People seek excitement in different ways. Some people are thrill seekers, chasing the adrenaline rush from jumping out of planes or swimming with the sharks. Others look for novel experiences, such as trying exotic food or visiting foreign places. And then there are people who find it in their daily lives, getting satisfaction out of their pursuit of career advancement or acquisition of wealth.
As for me, I tend to like my excitement at the small scale. The thrill of beating a tough boss in a video game, the experience of reading a new book, the joy in finding change in your couch cushions. Back in high school, I had felt a bit of excitement at the possibility of getting in trouble when my work for the newspaper had me going into places I shouldn’t have been, but I always felt that was more me matching Victoria’s energy rather than discovering something about myself.
And I was perfectly happy with it that way. Which is a way of saying, I was not looking to get myself into any life-imperiling situations just for a thrill.
The day didn’t start particularly excitingly, unless you get a kick out of car troubles. My poor belabored Honda, after years of unfulfilled promises to see it repaired, finally had nothing left to give. As I was about to make a trip to the store, I found no sign of life in my engine. None of the normal sputtering, grinding, and backfires that I would usually expect. Just silence.
“Well, that’s not ideal,” I muttered to myself.
I rested my head on my steering wheel while trying to decide what to do next. My shopping trip could probably be put off for a few days, but it was unlikely that my car would just fix itself in that time. Did I have the money to get it repaired right now? Could it even be fixed, or was it finally time to scrap the poor beast? And if I did scrap it, how would I get around?
A knock on my window startled me. My shock turned to disappointment as I saw who was there.
“Hello, Terrance,” I said after rolling down my window.
“Hey-a, Kit. Oh, and you can just call me Terry. That’s what my friends call me.”
I would not be calling him that.
“Car troubles?” he asked.
“Seems that way,” I replied, flatly.
“Well, I can lend you mine,” he said, and he actually pulled out his keys. “I mean, I have a bunch of meetings today, but I don’t mind taking the bus. Might make me a little late, but I don’t think they’ll fire me for it.”
I couldn’t tell if he was serious. “No, I don’t want to take you car. I didn’t have anything super important to do today, anyway. I just need to get this hunk of junk to the shop.”
“Then at least let me call you a tow,” Terrance replied. “I know a guy – one of my clients, actually. I made his investment portfolio a lot of money, and he said if I ever need a tow, it’s no charge.”
While I wasn’t excited about taking a favor from Terrance, I might not have been able to afford a tow myself. “Yeah, alright. Thanks.”
Terrance made a call then took off, but true to his word, a tow truck appeared a short while later. The driver was clearly disappointed to learn he would be towing me and not Terrance (whom he called ‘Terry’ – guess that guy is everyone’s friend). Nevertheless, he made polite small talk as he hooked my car up to his truck, and away we went to the closest mechanic shop.
I don’t really know anything about cars. To me, mechanics are kind of like doctors – they tell me what’s wrong, I pretend to understand when they explain what they need to do to fix it, and then they saddle me with a massive bill. I assume half of them are scamming me (the mechanics, not the doctors, at least, I sure hope the doctors aren’t scamming me) but I don’t know enough about engines or brakes or whatever in order to know for sure.
So as the mechanic leaned over my engine, going over a list of problems as if he was reading from a Wikipedia article, all I could do was nod along. “Your main axillator is completely shot, and your oil intake has gone full vertical. Oh, and the spark plugs have desparked, and it seems like Capricorn is in retrograde. That’s not good.”
“Is that expensive?” I asked.
“It sure ain’t cheap,” the mechanic said. “But I’ll see what I can do for you. I have some low-fee payment plans I can hook you up with if cash is tight.”
I sighed. Was probably going to need to cancel some subscriptions for the next however many months. “Yeah, great. Thanks.”
The mechanic got up from the engine and wiped the oil off his hands with a rag. He had a severely serious expression which, combined with his imposing build, gave him an intimidating, unapproachable aura. I had other questions I wanted to ask him – such as if it was even worth repairing this junker or if it would be cheaper to just get another car – but I was too daunted by him to open my mouth. Maybe I should introduce Tommy to him to get an in-person lesson on effortlessly looking tough.
“I want to get a look underneath, too,” the mechanic declared. “Just to make sure there aren’t any more issues.”
Somehow, I knew he would definitely find more problems to charge me for. Not that I was about to confront him about it.
He walked around the side of the car, those serious eyes taking in every detail, and made his way to the back. His eyes glanced towards the bottom of it …
And his demeanor suddenly completely changed. His posture relaxed, his eyes brightened, and a big grin came over his face.
“Bro, why didn’t you say you were in the club?” he asked, his voice higher and more whimsical. “I nearly took you for all you were worth!”
I blinked, confused by the sudden change. “What?”
“The sticker, bro! I nearly missed it. You should have spoken up!”
It was then I remembered the stork sticker that Kara had placed on my bumper. I had meant to remove it after my close call with Officer Mustache, but then I got distracted, and the whole thing with Victoria happened … and it seemed like a lot of effort.
Guess it all worked out if this mechanic was somehow associated with her.
“Does that mean my car doesn’t actually need that much work?” I ventured.
“Well, no, your engine has gone completely to shit,” the mechanic replied. “All the stuff I said before might have been complete bullshit, but that parts true.”
“Oh…” That was disappointing. “Do you think it’s worth it to repair, or am I better off scrapping it and getting another?”
“You kidding? Car’s a classic. I wouldn’t let you trash it.” He pulled a flask out of his shirt pocket and started to unscrew the cap. “If you don’t want it anymore, I’d buy it from you. Not for too much, given its current condition, but not for nothing. Or you can let me replace its engine for you. Easier than trying to patch all the problems the current one has.”
A classic? Kara had said something of that sort, though I hadn’t really believed her. “Replacing the whole engine sounds expensive.”
“Well, I’ve got a connection,” he replied, stressing the word ‘connection’ to a suspicious degree. “I can source a replacement engine real cheap, and I wouldn’t charge you much for the labor either.”
“Wow, that very generous of you.”
“Anything for a friend of the club.” He took a deep swig from his flash, then held it out to me. “You want some?”
Whatever was in there smelled a league stronger than any alcohol I’d ever tasted. “I’ll pass, thanks.”
He shrugged, then took another swig. “Course, this isn’t something I can get done overnight. It’ll take me at least a week to get the new engine sourced, and another couple of weeks to put it in. For safety’s sake, I’d say it would probably be a month before I could return the car to you.”
A month? That was a long time to be without a vehicle. The path of least resistance here was probably to sell the car to the mechanic and use the money to buy a new car. But somehow that felt wrong. The old girl had been with me for a long time, and I’d repeatedly made promises to her that I would fix her up when I could afford it. That might have been a promise made back when I still cared to make an effort, but maybe it still counted.
“I’ll take you up on your offer to fix up the car,” I said. “It’ll kind of suck to go a month without a car, though. The bus runs somewhere around here, doesn’t it?”
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“Nah, bro, I’d never let a friend of the club be forced to take the bus,” the mechanic declared. “I’ll give you a loaner. No charge. Something nice so you can cruise around in style while you wait.”
What kind of car did a friend of a car thief have? “Are you sure? I don’t want to take advantage of – uh – the club.”
“No worries. I got just the right thing for you – and it’s just been sitting in a lot for far too long. You’d actually be doing me a favor by driving it around. Cars need to stretch their legs every once in a while, so to speak.”
I was a little nervous about potentially driving around a stolen car, but it would have been rude to turn down his generosity. Plus, I really didn’t want to have to take a bus. I accepted, and a short while later he was handing me the keys to a Mercedes that was very shiny and seemed very expensive.
“Are you sure I should have this one?” I asked. “I’m only really used to driving around – well, you’ve seen it. This thing looks like it’s worth more than one of my kidneys.”
“More than both of them, at the current market rate for black market organs,” he said, his tone level enough that I couldn’t tell if he was joking. “But it’ll be fine. Don’t worry so much.”
I was still uncomfortable, but decided it was time to just let it happen. As my rules demanded.
And maybe just a little part of me wanted to see what driving a Mercedes was like.
As I pulled out from the mechanic’s lot, it was immediately apparent what a different experience driving a luxury car was to my clunker. Everything was so smooth and silent. And when I got onto the main road and started to give it some gas, the feeling of power and acceleration was something else. I’d often wondered why people would waste so much money on a car when a cheaper one would get you where you needed to go, but I was starting to get it now. Driving a car like this was an experience.
I found I was enjoying myself, so rather than head on to the store or go home, I decided to drive around for a while and see what the Mercedes could do. I took it on the highway, took it on some backroads, I took downtown during rush hour (turns out being stuck in traffic still sucks, no matter how nice the car you’re driving is). I drove it for almost three hours before I decided it was time to head home.
Which is when I realized I had no idea where I was. I’d been driving around aimlessly for hours, and I had aimlessed my way to an unfamiliar part of town. It was a long stretch of road with non-descript buildings on both sides, and the only sign I saw was an advertisement for mail enhancement (and yes, it was spell m-a-i-l; no idea if that was a typo or if they were somehow improving the post office – and the image of a box held at crotch level wasn’t making things any clearer). I took out my phone to get GPS directions back home, but I didn’t get any signal.
With no signal and no clue where I was, the next best course of action probably would have been to pull over and ask someone for directions. But that would have required talking to people, and I wasn’t feeling that, so I decided to just continue driving forward until I found a signal. I went down the road a bit and stopped at a stoplight.
Still nothing. Realizing it might be a while before I found my way home, I decided to turn on the radio. Some kitschy pop nonsense started blaring, sung by a woman whose voice had been autotuned so much it barely sounded human, and instead more like some weird amalgamation of every female pop star over the past decade.
Hey, we’re going to have a great day – today (okay!)
So much fun, we’re going to have a parade – today (hurray!)
What a bunch of garbage. Why did those music execs keep greenlighting this crap? I reached over to change the station.
Don’t worry so much about all those stressful things – you hate (too late!)
Just come with me, we’ll dance until we’re too tired – to hate (oh great!)
Alright, the song was a little catchy. The lyrics were kind of nonsense, but the beat quickly got stuck in your head. Plus, there really wasn’t much point in changing the station. Might as well just let it finish.
I was distracted enough by the song I didn’t notice the person rushing to the side of my car until they had pulled my door open. I turned in surprise and was faced with a familiar tomboy.
“Kara? What the hell – have you graduated from car theft to hijacking?”
Kara seemed just as surprised to see me as I was to see her. “You – that idiot who doesn’t lock his doors. I see that hasn’t changed. What are you doing driving one of Kent’s go-cars.”
“Go-car?” I asked. “I don’t know anything about that. The mechanic gave me this car as a loaner while he works on mine.”
She sighed. “That idiot. He knows he is only supposed to lend these out in an emergency. He’s always pulling this shit. Listen – club rules say the go-cars have to be passed to the person who has the bigger need at the moment, and given that you have the time to sit at a stoplight while listening to … whatever in the Disney-hell this is, I’m guessing you’re not in crisis right now. So hand it over.”
Without waiting for a reply, she reached down and undid my seatbelt, then started to try and pull me out of the car.
“Hey, hold on!” I shouted as I tried to resist her surprisingly-strong-for-her-size pull. “I’m not just going to hand this car over to you. Who knows what that mechanic would do to me if I lost his freaking Mercedes. He might take both my kidneys to pay for it!”
“Are you being serious right now? Look –“ She paused at the sounds of screeching car tires behind us. “Shit, they’re here already! I don’t have time for this.”
She changed tact and shoved me. I had been leaning all my weight back to resist her pull, so with a good shove I wound up going hard into the passenger seat. Kara took the seat behind the wheel and floored the gas. The Mercedes burst into action, with all the might of its impressive acceleration behind it. I felt myself being pressed back into my seat from the force of it.
Do you understand, my feelings for you – are great (let’s date!)
“What are you doing!?” I demanded as I struggled against my seat. “Pull over!”
“You don’t want me to stop now,” she insisted. “Look behind us.”
I forced myself to turn around in my seat and looked out the back window. There were two black cars directly behind us. Matching Kara’s speed and swerving between lanes.
“Who the hell are they?” I asked.
“A rival club,” she answered matter-of-factly. “I might have pulled a tiny prank on them earlier, and they’ve been after me since. And since you’re in the car with me, they’re now after you. Sorry about that. Anyway, as I was saying, you don’t want me to stop. You don’t want to know what they’ll do to us if they catch us.”
That got my mind racing at all sorts of terrible possibilities. Torture. Murder. Being forced to buy a timeshare. Each fate worse than the last.
Despite Kara’s speed, the cars were gaining us. One was close enough that I could make out the vanity front plate. Apparently, the rival car thieves were really into Harry Potter.
We’re having a party, you’re invited – to celebrate (ingrate!)
The pursuing cars continued to inch closer.
“Oh – oh no,” I sputtered as panic took hold. “They’re going to catch us.”
“Not a chance,” Kara confidently proclaimed. “Hang on!”
She took a sharp turn. The tires squealed, the music kept on blaring, and I grunted as I hit the passenger side window full-force. As Kara hit the accelerator again, I went tumbling back into my seat, facing-backwards. I hugged the seat for dear life.
“What are you doing?” Kara asked. “I told you to hang on. You should have put on your seatbelt.”
“You took off my seatbelt.”
“The passenger seatbelt!”
The vice-grip I had on the back of my seat did not allow me to turn around, much less get properly seated and get my seatbelt on.
The pursuing cars made the same turn, though with a bit more difficulty. One nearly spun out, but got control at the last moment. That maneuver didn’t end the pursuit, but it did buy some space.
Don’t tell my mom, but I’m super high – on life (nightlife!)
“They’re still coming!” I yelled. “What kind of prank did you pull on them?”
“I set one of their cars on fire.”
“What? How is that a prank!?”
“You kind of had to be there for the joke to make sense. But trust me – it was really funny in the moment.”
We hit a bump in the road, and the Mercedes momentarily gained some air. And so did I. I went over the passenger seat and into the back. I landed face-down, my face against the floor, and my feet pressed up against the back window.
“Would you stop messing around?” Kara demanded. “I can’t see out the back if you’re blocking the window!”
“My bad,” I tried to say, but it came out more as a grunt.
If you tattle of my party, then we’re going to have – some strife (a knife!)
Pushing off with my elbows, I was able to lift myself off the floor. My stiff body protested as I bent at an angle I hadn’t been able to do since Elementary school, but I was eventually able to finagle myself into a seat.
The pursuing cars were right on top of us. I could see from their plates that one was a fan of Gryffindor, and the other was filled with more Slytherin-aligned car thieves.
“Rule two,” I muttered to myself. “Just let it happen. Don’t fight it. Just let it happen. You are okay with this. This is the easy path. The no-effort path. Just let it happen. This is all okay.”
Like hell it was! The rules were one thing, but this was insane! Only a complete lunatic would be okay with this!
All the stress, panic, and fear, mixed with the rapid motion and swerving of the car, caused my stomach to roil. A moment later, I learned forward and puked all over the floor. Sorry, my mechanic friend. I’ll pay for the cleaning. If I survive this.
The police are here now, guess that’s the end – of the night (we fight!)
“Damn, these guys are annoying. Just give up already!” Kara shouted. “Wait – I think I see some cop cars up ahead. That gives me an idea. Hang on!”
This time, I made sure I had a seatbelt on.
She hit the brakes. The seatbelt did its job of preventing me from going flying through the windshield as we rapidly decelerated. I heard screeching as the two cars behind us had to swerve hard to avoid crashing into us. They continued on past the cop cars, still speeding and swerving.
The sirens on the cop cars lit up, and they took off in pursuit of our pursuers.
Kara laughed. “Hah! Enjoy the night in lock-up, fellas!”
And like that the chase – and thankfully also the song – came to an end. I shut my eyes and tried to get my heartbeat and breathing back under control. I don’t know how Kara was laughing – that was the terrifying.
I wasn’t really paying attention as Kara drove us (thankfully at a normal speed) back the way we came, under a bridge, and to an area that seemed to be mostly steel sheds and storage crates. It was only when she pulled up to a big concrete warehouse that I started to come to my senses and realized that I was still being driven by a car thief. I might not be out of danger yet.
A garage door on the side of the building opened and Kara pulled the Mercedes inside and parked it, then got out of the car. I got out as well, though I struggled to my feet as my legs felt like they were made out of jelly.
Kara looked absolutely exuberant. “Damn, that was exciting! My heart is still racing! Can you feel that adrenaline pumping? God, I love a good chase! It gets all my engines going!”
And then, Kara did the most shocking thing she had done all day: she grabbed me by my shirt, pulled me towards her, and kissed me.
I was too shocked by – well, everything – to really respond. I think I enjoyed it? Can’t say for sure.
What I do know for sure is that Kara didn’t. She broke away after only a moment and scrunched up her face in disgust.
“Ugh, you taste like vomit,” she complained.
“Yeah, well, there’s a lot of it.”
She peeked into the backseat. “Yeesh. We’re going to get the hose for that. Ah, well. Come on, follow me inside. We can wait here till the heat dies down.”
In a daze, I followed her. “Where is here?”
She opened a door to a workshop full of rough machinery, rough smells, and rough people.
Kara grinned at me. “Welcome to the Heron’s Clubhouse.”
this story for the event, but that wouldn't really work. This story has be written slowly, as I plan the comedy bits and running gags, and also requires me to be locked into Kit's headspace at all times. Fortunately, I have another project I have been planning for a long, long, while which I had just started to make the final preparations for writing when this Writathon started. I wasn't quite ready to start with it, and my friend who will be helping me with cover art won't even have that ready until after the Writathon is over, but I still feel like this is the best time to get a start on it.
