Jack's car vibrated heavily as it halted next to the peculiar stranger. The rain was coming down in sheets, and it was his attire that made him stop.  This guy is surely going to freeze to death, he thought. The temperature was thirty-four degrees, and the man was wearing knee-length gray shorts, a sleeveless shirt, and flip flops. 

Jack rolled down his window.

"You okay man?" Jack yelled over the tumult.

"No," he yelled back.  His voice was deep and raspy; perhaps due to the cold.  There was also a flat quality about it, as though he didn't care that he was drenched in freezing rain.  "I'm stranded out here.  Can you take me into town so I can get a room?"

    Normally, Jack would not stop for hitchhikers, but, as ice was starting to form on his windshield, his reasoned that the likelihood of this man being a psychotic killer was slim.  He leaned over and opened the passenger door to let him in.

Lightning illuminated a sign right behind where the man was standing—Cedar Lake Memorial Hospital, two miles. 

Jack's sense of alarm rose.  Great, they were near that horrendous mental institution; the one that should have closed down ten years ago because it had become an unhygienic cesspool of insanity. 

All at once, memories hit Jack's mind as quickly as the lightning flashes outside.  His nostrils quivered as they remembered the pungent smell of feces that had been smeared on the wall by its residents.  He had only been out for a month, but he would do everything he could to never go back.  

Jack was fortunate to have only stayed there a week; he was sent home with a prescription for Zoloft and Abilify.  The doctor said the meds would curb his "homicidal ideations.'' All of this because his ex-wife had called the police after he pulled a knife on her.

But was he really to blame?  Wasn't he the one who had walked in on his wife in bed with another man?  Sure, they had been rocky for ages.  Sure, sometimes the arguments would escalate to severe shouting rows.  But he would never go as far as to kill her.  And because of that teensy act of fury, he was to be locked up in that pit of darkness.  What a pathetic display of justice.  It wasn't as though he were psychotic.

Jack's roommate at "The Lake" was the crazy one.  He had so many psychotic episodes and mental breakdowns that Jack often worried that he would become immune to the Benadryl they kept pumping into him to get him to calm down.

This hitchhiker reminded Jack of his roommate.  They had the same mannerisms, the same ashen face, and, Jack didn't know how it was possible, the same eyes—pupils as thin as pinholes that clearly said that all was not right upstairs.

Jack began to regret pulling over, but the next town was only five miles ahead. 

He drove faster than he normally would in the rain.  It won't be long, and this guy will be gone.

Lightning briefly illuminated the dark street, and the car quaked again.  Either due to the wind or something wrong with the engine, Jack didn't know, but he did know that he didn't want to be stranded with this guy.  He sped up. 

Another flash of lightning, and Jack saw with a gasp of horror, that the man's face was spread into a hideous grin.   His pinhole-eyes stared blankly as though independent of his mouth.  Jack took his eyes off the road and hit a flooded spot at full speed. The car hydroplaned, sliding perpendicular to the road.

The car's tires squealed as Jack attempted to correct the error. His breath caught in his throat. His heart hammered.  The car jerked back and forth like a fairground rollercoaster.

Finally, he was able to right himself, but Jack didn't calm down.  The creepy man began laughing in an evil-clownish sort of way.

"Bout made it off the mountain tonight," he cackled. "Good night to die I think."

Jack did a double take at the man.  In the resounding horror of his insane comment, he could have sworn that the man's hair had become red and bushy and his face pasty white with a painted-on smile that looked as though his mouth were bleeding.  But a second look just showed him his normal face.  The pinhole-eyes continued their blank leer, and the hideous grin lingered on his face.

"Um, would it be okay if I turned on the radio?" Jack asked trying to keep the trepidation out of his voice. 

Still cackling, the man said "Sure".

Jack pushed the power button on the stereo, and the sound of a reporter's voice met their ears.

"Cedar Lake reports that at least ten of its long-term patients are missing."  Jack's fear rose with each word the reporter said. 

"Authorities are warning all residents of Madison County to be watchful of anything unusual and to report all suspicious activity to the police." 

Jack chanced another glance at the man and screamed. 

There was no mistaking it this time.  His face had fully transformed into a clown.  The pasty-white face was marred with smeared blots of red paint.  The pinhole eyes had become yellow, and his teeth, now bared in a beastly grin, had transformed into long fangs.  His outfit had changed too.  No longer sporting the shorts and shirt, he was now wearing what appeared to be a lab coat over a blue button-up shirt and long khaki slacks.  His name tag read Dr. Blood.

"Time to come back now Jack," the evil clown said.

Lightning flashed again, and this time it hit a nearby telephone pole.  Jack saw, almost in slow motion, the sparks that flew from the transformer. The wood splintered, and the pole fell in toward the road. 

Jack swerved to miss it, but he turned too hard, hydroplaned again, and broke through the barrier on the other side of the road careening over the edge of the mountain.  The car plummeted fifty feet straight into the deep valley landing in the top of a large pine tree.  The car was fully flipped upside down, and the boughs creaked from the weight of the car.  Jack's window had shattered, and his body hung through it, held inside only by his seatbelt. He was still conscious, but only barely.

"These dreams are going to stop now Jack," the clown's voice rang clear as though it hadn't just experienced a catastrophic fall off the side of a cliff. 

Jack's gray eyes met the yellow.  His face was inches from the creature's. It didn't seem to be injured at all. 

"D-dreams?" He choked out. 

"Come back to us Jack."

And the clown plunged his fangs into the side of his neck.

"ARRGGHH NOOOOOOOO!!!"

A bright light was shining in Jack's eyes.  He could hear murmuring around him.  Someone was touching his face. 

"Jack?" the person touching him said.  "Jack?  Are you with us?"

He turned his head; his surroundings became more clear.  The walls were white. There was a sink in the far corner of the room.  A door stood next to it, presumably leading to a bathroom.  It seemed to Jack that he was in some kind of hospital. 

"Where am I?" Jack said. 

"The same place you've been for the past twelve years," the voice said.  "Cedar Lake Memorial."

"What? No." Jack was confused.  "I was in my car just now.  There was this weird man..."

"No Jack.  You're in Cedar Lake.  Your particular form of schizophrenia does not respond well to medication.  But we think we've found something to keep you sane now."

This guy doesn't know what he's talking about, Jack thought.  I'm in a hospital, but that's only because I just had a bad wreck.

His disbelief must have registered on his face because the voice said, "I can see you don't remember.  I guess I'd better fill you in."

The light wasn't taken away.  Jack's forehead began to sweat. 

"Twelve years ago you came to us because you believed that your wife was having an affair, so you tried to kill her with a butcher knife.  Only that wasn't real, Jack."

Jack's face whitened.

"Your wife called us.  She said that you'd been having hallucinations for a while, but you were never violent until then."

The light continued to blind him.  Jack's face began to burn.

"When you got here it was all we could do to keep you present.  Your hallucinations were so frequent and often involved nightmares about your roommate."  A shadow of an arm gestured from behind the light, and Jack looked to where it was pointing. 

A man was huddled in the corner.  His face was expressionless, but his pupils were pinholes— just like the hitchhiker.

Panic welled up in Jack.  He pointed at the hitchhiker. 

"Him!  That was the man that I picked up in my car just now!"

"No Jack," the voice said patiently.  "That's your roommate.  He's been your roommate since you got here."

Jack began hyperventilating.  This wasn't real.  It couldn't be!  He was out.  He was going to make sure that he never came back to that rotten, feces-smelling prison.

Then the smell hit his nostrils, and the realization slammed into him with the force of a car barreling through a guardrail.  He was back.  

"No!"  Jack screamed.  He convulsed his body from side to side.  "I was out!  I was out!  I was out!"

He continued to shout "I was out!" with each convulsion.  Hands groped him, pinning him down.  One of the hands carried a large syringe. 

Jack yelled and his body jerked as the needle was thrust into him. 

Then the light was taken away, and Jack saw a mess of bushy red hair.  It wasn't exactly like the creature he saw in the car, but there was a clownish look about him.  Jack saw that his name-tag read "Dr. Julian Blood".

"No Jack," Dr. Blood said as Jack's vision began to fade.  "I'm afraid that you never left."