Thumb held in the air, Crank stands on the side of a mud-clogged road. The hood of his commandeered yellow rain slicker is down over his face—the collar also drawn up to ward off the pouring rain. A black shoulder backpack is slung over his right shoulder. He’d managed to snatch the backpack from a sidewalk vendor’s booth—using it to store his shoulder cannon and other weapons. Oomans are quite touchy about weapons being displayed openly in public. Should his cover be blown, the last thing he wants is to be caught with his weapons out.

Crank walks a short distance and then stops again, searching for signs of approaching traffic. The purring of an engine causes him to look over his shoulder. A small car, possibly a Ford, chugs in his direction. Pushing his thumb higher into the air, Crank sighs with relief. Finally.

The tiny car stops beside Crank and it is indeed a Ford. Crank is impressed at his ability to discern various ooman technologies after only such a short time. From the looks of it, the car has seen many brighter days. The woman behind the wheel is not nearly as forlorn as the vehicle she drives. She offers Crank a warm smile and leans over the passenger seat to holler out of the opened window.

“Where you headed in this rain, Mister?” the woman says in a sweet voice. “You break down somewhere or something?”

Crank tries to sound as normal as possible when he speaks; attempting to hide the almost mechanical treble in his voice.

“Don’t rightly know, Ma’am,” Crank responds—falling back on all those lessons for addressing an ooman female he crammed into his brain since before the day of his crash landing.

The woman seems taken aback and laughs somewhat uncomfortably.

“Ma’am? Do I look like a Ma’am to you?” the woman says and leans even further to unlock and open the passenger door. “Hop in. I can’t stand to see you all wet like that. I’ll take you as far as the next town, okay?”

Crank hops in and the woman seems to almost bounce on her seat with untamed excitement.

“Quick,” she says. “Shut the door before more rain gets in and my whole door rusts off.”

Crank does as he is told. He is forced to hunch in order to fit, rather uncomfortably, inside the small car. He is careful to use only one-fourth of his strength, to avoid slamming the car door. The woman sighs loudly and puts the car in Drive. She presses down on the accelerator and the car surges forward with a jerk and a sputter.

“Ooops,” the woman apologizes. “Sorry about that. I’ve been meaning to get this old thing fixed. But with everything going on in the world today—. Well, you said you don’t know where you’re headed. So, we can scratch that little detail off of the list of small talk topics. So, where are you from? Somewhere exotic? Los Angeles? Denver? Houston? Tallahassee?”

Crank has never been to either of these places. In fact, he has no idea where they are or how he would get there. He considers lying, but decides the truth is probably just as good an answer. Well, mostly the truth.

“I come from pretty far away,” Crank says, tucking his head into his collar as he speaks—trying to take some of the harshness out of his voice. “Not someplace anyone would be familiar with.”

The woman looks over at Crank and gasps. She fidgets with the dials on her dashboard, turning the heat up full-blast.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“I am so sorry,” the woman blubbers. “I should have turned on the heat. So silly of me. And with you soaked to the bone? Give it a few minutes…You’ll be snug as a bug in a bed.”

The woman reaches behind her seat and grabs a turquoise towel. She places it gently on Crank’s lap.

“Here…Dry yourself off,” she instructs. Crank complies, but is careful to keep his face concealed. His hands are another issue. Even with the leather gloves, he is afraid that his claws will be quite evident. He needn’t have worried. The woman continues driving without noticing his hands or the pebbly flesh of his wrist which appears from underneath the sleeve of the yellow rain slicker.

“I’m Jane…By the way. Jane Calamity. I know. Made me a hit in school,” the woman says with slight embarrassment. “My parents had that kind of humor. If you can call it humor. Ha ha. Made me who I am today, I suppose. I’m more grit than your average lady. I mean, here I was thinking about not picking you up. I mean, after watching all those movies about teens getting slashed by that slicker man…I said to myself… ‘Don’t you dare pick that man up! What if he’s that slicker killer from the movies?’ But then, my rational mind took over and I said, ‘That’s just a movie, Jane! Besides…What would Calamity Jane do? Haha. Calamity Jane knew all about taking care of herself. So, here we are. And you’re welcome.”

Crank is unsure of what to think. For a moment he only stares at his companion. Remembering his manners, Crank once again disguises his normal voice.

“Yes—Thank you. I do appreciate the ride,” Crank replies.

“Don’t mention it,” Jane says with obvious satisfaction. “It’s another thirty or so miles to the next town. If you need to sleep, I can wake you before we get there. I’ve got a candy bar in the glove box if you’re hungry. I ate the cheese puffs this morning. Get some rest, okay? The heat should be kicking up here pretty soon.”

Crank slides his round eyes to stare sideways at his riding companion, but doesn’t say a word. He pulls the hood of his slicker even tighter to his face and leans against the passenger window. He only pretends to be asleep. At least this way, she won’t bore him with her incessant chattering.

His plan backfires horribly. The whole time she is driving, Jane sings the songs on the radio in a scratchy catlike voice. After a few minutes of this, Crank wonders why he even bothered to disguise his own voice. Obviously, this ooman absolutely adores exotic otherworldly voices. Her own, mostly. To avoid hearing any more, Crank completely zones out.

-

-

“Hey, sleepyhead…We’re here,” Jane says in her scratchy singsong voice. “You feeling any warmer? I kept the heater on full-blast the whole way. I’m sweating like a sailor over here.”

“Yeah,” Crank utters in a voice saturated with faux-grogginess. “Much warmer.”

With only a brief glance at his surroundings, Crank climbs from the cramped confines of the tiny decrepit car.

“Thanks for the ride, Ma’am,” Crank says with a head nod.

In his haste to seem amenable—and human—Crank mistakenly allows the hood of his rain slicker to pull back an inch or so. Jane is turning back to the front when he offers his farewell. She does a double-take as she takes in the sight of his yellow-green skin, interspersed with tiny brown dots. But the mandibles? Oh, god…The mandibles.

“Huh?” Jane says; her eyes growing wide. “Huh…Hey?”

Crank realizes she has caught sight of his true face and firmly shuts the passenger door. He speed walks away from her jalopy. Jane leans across the passenger seat and lowers the window halfway.

“Hey! But…You’re an ali—” Jane starts to say. Before she can finish, Crank’s retreating form seems to evaporate into thin air. Jane completely unfastens her seat belt and clambers onto the passenger seat. She manually lowers the window and glances all around. “What? Huh? How—"

Dropping back onto the passenger seat and breathing heavily, Jane shakes her head and rubs both hands up and down her cheeks.

“I’ve lost it. I’m going crazy. That’s what it is. I’m crazy,” Jane mutters to herself. “There was no yellow slicker alien man with crab mandibles sitting in my car. It was all a daydream. I’m just crazy. Thanks, Mom and Pop. My life’s just one big ball of humorous fun! I can’t get enough of it. Guess I’ll head back just in time for finals. Had no idea I was so stressed!”

Reclaiming the driver's seat, Jane gives her surroundings one final glance. Satisfied that she was having some sort of sleep-deprivation hallucination, Jane drives off—her car jerking and sputtering until it finds its second-wind.