Drive

Car chases are fun... there's so many in movies and there's are cool ones I can think of (like there's one in a movie called 'Drive' which I love) and there's a few great movies that are out now with car chases in them.  Well, Chuck has us here writing a car chase... 2000 words of a car chase. 

Enjoy.


Life is funny.

Seriously it is.

But you only see the humour in it when you’re dying – taking your last breaths – at how dumb your most recent decisions have been.

Like for example, what I did in the last half hour…

The party was in full swing when I decided to leave. My girlfriend was drunk, and she was about to make a horrible decision and head home with a guy I knew wasn’t right for her… you know the type:  a player.  So, I suggested we got in the car and headed off home; and me being the designated driver, she was safe with me.

Well, so she thought.

I strapped her into the seat after I got her to throw up (no way in hell was I going to have somebody puke in my nice clean car!), got into the driver’s seat, started the car and drove off into the night to take Angela home. By the time we hit the main road, three minutes later, she was out like a light.

It was then I noticed the car behind me. It didn’t look like anything unusual; it was just another set of headlights in the night of driving on our roads.

Another party-goer heading off home.

Another cop car following me to see if I’d speed.

Another person finding their way around our city.

I never thought I’d end up driving for my life in my Astra… or putting my little car through its paces. 

As the light turned green, the car behind me didn’t give me a chance to take off properly. The driver rolled up behind me and nudged my car forwards.

I planted the foot harder than needed to get going.

He kept pace easily.

I reached down and pressed the Sports Drive button the gear stick and pushed the pedal to the floor.

The car took off.

I felt my heart pound as I felt my car pull away quickly and take off down the road!

The lights behind me retreated as my speed surprised the driver – I could see it on his open-mouthed face in my side mirror! It was hilarious! But I didn’t let up on my concentration.

I knew he’d pick up the pace… he was in a sports car.

You can really shit on those things – take them through the crapper and they’ll perform so well! – and still they’ll do whatever you want them to do.

I know.

I used to own one.

I drove my sports car into the ground.

But then, they’re designed to be driven until they fall apart.

But I drive an Opel… a German-made Holden. It’s a sweet little machine and will do exactly what you tell it.

My sweet little car has boogie… and people who can’t pick one, don’t understand how much I love my car.

I took off the Sports Drive (as it guzzles the fuel) and took over the driving properly, keeping an eye out for the sports car. It wasn’t far behind me on the empty stretch of road.

And I knew who it was too… it was that damned player who was after Angela.

Man, if he’d just let us alone, and go after some other poor drunk woman to screw, and let me take care of my friend, we’d be good.

But he wasn’t leaving me alone.

I came to a sign advising me the way to the freeway and took it.

The sports car took it too.

He was right on my tail and not backing off.

I wasn’t beginning to panic too much; as he didn’t nudge me again… just stayed behind me the whole time.

The highway was empty – after all it was around 3am, so really, who would be on it besides truck drivers and people going home from parties like us? – and so I floored it.

The sports car kept up.

Angela slept on in the seat next to me… boy she really can sleep through anything.

It was time to not go home.

I didn’t want this arsehole to know where I lived. You know how it works: you get followed home by a dickhead and they end up killing you because they know where you live, where you work and all the rest, all because you went straight home!

So, I decided to drive around and shake him.

I’ve done that before with the boys I work with – lost them in a minute.  I call it ‘being James Bond’… I’d duck down a side street, turn off my lights and park the car quietly and wait for him to vanish into the night.  He’d wonder where I am, and give up after a while… problem solved.

But I was on a highway.

There’s no side streets here.

So, I had to think more laterally to get myself out of this shit.

I checked how much fuel I had – three quarters of a tank – plenty to get me around just about anywhere I needed and back home by dawn if I had to.

I looked in the rear vision mirror and the guy was still there, but he had a worried look on his face.

Now, I was worried… why was he so concerned about me when I took away his plaything?

Was there something wrong with the car?

Was there something hanging off the car that was wrong?

Did I have fire coming out of my tailpipe (that’s a really bad thing if that happens)?

Was there something he could see in my car that I couldn’t?

My gut cooled on that last one… I hoped I wasn’t driving with more than just two passengers in this vehicle; I really hoped we were okay.

He moved his car into the lane next to me and started making hand gestures to pull over.

He had something in his hand.

That something was black and shiny.

I tried not to panic as I realised that he had a gun!

“Shit! You’re gonna kill me!” I shouted.

He dropped his weapon and pulled out a badge. At the next overhead light flying over us, I noticed it was either a cop badge or an FBI badge – I couldn’t tell which – and I started to sweat.

“Fuck… oh fuck… oh fuck!” I had to find a place to pull over and make sure it was legal; make sure I could get away if I had to… make sure he wasn’t going to kill me.

Then a hand clasped my shoulder, “You pull over and I’ll kill you.” His voice gritted in my ear.

I let out a panicked shriek, “Shit!”

“Keep on driving.” He said, “If you pull over, he’ll get me, and I’ll kill you and your pretty drunk friend.”

“How did you get into my car?”

“Through your boot… it wasn’t locked when you unlocked your car… you really should lock it.” He leaned against the back seat like he owned it fingering his knife; its blade shining dully in the alternating light of the street lights outside.

“I’ll do that in future.”

“That is if you have a future.” He said.

I looked outside and saw the sports car next to me. The cop was staying with me.

He was still worried, but he knew I was trying to think of how to get out of this shit.

The first siren sounded a few minutes later and my backseat passenger panicked.

“What the fuck!”

“I didn’t do anything! I’m driving just like you said.” Tears pricked my eyes and blurred my vision as I peed myself in panic a little (hey, my car, I can pee in it if I want… wouldn’t you piss yourself too if you had some guy car jack you? Sure you would!).

He started dodging around the backseat like a deranged puppy who’d never been outside before chanting, “Make it stop!” as he waved his huge knife around.

“Okay.” I sniffed, “No problems.”

He stopped jumping around and looked at me through my rear vision mirror, “Just what does that mean?”

“I’ll make it stop.”

My foot planted to the floor and I drove the Astra like it had never been driven.  Now, I’ve driven European cars; and they perform really well under stressful conditions. And this something I was looking forward to all night.

4am was coming up and I really tired, wanting to go home, needing to sleep and didn’t really give two flying shits if the arsehole in the back seat ended up knifing himself in the end.

But I did what I had to do to get him out of the car.

It all seemed to happen in slow motion…

The car was traveling at over 100kph…

I made sure Angela was properly buckled in…

… without warning…

…almost without a thought…

I grabbed the handbrake and pulled it up hard!

Spun the wheel around!

Braced myself for an accident…

For the air bag to go off…

The guy in the back seat was thrown around like a sack of potatoes from one side of the car to the other!

He hit one of the windows so hard it broke and blood splattered all over it. I heard a definite collection of snaps and cracks which sounded like his skull and his neck.

But just to make sure, I unbuckled from my seat and got out as the collection of police cars pulled up.

They had their guns pulled as they approached me and one of them took my arm, “Now, just sit down and be calm, miss.”

“I’m fine.” I said stumbling a little.

“No… you’re not.” She caught me as my legs gave out from under me, “He got you as soon as you pulled the brake… and you’re bleeding out.”

Like I said… life is funny… I started to laugh as they pulled him out of the car to find it was the player who was after Angela at the party, “He was after Angela at the party.”

“Yes, we know.” She said, “Now, the medics are here … just stay calm.”

“You know him?” I was stunned and groggy as darkness enclosed my world.

A heart monitor woke me from the longest sleep.

I was tired as hell and felt as though I had died.

Angela was by my side holding my hand. She looked fine, and yet scared, that was until she looked up at me, “Oh, god… you’re awake!”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I whispered.

“Because you died out on that freeway. You lost so much blood.” She started to cry, “And what you did was wonderful. You protected me from a killer.”

“I did?”

“Yes.” She leaned down and kissed my forehead, “He’s called ‘The Player’… he plays with his victims when he catches them. If he can’t have what he wants, he stalks them until he can… and that night, he was going to kill me. But you took me away from him; so he was going to kill you instead.”

“Where is he?”

“You killed him with your driving.”

“Will I be okay?”

“Yes… and the police have let your car back home.” She smiled.

A few weeks after I returned home, I sat in my car; inspecting it, wondering when I could drive it again. However, I caught a cold feeling as I sat in the driver’s seat… looking up into the rear vision mirror, I could have sworn I saw the silhouette of somebody in the backseat with a knife in their hands…and then I hear it…

…I heard his gritty voice in my head: “Keep on driving.”