"Yup, they sure were different." The fact was that he had hated the clubs in Chicago and had avoided them after his friends dragged him out to them the first few times. He hadn't really liked the wild partying either. Sure, he and his friends had gone down to the crick with a bottle of "borrowed" whiskey, played their music to loud on the truck radios and danced with their girlfriends by the moon light. Chicago parties were worse though. People simply made out where they were, did drugs openly and drank enough that they could barely stagger home. He had never drunk enough to loose control of himself. His father had drank enough for both of them, during Randal's growing years. He did not wish to be like his father and to loose control of his faculties. "Around here we take things a bit slower." "Looking foolish when I dance is my specialty. The secret is to dance as if no one is watching. Truth is, they probably aren't. Their to busy having a good time to care." The sign for Rosco's was fully readable now and soon they were pulling up to a neatly kept little service station with an old time gasoline pump and a giant Pennzoil sign in the window. Beside it, in an attached building, was a garage, with its big metal doors closed up for the night. A man came out of the building as the truck dinged in beside the gas pump. He was a middle-aged fellow wearing overalls and a John Deer cap. His long, narrow face lit up as he spotted Randal. "Hey ya there Randy. Fill 'er up?" He leaned over a bit and peered into to interior of the truck. "Can't say as I know yer lady friend. Evenin' miss." ------------------------------------------ Across the fields, out at the Thompson farmstead, Renee Reynolds pulled per squad car up to the white ranch style house. Everything seemed peaceful, but the distress call from Molly had been horrible. She had said that Mike was after her with a butcher knife. She had said his eyes were evil as well, before she had screamed at the dispatcher through the phone, and ran off. Renee exited her car carefully and retrieved her shotgun from her trunk. She wasn't taking any chances, and had taken the time to put on her ballistic vest as well. It hardly seemed possible that Mike had turned killer. He was such a quiet, gentle man and an usher at the Baptist church for God's sake. Besides that, he, like everyone else in town, had firearms registered with the police, and probably a few that weren't. She moved toward the house quickly, watching the windows for shadows. Renee was a slender woman, with long red hair tied back in a ponytail. She wore blue jeans and a brown deputy's shirt with a shiny tin star. Her oval face bore a pair of thick, black spectacles, which gave her a studious, serious look. Trying the front door, she found it open. She shoved the door open with her hip, her shotgun held ready, and called out. "Police! Come on out peaceful like, so we's can talk about this Mike."