Mike got the message.
They burned out onto the highway accelerating as hard as the Space Van could, rolling from side to side like a boat. Without the headlights the van might as well have been plummeting forward into interstellar space. Nilla grabbed a map out of the glove compartment and studied it by the illumination of a Zippo lighter she found underneath it. 'Okay,' she said, 'okay, we can do this'I've outmaneuvered them before. North of here is the Bonneville Speedway. Sure'the Salt Flats, right?' She could remember the rocket cars setting land speed records, but she couldn't remember her name? She would dwell on the disparity later, she decided. 'There have to be some buildings there. Something with cover. Take a left up ahead.'
'Where? I can't see anything!'
'A left!' she shouted when he started to veer into the right lane.
He turned hard, perhaps thinking she'd seen a turn he'd missed. The Zippo touched the map and the map went up in flames. The van took a guard rail hard and listed over to one side. They were going at least sixty, probably more.
The Space Van rolled at least once as he panicked and she screamed but she couldn't have said later how long it took for the vehicle to skid and slide and rock to a stop. She felt her soul leave her body, much as it had when she was restrained in the hospital bed, back when she thought she was still alive. She felt her soul careen back and forth inside the van, a bean inside of a maraca, a die inside a gambler's hand. She saw bits of flaming map dance in the spinning cabin, saw Mike's face turn to look at her, his mouth moving, forming words but she didn't hear them.
Go limp,she told herself. Her limbs turned to loose rubber and bounced around inside the van, her body shook like a doll. Go limp.
Then the van smacked the desert on its side and slid about a hundred feet, showers of sparks flying up every time it grazed a rock. It finally came to a stop. Nilla bounced a little inside the protective webbing of her seat belt, but she was okay.
She stared out at the starlit desert beyond the shattered windshield. Everything had stopped. She looked down, down at where Mike sat in the driver's seat. He wasn't there. She searched her memory, trying to figure out how that could happen. She remembered he hadn't been wearing his seat belt.
Carefully, trying to avoid the piles of broken safety glass that seemed to be everywhere, Nilla unfastened herself and climbed out of the wreck. A helicopter shot by overhead, very fast, while she stood there, craning her head back and forth, looking for Mike. She walked out onto the Salt Flats and the ground crunched beneath her feet.
Eventually she found him.
He had been thrown through the windshield in the crash and his body had gone skidding over the crunchy, perfectly smooth salt rime for over a hundred yards. Judging by the broken depressions in the soil he must have skipped like a stone on the top of a pond.
He wouldn't be coming back. Shards of glass stuck out of his head like a bloody crown. Nilla felt her shoulders fall, a certain tension dripping away from her.
From behind she heard the sound of heavy trucks roaring toward her. Overhead two more helicopters came in slow and circled around her, their lights stabbing the desert, missing her entirely.
Nilla was still flush with energy. She went invisible.
Monster Nation
Chapter Seven
The books I ordered from Amazon last week (on a whim, just a silly whim!) have arrived. I should just send them back, this is just dumb. 'The Lesser Key of Solomon?' The Greater Key was on back order. 'The Alchymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz?' Huh? 'Magick Without Tears?' Well, we could use a few less tears around here, though I could do without that superfluous 'K'. [Lab Notes, 1/9/04]