Black Acetone
One
When I was confident the girl was on my heels, I sped up around a corner so that we would disappear from the site of my accosting her as soon as possible. My watch told me I had an hour, and my brain told me I had minutes. I turned onto another street and started checking for unlocked cars. A second later I noticed the girl on the other side of the street doing the same thing, gun held casually at her side. I didn’t have time to wonder how many guns she’d seen before. Luck wasn’t with me until the thirteenth car, which opened and then proceeded to start flashing lights and blaring alarms. I heard the girl running closer, and then she was in the passenger seat, still not a word out of her. I slung myself into the driver’s seat and pressed the “on” button on the electric car. I was vaguely aware of a few people taking notice of this, but there weren’t enough for it to matter and we wouldn’t be within anyone in this world’s reach after another ten minutes.
I noticed she was breathing hard, and arranged my face into what would look like disdain, but she must have sprinted to get in the car that fast. Her breath came back quickly, though. Good. I turned on Broadway and headed for an overpass five blocks down. I didn’t go over the process in my mind and I thought it was better not to go through it verbally with her either. She’d get the idea of what had happened after I did it, anyway, so why risk her jumping out of the car by filling in details? When I got to the overpass, I made a quick right turn and made the greatest effort to collide with the wall that reunited ground and road.
I thought I’d gotten into a car with a psycho, and the solid concrete wall we were about to hit had stressed me out to the point of firing my gun through the windshield without thinking about it. Immediately after, though, we were somewhere else. Somewhere totally different. I looked around through the broken windshield and the normal window. “Damn,” I said, “there is an afterlife, and death doesn’t hurt. I owe Marge five bucks.” He said, “No, you owe me a windshield,” and opened the car door. I opened mine and stepped out into the empty parking lot, narrowing my eyes against the hard, hot sun. The parking lot was on the side of an equally empty highway, providing space for the cars of the customers of a very old looking diner. The neon lights were on but there was nobody in there.
“We going in?” I asked, deciding we were past silence.
"Last question for today." I took that as a yes.
I noticed she was breathing hard, and arranged my face into what would look like disdain, but she must have sprinted to get in the car that fast. Her breath came back quickly, though. Good. I turned on Broadway and headed for an overpass five blocks down. I didn’t go over the process in my mind and I thought it was better not to go through it verbally with her either. She’d get the idea of what had happened after I did it, anyway, so why risk her jumping out of the car by filling in details? When I got to the overpass, I made a quick right turn and made the greatest effort to collide with the wall that reunited ground and road.
I thought I’d gotten into a car with a psycho, and the solid concrete wall we were about to hit had stressed me out to the point of firing my gun through the windshield without thinking about it. Immediately after, though, we were somewhere else. Somewhere totally different. I looked around through the broken windshield and the normal window. “Damn,” I said, “there is an afterlife, and death doesn’t hurt. I owe Marge five bucks.” He said, “No, you owe me a windshield,” and opened the car door. I opened mine and stepped out into the empty parking lot, narrowing my eyes against the hard, hot sun. The parking lot was on the side of an equally empty highway, providing space for the cars of the customers of a very old looking diner. The neon lights were on but there was nobody in there.
“We going in?” I asked, deciding we were past silence.
"Last question for today." I took that as a yes.