“The foundation of this house would have been rotten with your secrets, William.”
He hammered the heel of the knife’s grip down on the dashboard cover as hard as he could, and it popped open. The dorm room shimmered away. He was faced with vintage dials and gauges, the esoteric switches and buttons of the manual display.
Melissa was screaming for Otto to stop. Daniel was screaming William’s name. Christina was just screaming.
The speakers played a tinkly melody: “Send in the Clowns,” with the exact hitch of Tommy’s old lamp. William felt Daniel’s fingertips brush his elbow as his arm went back. Before Daniel could get a solid grip, William lunged forward and rammed the knife into the dashboard. The blade disappeared into the groove between the speedometer and the hard plastic surrounding it. With a graceful flick of his wrist, William popped the speedometer free. The round gauge dangled from red and black wires.
Now Daniel’s hand tightened around William’s upper arm. William jerked back and felt his elbow connect with Daniel’s side, the tender spot that had been kicked in the bar fight, and then his arm was free.
“Send in the Clowns” stopped.
William lifted his knee and whipped his leg forward like a cop kicking in a door. The heel of his shoe shattered the dashboard, and Otto’s serpentine guts emerged in a shower of sparks. Daniel bear-hugged William from behind, dragged him back to the bench, and held him down.
“I want it out of my fucking head!” William screamed. Daniel put a knee between his shoulder blades and pressed his face into the bench.
“We just hit a hundred and ten!” Melissa said.
Abruptly, Daniel released the pressure and scrambled over to the ruined panel. William sat up and watched as Daniel knelt down and began yanking wires, ripping out Otto’s guts.
The car pulled a maneuver better suited for a motorcycle, blazing a trail straight up the highway’s centerline. The pictures cycled faster, scenes from Tommy’s thirteenth birthday, albums William had long since deleted from his phone. On the floor, the pill bottles were tossed along a stormy sea of RenderLux.
William bashed his fists against the window glass, barely making a sound. Daniel abandoned his mad disembowelment, breathing hard. Wires cascaded down his shoulders.
Straight ahead was a sixteen-wheeler that could not pull over far enough to avoid the impossible car racing down Route 66 at dawn. The driver must have thought he’d drifted into some fever dream of the haunted road. William could already read the number on the truck’s HOW AM I DRIVING? sticker.
He implored his eyes to close, but they would not. He wondered how it had all come down to this. The car swerved hard but clipped the back corner of the truck. His stomach flipped as Otto veered off the highway and hurtled through the barriers without slowing down. The concrete wall loomed, and then it was all he could see. The tires seemed to leave the pavement, and he wondered if they’d gone airborne. With no time left to think about what might have been, he forced his eyes shut and reached out. Someone took his hand, but he did not know who it was.
William was in his grave. Worms slithered through his fingers and writhed in his armpits. He tried to squirm, flail, slap them away, but he couldn’t move. He was experiencing his own decomposition. Maybe this was the first thing everybody finds out when they die, the true horror that nobody among the living can imagine. If only he could get free and warn people! It’s not what you think. There’s no light, no hugs from dead relatives, no peace.
Only worms, darkness, a burnt rubber stench.
Even if he did manage to free himself, he’d be a monster, shedding rotten parts in his wake as he staggered toward the living.
Listen to me! he’d say, but it would come out of his ruined mouth as GRIGGHHKKKKBBBMMEEEEE. The living would flee, shrieking in terror. The National Guard would blast him to gory smithereens while he put his hands out to halt the bullets. Don’t shoot! I have to tell you something! It’s important!
He opened his mouth and tasted scorched tires. Sharp grit made him cough. As he came back to himself, circulation blazed through his fingers and toes. The ringing in his ears was melodic and familiar, not some mystical afterlife chiming. A second later he had it: “Story of My Life.”
One Direction was playing. He was still in the car.
He felt the pressure of a hand on his face, wiping his forehead. A strand of sticky black webbing came away from his skin with a shlump like those stretchy hands Tommy used to buy from grocery-store vending machines.
With a final tug, his mask of gunk lifted. Daniel’s face appeared.
“You okay?”
Daniel tore at the rubbery tendrils that held his body in place. He realized that he was suspended in the car like an astronaut in a training module.
“I think so,” William said, wiggling his fingers. “What happened?”
“We crashed.”
“No shit.”
“The second we hit that retaining wall, the interior just kind of exploded.” He showed William a handful of long black vines. “RenderLux wrapped us up and held us in place, so we didn’t get knocked around. It was like Otto’s version of a giant airbag.”
William felt his feet touch the floor as Daniel cleared away the web. They were alone in the car, lost in the dense jungle of Otto’s reconfigured insides. Stalactites of RenderLux dripped from the ceiling.
“The girls?”
“Fine,” Daniel said. “We’re all fine. Except for Otto. Otto’s totaled.”
William stretched his arms out and took a tentative step. Nothing seemed broken. “God, that song.”
“It won’t turn off. It’s Otto’s dying breath.”
He followed Daniel out into the Arizona morning, shielding his eyes. He tried to shut the door behind him, but it slapped weakly against the side of the car and swung from its hinge. Otto’s dying breath
