American Psycho Movie Poster

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                                                                                        The Helpful Stranger

Hello, kiddies, and welcome back to Victor Toothspark's evil laboratory. The story we have this week is a truly wicked one. I have titled it "The Helpful Stranger." I found this story in yesterday’s newspaper, and it took place at the Sears and Roebuck store over on Muir Avenue.  The woman who reported it to the police was Lillian Johnson. Lillian has a little problem and a nice gentleman offers her help, but will she accept it?” Then Victor laughs his psychotic laugh, “heheheHAHAHAHA.”

It was a beautiful day; Lillian was doing some shopping at the Sun Valley shopping mall. After Lillian was done shopping, she headed out to the parking lot to load her purchases in her car. As Lillian approached her 1950 blue Chevy Bel Air, she noticed the passenger front tire was flat. So Lillian put her purchases in the back seat of the car and walked back over to look at the tire. Just as Lillian began to wonder how to fix it, she heard someone ask if he could help. She turned around to see a handsome well-dressed man. He was standing there with a briefcase in one hand. The man was about six foot three inches tall. He was wearing a pressed brown suit and had nicely styled hair. She smiled and showed him her flat and he explained it would be no trouble to fix.

So Lillian opened her trunk and the gentleman put his briefcase down and proceeded to change her flat with the spare tire.  After he was finished changing the tires, the man explained that he was lost and could not find his car. He then asked if she would drive him around to find his car in the parking lot. All of a sudden, Lillian could hear bells and whistles going off in her head. Lillian was thinking,  "How could this man could be lost in such a small parking lot?" So Lillian told him that she needed to get something else she had forgotten to purchase inside. At first he was a bit upset, but Lillin thanked him and he walked away from her feeling cheated. After the man began to walk away, she then walked back towards the shopping mall with great haste. When Lillian got back inside the mall, she found a security guard. Lillian then explained what happened outside in the parking lot. The security guard went with Lillian outside to look for the man, but there was no sign of him in the parking lot.

Lillian got in her car and drove home, but she wondered what had happened to the man who had helped her. Lillian began to feel a little regret for blowing things out of proportion.  Lillian then started thinking maybe she should have helped him. The man did seem nice enough to help her. When Lillian got home she unloaded her bags and took them inside her home. Then Lillian checked the trunk to make sure she had nothing left in there, but there was a briefcase lying in the trunk. She then remembered that the man had set it down when he was helping her. Lillian decided to give it to the police so they could figure out who it belonged to. Lillian dropped it off at the police station and explained what had happened. The police opened the briefcase up, because there would be a name or address so they could return it. As the police opened up the case, all they found was duct tape, a piano wire, a scalpel set and a twelve inch butcher knife. Lillian fell to the floor, feeling sick. A large policeman helped her to a chair and gave her a glass of water. The policemen asked Lillian to describe the man and explain in detail what happened that afternoon at Sun Valley mall. After Lillian left the police station she went by Marty’s Tire Shop on Grand Avenue.  She knew and trusted Marty as her mechanic. Marty looked over the flat tire and explained to Lillian the only problem with the tire was someone had let the air out of it.

“So kiddies, next time you and mummy go to the store and there is car trouble, beware of the kind stranger trying to “help” you out, muHAHAHAHAHAH.”

Author's Note
This story has many variations. Some of the stories tell of a shopper going to their car to find an old woman waiting in the backseat.  Other versions of the story are like the one told above of a man helping the woman with a flat tire and then leaving his briefcase in the trunk.  One variation is a man dressed as a woman hitchhiking and the woman has some masculine features like hairy arms. I wrote mine like the nice man helping the woman with her tire and tried to make him looked harmless. Many of the current versions on snopes.com are pretty modern, taking place within the last decade or two. I placed my version in the 1950s; I also ramped up how evil his intentions are with the items they find in the briefcase.  The roots of this story go back in time many years ago to a newspaper article in 1834 that tells about a man dressed as a woman with a pistol, so this story has changed and evolved over the years. This story fits in with my theme of madmen; first we have the evil clown, now we have a good-looking butcher. When I wrote this I had Christen Bale’s character from the movie American Psycho in mind.