PART 1: Highway to Hell

Eddie Beames Jr. rolled the engine on his VW Beetle and wished he'd gotten the heater fixed back in September. It was going to be a long, cold evening. The car idled unenthusiastically as if it knew the pointless back and forth errands the night held for it. No drive-in horror flick with friends tonight. No cruising Main Street looking for trouble. No parking behind the Dead Ends Stadium with that cute blonde from work. No, let's be honest with each other, none of that ever happened with Eddie. Horror flicks made him queasy, there were no friends to cruise Main Street with and the one time he got up the courage to talk to Susan, he had to run to the john in mid-conversation to blow chunks.

Tonight, Eddie would be visiting all the kindred spirits in Dead Ends, Massachusetts who had a whole lot of nothing going on: Chow Mein for the grade-school sleepover in the suburban condos of Victory Court. A Pu-Pu platter to the fanatical Patriots fan down in The Heights. (He'll answer the door in red, white and blue face paint as usual.) And of course, a Combo #12 for Mr. Kleghauser out in the woods of Spruce Point. His four hundred pound bulk will be pouring out of a stained wife beater t-shirt. While Eddie waits for change there will undoubtedly be an internet-purchased snuff film playing in the living room. Mr. Kleghauser will call back no less than three times for more #12 Combos; his addiction to food getting the best of him throughout the night. Such was the life of a delivery boy for Dead Ends' only Chinese restaurant, Happy Happy Shrimp.

Eddie never had what it "took" to succeed, which made him quite like the majority of Dead Ends residents. If ever there was a town that lived up to its name, this was certainly it. You could drive a hundred miles out of the town limits and not encounter a single soul who'd been there or heard of it, despite its large size and scenic reputation. Unless you lived there it neither existed nor mattered in your daily life -- much like the average Dead Ender. No one famous had ever come out of Dead Ends and nothing of note had ever happened there.