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Christine

Will, hardly convinced even now that he was awake, watched her with a curious lack of excitement which perhaps only belongs to those summoned directly from their dreams. He sat upright behind his desk, hamlike arms planted on his dirty, doodled-upon blotter, and watched her.

The engine raced once, twice. The bright new exhaust pipe shot blue smoke.

Then the motor shut down.

Will sat there, not moving.

His door was shut, but there was an intercom, always on, between the office and the long, barnlike garage area. It was the same intercom on which he had heard the beginnings of the Cunningham-Repperton title fight back in August. From the intercom’s speaker he now heard the steady tick of metal as the engine cooled. He heard nothing else.

No one got out of Christine, because there was no one in her to get out.

He put stuff like that in an open file because nothing really inexplicable had ever happened to him… except maybe something like that was happening now.

He had seen her cross the cement to stall twenty, the automatic door rattling shut against the cold December night behind her. And experts, examining the case later, could say: The witness had dozed and then fallen asleep, he admits that much, and that he was dreaming… what he claims to have seen was obviously nothing more or less than an extension of that dream, an outward stimulus causing a subjective range of spontaneous, dream-oriented imagery…

Yes, they could say that, just as Will could dream of dancing with fifteen-year-old Wanda Haskins… but the reality was a hard-headed man of sixty-one, a man who had long since jettisoned any last romantic notions.

And he had seen Cunningham’s ’58 glide across the garage empty, the steering wheel moving all by itself as the car slipped into her accustomed stall. He had seen the headlights go off, and he had heard the eight-cylinder engine as it died.

Now, feeling oddly boneless, Will Darnell got up, hesitated, went to the door of his office, hesitated again, and then opened it. He walked out and moved down the ranks of slant-parked cars to stall twenty. His footfalls echoed behind him and then died out in a mystery.

He stood beside the car with her rich two-tone body, red and white. The paint job was deep and clear and perfect, umarred by the smallest chip or the slightest touch of rust. The glass was clear and unbroken, not marked by so much as a nick caused by a random-flying pebble.

The only sound now was the slow drip of melting snow from the front and rear bumpers.

Will touched the hood. It was warm.

He tried the driver’s side door, and it opened freely. The smell that issued forth was the warm smell of new leather, new plastic, new chrome—except that there seemed to be another, more unpleasant smell beneath it. An earthy smell. Will breathed deep but could not place it. He thought briefly of old turnips in his father’s basement vegetable bin, and his nose wrinkled.

He leaned in. There were no keys in the ignition. The milometer read 52,107.8.

Suddenly the empty ignition slot set into the dashboard revolved, the black slit heeling over of its own accord past ACC to START. The hot engine caught at once and rumbled steadily, full of contented high-octane power.

Will’s heart staggered in his chest. His breath caught. Gasping and whooping noisily for breath, he hurried back to his office to find the spare aspirator in one of his desk drawers. His breath, thin and impotent, sounded like winter wind under an entryway door. His face was the colour of old candlewax. His fingers caught in the loose flesh of his throat and pulled restlessly.

Christine’s engine turned off again.

No sound now but the tick and click of cooling metal.

Will found his aspirator, plunged it deep into his throat, depressed the trigger, and inhaled. Little by little, the feeling that a wheelbarrowful of cinderblocks was sitting on his chest dissipated. He sat down in the swivel chair and listened gratefully to the sane and expected creak of protest from its springs. He covered his face momentarily with his fat hands.

Nothing really inexplicable… until now.

He had seen it.

Nothing had been driving that car. It had come in empty, smelling of something like rotting turnips.

And even then, in spite of his dread, Will’s mind began to turn and he began wondering how he could put what he knew to his own advantage.