Cruise Control

I'm gonna hit the highway like a battering ram,
on a silver black phantom bike.
When the metal is hot and the engine is hungry,
and we're all about to see the light.

Bat Out of Hell by Meatloaf.

On the outskirts of town, was a deserted stretch of broken road that the everyone knew as No Mans Land. It was called that because it laid as the only road down at the old factories that were shut down long long before I was born.

The crumbling buildings, inclosed in old rusted fencing, with broken windows and graffiti on their walls – they were even said to be hunted.

It wasn't a place I'd like to be at normally, especially alone, but tonight was Friday night – which only meant one thing.

Well, a couple of things.

Parties and drag.

No Mans Land, which was normally dark and down right creepy, was lit up with headlight and spotlights from the seemingly endless row of cars everywhere. The normally silent night, was alive with the loud sounds of music blaring, engines going off as people showed off their rides, and the people talking and laughing – a few actually fighting.

I eyed the guy next to me, a Soc – in his trademark Mustang, that had some type of beef with me. "What's his problem?" I asked my best buddy Steve who was riding shotgun with me. He tossed his head back, a couple of the swirls of his hair moved around, and laughed.

"His girl is a member of your fan club." He said, still chuckling. I just shrugged and revved the engine of the borrowed '65 Pontiac GTO, there was no telling what girl Steve was referring to. I'm not one to toot my own horn but my fan club, as everyone called it, seemed to be endless.

'I'm taken anyway.' I thought, glancing down the road to where I knew Sandy, along with Evie, my baby brother Ponyboy and a few other members of our little gang were waiting.

The driver of the Mustang mocked my actions, revving his engine loud and hard. It didn't sound bad but the souped up sky blue machine we were in sounded better, it was better.

"Ready buddy?" Steve was practically bouncing in his seat with excitement when some hood I didn't know came out with a makeshift flag. I revved the engine again as my answer.

The hood held up his hand and started counting;

3...

The Soc had his engine going, to loud and long I was worried he'd blow a piston going at it as he was. Wouldn't be much of a race then.

2...

Steve slapped my shoulder and hooped out the window, making those standing near us yell back, cheering us on.

1.

We were off -

Sky blue of the Pontiac side by side with the candy red of the Mustang.

Beside me Steve hooped and hollered as we raced down the street, I could feel the grin on my face stretching wider as the adrenaline kicked in.

People always told me that I could get drunk without even touching a lick of alcohol, and this was why. The feeling of the thrill of the risk was all I needed to feel on top of the world.

I could see the awful looking spray painted finish line ahead and I continued to push it. The speedometer climbed up and up, higher and higher along with it that feeling inside me grew.

"We got 'em!" Steve called, hitting the dash again and again.

I chanced a glance from the former of my eyes to see that, sure enough, we were inching ahead of the Mustang. It was going to be a close one but we were going to make it first.

And then...

...that's when it all happened.

I felt the steering wheel shake violently in my tight gripe, before the jerked to the side out of my hands right as there was a loud bang that sounded like what I thought a cannon going off would.

Automatically I knew what happened; we blew a tire.

Oh shit.

"Oh shit!" I heard Steve holler out. I tried to keep it steady, I tried to slow it down but it was out of control and all I could do was brace myself when the car lurched to the side.

I could hear thumps and screams and then the loud crash as the car finally came to a violent and painful stop. I know my body left the seat but I don't know where I ended up hitting.

As my vision went from bright white to gray – every second passed it became darker, I could hear people screaming. I think they were screaming, it sounded all muffled like I was under water or something.

"Steve...!"

But there was no water nearby...

"...elp! Help!"

Steve, is he okay?

"-pop!"

Gotta check on Steve.

"...Pony...onyboy!"

Pony?

And then, I couldn't hear a thing and everything went black.

Authors Notes:

Oh no.