You slip into
the seat and crank the engine. Your DeLorean is one of the ‘AXI’ models, so
you’re sitting on the right. You thought it was cool when you bought the car.
One of the advantages of this model is it doesn’t have all the crap forced on
it by the government for sale in the US, so it’s gonna be fast—just what you
need at a time like this. The engine catches, you hit another button on the
remote, and another garage door opens behind you, revealing a well-lit tunnel.
“What the
hell?” Milo exclaims.
One more
click and the car starts to rotate.
“Holy shit!”
Milo is wide-eyed. “This is too cool! You never told me about this!”
“It was my
little secret. My version of the Batcave.”
“Where does
it go?” Milo asks as the car stops rotating, now pointed straight at the mouth
of the tunnel.
“I don’t
know,” you say as you drop the tranny into first and hit the gas. “I’ve never
used it.”
The car leaps
forward and shoots into the tunnel. You double clutch and hit second. Then
third. The lights are a blur as you and Milo barrel down the tunnel. You shift
into fourth and see the tunnel curve to the right ahead of you. Around the
corner you see the end of the tunnel. The opening is obscured by some kind of
brush. You figure the builder put it there to camouflage the entrance because
he’d seen your Batman collection. The brush can’t be too dense, certainly not
enough to stop a DeLorean. Milo grabs the seat belt, slams the buckle home and
presses his feet against the floorboards.
“Are we doing
88 yet?” Milo’s laugh is just a bit hysterical.
“Close,” you
say, glancing down at the speedometer.
“Be the shits
to bust through into 1985 or something.”
Just before
the DeLorean hits the brush, the obstruction drops away. You realize there’s a
pressure switch under the floor of the tunnel, like at a busy intersection for
a left turn. The car shoots out of the tunnel and rockets onto a weed grown two
lane track through a stand of trees. You back off of the gas as the car jounces
over the uneven ground.
Milo’s
whooping and hollering like a kid on a thrill ride at the state fair. You’re
trying to keep the damn car on the road so you don’t slam into one of the
trees. Up ahead you see some blue sky, fewer trees. You’re breathing a bit
easier as the car slips between the last trunks. Your foot stomps on the gas
pedal and the car leaps forward the last few yards to the top of the hill.
And over.
Only there
isn’t any over. There isn’t any anything. Except a long Thelma and Louise drop
into the jumble of heavy equipment eighty feet below where they’re constructing
another Environaut. The front end of the DeLorean crashes into the bucket on a
front loader. The stainless steel folds like an unpaired poker hand. You and
Milo are thrown forward as the engines pushes through the firewall, crushing both
of your legs against the seat. Milo’s seatbelt snaps from the strain. Your head
bounces off the steering wheel while Milo’s bursts through the windshield. A
broken nose for you, to go with the mangled legs. Milo’s nose breaks, too, but
not until his head rolls off the crumpled hood, bounces off a tire of the
loader and lands face first in the dirt. Blood is running out of your nose, but
not as much as is pumping out of Milo’s neck stump and you frantically pull at
the seatbelt, thumb jabbing the button to release it. The pain in your legs and
nose is making you dizzy as you struggle with the door. It won’t open. You
start to puke from the smell and sight of Milo’s headless corpse. Knowing a
human body voids waste when it dies is not the same as being trapped in a car
with the body doing the voiding. The vomit splashes against the window when you
turn your head. Physics being what it is, some of the nasty bounces back into
your mouth, which sets off another round of ralphing. Somehow you manage to crank
down the vomit-covered window and pry your useless legs free. The smell of
smoke kicks a burst of adrenaline into your bloodstream. You pull yourself through the window and
tumble to the ground eight feet below, landing on your left shoulder and
snapping the collar bone. A scream escapes your lips as the bone breaks and
your mutilated legs flop into the dirt. A loud whump! makes you look up at the car teetering in the bucket above
you. The gas tank has exploded, upsetting the delicate balance of the car. Bits
of flaming debris hit you, scorching your clothes, your face, your arms. But
it’s nothing compared to sight of the flaming DeLorean tipping backwards and
slipping off the bucket. The last thing you see is the vanity plate.
Up close.
SHT HPNS
