You come to your senses with a shock. The bright lights of the oncoming car is a shock to your system and you are suddenly present like a wide-eyed deer caught in headlights. With a last split-second pull, you manage to avoid a full, head-on collision and with millimeters to spare you miss the other car. Your heart is beating like the pistons of a race-car, the breaths you take shallow, fast.
'What the flying fuck is happening?' you hear yourself screaming, your voice strengthened by the adrenaline pumping through your body.
You check the speedometer and see that you are blasting along with an uncomfortable 145 km/h. Your feet never used to get this heavy and with an unfamiliar unease you take your feet of the gas and come back to a respectable speed of 100 km/h. Outside it's pitch-black and nothing seems even remotely familiar. While you switch back the gears you feel the cold steel of the gear shift contrasting sharply with your warm, sweating body. Your heart skips a beat. You distinctly remember your gear shift to be made of leather, not steel. It's hard to see but you squint your eyes and look around the car.
The realization hit's you harder than any head-on collision could have done.
You are not in your own car.
You feel a hyperventilation attack coming on, something you thought to have conquered in your childhood. You decide to park your car along the side of the road. Whether or not you would have done that turns out to matter little, since out in the distance you hear a whining sound, getting stronger by the second. Soon, the symphony is joined by flashing lights. Red, blue, red, blue, red, blue, on and on.
You swear softly, slow down and park your car on the side of the road. Lying has never been your strong suit, although at this point you have no sane clue how you got here or in this car, so telling the truth would be akin to a lie. The seconds before the police has pulled up behind you go by painfully slow. Like a good citizen you clamp on to the steering wheel, somehow hoping, wishing, believing that that would get you out of this situation.
Steps on the asphalt. Boots ticking slowly towards you.
Three short taps on the window. You fumble to look for the button to take down the window but it takes you four awkward seconds to realize that this car is too old for that. You proceed to roll the window down.
'Good evening officer'. You decide against cracking a smile. That might look suspicious.
'Good evening sir. Licence and registration please.'
Your heart sinks in your chest. Of course those would probably not be here. While you pretend to look for them, you try and fumble through your pockets, realizing you have none. You are wearing pajamas's and you don't even recognize them.
'Just a moment, sir.'
He only makes a sound, somewhat growling. You assume you are not acting not too suspicious, still. You look around the car, cracking your brain as hard you can, where the required information possibly could be. You check under the visor, which is where you always keep it. You pull it down and a few papers fall on your lap. Receipts for the hardware store. You look further. Perhaps in the glove box. No luck. You feel the officer basically breathing down your neck, hearing him thinking and wondering what is taking so long. You try and remain calm, fail and frantically start looking anywhere. Luck only has to strike once, and looking in the pocket behind the passenger's seat proves to be your golden ticket.
'Here you go, sir.'
He looks at the documents, back at you, back at the documents.
'Any idea why I stopped you, sir?'
'I have a distinct feeling I was speeding.'
'Correctemundo. You are not lawfully required to do so, but could you tell me what you were doing speeding, this time of night in Atascosa County, Texas?'
'No idea, sir.' The ticket stopped bothering you the second you released you were at least 400 kilometers from home.
It was liked the officer smelled the disturbed feeling rising up inside yourself, because the next question was only exacerbating your fears.
'What's your name, sir?'
'Frank Sanders', you responded, the tremor in your voice quite distinguishable.
Without breaking, the police officer continued with 'care to tell me why the name on these papers are Lance Mulligan?'
You drew a blank. You could not explain the how, the where, the what, the why, even if you would want.
'Sir, do you mind if I take a look around in the inside of your car?'
You thoughts were racing like a thoroughbred race dog with rabies. Any hesitance would only make you more suspicious.
'Ehhh... by all means officer' you pushed the words past tongue and teeth.
'Then please step out of the vehicle, sir'.
You obliged, stepping out onto the road in nothing but slippers and a silk pajama.
''Please take five big steps towards the other side of the road and sit down. Sir.''
You obliged.
''Take him out. Take him out now. Half his body is inside the car. Just smash the door real hard a few times and be done with it.''
''What?!?'' you exclaimed a bit too loudly.
''What?'' said the police officer, looking up from the car.
''Nothing sir. Just a cough. It's cold out here.''
Sure you were in your pyjamas. But this was Texas. In August. The police officer eyed you suspiciously, then rolled his eyes. You relaxed a little. You figured he thought you were just plain crazy, not dangerous crazy.
''He's wrong'' the voice said again.
With the officer now checking the trunk of the car, you whispered back to the voice to shut the hell up. You were done with this shit.
''With what shit'', he responded?
''You know. Batshit-crazy killing sprees'', you answered.
''Your words. Not mine.'' The voice almost sounded innocent.
''I am not killing anyone tonight.''
''You will once he finds that bag of cash in the trunk.''
''What?!?'' you called again, nearly jumping up from a seated position.
The voice remained calm. ''In three, two, one...''
''Sir, would you mind stepping over here, please?''
''Now or never, pal''
With feet made of lead, you got up and lumbered over to the back of your car.
''Can you explain this, sir?''
A bag of cash was smiling back at you, sitting in the trunk like it belonged there. Not that the officer agreed to that notion. The thought of prison dawned on you. You did not agree with the idea that that should entail your future. You did not think further. Standing next to the officer, you swooped out your right leg in front of both of his, grabbed his head from behind and pushed it down as hard you could, all the while swooping your legs as fast as possible. His strength was unexpected and he managed to stay on his feet. You were in the zone and slammed down the lid of the trunk down on the officer. Twice. Thrice. After the fourth time, he remained silent.
''See Frank? That wasn't that hard. Now we'll just dump his body and get the fuck out of here.''
Nobody fucks with Lance Mulligan, you thought, while you stepped back in your car, the body being rolled off in the ditch and the car parked behind some lonely trees, away from the road.
''Aint' that right, Frank?'' you proclaimed out loud, grinning to yourself and speeding off.
''Come on Lance. All this violence. Turn your self in. It has been enough.''
''Hmpf. Pussy.''
You hit fourth gear, fifth gear and pound down on the gas, with Mexico just a few dark hours away.
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The prompt was:
You went to bed like any other night and were out like a log in minutes. But when you woke up, you weren't at home. You were in a car (that wasn't yours), wearing clothes (that weren't yours), and holding a bag full of money (that wasn't yours). Suddenly, a police car turns on it’s lights to pull you over. What do you do?
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