Christine Rides Again

Chapter 5; Hit and Run

Luck seemed to be on his side for once. Tuesday passed in a blur, and Dennis had managed to avoid Leigh pretty easily despite the few classes they shared together. Being the last one in the room and the first one out had proven effective. By lunch time on Wednesday, he was ninety percent certain that he'd be able to make it through another day without running into her. Though he was also certain that she had caught on to his avoidance, and would probably make it harder for him to do so.

With his mind clouded by many unwelcome thoughts, he grabbed the brown paper bag containing his lunch from his locker and headed out to the bleachers. Every day, five days a week, he and Arnie would come and sit there during the lunch hour. It was the safest place to eat without being harassed by Buddy Repperton and his goone squad. As if it weren't empty enough without Arnie, the school felt even stranger without its regular bullies. He took a seat on the fifth row up and set the bag down beside him, looking out at the field that was full of players practicing for the final game before exams started.

If it weren't for almost being paralyzed from the waist down, he would have been among them. Since his accident, he hadn't thought much about a new career path. Part of him didn't want to, because it would only add to the reality that had become of his life. It was his own fault, really. He'd known the dangers of getting distracted, but just couldn't help himself when he saw Arnie and Leigh together, and Christine too. One mistake, and it had cost him the future he'd spent his life, since he'd been old enough to throw a ball, working towards. Another weight of the aftermath of that damned car.

The junkyard of Darnell's garage remained in its seemingly permanent state of abandonment. Heaps upon heaps of scrap metal, worn down car parts and tyres took up almost the entire vicinity, except for the dirt road that led up to the recently rusted, chain-locked shuttered entrance to the garage itself. The entire place had been still since that night, apart from the brisk visit made by Dennis and Leigh, it was as dead as Arnie himself. Except for the one thing there that was alive;

A 1958, autumn red Plymouth Fury.

Christine remained in the junkyard in the exact same spot she had been dumped in after being crushed. She no longer resembled a car, and her best days seemed to be long behind her, having been reduced to nothing but a compressed cube of faded red and rusted silver. Her once shining paint had become dull, more grey than red, and flaked in places, leaving traces of red on the dirt around her. Everything that she had fixed when she was asked was now broken again, and had remained that way for almost the entire month. She had lost her spark the night that Arnie had been stolen from her by them.

Arnold Cunningham. The sweet, shy and sensitive senior that had stumbled across her in a condition only slightly less worse than she was in now, and had fallen in love with her regardless of how many people tried to tell him otherwise. He had remained loyal until the very end. It was them, the shitters, that had ruined everything. No one came between the two of them, and because they couldn't they had forced her to kill him.

A strong wind swept through the abandoned yard, howling against the broken windows of the garage and causing the rustle of fallen dead leaves in its wake. Christine's crushed frame creaked against the pressure of the wind, but as it faded to a gentle breeze, her movement didn't cease. The cube began to unfold slowly, the creases began to iron out until she was once again the shape of a car. Shattered glass reformed into the windshield, flattened tires became round again and plump with air, and as her grille expanded across her front, the rust disappeared and the red and white paint shone once again. In a matter of minutes, she was fully restored with no trace that she had ever been crushed to begin with. Not even a scratch. Her engine was the last thing to repair itself, and the second the final dent was ironed out, she gave a roar as she came to life which simmered down quickly into a nearly silent whirring noise.