Chris Holm - The Wrong Goodbye

“Gio?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re a car guy, right?”

“Sure —why?”

I took a long look in my rearview. “Behind us, we got a mid-nineties Ford pickup; a minivan —Dodge, I think; a Corolla; a Hummer; an Impala. Which one’s got the best side airbags?”

“How the fuck should I know?”

Not the most helpful answer ever, so I took a different tack. “If it were you, and you had to roll one, which would you rather be in?”

“I dunno —the Hummer?”

Good enough for me. Only douches drive Hummers anyways.

“Cool. Grab the wheel. On my signal, be prepared to put your foot on the gas. And no matter what, don’t slow down, you hear me?”

Gio wrapped one sausage-fingered hand around the wheel. “I hear you,” he said. “What’s the signal?”

“Me dying,” I said. His eyes widened. “Don’t worry, though —I’m coming back.”

I twisted in my seat, locked eyes with the Bluetoothed asshat in the Hummer. He was wearing a powder-blue polo shirt with a popped collar and a pair of oversized aviators, and he was chattering away at whoever was on the other end of that phone call like his life depended on it. I focused on him with every ounce of attention I could muster. And then I hurled my consciousness at him with all the strength I had, like he was the nerdy kid in a game of dodgeball.

For a moment, all went black, and the cacophony of the freeway melted away. In that moment, my world was just a sickly nothing, a morbid amusebouche to whet my appetite for what Charon had in store for me if this idiot plan of mine didn’t pan out. And then all the sudden, BAM , I’m puking all over Asshat’s center console —the reflex action of any newly possessed meat-suit —while some jaded phone-sex worker asks me through my Bluetooth headset if I’ve been a bad boy.

Not yet, I thought —but I’m about to be.

I tugged Asshat’s seatbelt. On and locked. Rolled down the driver’s side window, and chucked his aviators and the piping hot macchiato in the center console out of it. I eased off the accelerator, and watched the cops expand in my rearview until they were a car-length or two behind. Up ahead, the Caddy swerved wildly as Gio tried to drive it riding shotgun, while the lifeless Jonathan Gray meat-suit lolled to one side in the driver’s seat.

One shot, Sam, I told myself. You only get one shot at this. You’d better make it count.

Right before I made my move, Asshat got wise to what I had in mind for him and his precious Hummer, and from whatever dark recess of his mind I’d stuffed him into, he started screaming at me to stop. I didn’t listen. Instead, I jerked the wheel as far right as it’d go. The Hummer’s tires squealed as the vehicle swung perpendicular to the roadway.

Then rubber once more gripped pavement, and the Hummer flipped.

That first roll was the longest second of my life. The Hummer was so tall, and the speed it had been traveling so fast, that it got three-quarters of a rotation around before it ever touched the ground. I went from right-side-up to upside-down to sideways as smooth and silent as if I were underwater —and then my world exploded in shattered glass, spent airbags, and rending metal as the passenger side slammed into the roadway.

I didn’t have much time. I tried my damndest to ignore Asshat’s myriad cuts and scrapes, the shuddering of the Hummer as it skidded along the freeway, and the shriek of steel on pavement. Instead, I visualized the meat-suit I’d left back in the Caddy. The way it moved. The way it smelled. The way my thoughts rattled round its brain. See, every meat-suit’s different. Every one I’ve ever inhabited has left an imprint on my soul, and in every one of them I’ve ever abandoned, I’ve left a little of what makes me me behind. It’s one of the bitches about being a Collector —eventually, subjugating vessel after vessel chips away at you until there’s nothing left but a ghost, a shadow, a feral creature that knows nothing but this cursed existence. But today, I was counting on that fact to save my ass.

See, hopping bodies is a bit like picking a lock. You need to hit all the right tumblers on your way in, or no dice. It takes concentration, focus: two things in short supply when you find yourself smack-dab in the middle of a traffic accident.

OK, maybe “accident” is the wrong word. But who’s ever heard of a “traffic on-purpose"?

Anyways, I was banking on the fact I’d been in the Jonathan Gray body long enough —and left it recently enough —it’d be like coming home. That my key could find the lock in total darkness. That I could stroll on in without whacking my shin on his metaphorical coffee table, or some shit.

Gimme a break —metaphors aren’t my strong suit.

Lucky for me, crazy-ass stunts like this one are.

I closed my eyes. Stretched my consciousness. Latched onto the meat-suit in the Caddy like it was a life-preserver. I’m pretty sure it was.

The transition was fast. Crazy fast. Almost no time at all spent in the Nothing that stretched between. Which is why, even as I was doubled over the Caddy’s driver’s side door puking, I could feel the impact of the cop cars slamming full-bore into the roof of the Hummer.

Holy hell, was it a sight to see. The Hummer was lying on its side in the road, its undercarriage facing us. When the cops slammed into it, it leapt a few feet off the ground and lurched toward us as if by magic, the remainder of its airbags deploying and filling the cabin like oversized popcorn. Then a cop car launched over it, twisting sideways in the air in a strangely balletic turn, and two others, trying to flank the automotive carnage, slammed into the concrete barriers on either side, loosing a flurry of sparks. One flipped, one didn’t, and when all was said and done, the Hummer, two dozen cop cars, and God knows how many civilian vehicles were unwitting accomplices to our escape.

Eh. The civilians were likely all locals, and they were headed into LA proper. This probably ain’t even the worst traffic they’ve seen this week. I just hoped the douchebag in the Hummer was OK.

But we weren’t out of the woods yet. The night was filled with the sound of sirens, and the low whump of the chopper was getting louder. I scanned the sky, and saw it slide in over the roadway behind us, a spotlight surveying the pileup behind us —but then, on orders from below I assume, its spotlight swung our way, a jittery circle of white tracking across the empty freeway, reflecting off the dotted yellow lines. Its wasp-like body tilted after it as though chasing its own light.

So much for shaking them.

I laid my hands on the wheel as my meat-suit’s urge to vomit subsided, and felt Gio yank it wildly to the right. I kicked his foot away from the gas, and yanked the wheel back. “Gio, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Atlantic Boulevard!” he shouted.

“What?”

He waved the chicken-scratch directions he’d copied down from the laptop back in Vegas. “This is our fucking exit!”

Fuck. More like was . By the time I got the message, we were past it. I yanked the wheel. Hopped the curb. Ran across a triangle of exhaust-browned grass, took out a smallish shrub. Hopped another curb, and wound up back on track.

Above us and about seventy yards behind, the helicopter followed, its spotlight skittering over us every now and again, only to slide off once more with a jerk of the wheel, a random tap of gas or brake.

The exit ramp ended at a light. Perpendicular to the exit was a broad commercial stretch, four lanes of traffic surrounded by strip malls, sidewalk storefronts, and auto dealerships, their brightly colored signs pushing back the falling night. The ocean to the west had doused the sun’s blaze by now, leaving the sky overhead that starless royal blue that passed for dark within spitting distance of any major city. Beside me, Gio shouted to be heard over the oppressive din of the approaching chopper, and gesticulated wildly. Though I could barely hear him, my eardrums throbbing from the thrumming of the helicopter’s blades, the gist was clear enough. Our destination lay on the other side of the intersection.