Chapter 76: The Hills Have Eyes
The sudden strange thumping noise startled Bob, scaring him into instantly pulling out the .38 revolver he kept beside his seat for emergencies.
Fortunately, his wife Ethel smiled reassuringly and pointed beside him, where an elderly man with a twisted, disfigured face was grinning unnervingly and tapping on the driver's side window.
Bob gave his wife an annoyed, embarrassed look, then reluctantly rolled down the window and asked with forced politeness, "Hey there, buddy. Did we forget something? Do you need anything else?"
Bob was genuinely curious about what this bizarre gas station attendant wanted now.
He'd already paid in cash, and the old man had given them directions to the nearest tourist attraction. Was he seriously coming back to ask for a tip for providing directions?
Just as Bob was growing increasingly puzzled and suspicious, the old man chuckled in an unsettling way and said with exaggerated helpfulness, "I just remembered a convenient shortcut that's not marked on any official maps. If you drive through this canyon here, you can reach that tourist destination hours earlier than the highway route."
Bob looked carefully at the hand-drawn map the old man held up, noting the route his gnarled finger traced across the paper, and then thanked him with genuine appreciation, "Oh, hey, thanks! That'll save us a ton of time and gas money. We really appreciate it."
"Hehehehe, you're very welcome!" The old man chuckled strangely again and stepped back from the vehicle, indicating with a dismissive wave that he had nothing further to add.
Seeing this odd but apparently concluded interaction, Bob nodded politely, rolled up his window, and drove away from the isolated gas station.
Watching the dust cloud from the departing vehicle gradually disappear into the desert heat shimmer, the old man's rheumy eyes were filled with complex, conflicted emotions—guilt, resignation, and bitter self-preservation all warring within him.
But before the old man could dwell too deeply on his moral compromise, he suddenly noticed a figure appear on the distant barren ridge, silhouetted against the harsh desert sun.
Suspecting his aging eyes were playing tricks on him in the heat, the old man rubbed his eyes vigorously with his knuckles, then was genuinely surprised to find the figure was substantially closer—impossibly so.
Then, under the old man's increasingly alarmed gaze, the figure rapidly approached with superhuman speed, crossing the treacherous rocky terrain and arriving outside the gas station in what seemed like mere seconds.
Seeing the person's exceptionally tall, powerfully built physique and the incredible speed with which he'd crossed that barren slope—comparable to a motorcycle racing across flat ground—the old man instantly thought of the radiation-mutated creatures he'd been forced to cooperate with for survival.
However, seeing how remarkably handsome and normal this approaching person appeared, with perfectly proportioned limbs and no visible deformities, the old man found it extremely difficult to equate him with those grotesque, twisted mutants living in the surrounding hills.
Chris had spotted the inhabited gas station from the distant hillside and had immediately quickened his pace, practically sprinting down the rocky slope at speeds that would've been impossible for normal humans.
But when he finally arrived at the isolated gas station, Chris found only the elderly attendant present. The other normal humans he'd sensed earlier through his misfortune ability had already departed.
Even those strange, quasi-human entities he'd detected had also left the area—presumably following the family.
Seeing this unfortunate timing, Chris could easily deduce that he'd arrived during the opening act of a horror movie scenario.
It seemed obvious that those mutant monsters had followed the unsuspecting normal humans when they'd left, probably preparing to launch their attack after nightfall when the family would be most vulnerable.
As for this suspicious old man standing before him, Chris immediately guessed he was likely a common archetypal NPC in horror movies—a morally compromised henchman specifically responsible for luring innocent victims to the monsters in exchange for his own survival.
However, speculation was one thing. The concrete evidence that allowed Chris to definitively confirm this old man was not a good person came from the psychic ability he'd absorbed from that psychiatrist Missy back in the body-snatching town.
Although Chris couldn't perform delicate, complex tasks like hypnosis due to his complete lack of formal psychology education and training, he could still accomplish simple detection and reading of people's surface thoughts and emotional intentions.
After approaching within twenty feet of the old man, Chris immediately noticed the attendant was absolutely full of malicious intent toward him—scrutinizing Chris with a calculating, predatory expression while clearly trying to determine if Chris would make suitable prey.
So when Chris finally reached speaking distance of the old man, before the attendant could even open his mouth to speak, Chris simply kicked out explosively with his right leg.
The strange old man was sent flying backward through the air like a ragdoll.
CRASH!
The old man's body smashed directly through the wall of the ramshackle wooden hut adjacent to the gas station, splintering the weathered boards.
After a series of terrible wheezing sounds—like a broken bellows desperately trying to draw air—emerged from within the collapsed structure, there was suddenly complete silence.
Having casually eliminated a genuine threat and moral cancer, Chris calmly entered the destroyed hut to search for useful clues and information, hoping to definitively confirm which specific horror movie universe he'd arrived in.
While Chris was methodically searching for evidence, the Carter family from earlier was indeed encountering serious misfortune, exactly as he'd predicted.
As their vehicles crossed through the narrow desert canyon, their SUV's tires were suddenly punctured by a spike strip that had been deliberately laid across the dirt road by the mutant hunters.
BANG! BANG! Hisssssss...
"Jesus Christ! Bob, what happened?" Doug called out from the RV behind them.
He'd noticed the SUV had come to an abrupt stop and had climbed out of the RV to investigate.
"Goddammit!" Bob cursed, examining the damage. "All four tires were shredded by some kind of spike strip or caltrops. We're completely immobilized. We need to find help—rescue or a tow truck."
After conducting a thorough inspection, Bob immediately made a tactical decision. He turned back toward the vehicles to gather weapons and essential supplies.
Doug listened to his father-in-law's assessment with visible disbelief, then offered what he considered a more reasonable suggestion, "What? Can't we just wait here for other travelers to pass by? Someone's bound to come along this route eventually, right? It's a public road."
"Then you stay here with Lynne and the baby to guard the vehicles," Bob said dismissively, completely ignoring his son-in-law's weak suggestion. "I'll walk back to that gas station we passed to see if there's a working phone there. Maybe call AAA or the state police."
Bob retrieved his .38 revolver and several bottles of water, preparing to trek back across the desert on foot to the gas station.
As he prepared to depart, he instructed his wife firmly, "You all need to be extremely careful here. Stay with the vehicles. I'll be back as soon as I find rescue personnel or get a signal."
"I will. You be careful on the way back," Ethel replied with concern, squeezing his hand.
Bob nodded silently, looked meaningfully at his two daughters Brenda and Lynne, and his teenage son Bobby. He handed his backup pistol—a small .22 caliber—to his son, then began the long walk away from the stranded RV.
Soon after Bob departed into the shimmering heat, his remaining family members surprisingly set up a sun umbrella and brought out folding lounge chairs and a portable dining table—as if they'd decided to start their vacation early despite the circumstances.
Doug watched everyone laughing and relaxing, thought for a moment about his options, then announced, "I'm going to walk ahead down the road to see if there's any help or useful equipment. You all just be careful and stay alert here."
Doug's wife Lynne, holding their infant daughter Catherine, nodded supportively, then continued chatting casually with her mother Ethel.
Meanwhile, Bob's teenage son Bobby suddenly discovered that their German Shepherd, Beast, had gone missing. Concerned, he immediately rushed into the surrounding wilderness to search for the family dog.
But when Bobby finally located Beast, he discovered the dog had been brutally disemboweled—its internal organs partially eaten, intestines strewn across the rocks.
Bobby himself suddenly felt as if he was being watched by something predatory and malevolent lurking in the hills. Then, in a panicked rush to escape, he lost his footing and tumbled violently down a rocky hillside, losing consciousness when his head struck a boulder.
"Mutants caused by atmospheric nuclear weapons testing? Those Cold War-era government bastards really did commit every possible atrocity," Chris muttered with disgust.
Chris carefully examined the yellowed newspapers the gas station attendant had obsessively collected and saved, along with his personal handwritten notes, gradually piecing together the general historical context.
Then Chris discovered a worn canvas shoulder bag tucked behind some boxes, which contained an incongruously new disposable plastic food container. Opening the container with growing suspicion, Chris found a pair of severed human ears preserved inside.
Seeing these damning pieces of evidence, Chris immediately remembered which specific horror movie universe this was.
The Hills Have Eyes—a brutal horror film about a clan of savage mutants whose bodies had been grotesquely deformed by radiation contamination from nuclear weapons tests conducted by the U.S. government in the Nevada desert during the 1950s and 60s. The mutants survived by hunting, killing, and cannibalizing unfortunate travelers who ventured into their territory.
Chris didn't have a particularly strong or detailed memory of this movie, primarily because aside from one mutant girl named Ruby who'd retained some humanity and moral conflict, Chris had felt the other plot elements were too formulaic and predictable. He'd watched it somewhat casually without paying close attention.
However, even though he couldn't recall the specific plot details with precision, Chris could easily infer about seventy to eighty percent of the general storyline from the existing evidence and standard horror movie conventions.
After all, the narrative structures of low-budget American horror films were remarkably similar and formulaic. The basic story beats were essentially interchangeable between films.
Combined with the situation Chris had sensed earlier through his abilities, that group of ordinary people—the Carter family—were definitely the unfortunate protagonists and victims in this particular movie scenario.
And although Chris suspected that the family might currently be facing genuine life-or-death danger, he had absolutely no intention of rushing to mount some heroic rescue operation.
If he'd missed them, he'd missed them. That was just unfortunate timing.
If that family had simply waited at the gas station for Chris to arrive—maybe just another ten minutes—then Chris might have actively chosen to save them and warn them about the danger.
But unfortunately, they'd happened to depart literally minutes before Chris had arrived at the station.
So Chris wasn't going to waste time trying to track them down and interfere with events already in motion. Instead, he was going to proceed directly to the main lair of those mutant cannibals and systematically exterminate every single one of these monsters.
If that Carter family was lucky and resilient, they might manage to survive long enough to benefit from Chris's intervention and the chaos he was about to unleash on the mutant clan.
If they were unlucky and got killed before Chris eliminated the threat... well, then it could only be attributed to fate and terrible timing.
Chris wasn't a superhero. He was just passing through.
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