28.

I heard from the front of the vehicle a somber crackling, and shortly afterwards detected the faint smell of burning. I tried again, this time not so subtly, to open the door only to find that it was, in fact, locked.

"No lighter?" asked the man, still smiling. "Oh well, I've got my own, anyways." He snapped his fingers in front of his cigarette and it lit.

"How'd you do that?" I asked as I kept pulling on the door handle.

The driver looked forward then, back to me. He thought for a second before grinning again. "I've got my ways." He watched me tug on the door handle some more before reaching over to his door and touching the switch. After the click I pulled the handle again, throwing all of my weight against the door. The metal creaked but it still didn't budge. About the same time I realized that the door was now bent in some way that kept it from opening, I also realized that the front end of the car was most definitely on fire. My eyes narrowed as I turned back to the driver.

"Let me guess," I said, "You're one of Grod's friends." At the mention of Grod's name, his expression abruptly hardened, and the cigarette dropped from his fingers.

"Grod?" He repeated. He took a long, urgent drag on his cigarette. "Let's get one thing straight, kid. I ain't no friend of Grod's." The man put the cigarette out with his foot as flames exploded out from beneath the trunk. I felt the fire's warmth on my legs.

He fumbled, noticably upset, for his cigarettes, pulled one out, and again lit it by snapping his fingers. He took a few more hits while the impending fire grew and its heat started to burn my legs. "Like I said, it's been about a month now."

"Let me out of the car, man," I started to plead.

"You know, I think I could use some music," he said, reaching for the radio. There was a click, and a gravelly country song began to croon from the speakers. The man adjusted the volume until the crackling of flames receded into the whining vocals and steel guitar. "So, a month ago, I met this fellow up in Rock Springs, Wyoming..."

I began to calculate the best way to break the window using my fist or, if necessary, my head. My posture must have caught the man's attention, because he broke off again and looked at me with mild annoyance. "Now just settle down, now, we ain't in no hurry."

I heard the words he was saying, but my mind refused to make sense of them. The only thing going through my mind was my flesh turning into thick, black smoke. I pulled my feet up onto my seat. "You're going to kill me, aren't you?" I asked.

"Well," said the man, smiling again, "We'll get to that shortly." My heart sank.

"Who are you?" I asked. I'd surely been closer to death during my adventures with Grod, but I couldn't shake the feeling of disappointment I felt at the idea of being killed by a total stranger. It just wasn't... right.

"You keep asking me that," the man said. "Seems to me you'd best be worryin' about yourself, not me." He sucked on his cigarrette and exhaled a cloud of bluish smoke that intertwined with the thicker, toxic-smelling smoke starting to pour from the vents in the dashboard. "After all, you' gotta see that your problems aren't just about to end, Paul-boy. Oh, no." He continued talking as groped around in his pocket for something. "Anyways, where was I?" He pulled out an intricately made silver-handled dagger with a blade no more than four or five inches long. "Oh yeah, I met this guy up in Wyoming."

"What's that dagger for," I asked as I oriented myself with my back against the car door. Maybe, just maybe I'd be able to break his ribs with a swift kick. Then again, something told me that lighting his cigarettes with his fingers wasn't the extent of his tricks.

"Oh, this little thing?" He held it up to the firelight, and I could see the engravings on the blade catching the light as he turned it. "Just a little trinket I picked up awhile ago. Works great for harvestin' souls." I tried to push farther away from him, but the door wasn't budging. "In Wyoming, you know, they grow these huge squash. Like -" he put the knife down on his pants leg to spread his arms apart "-this big. You believe it? Something about the soil up there, I guess. Special dirt." A wistful look settled on his face and I tried to decide whether to take advantage of the break in his attention and grab the blade. But he picked up the dagger again before I could make a move, and started picking at the fabric covering the car's ceiling with it.

At this point I noticed my throat start to burn a little with every breath. I couldn't help but think of all those little black particles becoming lodged in my lungs and throat, each one making them a slightly less effective until they stopped working all together. That is, unless he decided to kill me with that dagger first. I coughed.

"So this man," the stranger said, "This man says to me."

His story had suddenly become the least of my worries. I coughed some more and interrupted him, "I can't breathe."

He looked at me again with mild annoyance, and shook his head. "Man, you fleshpiles are so fragile. What a joke." He reached for the window crank on his side. "Fine, I'll..."

He didn't get a chance to finish his sentence. As I struggled to draw another breath, the car's windows exploded outward and clean air rushed into the vehicle. A look of shock overcame the driver's face. "No way," he said.

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