Trust Your Mechanic

The little red hatchback bounced hard, swerved, then with a squeal of tires, caught traction again on the cracked asphalt of Interstate 805. A grinding noise emanated from somewhere near the rear tire. For the first time since she set out, real fear began to trickle down Maria's spine, as the prospect of breaking down on the side of the deserted highway became a very real possibility. A cold, familiar lump of anxiety crept up into her throat. Instinctively, Maria checked the rear-view mirror. There was nothing back there but the hazy, red line of the desert horizon below a darkening sky. Normally, such a sense of solitude would be a comfort to her. But right now, the feeling of being so vastly alone there in the middle of the arid New Mexico wilderness made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

Maria adjusted her side mirror, angling it down and toward the car. She leaned forward, craning her neck, to see if she could see her rear tire, but she had no such luck. She cursed softly.

Why yes, it would be easier to simply pull over and check if that pothole did any real damage, she thought. But that's exactly how the killer gets the co-ed in every slasher film ever made. I'll pass on that, thank you very much, and goodbye.

Maria slunk down in her seat, turned on the radio, and did her best to ignore the waves of unease pulsing through her. Out here, FM radio stations on the Interstate were as sparse as auto shops. Maria listened to a televangelist preach about Satan and his minions in disguise for a while, before the bleak fire-and-brimstone act began to unnerve her even more. She switched stations. The Alternative was an hour and a half deep into a block of punk-rock, which she didn't find to be an improvement. She quickly flipped the stations again. This time, she settled on a quiet Art Blakey tribute, and tried her best to imagine the hiss of static that permeated the station was a comforting, gently crackling fire.

Maria took a deep breath, and slowly let it out, gripping the steering wheel tightly with both hands. Most people didn't believe in the therapeutic nature of simple breathing techniques. They dismissed it as New Wave nonsense, mere counter-culture lunacy. But Maria believed; in fact, she more than believed, she knew better. Deep breaths. More oxygen. Clarity and calmness.

The steering wheel shuddered for a moment, and began to give the slightest resistance to the right.

“Oh, fuck you, you goddamn walnut,” Maria muttered, then laughed with exasperation. She glanced at the side-view mirror again. She still couldn't see the tire, but she also didn't see any sparks or smoke.

It was dark out there, and getting darker every minute that the sun dipped below the horizon. She let off the gas a bit, and the steering seemed to loosen up again. She sighed, and dared a little smile. Luck was still on her side, and soon, hopefully, she was going to crest one of these hills to see the twinkling lights of some town in the distance. She could stop at a motel on the outskirts, get a burger somewhere, shower, and settle in, hopefully, to some cable TV for a change. It would be just like a normal day, for once; just like a million other people -

Suddenly, the car was filled with a loud, electronic alarm, and Maria jumped in her seat. She reached over and turned down the radio, just as the alarm stopped, and the tinny, stilted cadence of a recorded voice began to speak.

“This is an Emergency Broadcast Message. This message is being broadcast at the request of the Colfax Sheriff Department, as well as New Mexico state authorities. Attention residents of Colfax County: Please be advised – an inmate of Colfax County Hospital has escaped, and is currently at large. Authorities are asking all citizens to stay home, lock their cars and front doors, and to be vigilant. Do not stop for hitchhikers, or vehicle breakdowns. Report all suspicious activity to -”

Maria turned off the radio, and stared at the edge of the headlights, where they faded away and the dark took over. Then she laughed. It was a peculiar, sarcastic, even angry laugh.

“Well, that figures,” she said out loud. She began to calculate the chances that she was not the only one out here making their way down the interstate, and suddenly, Maria found herself hoping very much that she really was all alone in the middle of nowhere. She pressed down on the accelerator, but the steering wheel began to shudder and tighten up once more. This time, when she let off the gas again, the shimmy stayed.

Fuck. Maria slapped the heel of her palm against the steering wheel. Well... the hell with it. If there was any chance of stopping before, it's gone now. There's no way I'm going to let them get me, she thought.

Maria looked out the window, and imagined a dark figure cloaked in a dirty, mint-green hospital gown, crouched behind every desert rock. Waiting. Searching.

Nope. There's no way in Hell.

Maria turned back to the road, and gasped. A large billboard zoomed past. Maria whipped her head around, but she couldn't make out anything but the tell-tale shape at the bottom, of a large red arrow, and the words “MILES AHEAD” in bold, white letters on top.

“Goddamnit!” She turned the radio back on, but the emergency message was over, replaced now with Shirley Horn trying her best to be heard from under a raging inferno of static. Maria looked in the rear-view mirror. She could clearly make out the receding billboard against the twilight sky, but it wouldn't be long before nightfall swallowed up the silhouette. She did the math in her head, this time on the chances of Danger lurking in the shadow of the billboard, just waiting for some foolish stereotype, all alone in her broken car, to roll up and serve herself up on a silver platter, thank you very much, and goodbye.

Then she began to think about the miles, one after another, with her heart thumping between her temples, and the creeping fingers of anxiety slowly wrapping around her throat every step of the way. She calculated how many rosaries she'd get through if she prayed at the crest of every hill that whatever town was ahead, was close, and had a mechanic. Maria pulled the car over, made a wide turn, and went back the way she came.

No reversing for this stereotype. You're going to have to outsmart me. Maria slowed down and passed the billboard, then pulled over and made another wide turn. She winced as the steering wheel shuddered hard, but she didn't stop the car until she had pulled completely around. The headlights lit up the billboard.

Rudy's Gears 'N Beers

Bar, Gas, and Auto Repair

Open 6 Days a Week, 12-10

The state of the sign was as comical as its hillbilly-fusion service mashup. The entire thing resembled a sand-blasted saloon banner. Maria couldn't be sure if it even had real bullet holes, or if the knots of the wood had rotted out (it was both). The white paint of the billboard immediately made her think of the pallid, blotchy skin of dead things in the horror movies from her childhood. The entire sign would have given her the impression the business had been closed decades ago, had it not been for one thing.

It was the same thing that made her risk the stop in the first place: the blazing red, freshly painted arrow at the bottom, twisting upwards to point up the interstate, and the bone-white words 5 MILES AHEAD emblazoned across it. Maria knew there had to be something up there. Didn't there? If not, what was the point of the paint touch-up?

Sure, why not sit here and debate it, just like the foolish stereotype you swore you wouldn't be? Maria looked at herself sheepishly in her mirror, then hit the accelerator. The tires spun, throwing gravel behind her, but she didn't move.

“Oh. Oh, no. Stupid, stupid girl.” Maria hit the accelerator again, and the whole car rattled. The engine groaned, making a sound like a slide whistle built of rusted razor blades. The “Check Engine” light practically burst into a klaxon wail. Then the steering wheel loosened for the briefest of moments, and the car took off again. Maria took a deep breath. That was a little closer than she cared for, and her situation wasn't much improved. Yes, there was possibly a place to stop ahead, but what if there wasn't? That tire wasn't going to last much longer.

“Just five miles is all. That's all you have to give me,” Maria said encouragingly, as she glanced at the side mirror again. The only thing she could see were the yellow laser-beam streaks of the dingy center stripe zooming past.

For every inch of the next five miles, Maria's eyes searched for any sign of a glow on the horizon, anything that would signal a bustling, very-much-open-for-business, auto repair and beer joint combo. All she saw was rough, pot-holed interstate stretching off into the night under a starry sky. The dark patches of tar that had once been used to cover the long, meandering cracks in the sun-baked asphalt, now began to resemble spider webbing. Maria tried not to think about what that would make her.

After nearly seven miles, by the tripometer's count, Maria had almost given up hope, when the interstate suddenly veered off to the left, around a large boulder surrounded by a small grove of mesquite trees. On the other side of it, what looked to be dusty yellow parking lot lights rose from behind the next rise. Maria slapped the steering wheel with her palm again, this time in relief.

It didn't last long.

As the buildings came into view, the appearance of the bar gave little to hope for. The same peeling billboard paint that made her think of horror film victims, was splotched like a flayed skin over the derelict structure. The windows were dusty and looked as though they hadn't been opened in years. Maria struggled with the steering wheel as she pulled the protesting car into the parking lot. She felt as if she could have cried when she caught sight of the front door, boarded up, covered in cobwebs, and pock-marked with nests of mud daubers. Still, out of pure desperation, she circled through the parking lot, and followed the curve of the L-shaped building to the far side, where the lights dimly held a fragile hope.

There was a car!

Maria nearly leaped out of her seat. She craned her neck forward to see the full front of the building, as she angled the car through the parking lot. There were windows. And there was light in them. There was even a soda machine out front, and two large garage-style doors together on the far end.

This must be the “Gears” part of Rudy's entrepreneurial gamble, Maria thought wryly. She pulled hard at the wheel, and the car begrudgingly circled around the lot, back to the front of the only part of the building that showed signs of life. By some miracle, Maria was able to wrestle the shaking car into a space in front of one of the garage-style doors. The front door had a dusty “Open” sign askew, facing out of the greasy window. She turned off the car.

Maria stepped out, and was wholly unprepared for the booming echo her car door made when she shut it. The magnitude of the silence that followed, however, was even more jarring. A feeling began to wash over her, a feeling that she was being watched, from somewhere beyond the lights. She shivered again, and walked as quickly as she could to the front door. For a split second, as she reached for the doorknob, Maria imagined it would not turn, giving whatever was watching her from the darkness time to rush up from behind and grab her. She shook her head, throwing the paranoid thought from her mind, and confidently grabbed the knob, turned it, and opened the door.

Everything inside of the auto shop took on a greenish-white hue, due to the fluorescent bulbs, one of which flickered a cadence of slow death. The walls were filled with ads for car maintenance products and accessories – a calendar of hot rods from 1992 hung dusty and bleached behind a cluttered desk that looked as though it had been purchased at a garage sale. A row of lightly tinted windows along one wall looked out into the auto bay with the two large garage doors. Maria looked through them, into the murky garage. There was no one in there, no signs of life – it was as if someone had turned on all the lights and then abandoned the pla-

“Miss?”

Maria jumped and squealed in surprise. She whirled around to find a short, middle-aged Hispanic man standing in the open doorway of what must have been a bathroom behind the desk. He was drying his hands with an oil-stained blue rag, and Maria noticed that one of his hands looked to be smaller than the other.

“Jesus, you scared me!” Maria said, laughing nervously.

The man said nothing, only finished drying his hands. He tossed the rag onto the desk, and rubbed the back of his neck. He looked tired, his eyes red, eyelids half-closed. Or intoxicated, Maria thought. For some reason, this thought made her very uncomfortable, and she folded her arms defensively.

“I'm sorry, I didn't know anyone was here,” she continued.

The man reached across himself into his breast-pocket with his good hand and pulled out a pack of Lucky Strikes. As he lit up a cigarette, he mumbled to her in a gruff voice, “I thought I had locked the door. Close in five minutes.”

Maria watched him as he spoke, and noticed it wasn't just his hand – his whole arm was twice the size of the other. His good arm. Her eyes fell on the small hand, and Maria noticed he had only four fingers there. The man brushed some ash that fell onto his dirty mechanic jumper, and Maria saw it had a name-tag - “Henry”.

“I-I'm sorry, but... well you see, I hit a pothole a while back, and it jarred the car something awful. The more I drove it, the more I could feel something was wrong with one of the rear tires. I didn't want to stop because it was getting dark and there wasn't really anywhere to -”

“Which tire, ma'am?” the man said impatiently, coming closer.

Maria instinctively backed up, before she even realized he'd asked a question. She had been so relieved to find an open auto shop only minutes before, but now - something about this man and this shop unnerved her.

Somehow, it felt... wrong.

“The rear driver side,” she said softly.

Henry the Mechanic came closer, and held out his hand. The good hand. The big, strong, calloused hand that looked like it would be as hard as the head of a sledgehammer, if he made a fist with it. The nails were dirty, with black grease under them, and peeling skin in the palm. Thick black hair curled around his wrist. There were thin scars, lighter than the surrounding skin, criss-crossing his wrist, too.

“Keys?” the man said, just as gruff as before.

Maria eyed the man's hand. He's waiting, the thin voice inside her head warned. Waiting for you to take the bait, it said.

“Miss? I need your keys,” he said, impatiently.

Maria only nodded, and reached in her bag. She didn't want to take her eyes off of him, but she couldn't find the keys with her fingers. She began to laugh a strange, almost giggly laugh. Maria heard it, and wondered if Henry could hear how afraid she was, too.

“Miss?” the man's voice came out almost like a hiss... he dragged it out the way a child would mimic a snake, in a high falsetto, and it immediately sent a chill down Maria's spine.

Maria's fingers suddenly clasped something cold and metallic, and she recognized the feel of the key-ring. She whipped the keys from her bag and dropped them into the man's outstretched palm, never touching his skin.

“Sorry, they tend to get buried in stuff,” she said, but he had already turned around and walked out of the office to the garage, where he pushed a button, and Maria was drowned out by the squeal of metal-on-metal as the door slowly shimmied upwards. She watched the man pull her car into the garage, and onto the lift, and she began to relax a little.

Maria sat down and picked up a magazine, making sure to have a good view of her car from behind the pages of an Auto Trader from February of three years ago. She watched her car rise in the air, and Henry the Mechanic duck down out of sight beneath the carriage. She flipped through the magazine, and her eyes were drawn to the models posing with the cars. Each page she turned, she felt herself become a little more at ease. She wondered if the models ever felt silly, posing there with a 3-ton vehicle, trying to make it look engaging and sexy, while they stood by, diminutive in comparison. Maybe they at least got to keep the swimwear. It was certainly fashionable. Maybe not something she would wear to the beach, but – well, who knows? It had been years since she'd seen herself in a bikini, and even longer still since she'd had a problem, young miss-

“What?” Maria said, dropping the magazine as she jumped up to see Henry the Mechanic leaning in the door frame of the garage.

“I said, you've got a real problem, young miss.” Henry the Mechanic seemed normal again. He was more than normal, really. He was disarmingly aloof, as though he wanted nothing more than to get her into the car and onto the road. Still, truth be told, the prospect of standing in this confined space under the green flickering fluorescence was equally bad as having to possibly squeeze through the door and past Henry the Mechanic.

As if he read her mind, Henry pulled her keys from his pocket, showed them to her, and laid them on the desk. He then moved to the front door of the office, and looked out the window into the parking lot. Satisfied there were no more late night visitors, he turned the Open sign around, and flipped a switch, shutting off the parking lot lights. Maria took no time moving around the desk to pick up her keys and head into the garage.

At least he was courteous enough to recognize I was uncomfortable, she thought for a moment, before her fleeting relief was headed off by that little voice again.

Or maybe he just wanted to trap you in here, instead.

Maria stuck her hand into her purse, but didn't let go of her keys. Just in case that little voice wasn't just a paranoid, ignorant delusion... which, of course, it was.

The ramp and car were back down again, and Maria moved around to the other side of it. She checked to make sure the passenger door was unlocked – it was. It was definitely preferable to be near the driver side, but that door was also nearest the door she had just entered, the same one Henry would be walking through any moment. Maybe to charge her for the work and close up shop; and maybe... Anyway, having the car between them certainly made her feel safer. Just in case, thank you very much.

Maria looked around the shop. Every wall was lined with tables and racks, all full of tools and car parts, and all of it in various conditions and stages of assembly or disrepair. In the corner, hanging from the ceiling, a television mutely played a soccer match. Somewhere in the same corner, from a cabinet of shelving, a radio softly played a slow Tejano song. Behind her, a table littered with grease-stained, and oily tools separated her from the next vehicle bay. She brushed up against a tire iron, and softly cursed, as she examined the dark smudge that would surely stain her jacket.

The door shut loudly, and Maria turned around to see Henry lock the door with his keys.

Shit, she thought. Deep breaths. Clarity. Calmness. She cleared her throat, and tried her best to speak in a pleasant, but no-nonsense voice.

“Well, I don't want to keep you. How much do I owe you?”

Henry faced the door, rattling the door knob to make sure it was locked. He looked over his shoulder back toward Maria. He never looked directly at her. Always to the side of her, she noticed, or even through her, in a way. She didn't like it, no matter how aloof.

“Well, it's like I said,” Henry the Mechanic remarked, almost playfully. “You've got a real problem, miss.” As he spoke, Henry casually made his way along the shelves, gently touching tools and gutted engine parts. Maria took a step backwards, towards the rear door of the car. Something about the way Henry moved made her think of the nature shows she used to have to watch; it reminded her of the way lions would stalk a herd of gazelle. She gripped her keys tighter.

Henry nonchalantly walked the shelves of auto shop detritus, his deformed hand hanging limply by his side. He was staying near the shelves, but getting closer. Maria tried to make herself sound impatient, still holding onto a frenzied hope that nothing dangerous was boiling under the surface of normalcy.

“And I very much appreciate it, but I really must be going. My brother – husband – is probably wondering why I'm not back yet. And I'm sure you've got somebody waiting on you,” she said as friendly as possible.

“No. Noooo,” Henry said, almost mockingly, as he made a pouting face in Maria's direction. His voice brought goosebumps to Maria's arms. He was almost to the passenger side headlight, now. Maria stepped back toward the rear bumper.

“Henry,” Maria said, and this time she could hear her own voice waver. “You're really starting to creep me the fuck out.”

He stopped. Cocked his head to the side. Looked at her, confused.

“Henry?” He stared through her for a moment, then looked down at the name-tag on his coveralls. His eyes slowly turned in his head, and this time, he looked at her. He really looked at her. Something cold and very, very real began to spread across her back, and the hair on Maria's arms stood on end.

Without warning, Henry leaped forward around the car, and landed, his good arm waving about, crouched as though he were going to pounce on her. He yelled, “HAAAHH!” and pulled a face as he did it, a wild grin that was almost playful, if it hadn't been drenched in insanity.

Maria screamed, and jumped behind the car, scrambling around to the other side. “STOP!” she yelled as forcefully as she could. Henry quit smiling, and slowly stood upright.

For several tense seconds, the two of them stood there, the little red hatchback between them. Maria crammed a whole intelligence briefing of escape scenarios into those few seconds. Her eyes flickered over every corner of the room, leaving no possibility, no matter how small, unconsidered. She even glanced at the darkness below the car, wondering if there were some exit down there in the bays, beneath the concrete.

Maria froze.

The tire was flat. Still flat. “Henry” the Mechanic had never even touched it.

The last vestige of doubt about the danger she was in melted away. The very real understanding that her safety was in jeopardy crept up from her toes to her fingertips. She realized she could hear her own heart pounding in her chest. She hoped the Mechanic couldn't.

It could give him all sorts of ideas.

“Please.” Her voice was soft now. It trembled. She tripped over the words, struggled to get them out. “Please, just let me go. I just want to leave. I promise...“ She began to cry now. She wiped at the tears streaming down her face. She inched her way closer to the driver's door. She pulled the keys from her purse. “I promise... I won't say anything... to anyone...”

The Mechanic matched her, step by slow step. He was smiling again. It wasn't hard to imagine row after row of tiny, sharp little teeth behind his lips. It was a cruel mask.

Maria's fingers brushed against the door handle. She was going to have to be quick. Open the door, hit the locks so he couldn't get in on the other side. Jump in, start the car, throw it in reverse, and bulldoze the doors down. Just like the cop shows.

You're smarter than this, is this really the plan? Something from out of a movie?

Maria shook her head, tried to dislodge the nagging, doubtful voice. She needed to be decisive. Focused. That was going to be the determining factor. Clarity. Calmness.

“I know you're scared,” the Mechanic said. His voice startled her. It was eerily calm. Assured. Confident. “But it's only because you've been sick for so long, you can't remember what it was like to be free. In the Before.”

“Oh my God...” Maria gasped softly, and the water that had pooled in her eyes could be held back no longer. Tears streamed down her cheeks. He's insane. He's completely insane.

Maria pulled at the door, and prepared to dive in.

It didn't open.

She screamed, pulled the keys from her purse, and began to try to jam them into the lock. She could hear the Mechanic laughing.

He'd locked the door, the son of a bi-

Something smashed into her head, and Maria fell backwards, dazed. When she opened her eyes, her vision was blurred. She could feel the cold concrete floor on her back, and the lights above made her eyes hurt. She tried to turn over and push herself up, but something was pinning her down. She rolled her head to the side, and stared at a rusty spider wrench lying on the floor next to her. One of the lug wrenches looked as if it had been dipped in dark red paint. Maria reached up, felt the side of her head. Her fingers came away warm with blood.

Something big and dark blocked out the lights. Her vision was clearing. The Mechanic stood over her, silhouetted against the light. He was looking down at her, and holding something in his hand. It looked like a big, shadowy cartoon gun in the dark.

“The others couldn't remember, either. It's because you can't use your eyes. But I helped them. I'll help you, too.” The Mechanic knelt, his knees pinning Maria's arms to the oil-slicked garage floor. He leaned down, his deformed arm dangling over her head. Maria turned her face away, whimpering. She felt the cold, childlike fingers of Henry's deformed hand brush her cheek, found that there was strength in them. They curled like cold tendrils of earth across her face, and she screamed. “I just have to make a hole...” the Mechanic said, and then he was drowned out by the whirring of a drill; the cartoon gun.

Maria struggled, but her head ached so bad, she couldn't think straight. She felt weak, helpless.

Stupid, stupid, stupid girl, this is it.

The sound of the drill was so close, she thought it could bring the whole building down. Then she felt it, the sharp pain just in front of her ear. She screamed again, her legs kicking at air frantically. She felt a warmth between her legs, realized she had wet herself. Her vision blurred, her skull vibrating, bouncing off the cement as the drill did its work, and scooped its way into Maria's head.

Her vision darkened, and she could see the blood begin to pour across the floor, knew it was her blood. The sound was no longer deafening, it was louder than that, it filled her whole structure. Her legs were kicking involuntarily now, as interrupted signals of distress rocketed from her disintegrating brain, and just before it all turned to blackness and specks of light, she could hear above it all, the crazed shriek of the Mechanic, as he ground the drill down into her gourd, thank you very much, and goodbye.

“Hold still, HOLD STILL MISS, MIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSS...”

Maria dropped the magazine, screamed, and jumped up, as Henry staggered backwards against the desk.

“Jesus! I'm sorry, miss! I'm sorry!”

Maria put her hand to her breast and gulped for air, as she wavered for a moment on trembling knees. Her heart was beating out a dance rhythm; she felt as though she'd nearly drowned. She waved the mechanic away and shook her head.

“No – not your fault – startled me –,” Maria sputtered between great heaving gasps. The dream had been so vivid, and coming out of it was like a violent birth. She touched her head, where she'd imagined the tire iron had crushed her skull. This time, instead of blood, she felt sweat. She straightened up, as her breathing returned to normal. The intensity of the dream had pushed her beyond feeling embarrassment for her reaction, but as Maria fully awakened from the nightmare, she was little relieved to find herself still in its setting.

Henry the Mechanic shuffled nervously at the desk. “Are you alright?” he asked. His voice was deeper than Maria remembered.

She nodded. “I'm sorry for that. I must have dozed off. I was having a nightmare. It was... you just startled me.”

Henry nodded, and his face softened; still, he seemed to look at her from the corner of his eyes, as though he were worried he would set her off again. “I'm sorry, miss... I need to lock up for the night. If you'd like, you can wait in the garage. Here are your keys.” He pulled Maria's keys from his pocket and held them out toward her.

Maria stared at Henry's muscled arm. She could feel her sweaty gown sticking to the small of her back. There was no little voice warning her this time. Just the ghost of the dream wailing in her head. But this wasn't a dream; this was reality. And Henry really did look more afraid of her than she felt of him at that very moment.

Maria reached out and took the keys quickly. She walked a wide circle around Henry the Mechanic, and entered the garage. She could hear him in the office, locking the door. She looked around the garage. It was just as in her dream. The littered shelves, the smell of grease and car parts. The television was even showing soccer highlights on a news program. From somewhere in the corner, a radio softly warbled Tejano music. Maria shivered.

She approached the hatchback, and gripped the keys tightly in her hand. As she rounded the table nearest her car, she froze. A familiar panic burst through her like a winter gale, shattering her calmness and clarity like glass.

The wheel was completely off.

A door slammed shut behind her. Maria didn't dare turn around. She closed her eyes, balled up her fist around the keys. The radio switched off, and the garage was suddenly thrust into an eerie, echoing quiet. She could hear Henry's heavy footsteps come closer – they skirted the shelves, passed her, shuffled in front of her.

“You've got a real problem here, miss.” His voice came deep, and slow.

Maria whimpered softly. Tears ran down her cheeks. She opened her eyes. Henry was kneeling down beside the tire. He was bent over it, doing... something. Maria edged closer to the table.

“Yeah, a real problem, miss.”

Maria's fingers curled around the end of one lug handle of the spider wrench. The metal hardly made a sound as it slid from the workbench.

Henry never heard it. He didn't turn around to see Maria raise the spider wrench high over her head, and step behind him. He did not see the news on the television switch to the report of the escaped patient of the Colfax County Hospital. Neither did he see the photo of Maria appear on screen, in the same mint-green gown she now wore under her jacket. The same jacket that had belonged to the dead woman in the trunk, the same dead woman whose car now sat on Henry's own lift. Henry the Mechanic saw none of it. His last words only hung in the air of the quiet garage; then they were wiped out forever by a quick, blunt echo.

“Miss? Miss?”