Killer in the Backseat

Jenny was travelling by car on a foggy night on an unfamiliar route. The roads were slick with intermittent rain and the effects of the fog kept making her sleepy at the wheel. Also, she was running low on gas, without knowing exactly where the next town or gas station was. As her anxiety about the ever draining gas level was becoming quite prominent, she finally decided that, to be safe, she should pull over to the side of the road and nap until morning - rather than run completely out of gas - or worse - fall asleep at the wheel and crash! In the morning, the fog would likely be gone and she might be able to gain her bearings - or else safely flag down another vehicle and ask for directions to the closest gas station.

Just as she started to look for a place to pull over and stop, a gas station sign became visible to Jenny from a little distance up the road, so she pulled in there. Now the gas station looked pretty run-down but an attendant promptly appeared to ask her how much gas she wanted. She told the gas jockey to 'fill it up' but was a little unnerved at his strange behavior. He seemed to be peering into her car quite nosily, and this bothered Jenny a lot. He also stood beside her car for quite a while without bothering to try filling her tank. He just seemed to be nosy about looking into her windows, then told Jenny to "pop the hood" because there seemed "to be some trouble."

With the gas attendant's strange behaviors, Jenny was quite wary of staying at the gas station any longer than necessary. Here she was, alone on a dark and foggy night - now with an oddly behaving man dismissing her request for gas! Not wanting to 'tip the man' as to her fear, Jenny decided to remain calm. She thought it better to play it safe, go inside and get near a phone if the gas attendant wasn't going to promptly pump her gas - and if he was going to keep requesting that she pop the hood - and if he was going to keep attempting to peer into her vehicle in that strange way of his.

She popped the hood, using the action as a distraction - then quickly hopped out of the vehicle as the gas attendant waited at the front of the vehicle for the hood to be released. She walked quickly toward the building, ignoring the attendant's comment that he wanted to "show you something."

The attendant frightened Jenny even further when, quite suddenly, he rushed toward her, away from the popped hood of the vehicle, grabbed her arm, saying very loudly "we'll call you a tow-truck - there's a serious problem with what's under your hood."

Frightened but shocked, Jenny allowed herself to be quickly led into the building, her mind racing as to what she would do to defend herself inside. She could run to the bathroom inside and lock herself in, she supposed, but then, she wasn't thinking very well at this moment.

Once inside, having forced Jenny into the building, the attendant confessed:

"Sorry 'bout the scare, ma'am, but I needed to get you inside without the man in your backseat becoming suspicious!"

After the attendant called authorities, police arrived at the gas station within minutes and removed the man, an escaped serial killer, from Jenny's car. He was arrested without incident.

Killer In The Backseat - "High Beams" version:

A young woman is out with friends and leaves the bar late, alone, driving on a deserted highway. Things are fine for a time, however, after several miles, she notices a vehicle behind her that is approaching very fast. She steadies herself at the wheel nonetheless, expecting the vehicle to pass by. Instead, the vehicle maintained a high speed, switched lanes to pass, then suddenly slowed and veered back into the lane behind her, flashing 'high beams' and then fell back to a reasonable speed and distance behind her.

At first, the young lady shrugged this off, assuming that the driver had decided to simply slow pace and not drive so fast. After a few minutes, the vehicle again sped up, switched lanes and showed intent to pass on the highway. Again, however, the vehicle abandoned the maneouvre, fell back in behind, flashing 'high beams' - then settled at a steady pace and distance behind her.

Only after this happened a third and fourth time did the woman start to become very frightened. After all, both vehicles were cruising at highway speed, and the woman was relieved by this point that she was soon to approach her intended exit.

When she turned at her exit, the vehicle followed and began flashing 'high beams' every minute or so. As she entered the town where she lived and drove down the streets to her house, at every stop and turn she made, the vehicle behind followed and flashed 'high beams.'

Realizing that she was leading some potentially dangerous stalker right to her home, but too close to home now and too frightened to initiate alternate plans, she quickly decided that a mad dash from car to home was her best bet in this situation.

She finally turned into her driveway, hit the brakes hard, threw the car into park, and made her dash to the house. As she got her front door open, she saw from the corner of her eye, the driver of the suspicious vehicle jump out of a car. As she slammed the door shut she heard, "Call 9-1-1 NOW!!"

She hadn't needed to be told to call 9-1-1, and did so right away, reporting that a stalker had harrassed her on the road and followed her home.

The police arrived promptly but in the end, the young woman found out that she was luckier than ever thought and not because she escaped from a crazy driver!

 The driver, in fact, had actually saved her

...from a killer found hiding in her back seat!

Each time the driver had seen the silhouette of someone rising up with a butcher knife in the car ahead, the driver flashed 'high beam' lights - and then the killer shrunk down again.

Is is hard to guess the moral of this story?