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“Yeah.” She blinked. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight—oh, and congrats on that dynamite camera sale today!”

“Thanks…”

Veronica left the store. But why should she be so disappointed? What, because Mike—overwhelmed with take-home work—was too harried to say goodnight?
Poor guy’s got so much on his mind, running a big store during Christmas and all.
Yes, she should be more considerate.

But suddenly the cheery, blinking Christmas lights that constellated the town didn’t seem quite so cheery. She scarcely felt the chill air as she rounded the store to the back parking lot that the employees used.

“Oh, drat!” she complained, her breath gusting. The high security lamp in the back lot was out, leaving most of the lot plunged in darkness. Did she notice bits of glass on the pavement? Yes, she did, but what she
didn’t
notice was the steel ball lying several more feet away, yet even if she had, she never would’ve suspected that it was a pellet from a
slingshot.

She wasn’t worried. Pulaski had low crime rates…although she
had
heard of a rising drug problem in the bad section. Then again, had someone mentioned something about a dog-killer? Something about torturing puppies? No, that must’ve been in Radford or someplace like that.
Killing puppies?
Only a crazy person could do such a thing, and Pulaski was a
sane
town.

She paused to muse:
God, I can’t wait to see Mike tomorrow—

Her abduction happened so fast there was no time to scream. She side-glimpsed wedges of darkness darting about in more darkness. A hand slapped across her mouth. Someone said, “I done got her, Unc,” and she was lifted off her feet. Her thoughts raced to a logjam, then—

She fainted.

The terror buzzed through her body even as she was unconscious. “Don’t dillydally,” she thought she heard. Men’s voices, yes. A loud metallic SLAM! The roar of an engine, then…

Motion.

Veronica’s eyes opened. She felt jostling. The hand remained pressed to her mouth. Was she in someone’s car? Finally, her synapses began to re-fire and thoughts that scarcely seemed her own said,
I’ve been abducted by rapists or crazy people!
and then that roaring sound defined itself: she’d definitely been put in a vehicle, and the vehicle was moving, but why, even with her eyes wide open, could she see nothing? She couldn’t be in a trunk, unless her abductor had gotten in with her…

“Good, son,” came an accented voice. A
redneck
accent, yet Veronica remained so dazed and terror-jolted, she was unable to thus far put two and two together. “Back roads now…”

At last, she began to squeal beneath the pressed hand. It was no doubt a man, in the dark, holding her up from behind as she squatted, and as more reason filtered back, she thought she felt a
lump
where the man’s groin would be…

“We’se okay,” rang what seemed the oldest of the voices. Did she
recognize
it? She squealed again, heaving against the arms wrapped about her. A younger voice whispered, “Shhhhh, shhhhh, hon. You’se all right.”

“Dumar. Turn that light on in back…”

In a flash, Veronica’s eyes could now
see.
Her gaze panned in stops. It seemed she’d been spirited away into a large metal compartment that
had
to be the back of a large truck or step van. Its foremost feature was a dented metal table bolted to the floor. A couple of plastic milk crates could be seen, plus a folded-up metal chair, and in a forward corner sat a HOME DEPOT bag on its side. Next to it lay a Black & Decker power drill, and from this an electrical cord extended and disappeared into the front of the vehicle.
Battery charger?
she wondered. In the back sat some additional grocery bags, and to Veronica’s left there lay stacked three dingy sleeping bags, rolled up. But when her eyes panned to the opposite corner…

Oh my God…

She saw a Bescor bowl-mount tripod and—

Veronica stared.

—a Sony HVR-S27 digital video camera.

The familiar shaggy head appeared in an opening up front. “Why, hey there, Veronnerka!” greeted Helton.

“You!” she yelled when the hand came off her mouth.

“That rascal behind ya’s my nephew Micky-Mack.”

The muscular arms around her loosened. Shuddering, Veronica craned her neck and saw a lean, 20ish man with choppy blond hair and a ragtag jacket. He grinned, showing bad teeth. “Hey there! Good golly, you’se a
purdy
one!”

It now occurred to her that Helton was sitting in front on the passenger side of the mysterious truck. “And this here,” he said, “is my son, Dumar.”

Now the driver looked back: a creepily skinny redneck with long, stringy black hair and a thin face. “Howdy, Veronnerka! My Paw done tolt us all about ya! Says you was a mite nice sellin’ him that fancified camera.”

The truth finally set in.
I’ve been abducted by crazy rednecks!
and she screamed at the top of her lungs.

The truck weaved. Helton and Micky-Mack palmed their ears. “Dang, girl!” the younger man yelled.

“Let me ‘splain!” Helton barked.

When Veronica stopped screaming, her heart felt ready to explode.

“Sheee-
IT
, missy!” Helton climbed in back and sat his large frame on a milk crate. Micky-Mack, erection in his pants and all, slipped out from behind her and took a crate next to her.

“Ya scream louder’n a blammed train whistle,” Helton said. “Ain’t no call fer screamin’.”

“What else can I do?” she yelled. “You’ve abducted me!”

“Aw, no, hon, now see, ya just don’t understand. We ain’t abductered ya, we only, kind’a,
borrowed
ya fer awhile.”

“
Borrowed?
Why?”

Helton flapped a sheaf of papers. “That camera ya solt me’s right nice, but holy jumpin’ jehossafats!” He frowned at the papers, whose front page read OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS - SONY HI-DEF HVR SERIES. “‘Tis true I ain’t had no proper schoolin’, but my Maw, she made
dang
shore I learnt ta read. I gotta tell ya, though, these damn ‘structions? I cain’t make head’re tails of ’em. May as well be readin’ Alfred Einstein!”

Veronica’s face seemed to slowly droop, like melting wax. “Helton. Are you saying that you abducted me because you don’t understand the instruction booklet for the Sony?”

The shaggy head nodded. “Yeah, hon. All these buttons’n switches? A hill fella like me’d
never
figure it all out. So’s I need you ta
show
me how to work the dang thing.”

Are these men on drugs, or are they just out of their minds?
she thought.

“We’se need ya to help us out is all.”

“Helton, couldn’t you have just asked me? Did you really need to
abduct
me in a parking lot?”

Helton sighed. “Reason we didn’t do that, is ’cos, well, this is a
‘mergency.
A
family
‘mergency. We’se need a
favor
is all, and since I knows you to be a
nice-
type gal, I took it unta myself—”

“To abduct me!” she yelled.

Helton appeared downcast. “It’s only ’cos ya don’t understand the whole ball’a wax. But this is
dang
important.”

“Family videos at Christmas is important enough to abduct someone against their will?” she continued to bellow. “Helton, you’re not making any sense!”

Micky-Mack had been staring fixedly at Veronica’s bosom the whole time. He seemed pent up sitting there on his crate, but finally he rubbed his crotch, said, “Hail, Unc Helton, this gals tits stickin’ out are
killin’
me. I’se just
got
to have me a feel,” and then his callused redneck hand reached for her bosom.

CRACK!

Micky-Mack fell off his milk crate due to the mammoth open palm that slapped him upside of the head. “Dang, Unc Helton! That
hurt!
”

“This ain’t no ruckin’, boy, and you know it!” came Helton’s authoritative scold. “Veronnerka’s our
friend,
and we ain’t layin’ a cotton-pickin’
finger
on her less’n she
says
we can. Ya hear me, boy?”

“Aw, fuck yeah, Unc,” Micky-Mack whined and sat back on the crate, “but Gawd
dang
that hurt.” Dumar up front was laughing.

The truck rocked and rocked, and Veronica’s unsorted thoughts rocked with it.
Madness, madness…
Certainly, abductions of young women were always founded by some sexual motive. So…

Why haven’t they raped me? Why this nonsense about needing help with the camera?

“Okay, Helton”—it was the only thing she could think to say—“I’ll show you how to operate the Sony.”

“Why that’s just dandy, girl!”

She picked up the weighty unit, flicked some switches, turned on the lamp. “There. It’s ready now.” She turned the unit around to show him. “See that little square? That’s the view-screen. Whatever you see in that is what you record. And to shoot”—she shouldered the camera and began to record Helton’s astonished face—“you squeeze this little button here on the grip.” She panned around the inside of the truck, released the record button, then showed the view-screen to Helton. “Now I’m replaying the movie I just made. Watch.”

Micky-Mack rushed over and squatted next to his uncle. In the modest view-screen they watched.

“Hey! That’s
you,
Unc Helton!”

“Shore is! Dang if that ain’t a
fine
 movin’-picture camera!”

“It’s all stored on the camera’s memory, but it’s also copied onto this”—she snapped out the mini memory card. “You know, this
doohicky
that you bought
twenty
of. So for your friend to see your Christmas movies, all you have to do is give him this.”

Helton held out his hands. “It’s too good to be true!”

“That shore is some fancy camera!” Micky-Mack enthused.

Even Dumar, peering back, exclaimed, “Dang!”

Veronica set the camera back down. “There. Now you know how to use it, so you don’t need me any more. You can drop me off right here.”

Helton grit his teeth. “Naw, see, hon, it ain’t that easy.”

I KNEW it!
“So it’s all a lie then, right?” she spat. “You abducted me because you want to
rape
me!”

“Please don’t think that,” Helton pleaded. “You’re right. We done sort’a took ya ‘gainst yer will, but it’s all fer a greater good. It’s like this…” Helton rested his shaggy chin on his dirty fingertips. “When a poe-leece man’s follerin’ some bad fellas, if that poe-leece man’s
car
breaks down, then it’s all right for him to stop the next car that come by and take it—I think it’s called
common-deerin’.
See, that poe-leece man’s
allowed
to take another car. Why? ’cos it’s fer a
greater good.
”

Oh my God!
she thought.
This is crazy!
“Helton? How long are you going to…
keep
me?”

“Aw, won’t be long, couple’a days or—”

“A couple of
days?
” she shrieked.

“—or maybe a couple’a weeks, I s’pose. See, Veronnerka, it all depends how
long
it takes, and don’t ask me to ‘splain
that,
’cos…ya simply wouldn’t understand.”