Pick Me Up Trivia Quiz

Answer: A snake

In the beginning of this story, a Blue Line bus drives through the country. On the way, the driver aims and runs over a rattlesnake in the road. As he drives on, a wanderer picks up the snake and carries it with him as he walks on. Shortly after, the bus gets a flat tire and is forced to pull over to the side of the road. Everyone gets out to inspect the damages, but one person, Stacia, asks the driver where the closest rest station is.

When he replies that it's at least twelve to fourteen miles up the road, she starts walking, insisting that she'll be fine. To show this, she takes out a knife (which she carries because of her violent ex-husband) and she heads on her way. As she leaves, a trucker pulls up to the side of the road and offers to take everyone to the trading post that they already passed. Two of the passengers decide to join him, on the condition that he's not a lunatic (to which he jokes) and the other two stay with the bus for fear that he'll grind them into cat food.

The driver stays with his bus.

Answer: False

As the two depart with the trucker, they ask him what he's carrying in the back. He responds saying that he's carrying meat. They drive along and the female passenger (Birdy) asks where he grew up. He responds saying that he lived in all four boroughs of New York at the same time but he hated it because it was congested, and there were too many witnesses.

She jokes that that's reassuring. He also says that it's common for him to pick up stranded hitchers. They talk, they drive, and sometimes he lets them go.

He asks if she thinks he's creepy, but she says that no one she's met has ever seemed normal once she got to know them. Back at the bus, the drifter who picked up the dead snake comes across the broken down truck. He speaks to the driver while the remaining two passengers walk back onto the bus.

The wife is clearly paranoid by the man and the husband is angry at her for not being more trusting. While they speak, the bus driver notices the snake he hit around the man's shoulder, and the hitcher uses it to strangle the driver to death. During this time, the driver tries to use his gun, but to no avail.

He shoots it into the ground while he's strangled. The other two passengers hear this and try to run, but he forces them back into the bus, shooting the husband with the driver's gun. the wife escapes out the back window and runs back down the road towards the trading post. The hitcher lets her go, telling her not to tattle.

Answer: Corpses

The trucker stops at the trading post and decides to purchase some junk food and cigarettes (claiming he's an addict for both). The man behind the counter tries to make a joke, but the trucker doesn't find it funny in the slightest. Instead, he offers that the man hold his pistol.

The man is nervous at first, but he takes a hold. The trucker aims it at his chest, but the man doesn't fire. It's later said that a bullet was still in the chamber, and a shot could have killed the trucker. The man gives back the gun and bags up the snacks while the trucker calls him a disappointment. Outside, the trucker plays a tune on the piano and Birdy walks up to him asking if he has any more surprises up his sleeves.

He offers her a glance into the back of his truck if she picks up the groceries for him.

The two of them walk off to the truck. The trucker is the only one to come back out.

Answer: In the woods

The only survivor from the bus ends up wandering through the forest in fear. While she tries to make her way through the extensive woods, the hitcher follows her around yelling her name (which he found on her credit card). He tells her to cut the crap so that he can kill her in another location because the forest isn't that great.

She ends up realizing she's going in circles and falls down a hill directly into the killer's path. He quickly takes her, and ties her to a tree with barbed wire, leaving her to die. Meanwhile, the other bus passenger, who went with the trucker, asks if they can return to the bus to see if everyone's alright.

As they make their way there, the man realizes that there aren't many state troopers along the way; the roads are quiet.

When they arrive, they find the bodies of the murdered driver and passenger in the baggage compartment. The trucker takes out his gun and beats the passenger with it before using the compartment door to decapitate him. Upon realizing that one more person is still alive, he follows her voice into the woods and finds her tied to a tree with barbed wire. Remembering that she didn't trust him before, he leaves her in the tree as well.

Answer: The Beach Grove Motel

Stacia, who left the bus before the murderers took their toll, finally arrives at the motel down the highway before nightfall. She quickly gets a room and checks in. While she takes a shower, the water gets to a boiling temperature and the knob breaks off. She attempts to call the front desk for help, but she gets an answering machine. She decides to forget about it and close the door.
Six miles back down the road, the hitcher gets a ride with two stoners, one of which hits on him. They seem surprised that he walked to where he was when they picked him up. As they depart, a sign shows that they are merely six miles from Stacia's hotel.
The trucker ends up pulling off to the side of the road during the night and shines his light into the ditch. Here, he finds the pot-smoking driver of the hippie van, and the corpse is still warm. He takes a unique cigarette case from the boy's pocket and leaves.

Answer: The hitcher

Stacia hears the wall against her bed rumbling while she watches TV and thinks nothing of it because of the nature of the motel. On the other side of the wall, the hitcher has the passenger of the hippie van chained to the bed. As he pops quarters into the vibrating mattress, he talks about how she looks much better with less clothes and less of her skin. He refers to the cuts and scrapes he inflicted upon her with his knife. Her refers to her as a simple piece of meat before drawing a fake pair of lips over the piece of tape covering her mouth.
At this time, the trucker pulls into the motel parking lot and checks into a room. In one room, the hitcher works on his victim, beside him, Stacia tells them to keep it down before taking her knife and jacket and leaving, and next to her on the other side, the trucker lights up a cigarette and lays down in bed.
Stacia takes some quarters and stops at a pop machine. When she can't seem to get her drink, the hitcher pops in another quarter and gets her the drink. He poses as the motel owner's grandson and suggests that 'grandpa' is sleeping with a bottle of booze. As she makes her way back to her room, the trucker comes out behind her and tries to introduce himself as well.

Answer: With a credit card

When the trucker comes out, he quickly realizes that Stacia escaped the bus before he could deal with her. He also asks if the hitcher did the same, but he maintains his cover; he works for the motel. He says that his car is the hippie van. When the trucker offers a cigarette from the obscure case, the hitcher realizes and says he doesn't indulge. Stacia pretends that she needs to call her boyfriend and leaves the two. Both allude to being killers in front of each other, but neither picks up on it.

The hitcher goes back to his room, reveals that he killed the girl from the van, and suits up. While he makes his way to the back windows of the motel, Stacia takes a few pills in the bathroom. The hitcher uses his knife and carved Stacia's outline in the window and she gets scared by the scratching noise.

She quickly gets her things together and decides to leave while the hitcher tries to use his knife to pry the window open. The trucker, meanwhile, leaves his room after Stacia has already departed, and he uses a credit card to unlock the door.

He realizes that Stacia has left, punctures the front tire of the hippie van, and leaves in his truck. The hitcher enters through the window, realizes that the trucker is leaving, and finds his tires slashed.

Answer: 'The Horrible Thing!'

While Stacia makes her way down the road, she is disgusted with her motel experience. While she tries to imitate the scene from "Psycho", she realizes that the trucker is coming down the road behind her. She hides in the bushes and he drives by.
As she walks through the mist, Stacia comes across a large billboard depicting a film called "The Horrible Thing". As she looks behind the billboard, she finds the trucker and he explains that he's a cop (and shows her a badge). He warns her that the roads are dangerous around them and it'd be safest if they went together. He even offers that she hold his gun. She agrees to go with him, but she's unsure of the situation.
When she enters the truck, the driver tells her that the other killer hunts and poaches people in the area, then hitchhikes to cover his tracks. He tells her that it's a bit of a personal thing for him to locate the man, and even though she wonders why he doesn't have back-up, she goes along.

Answer: The bait

As Stacia and the trucker drive through the fog, he says that he couldn't catch the hitcher at the motel because it wasn't right. Since he's the driver, he needs to pick up the other guy since he's the hitcher. It's the way things work. Stacia asks what he means by all of this and the driver says that if she opens the glove compartment, everything will become clear to her. As she goes to look, he bashes her head into the dashboard, knocking her out.
When she comes to, she finds herself with a throbbing headache. She also realizes that she's handcuffed and belted into the back seat. When she yells for him to let her go, he rips one of her earrings out. He explains that she's tied up because she'll be used as bait, and bait doesn't ask stupid questions. He also explains that she's only been out for about ten or fifteen minutes. When she says that he's clearly not a cop, he says it's another stupid thing to say. She begins crying.
While they drive down the highway, the hitcher steps into the middle of the road. The driver has no choice but to stop. When the hitcher asks for a ride, the trucker agrees, and they go on their way with Stacia in the back seat.

Answer: None of these

As the three drive along, the hitcher asks the trucker to stop. He does, and the hitcher points out the snake on the road. They decide to wait for it to pass, and the driver passes the time with a joke. The hitcher decides to analyze the trucker as a predator who takes pleasure in finding who he thinks are bad people and poaching them, but he doesn't think of himself as bad for it.
Quickly, the two killers take out their guns and point them at Stacia. She says that both of them are insane and presses down on the gas before they shoot, missing her. The truck crashes into the curb, tossing the trucker and the hitcher through the windshield. Stacia, the only one buckled in, remains in the truck as it tips over onto its side.
The hitcher is the first to pick himself up, but the trucker does soon after. Both of them fight over who should kill Stacia for the troubles while she regains consciousness. It's then that she notices the trucker's gun on the side of the car, and she attempts to grab it. When she realizes she can't reach, the trucker gets close to her and reaches at her. The hitcher ends up pulling him away though, and they punch each other enough to bring them both down. Evenly matched, they both fall, and Stacia blacks out as an ambulance arrives.
When they wake up, the trucker and the hitcher are in the back of the ambulance. They both scuffle a bit before the paramedics help them. After assuring them that they'll be fine, the attending medic strikes both of them with a syringe full of air, killing them both. The driver of the ambulance comments on the kill and asks if they should have some dessert. After he says this, the attending medic looks onto a higher bunk, where Stacia struggles, bound with tape across her mouth. The medic says that they can save her for later.