Nightshift 42: Hal's Used Cars

[fencing-captain.livejournal.com]

[from here]

The business had been open when the changeover happened, so the doors were unlocked. Juri pushed them open with one of her feet. It was too quiet as she stepped into the dark showroom. It wasn't as big as she expected such things to be, but silent cars surrounded the offices. The stench of the dead filled the air though. Her ears didn't catch any sound of movement, other than her schoolmate, but that meant nothing.

"There have to be some in here," she told Utena. "Get ready."

From behind one of the cars, two zombies shuffled toward them. "Leave us alone!" Juri screamed and charged at the monsters with both of her makeshift weapons. They had to get rid of them long enough to find the keys and take one of the cars.

Comments

[iwascloned.livejournal.com]

Whether they ran on piss, vinegar, or nitroglycerin, the cars at least LOOKED similar to the metal murderbeasts of Spider's present. That was good news in the circumstances, as it meant one less hurdle in the race to select and steal a vehicle. Given the circumstances, Spider opted to yank his bloody arm out of the now-ex-zombie and hop immediately into a nearby rash-red convertible. He ran a slimy hand over the leather seats, then began poking at the plastic plate under the steering column.

"How do your cavemen cars start? Do I need to jam my feet through the floor and sprint us to safety, or are there high voltage wires in here that I can cross at random until something starts moving?"

[toxicspiderman]

"Got it in two. Should be a panel under the steering wheel. If it has screws, beat on it until they give." He was about to hop in over the door himself, when he heard something. A voice. High and feminine and speaking in full sentences.

Two figures were visible through the showroom windows. Both moved with purpose. Looking for something?

S.T. set the bottles in the backseat and nodded to Spider. "Don't electrocute yourself, man. I'll be right back."

[jumping down to here briefly, back in a flash]

[iwascloned.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately for Spider, whatever godforsaken Nipponese factory put this car together had done it properly. No amount of finger-prying was getting the steering column open. Maybe there was some kind of tool in the glove compartment ... a pry bar or a gun, or a chainsaw maybe.

In fact, the glove compartment contained nothing but an owner's manual, a copy of the car's registration, and ...

A PACK OF CIGARETTES.

Before he even realized what he was doing, Spider had ripped the top off the pack and had all of its contents between his lips, ready to smoke. But how to light them!

The car had to have a cigarette lighter. The little black knob at the bottom of the dashboard emblazoned with a stylized cigarette would be a good candidate. The problem was figuring out how to work it. Pressing it did nothing. The button merely popped back out. So Spider tried pulling it. It came out. He stuck it in his mouth, next to the cigarettes. It did nothing. He stuck his finger in the empty socket. Not even a spark. DAMMIT THE CAR NEEDED TO BE ON.

"DO NOT WITHHOLD FIRE FROM ME, DEMON CAR!" he yelled, once again attacking the steering column with his fingers.

This time, he got it loose.

[toxicspiderman]

[aaaand back from here]

Spider hadn't even noticed he'd had gone, had he? S.T. drummed his fingers on the doorframe and sneered. "Move it, Mister I Can Only Hijack Flying Cars." He vaulted the door without waiting to see if Spider could react in time (he did), and landed directly in the gooey zombiejuice contrail Spider had left on the white leather. It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling. He'd gotten back in the old van after a gig wet and slimy on more occasions than he could tally, but it didn't make it appealing. And rotting fish beat rotten human in the scent department even when creepy fuckers hadn't installed odor amps in his head.

Whatever. At this point, he probably owed Bart royalties on that phrase, but it still bore saying. What the fuck ever. He eased the seat back, reached down between his legs, and started yanking. At the wires. Then he stripped them with his teeth, spat any resulting toxins over the window, and grinned. "Watch and learn."

Before he started connecting wires, he did a belated sniff test for gasoline fumes. None managed to penetrate the miasma of putrescine and cadaverine. Besides, it was probably too late. He grabbed the severed head of the cigarette pack and used it to twist -- the plastic would do as an insulator. The seatbelt alarm chirped. S.T. ignored it. A second twist and the engine growled its way into the menagerie.

"Bingo." He glanced at the dash. All systems go. "And we've got most of a tank. We can get halfway to nowhere." The seatbelt alarm was still beeping. He fastened his seatbelt. It didn't stop. Must have a pressure sensor, since a second symbols was still illuminated. "Strap yourself in and let's put the pedal to the metal."

He threw the gearshift in reverse and started backing out of the space.

[iwascloned.livejournal.com]

Spider briefly weighed the pros and cons of wearing the seatbelt as opposed to constantly standing up in his seat and swatting at zombies as they flew past. One way would spare him the horrible high-pitched danger noise. The other way allowed him to constantly stand up in his seat and swat at zombies as they flew past. He opted for option C. He fastened his seatbelt and jabbed at the cigarette lighter with his finger. While waiting for it to warm up, he turned to S.T.

"Want a cigarette?" he said around a mouthful of cigarettes.

[toxicspiderman]

S.T. ignored Spider's seatbelt antics with the aplomb of an MBTA driver on quaaludes. Instead, he glanced past him at the mirror, long enough to get the perfect movie-camera bracketed shot of a zombie getting pulled under the wheel while the label proclaimed that objects in mirror may be closer than they appear. Or he assumed that was what it said; he couldn't read it from here in the dark.

Thump. The car bumped up and over several zombies. S.T. was pretty sure he could feel some of them squirming as he rolled over them.

Then he leaned over and plucked a cigarette from Spider's mouth. He wiped it off on his jeans. Good enough.

"Save a few of those for later. Might need them to light the matches." He jerked a thumb at the back seat, where the half-made Molotov cocktails were managing not to spread so many fumes as to light the car on fire now.

The cigarette lighter popped; S.T. lit his, then passed it to Spider. With an overdramatic flourish, he threw the car from reverse into drive, and peeled out of the lot. Zombies growled; the engine, and S.T., growled back.

[to here]