I slammed the Charger’s accelerator to the floor and tore away from the scene of carnage, the engine’s roar drowning out everything but my thundering heart. The storm turned the highway into a nightmare of black ice and zero visibility, with only lightning strikes offering brief glimpses of the road ahead.
The first flash lit up my rearview mirror—a pack of patrol cars bearing down on me, their red and blue strobes cutting through the rain like laser beams. Their engines howled over the storm, growing louder as they gained ground.
“Fuck.”
The Drifter had sicced his dogs on me. You’d think the sadistic bastard would want to kill me himself, but he probably didn’t care how I died. Dead was dead, and he knew I’d end up trapped in his world anyway, just another lost soul in his collection.
Or more likely, he was just enjoying seeing me suffer, like this was all a game to him. Which, in the end, I guess it was.
A game I had no intentions of losing.
The first burst of gunfire came without warning. Automatic weapons fire ripped through the night, bullets hammering into the Charger’s trunk like angry hornets punching through sheet metal.
I’d grown up in a rough neighborhood, but I’d never been shot at like this—not with military-grade hardware, not with such violent intent. The sheer intensity of the assault made me want to curl into a ball and hide, but that wasn’t an option.
The back window exploded inward as rounds punched through, showering me with safety glass. I ducked on pure instinct as bullets whizzed past my head, close enough that I felt their heat kiss my scalp. The sound was deafening in the confined space—the crack of gunfire, the ping of impacts, the shriek of torn metal.
“Fuck this!” I yanked the wheel hard, sending the Charger into a controlled weave. The tires fought for grip on the wet asphalt as I tried to make myself a harder target. Rain, blood, and adrenaline made everything treacherous, but I held on, my hands locked on the wheel like it was the only thing keeping me alive.
A patrol car surged alongside me, the passenger’s face illuminated by dashboard lights—a mask of cold determination as he leveled his weapon.
I stomped the gas, the Charger’s engine screaming as I lurched forward. At the same time, I grabbed the gun I’d taken from the dead cop. My father had taught me to shoot on the range back on Earth. Now those lessons might save my life.
I didn’t think—just aimed and squeezed the trigger three times. The patrol car swerved violently, careening off the road and vanishing into the darkness. A surge of savage triumph shot through me.
“Yes! Fuck you!”
But the victory was short-lived.
The remaining cruisers pressed closer, their guns still blazing. I felt every impact as bullets tore into the Charger, then suddenly there was new pain—hot and sharp—in my thigh. The adrenaline had masked it at first, but now I saw the blood soaking my jeans, turning the denim a sick, dark crimson.
“Shit-fuck!”
A quick glance showed the bullet had gone through meat, missing anything vital. Bad, but survivable—if I could stop the bleeding. What I needed was a Health Potion, but my inventory was empty.
No time to dwell on it.
Another cruiser pulled alongside, both cops wearing expressions of pure hatred as they demanded payback for their dead friends. The passenger’s gun flashed, and I threw the Charger sideways, metal screaming as they slammed into my side. The impact sent shockwaves through the frame, but I held on, already planning my next move.
These bastards wanted to play rough? Fine. Time to show them what desperate people were capable of.
Through gritted teeth, ignoring the burning pain in my thigh, I yanked the wheel hard to the right. The Charger’s tires screamed in protest as I slammed into the patrol car’s side. Metal shrieked against metal, sparks flying in the rain. The impact rattled the shit out of me, but I held firm.
“You want to play rough, motherfuckers?” I snarled, blood soaking into the seat beneath me. “Let’s fucking play rough then!”
I pulled back slightly, then rammed them again, harder this time. The patrol car’s driver overcorrected, his wheels catching the wet shoulder of the road. I could see the panic on both officers’ faces as they realized what was about to happen. Their car started to slide sideways, and I gave them one final hit, putting everything the Charger had into it.
The patrol car spun toward the side of the road, its tires leaving the asphalt completely. In the strobing light of their own roof-mounted lights, I saw the massive boulder looming ahead of them. The two cops never had a chance to bail out.
The impact was devastating. Their vehicle hit the boulder head-on at over eighty miles per hour, the front end crumpling like an accordion. For a split second, nothing happened. Then the gas tank ruptured. The explosion lit up the night like artificial dawn, the fireball reflecting off the sheets of rain and sending burning debris across the highway. The sound hit me a moment later—a deep, thunderous boom that I felt in my chest even through the Charger’s rattling frame.
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I yanked the wheel back to straighten out, my hands slick with sweat and rain from the broken window. In my rearview mirror, the burning wreckage cast an orange glow across the wet asphalt, the flames defying the downpour as thick black smoke billowed into the stormy sky.
But other cars kept coming, and so did the automatic gunfire. I wasn’t sure how much more damage the Charger could take before it gave up the ghost or just exploded with me in it. Either that, or I was going to get fatally shot.
It was just a matter of time.
“Think, Kade, think!”
I pressed the accelerator as hard as I could, but the old Charger had no more left to give, and smoke was starting to billow from the engine, the acrid fumes getting sucked right into the car with no windows to keep it out.
A patrol car rammed me from behind. Another came up alongside me and I heard loud shotgun blasts impact the car, followed by one of the back doors falling off. A bullet clipped my ear and I felt warm blood run down my face and neck. The hot sting of the wound made my vision blur for a moment, but I forced myself to focus on the road ahead.
“Son of a bitch!” I screamed as another impact from behind sent me lurching forward. My chest slammed into the steering wheel, definitely cracking a rib or two. Each breath became agony, but I couldn’t let up on the gas. Not now.
The shotgun-wielding cop fired again, the blast taking out my side mirror in a spray of metal and glass. Some of the pellets peppered my left arm, feeling like hot needles being driven into my flesh. The Charger’s frame groaned under the assault, the once-proud muscle car being reduced to Swiss cheese around me.
A hard swerve to avoid another ramming attempt sent pain shooting through my wounded leg. Fresh blood soaked into the seat as the bullet wound gaped wider. The dashboard was covered in a fine mist of my blood from the ear wound, making the gauges harder to read through the crimson haze.
Another impact. This time from the right side. The passenger door caved in with a horrific shriek of metal, the frame pressing against my arm. Something in my shoulder popped—not quite a dislocation, but close. The steering wheel grew slick with blood from my raw, abraded hands.
More bullets tore through the cabin. One punched through the headrest inches from my skull, the near miss making my ears ring. Another caught me in the side—just a graze, but deep enough to add another line of fire to my collection of wounds. The left side of my face was now completely covered in blood from my ear, and my vision in that eye was starting to blur.
The Charger took another devastating hit from behind. The trunk crumpled, metal shrieking as it folded in on itself. The impact sent me forward again, this time my head snapping back hard enough to make my vision go dark for a split second. When it cleared, I tasted blood—I’d bitten clean through my lower lip.
Jesus fuck, I don’t know how much more of this I can take…
“Come on, baby,” I pleaded with the car, patting the dash with a bloody hand. “Just hold together a little longer.”
Are you fucking insane? said a voice in my head that sounded suspiciously like my sister. A little longer until what? Until you die a horrible death?!
“Shut up, shut up!”
The engine coughed and stuttered—probably from all the bullet damage—but kept running. The steering was getting loose, the suspension was shot to hell, and I could hear at least one tire starting to shred.
But like me, the Charger wasn’t done yet. We were both bloody and beaten, but still in the fight.
Through my one good eye, I saw another patrol car lining up for a shot. I ducked just as the buckshot zinged through the car, but felt a stinging sensation somewhere on my left side as a few of the pellets hit me.
But I kept my foot pressed to the floor, kept the wheel as steady as I could with my injured arms. Blood loss was starting to make me lightheaded, and every breath sent daggers through my broken ribs, but I forced myself to stay conscious. To stay focused.
Because through the haze of pain and blood, through the storm and the chaos, I caught a glimpse of something in my remaining side mirror—another police cruiser, gaining ground fast. And behind its wheel, that familiar face with its manic grin.
The Drifter.
“Son of bitch.”
What the hell was he doing? Was he here to help the cops finish me off? To shoot me or run me off the road?
None of those things, as it turned out.
Instead, the Drifter’s cruiser targeted the nearest patrol car behind me. He didn’t just ram it—he seemed to know exactly where to hit, his cruiser smashing into the rear quarter panel with surgical precision. The patrol car spun out violently, flipping end over end before exploding in a fireball that lit up the rain like burning mercury.
The Drifter’s laugh carried over the chaos somehow, a sound of pure joy that made my skin crawl.
He wasn’t done, though. His cruiser accelerated again, this time pulling alongside another patrol car. I saw him raise his hand, saw the muzzle flash. The cop car’s front tire exploded, sending it careening into the concrete barrier. The impact threw sparks higher than the overpass we were racing under.
“Jesus Christ,” I whispered, unable to look away from the carnage unfolding behind me.
The Drifter was playing with them like a cat with mice. His car moved with impossible precision, almost like it was part of him. He forced one patrol car into another, sending them both rolling off the highway in a tangle of metal and breaking glass. Their sirens warbled and died, replaced by the sound of secondary explosions.
The final patrol car tried to retreat, its driver finally realizing what they were up against. The Drifter wasn’t having it. He accelerated hard, coming up behind the fleeing vehicle. Instead of ramming it, he pulled alongside. Even through the rain and blood loss, I could see his face—that terrible grin, those eyes filled with unholy glee. He raised his gun one last time.
The shot was impossible—through both windows, in the rain, at over a hundred miles per hour. But he made it. The patrol car’s driver slumped, and the vehicle swerved hard. It hit the shoulder and began to flip, tumbling over and over like a child’s toy thrown in anger. The explosion that followed painted the clouds orange.
I started to turn back to face forward, heart hammering in my chest, when the Charger’s engine made a sound I’d never want to hear again—a mechanical shriek followed by a series of hard knocks. Black smoke poured from under the hood as the engine seized completely. The steering died, and I had to wrestle the wheel with my injured arms as the car began to slow.
“No, no, no! Not now!”
But there was nothing I could do. The Charger coasted to a stop in the middle of the empty highway, steam hissing from the ruined engine block. The only sounds were the patter of rain on metal and the distant crackle of burning wreckage.
I twisted in my seat, ignoring the protest of my wounds as I searched for the Drifter’s cruiser. The highway behind me was a trail of destruction—burning vehicles, scattered debris, sheets of rain turning orange in the glow of multiple fires.
But the Drifter’s car was gone. Not just hidden or distant—gone, as if it had never existed.
The rain fell harder, and I sat there bleeding in my dead car, wondering if I’d finally lost my mind.
Then I heard it—that laugh again, carried on the wind.
But this time, it seemed to come from everywhere at once.