He had been nearing the end of MacArthur Boulevard when he ramped off the embankment and the drop from the highway was not as drastic here as it would have been if he had lost control just a quarter of a mile earlier. Nevertheless, having been launched at an angle, the car was in the air long enough to tilt slightly to the right; therefore, it came down only on the passenger-side tires, one of which exploded.
The safety harness tightened painfully across Tommy’s chest, cinching the breath out of him. He hadn’t been aware that his mouth was open or that he was screaming, until his teeth clacked together hard enough to crack a walnut Like Tommy, the big engine stopped screaming on impact too, so as the Corvette rolled, he was able to hear the fearsome and familiar shriek of the mini-kin. The beast’s shrill cry was coming through the heating vents from the engine compartment. Gleeful shrieking.
With a hellish clatter to rival the sound of an 8.0 earth-quake shaking through an aluminium-pot factory, the sports car rolled. The laminated glass of the windshield webbed with a million fissures and imploded harmlessly, and the car tumbled through one revolution and started another, whereupon the side windows shattered. The hood buckled with a skreeeeek, started to tear loose, but then was cracked and crunched and twisted and jammed into the engine compartment during the second roll.
With one headlight still aglow, the Corvette finally came to rest on the passenger side, after two and a quarter revolutions. Or maybe it was three. He couldn’t be sure. He was anxious and disoriented and as dizzy as if he had spent the past hour on a roller coaster.
The driver’s side of the car was where the roof should have been, and only the suspending web of the safety harness prevented him from falling into the passenger seat, which was now where the floor should have been.
In the comparative stillness of the aftermath, Tommy could hear his own panicky breathing, the hot tick of overheated engine parts, the tinkle-clink of falling bits of glass, the whistle of pressurized coolant escaping through a punctured line, and rain drumming against the wreckage.
The mini-kin, however, was silent.
Tommy didn’t delude himself that the demon had been killed in the crash. It was alive, all right, and eagerly wriggling toward him through the wreckage. At any moment, it would kick out a vent grill or climb in through the empty windshield frame, and in the confines of the demolished car, he would not be able to get away from it fast enough to save himself.
Gasoline fumes. The chill wind brought him the last thing he wanted to smell: the astringent odour of gasoline fumes so strong that he was briefly robbed of his breath.
The battery still held a charge. The possibility of shorting wires, a spark, was all too real.
Tommy wasn’t sure which fate was worse: having his eyes clawed out by the hissing mini-kin and his carotid artery chewed open – or being immolated in his dream car on the very day that he had bought it. At least James Dean had enjoyed his Porsche Spyder for nine days before he had been killed in it.
Although dizzy, Tommy found the release button for the safety harness. Holding on to the steering wheel with one hand to avoid dropping down into the passenger’s seat, he disentangled himself from the straps.
Tommy located the door handle, which seemed to work well enough. But the lock was shattered or the door was torqued, and no matter how he strained against it, the damn thing wouldn’t open.
The side window had broken out in the crash, leaving not even a fragment of glass stuck in the frame. Cold rain poured through the hole, soaking Tommy.
After pulling his legs out from under the dashboard, he squirmed around to brace his feet against the gear console between the seats. He thrust his head through the window, then his shoulders and arms, and levered himself out of the wreckage.
He rolled off the side of the tipped Corvette into matted brown grass soaked with rain, into a cold puddle, into mud.