The Last Race

Lying in bed, watching the ceiling fan wobble, sleep fails me again.  The room, the world, is silent and still.  The curtains, motionless in the night air, hang like dead men nailed to the walls.  It's two twenty-eight in the morning in a small town, in an empty county, in the middle of nowhere.  The western plains of Kansas, my home, where small towns lie scattered like isolated Pacific atolls, separated not by flashing blue ocean but by long miles of empty highway that divide seas of corn and wheat.

Insomnia again.  I'm not going to sleep so I might as well be up.  The red glow of the alarm clock illuminates the room just enough for me to pull on my jeans and grab a T-shirt.

Outside, standing in the driveway, I pull the shirt over my head and survey the empty street.  The air is stationary but at least it's a bit cooler than inside the house.  The pavement is surprisingly cool beneath my bare feet.  Distant lightning strobes the sky and the smell of ozone is in the air.  Dark houses sit and wait the dawn like sleeping ducks in a row.

The swing-up garage door creaks with age as I pull it open.  I peer into the darkness.  The faint glow of starlight illuminates the icy glitter of chrome and the animal-like stance the car has, even sitting quietly in a garage.  A viper in its den, waiting to strike.  The car is an anachronism.  Oversized, overpowered, it's a relic from the street-racing days of my youth when thundering horsepower was the elixir of life.  Engraved in the rear glass and bordered in etched flames is the car's name; "Crazy Horse".  Seems an even more appropriate name today in the age of $2.40 gas, global warming and generic Japanese imports than it did in 1974 when street racing was a way of life.

A 1968 Mustang GT Fastback with a supercharged big-block, painted a color best described as vampire lipstick red with a white and orange racing stripe, she's as much a part of me as a Samurai's thousand-times folded sword.  An intimate relationship forged from hours and hours of painstaking restoration bonds us.  Each part polished, massaged and carefully installed, she represents far more to me than a hobby or a means to continue the street racing I started in high school.  It's more of a symbiosis, maybe how an artist feels about his sculpture, or the connection between a rider and his horse.

The blanket of terror, futility, and not the least, pain, began to unwrap themselves like the layers of an onion, peeling away with exquisite slowness.  The mind, as yet, was still too embroiled in agonies to form coherent thought, but as time progressed consciousness began to awaken.

Now that I'm approaching 50, the intensity of my youth mostly gone, cruising in the 'stang has become my release.  Roaming the streets is a way to wipe out, fleetingly, the never ending boredoms of life in a small isolated town.

Quietly, without starting her up, I roll her backwards out of the garage.  The only sound is the gravel clicking under the tires.  In the darkness I let our momentum take us down to the end of the street.  Here I can start the souped-up engine without rattling the neighbor's windows.  The old lady next door will have a fit if I wake her up again.

The massive engine, built like a Swiss watch, starts instantly.  Watching the needles flicker and awaken, listening to the whine of the blower, I grin as always when I feel the power throb through my bones and hear the thunder I control with a touch of my right foot.

First, a flash of something other than Torment, which seemed odd enough to deserve further inquiry by the small part of his mind that was left self-aware.  Then comes a flash of memory, a desperate attempt of his mind to reestablish itself.  Next, unexpected, a shade of feeling in his legs.  The first real thoughts were actually painful, his mind too long unused.  He blinked through tear-blurred eyes, trying to establish focus, colors, anything that would help him awaken.  It is black here, much too dark to see. He can feel his body now; feel the shaking of his muscles, the tremors in his hands.  Hands.  Something odd about his hands.  Memories came flooding back, fast now, remembering the day, the way the sun loomed overhead and the feel of his clothes on that cool Autumn day.  The sword in his hand.  Wait, that was it, the sword was still in his hand.  He fought to remember how, then slowly his fingers unclasped and the sword fell to the ground.  Something about that, he thought, his first thought since he awoke.  Then he gets it all back in a horrible flash.  His hands move to his stomach where just moments ago another sword was plunged in, bringing the first of the pain.  He lets out the scream that has been building and continues until his throat is raw.  Then, more memories coming back, it begins again.  He is on his knees now and the scream dies to a hoarse whimper.  His wound is gone.

The street is a black slab of asphalt radiating heat back into the night.  It reeks of that familiar construction-zone hot-tar stink.  To stir up a cooler breeze I nudge the gas a bit.  I have to smile again as the muted rumble of almost six hundred horsepower burbles from the pipes.  The rumble increases to a pleasant low thunder, the rhythmic thump of 429 cubic inches of perfectly tuned supercharged bad-ass Ford.  Wailing guitars from a vintage Uriah Heep 8-track tape that I found on Ebay float from the stereo, drifting through my head, blending perfectly with the powerful rumble.

Glittering off the blood red paint job the full moon flickers behind the dark trees like it is following me.

Then he remembers it all. The day, long gone, the ride in his Father's fields, the horse strong under him, and the man(?).  He remembers the sky clouding and the challenge.  He remembers the unprovoked attack from the man in the long cloak, not understanding why the curses and insults from his attacker.  He remembers, all too well, running to the battle with curses of his own on his lips.  He remembers losing the battle.

There is light now, beginnings, at least, off to his right.  He starts walking towards the source and confusion is replaced by fear once again, as memories are again fed into his mind.  This time he senses that these are not his memories.  He gets closer to the light and sees the outline of a long, low shape.  It is a shape he has never seen, a concept that did not exist in his world, but his fear is melting away.  Is he getting closer, or is it still taking shape?  The object is becoming clearer, and with it, his understanding of it takes shape.  He arrives by its side, by this time feeling a comradeship with the object almost as intense as what he feels (felt?) for his horse, a magnificent stallion of the finest lineage.  He gazes at the machine, sees the badge on the side, Camaro, and notices himself for the first time in the unnatural shine of the black paint.  A powerful hand, unseen, prevents him from immediate insanity but he is still deeply shaken at the unholy visage he sees in the reflection.  It is almost skeletal, skin rotting and shrinking away as it desiccates, lips drawn back in an expression of the horror of these many years.  A flash of memory.  It is the vision of his murderer's face, as the blade entered his body, as he saw what was under the robes of his enemy.

 The car pulls at him.  He is not afraid any longer as images flow into his mind of this car and finally his purpose.  He nods agreement and finds himself in the car; behind a wheel he now knows is to guide the Camaro on his way to redemption.  He understands now that he is a gladiator.  A warrior with a battle to fight and this is the weapon that has been chosen for him.  He understands that to win means life and to lose means another eternity in this place. When he thinks on that talons of dread and insanity grasp his heart for the briefest moment leaving him breathless and determined not to fail.  The car is idling, low powerful heaves, like his stallion, impatient to be turned loose.  He slides the car into gear and the game begins.

 Abruptly the tranquil night is shattered by 454 cubic inches of blown Chevy at full throttle roaring like a berserker.  Coming out of nowhere behind me, a midnight black Camaro burns rubber for half a block, sliding sideways on the edge of control, smoke roiling from tortured tires.  It rapidly slows beside me.  I can't see who's driving; dark, tinted glass blocks the view.  Completely black, the Camaro glistens flawlessly in the moonlight.  This thing looks solid, heavy, like it's been carved from the highest grade anthracite coal.

 A darkness parts, he emerges onto a surprisingly wide street.  The skies are clear but a thunderstorm is brewing on the horizon.  His prey is here, a red Mustang, idling up the street slowly, rumbling easily in the night air.  Time to engage.  The rules are indelibly imprinted on his mind, the settings have changed over the centuries but the rules remain the same.  First, the challenge, the threat, and then the lure to the battleground.  He mashes the gas pedal to the floor instinctively.  The tires scream and give part of their lives as smoke boils off, pavement creaks and the Camaro, twisting sideways in its acceleration, shoots forward towards the Mustang.  He slams the brakes on and the car shudders as it slows beside the red machine.  He is proud of this Camaro.  It seems like an extension of himself, eager to please, eager to take him to the furthest extremes of reality.

 Damn, where'd he come from?  Even though I haven't been on the street for some time I usually know who's building what, but I've never heard of anyone building a black Camaro.  Blipping the throttle twice and leaping ahead on screaming rubber the Camaro leaves me in a foul smelling cloud of burnt rubber, fuel, and something sulfurous and acidic.  It stings my nose.  Another street racer with a new ride, I figure.  Maybe some kid who got tired of the Hondas and Toyotas on the street and found himself a real muscle car.  Then, surprising myself, I follow his gleaming taillights out of town.  We're heading toward the same desolate blacktop that years ago was the scene of hundreds of late night, illegal, screaming full-throttle teenage battles.  Battles fought with modern iron but with all the passion of any clash between ancient gladiators.

 He looks over and sees his prey for the first time, a man who looks at him with not a little surprise in his eyes.  An innocent look; no, not innocent, this man has seen and done his share in his lifetime, but what does that matter anyway?  "He will take my place".  To drive off the last vestiges of guilt he thinks of where he has been.  He slams down the throttle and blasts away from the Mustang, leaving a cloud of the living, noxious smoke in his wake.  The red car, predatory in its stance, follows, taking the bait.

 As memories of past years, lost races and old friends flicker through my mind the Camaro heads out of town.  He kicks it up and I press down my gas pedal until I catch him.  The lusty roar of the engine is hot and alive now, bellowing out across the silent countryside.  I'm not real comfortable with the idea of what's going on here, but I sure ain't letting him get away now.  The unwritten rules of street racing demand I follow.  The speedo climbs, 75, 85, 95, then even faster.  The two cars rip into the night like F-16s launching off a carrier.

 Then the Mustang stumbles like it swallowed some bad air.  For just an instant my heart leaps to my throat.  In my rearview mirror the lights of town behind me wink out like someone pulled a black velvet curtain closed behind us.  A cold chill climbs up my back and a powerful remoteness hits me, a combination of sadness, emptiness and loneliness that is wrenching.  It's like I passed through a threshold that shouldn't be here, a threshold between two very different places.  A quote from an old book flashes through my head.  "The line that separates the real from the unreal is thin and easily crossed."  My heart beats like a frightened rabbit as if something just wrapped long wicked steel talons around it and squeezed.  The adrenaline rush dissolves and fear rushes in like hot floodwaters.  The road leads straight ahead and the Camaro is still there but something has changed irrevocably.  I feel, deep in the primordial part of my brain, a change.  The 'stang, the darkness and the shining tail lights of the Camaro ahead are all that exist here, all else is set aside.  The highway's faded white stripes flash by; the only continuity to what has rapidly become unreal.

 He opens it up a little, watching as the prey follows slowly at first, then more enthusiastically.  He runs the speed up, the Camaro running 110 and still bucking like it wants to go all out, to loose itself on this hapless car following in its wake.  The night is thickening, the doorway is approaching and then he is through it, all the while watching the mirror for the prey.  The driver of the Mustang must follow willingly, another subset of the rules.  The car streaks through the passage behind him and he can feel the anticipation, almost smell the adrenaline off the other driver.

 The Camaro backs off, slowing the mad rush to somewhere I don't think I want to be.  The darkness of a cave surrounds us, radiating evil wickedness like heat from a pot-bellied stove.  There are no stars in the sky.  My mouth dry as ashes, my brain spinning, I reach across and push down the door lock.  Like that's gonna do a lot of good.

 The black Camaro slows and stops on a yellow line that crosses the pavement and like a thousand other times in a thousand other races I pull up beside him, front bumpers dead even.  Before I have time to do anything he screeches out a long smoky burn-out to heat up the tires.  Then, slamming on the brakes, he slides around in a violent 180, barely staying on the road, and, roaring like a feral animal, blasts back past me.  The fury of his passage rocks Crazy Horse.  Once again jamming on his brakes to spin around, he slides sideways down the center of the road then burns rubber to within 20 yards of where I sit, brakes hard and stops right beside me.  Damn, is this guy pissed or what?  Now the car's just sitting there, waiting, idling, breathing.

 The Camaro slows and stops, the Mustang pulls alongside.  He nails the throttle, once again bringing a painful scream from the tires, the motor roaring like a wounded animal.  The Camaro skews so violently he has to concentrate to maintain control as he turns it around.  He races back, watching with a grin as he passes the Mustang and sees the look of terror on the driver's face.  Whipping the wheel around, the Camaro turns in a long agonized slide, then burns rubber almost all the way back to the stripe on the ground where the prey awaits.  He slams on the brakes and stops dead on the line.  Gripping the wheel with anticipation, he nails the throttle a couple of times to give his prey something to worry about and settles down to wait.

 I look around and see the road has no shoulders; the world ends at the white stripe on the edge of the pavement.  My heart misses a beat at the sight before me; steep, rocky slopes leading down, down, my God, this road is literally sitting on top of a razor's edge of rock, hundreds, thousands of feet high.  Panic sends tendrils into my heart and squeezes the breath out of me.  Impossible, it's impossible yet this fever dream continues.  There are flickering lights down there in the blackness, tiny red sparks glowing far, far below.  Fires?  Fires of Hell?  I'm almost too terrified to move much less think about a burn-out, this is happening fast, too fast, terror is seizing what's left of my mind and straining to whirl it out of control.  The road feels solid but I see it's just a narrow ribbon extended out into the darkness ahead.  Even now the rumble of our exhaust loosens rocks from the steep sides that tumble into the blackness below.

Scared out of my mind I may be, but the fear and excitement have my blood up.  Thirty year old teenage passions ignite in me; dry gunpowder touched with a spark.  The accumulated crust of adulthood falls from my shoulders like so much dry mud.  I reach down and turn up the scream of the classic guitars; I'm ready to rock.  I know the 'stang will respond to every twitch of the wheel like a trained animal.  I'm gonna blow this guy's fuckin' doors off.

One part of my mind, the sane part, is telling me this is unreal, that I'm crazy getting into this.  I haven't had the 'stang out for months.  I haven't really street raced for years, yet here I'm lined up with somebody like it's 1974.  But screw that, blood is flowing hot and fast in my veins.  The adrenaline is lighting me up like a blast of microwaves and the 'stang feels good, it feels powerful, ready to snort and kick ass once again.  It better be, because somehow I know the stakes here are higher than I want to think about.

 Burning through the blackness a red eye of light appears over the roadway, bright as a railway flare, blinding me momentarily.  Hanging in the grip of a corpse, his bones covered with skin as old as the Pyramids the ghoul raises the sputtering light slowly above his skeletal face, his cracked lips pulled back in a grimace of never-ending pain as the light of insanity shines from his eyes.

I feel it now, this truly is for pinks like never before, the winner of this race lives, the other doomed to Hell, or whatever this unbelievable place is, forever, or until fresh prey can be lured to this razor-edged trysting ground.  How many centuries has this been going on?  Did gladiators of old find themselves battling on dark, otherworldly, infinitely remote mountain peaks for their lives, their souls?  Is this the source of the myths and fables of unholy combat between men and the undead that exist to this day?  Is this the playground of daemons?  My mind staggers at the implications, but there's no time to think.  The dead man ahead shifts his weight, ready to drop the signal I've seen before so many times.

Inside the Camaro a glow has begun to burn, darkly red and silhouetting a skeletal form hunched over the wheel.  The light surges up and down with the roaring engine, a massive, horrible pulse.

 The blackness on the roadway clears, allowing our merging headlights to illuminate most of the quarter mile ahead.  Far ahead the road blends into the darkness and to my side I catch another heart-stopping glimpse of fires burning impossibly far below.  The ball of molten lead in the pit of my stomach goes white-hot when the ghoul's arm reaches over his head and I realize it's showtime.

Like an executioner arming his electric chair I reach over and spin open the valve on the blue Nitrous Oxide bottle and flip the switch to arm the system, my sweaty palms gripping the foam rubber steering wheel like it's my only hold on reality.  God, I hope the bottle still has a charge, when was the last time I used it?  I hope I'm ready for this, gauges all read ok, oil flowing like blood, engine sounds strong and smooth, the gas pedal a direct extension of my nervous system, my adrenaline feeding the engine, the heat feeding back in a symbiosis of power, and now it's 1974 again, I'll be seventeen forever, the flaring light winks, disappears, and comes back scything downward fast, immeasurably fast, leaving a red arc suspended in the air, alone, the grinning madman vanishing even as the arc fades and oh God, I'm asleep at the wheel, a jolt of electricity, fear, adrenalin blasts through me and the rumble of the engines changes to a banshee-like scream as throttles slammed wide open inject high-pressure fuel and blowers pack air into the roaring maw of the engines.  Clutches bite simultaneously, tires smoke and melt asphalt as my head slams into the padded headrest and the Mustang and I shoot off the line like a shell out of a cannon.  The music disappears, drowned out by the bellowing exhaust, the stang roaring like an animal, pulling like never before.

 He feels more than sees the lamp fall and crushes the accelerator to the floor, pulling on the wheel hard enough to cause his fingers to crack and bleed.  The Camaro and the Mustang are in a dead heat, pulling like the very Hounds of Hell are in pursuit.  But the Camaro's driver knows what he is racing for and reaches deep into his own soul for an extra nudge of power.  He begins to pull out ahead, slowly but inevitably.  The brief seconds turn over like they are dipped in tar, the time in this place stretched so the game can be more fully experienced for whatever is watching.

 With no time to look at the tach I see the Camaro from the corner of my eye, the interior glowing bright red with a great light.  Suddenly he's four inches ahead of me and gaining; his tortured engine sounds like feeding time in Hell.  I slam into second, the nose of the Mustang straining for every inch.  I gain some.  With an angry snarl the Camaro hits second an instant later and jumps ahead.  Tachometer flying around the dial, 2000 R.P.M. past redline, the hand built, balanced engine howling I catch third gear with a powershift and gain just enough to nose out the Camaro.  Unbelievably his screaming engine pulls him bumper to bumper, then, slowly, agonizingly, ahead.  My foot is holding the gas pedal down with maniacal strength, my leg a conduit of adrenalin into the car as I force the Mustang faster and faster with pure will.

 The heat and light inside become blinding, horrible, as if to remind him what awaits failure.  Fear explodes in his head once again, a familiar feeling, but not welcome nonetheless as the Mustang slams into second gear and pulls ahead the straining Camaro.  With a shriek of rage he shifts up one more gear and the car screams ahead.  The howl of the blower on the red machine is like a living thing, heard over the sound of everything else as the Mustang catches third gear and leaps ahead, just enough, of the Camaro.  His car seems to pull on new reserves as he also jams third gear and creeps ahead, slowly, inexorably, with a purpose born of salvation.  Both cars scream like twin banshees, side by side, the thunder of their passage exploding out into the empty darkness.  The Camaro continues on its climb towards freedom, away from the front bumper of the beleaguered Mustang.

 The red glow from the Camaro's interior blasts through the dark glass inches from my shoulder, door to door at one hundred and thirty-five miles per hour.  I tear my eyes from the road and look to see the illuminated driver, a ghastly skeleton, a corpse, ancient leather over hoary bones, somehow, impossibly, the same tortured creature that swung the red lamp.  The creature looks at me with vacant eye sockets and I feel the soul-wrenching despair of infinite futility as the Camaro, screaming past the limits of sanity, continues to pull ahead.  First three inches, then as the seconds, a slow eternity, drag on, four, then five, each inch a nail in a coffin somewhere.

 As the predator gains inches on the prey hope springs into his mind, a feeling so foreign that he starts and looks over at the other driver who is looking back.  An odd time to be looking into each other's souls, on a strip of blacktop far above the crimson lights of another place; this long narrow strip placed here for this very purpose, where Gods can toy with Man.  Emotions creep into his mind, but he has trouble interpreting them, it's been too long.  He feels the seed of hope growing as the Camaro pulls further ahead, the stirrings of joy in his chest.  The line is approaching, the line over which there is no turning back, the line that will save him.  He turns his head forward to watch his triumph.

 Panic-stricken, the flush of real fear, of death incarnate pounding in my veins I remember the nitrous system.  My thumb finds and jams the button down, solenoids click and NO2 and fuel pour into hungry cylinders like water over a collapsing dam.  The engine responds with a scream and a flood of power, oh sweet God, I grab fourth with a full, flat-on-the-floor speedshift, the 'stang leaps ahead like a frightened gazelle, the speedometer is pegged out and the black Camaro drops back six eternal inches just as a yellow line flashes underneath.

 Suddenly, the Mustang screams with new strength, the nose of the car lifting, impossibly, as the acceleration increases.  The tires giving more than they possibly can the Mustang leaps ahead of the Camaro, bellowing as if it now realizes the stakes.  His ears ring from the earth shaking exhaust as the prey moves ahead, just enough, while the line moves underneath with frightening speed.  He shifts again but it's too late.  Too late.

 I lift my foot off the gas, nerves singing like wires as the Camaro shoots by, still accelerating, roaring like a berserker, the mad glow filling the car to bursting.  The Camaro shrieks down the middle of the road, smoke billowing out of the car.  The light inside now brilliant enough to illuminate the driver, burning, cloaked in fire, flailing madly at the blaze that is devouring him.  Drifting to the right he plunges off the side of the road, dropping fast.  The interior is fireballing, blowing out the windows, trailing smoke like a Zero in some old war movie.  The oily smoke is laced with inhuman screams.  Arcing smoothly downward, the fireball disappears into the haze and blackness below, getting smaller and smaller, the screams fainter and fainter, the car trailing smoke and sparks, bits of broken glass, unholy anger and infinite frustration.

 Comprehension settles in. The long howl breaks from his cracking lips as the Camaro shoots beyond the Mustang and the light intensifies again, becoming a living presence in the car.  He shouts that he was cheated, that it wasn't fair, for another chance, but nothing is heard, only felt as the temperature increases exponentially and his clothes then his flesh burst into hellfire.  His control falters and the car careens off the road. 

 I jerk my eyes away from the incredible sight to find myself somehow speeding down the main street in town as the click of the tape deck announces the end of track one.  I'm on the brakes but my leg is shaking so hard I can barely get the car slowed down.  I'm soaked in sweat.  Rolling down the window a shiver travels through me like pale lightning as the adrenalin rush wears off.  A flash of light in the rear view mirror makes me jump but it's just the rising sun, burning away the last of the darkness like an eye of fire opening on the world, searing it clean once again.  It's dawn.

 The pain wraps him like a blanket, fear and despair following as the car plummets into the void and he feels, as the last vestiges of his sanity are stripped, the wrath of Vengeance Incarnate surround him like an Iron Maiden.