Test Drive
This short story in the horror genre was published in volume 1, #6 of In Transit. Story copyright 1988, William D. Cissna.

When he first hit the highway, tires ovalling out of shape and sedentary gravel suddenly propelled in all directions in outrage,
he didn't really have a clear destination in mind. Just get OUT, get going, move, move, move, his foot, thinking for him,
insisted, pushing the pedal to the floor. The Maserati responded, leaping forward into the pitch-black night, down the
pitch-black highway. Other folks must be controlling their urges, he thought: no other light in the night but his own twin
heads.
He treated the road like an Italian test drive: open it up, see what the car could do, never mind the bumps, the turns, the speed,
the laws.
Besides, he needed some distance and some time between him and that dark house, now quiet.
He knew she'd be mad at him, wasting fuel and being reckless in the middle of the night, though she wouldn't say anything.
But he'd always been that way, breaking free and taking flight. Never got himself hurt, or at least not too badly. Never stopped
along the way to shack up with some babe. And at the end, he always came back, even if it wasn't always easy to do that.
It would be harder now.
The dotted white line took on the appearance of continuity on the straight-away as he tested the car's limits, measuring his
will. Unwanted, he could feel the sweat soaking his palms. Always bothered him that he couldn't keep the steely cool that his
eyes advertised -- the sweat would sneak out and give him away. He'd made a point of never shaking hands after a speed ride,
or when one of his many bosses cussed him out, or when she'd been dumb enough to question something he'd said. Didn't
want, couldn't let the bastards know he might be even the slightest bit scared.
He mashed the gas pedal into the floorboards as he thought about the last time she'd questioned him. After all, she'd married
him, said all that shit about honor and obey, right there in front of the judge. So where did she get off ever saying "no" to
him?
"She shoulda known better," he mumbled to himself, squinting through the windshield as the headlights reflected off the
little white squares that defined the roadside. He could feel the engine grind a little harder as he started the climb from
foothills to mountains.
Rich bitch having an adventure with the ex-con, he'd figured when she first started hanging around. But it turned out that,
except for the car, she wasn't all that rich. Stupid of him to marry her. Stupider for her.
The stories about the money were only the beginning, of course. She was a gold-plated lying bitch, just like all the others,
telling him all sorts of kiss-ass tales. But he was sure as he could be she was cheating on him, and finally, tonight, he'd said so.
She'd denied it, of course, sworn she was true, begged him -- no, dared him -- to prove it, name names, show pictures, produce
testimony.
Lying bitch. He didn't need any of that. He just knew. And besides, he said so. That's all that should have mattered to her.
It was what he'd done to end the argument in the house that gave him such a start when, coming around a right curve, he saw
her for the first time, sitting in the passenger seat.
Can't be, his mind argued. It's her car, alright, but she is dead, I hit her and hit her again and kicked her and slammed her
with a two-by-four, just like I did with the guy back in Alabama, before the jail time. She was gone, she was history, she was
nothing but a bag of bones and blood lying on the kitchen floor.
He looked in awe at her as she turned her ruined head and offered a sickly smile. "Look ahead, Jake," she hissed between
broken teeth.
It took him a moment to realize she wasn't advising him on planning for his future. He wrenched his eyes forward and saw the
dim but coalescing image of a solid wall of rock looming straight ahead, closing at 95 miles an hour.
"Jesus!" he yelled.
"Turn left, turn left," the impossible figure to his right urged.
Lying bitch. She'd try to kill him if she could. He yanked the wheel hard to the right.
The tires screeched in agony as the car shot sideways, then the rubber fell silent as the Mas launched itself into space.
Before gravity did its job, he could see the road heading off in the distance in his rear view mirror. Lying bitch was telling the
truth!
Then he started to scream, as much to cover the sound of her laughter as to forestall the inevitable contact with the rocks so
far below.
***
Horror shorts -
by Bill Cissna
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