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rearview mirror like strands of Christmas garland.
    The sudden increase in freeway paranoia did not help Mark Casey’s situation any. He had been a drifter for years, possessing a nagging desire for wandering and the freedom of the open road. Before the chaos on I-53, the long hair and beard had not hampered his ability to catch a ride, either from one exit to the next, or straight through to his intended destination. But these days, hitchhiking was becoming one big pain in the ass. Whenever he hung out at a truckstop or stood at the roadside with his thumb in the air, he felt the eyes of potential rides appraising him negatively and noticing his uncanny resemblance to Charles Manson. Never mind that the wild eyes and swastika carved on the forehead was absent; the motorist would still see all that hair and the baggy field jacket that could easily conceal any number of sharp implements. They would see all that in one fleeting glance, shake their heads “fat chance,” and drive on, leaving Mark frustrated, sore-footed, and cold.
    If it hadn’t been for his sudden pairing with Clifford Lee Gates, Mark was sure he would have ended up walking clear from Florida to Ohio that week in mid-December. Clifford Lee was a lanky boy of eighteen from Cloverfield, Georgia, a farming community that boasted a gas station, a general store, and a whopping census of one hundred and eighty-two citizens. Clifford Lee had high aspirations of becoming a country music singer. His constantly good-natured grin and overabundance of optimism were signs that he actually believed that he would make it big in Nashville, armed only with a beat-up Fender acoustic and his rural charm, despite his obvious lack of money and connections. Mark knew at once, upon meeting him at a greasy spoon called Lou’s Place, that he should watch out for this wide-eyed innocent. The boy would be easy pickings with a psychopath like the Butcher on the loose.
    Anyway, it was Clifford Lee’s infectious charm that netted them a ride north with an overweight copier salesman by the name of A.J. Rudman. Rudman was returning home to Louisville from a Xerox convention held in Daytona Beach the previous week. They had overheard him talking to the truckstop waitress and, when he was paying his check at the register, Clifford Lee approached him with a big ole’ country-bumpkin grin. The middle-aged salesman was apprehensive at first, eyeing the young man’s bearded friend with immediate suspicion. But soon, the boy’s benevolence won over the man’s worries and he told them he would give them a lift that stormy winter night.
    The long drive started out in silence, a silence born of tension and uneasiness. Mark sat in the front, while Clifford Lee took the backseat, upon Rudman’s insistence. Obviously, the Kentucky salesman wanted the more suspicious of the two where he could keep an eye on him.
    Mark suffered the blatant mistrust quietly, just thankful that he and the Georgia farmboy were inside a warm, dry car and not humping the dark countryside in the pouring rain.
    By the time they crossed the Tennessee state line, the mood had lightened somewhat. Idle conversation had echoed between the three and Clifford had even picked some country tunes on his guitar. The hillbilly twang in Gates’ voice grated on Mark’s nerves, but he settled into the Lincoln’s plush velour seat and tried to enjoy it anyway. A.J. Rudman seemed to be having digestive problems. He drove with one hand on the wheel and the other tucked into the mid-section of his tan raincoat over his prominent beer belly. Probably has a bad peptic ulcer, thought Mark, not without a flare of mean-spirited satisfaction. I guess that’s what you get when you’re a part of the corporate rat race these days, right, Pops?
    “Where are you boys bound for?” Rudman asked out of pure boredom. His nervousness seemed to be gradually increasing for some reason. He was popping Rolaids like they were jelly beans.
    “Well,