinda guy. So we're heading back down Turnpike Road and he says to me, "Ted, what if one of us showed back up without the other and convinced them - Dove would be easiest and funniest - that we thought the other had already caught up? Make them think the other one of us had disappeared somewhere." Well, I thought it would be a fun idea, so we conferred for a bit. Decided I'm not nearly as good at keeping a straight face in something like this, and though they might suspect Tiger more than they would me of pulling the prank, he'd be better at it. So I sat down on the side of the road - not far at this point from the stables where I'd taken a half a class in riding - and waited for about 20 minutes before I started walking again.
Dove called me twice (I think, or was it thrice?), trying to figure out what had happened to me. The first two times I answered... "Where are you, Ted?" (or something to that effect) she asked, in a fairly-concerned voice. I responded with a kind of unintelligible groaning and some heavy breathing before hanging up. After the first two times, I just refused the call.
To Be Continued...
Next Time: Peeing on a church, random creepy yokel, Three Mile Island, and the Pepsi Machine Mirage.
