The Mechanic Preview

It was raining, hard. But, it wasn't a normal rainstorm, it was something much darker. Some people find it comforting or soothing, but not this, this rain was thick like ink, coating everything and slinking around like oil. It was like tears from the angels themselves. I could feel the cold rush upon my face, the trickles streaming across my cheeks, the pain washing over my senses and every part of my body. The world around me made no sense, it was shrouded in shadow and all consuming darkness. The only light came from the partially functioning stereo mounted in the dash above my head. My ears were filled with ringing, accompanied by static and the incessant tapping of the rain hitting the shattered windshield and the twisted metal that used to be my Camaro. My eyes moved around searching for anything in the sickly green light from the stereo, sitting inches from me I spotted my quarry. I moved my hand for the pack of Marlboros, needles of pain stabbing along my arm, nearly incinerating every nerve. Under extreme duress I retrieved my last cigarette from the pack and placed it between my lips and tried to light it with the lighter in my pocket. But the pain and the heavy rain were too much, I gasped as it was getting hard to breathe and the cigarette fell into the blackness once again. I strained to move my head and I gazed out of the car into the endless sky. My eyes began to shut, shifting to more darkness.
I came to behind the wheel of my Camaro, sitting in a desert bathed in orange light. Immediately I noticed the pain was gone and that the car was completely intact, save the steam roiling out from under the hood, I glanced around the interior and the black leather was dry, not even cracked like it had been before. Confused I opened the door and stepped onto the gravel which crunched under my boots. The door clicked shut as I began to pace around the car, it looked brand new, like it had just rolled off the showroom floor. But the steam was pouring out from the hood occluding my view of what was beyond the right side. I stepped through the cloud and my boot heels clicked against pavement. I wafted the moist steam from my view and my eyes rested on the pristine black top under my feet. It stretched as far as the eye could see perpendicular to my car, which I wasn't even sure if it was mine at all. The sky was scorched in the same hue as the gravel and the clouds were a dirty white. There was no sun that I could see and the air was still, what was even stranger is that even though it was the desert, it wasn't hot. It didn't feel like a degree over seventy. I slid back into driver's seat and fumbled around the dash board looking for my cigarettes and I found them propped up against the left side quarterline. I opened the pack to be greeted by twenty cigarettes, a thin smile crossed my face as I reached for my lighter, but the pockets of my blue jeans were empty, undaunted I pushed the cigarette lighter into the dash and a few moments later it popped back out. I lit my cigarette as I found a perch on top of the trunk lid. I took a long drag trying to make sense of the situation in my head, the gloss blue paint and white racing stripes glinting and untarnished in the strange ambient light, the chrome inlays glistening and the SS emblem twinkling along with the rest of the chrome. The silence around me was almost deafening and very disconcerting. Not so much as an insect made a sound, the only audible noise was the hissing steam. I flicked the butt of my smoke away and walked back to the front of the car, I reached above the SS emblem on the front grill and wrapping my bandanna around my hand lifted the hood open. The 396 V8 was spotless and as I waved the steam aside, I knew exactly what was wrong, the engine had overheated. With a sigh I shut the hood and took the best course of action, sit and let it cool down. I went back to my perch and took out another cigarette to sit a spell. Surveying up and down the tarmac a familiar noise reached my ears, a throaty rumble grew louder and louder. I looked to my left and on the horizon a black shape appeared and was getting bigger and bigger and was moving with speed towards me.
It got within a mile and I could clearly see that it was a 69 b-body Charger. The black car was tearing down the road and the roar of its V8 filled my ears. I stuck my thumb out, my cigarette clinging to my lips as he burned past me, not even slowing down for a moment. As he passed I stepped down and walked into the road, the dust kicked up by its wheels hanging in the air around me and I watched as it rolled down the road, only to shrink and disappear over the horizon.
"Asshole," I cursed as I put my hands into my pockets and walked back to my car. I kicked a stone off into the distance as another sound came creeping to my senses from the distance. A different sound, more garrulous and coarse, but distinctively an engine, my first thought was a diesel of some sort. Taking a drag and exhaling the plume of smoke in front of my face I rested my eyes on the horizon yet again. A large silver mass appeared and rolled along the tarmac, it came closer and the squat frame of a GMC truck body trailing a tow bar became clear. I lifted my thumb again and this time the oncoming vehicle slowed down and pulled over in front of my car. I threw down my smoke and walked to the driver's door, Kerry Runde Towing painted on it in neat semicircles surrounding a logo of a paddle boat pulling a large cruise ship across churning water. Before I could rasp on the window, the door swung open wide and a tall, thin man stepped down the running board. He was dressed in a simple grey jumpsuit and boots. A Fram patch was sewn over his left breast and on his right was a name patch which read K. E. Runde. A large trucker hat sat upon his head with the brim drawn low blocking his eyes, and a large Mopar logo fastened on the front of the hat. He looked to me to be about his twenties, around my age, but he had long white hair which I found very strange on such a young looking man.
"Nice truck you got there, mind helping a stranger in need?" I spoke first. The driver's head immediately turned to me after casting a glance at my car. "I just need a liter or two of water, can you spare some?" I inquired after snagging a glimpse of two water cans on the back of the truck.
"You're no stranger to me buddy." The driver spoke with a raspy voice that ground its way through the still air.
"What?" I replied, startled by his unorthodox answer.
"You're a mechanic right?" A thin smile crossed his lips and a slight chuckle emanated from his throat, his white hair moving as he did so.
"Um. Yeah, I am."
"Then you're practically a brother!" He laughed hard as he extended his hand to me, "Kerry Runde, at your service my friend!" Perplexed I took his hand and shook it firmly, trying to force a smile on my face. "So what is the problem you got here?"
"Radaitor is out of water and the car overheated." I gestured over to the steaming hood which didn't subside even a little. Kerry took a finger and raised the brim of his hat, still covering his eyes from me.
"I can see that. Well, I'll take a look for myself and see what I can do." He moved past me and looked under the hood through the swirling steam. I pulled out another cigarette and walked over to Kerry.
"So what's it look like?" I mumbled as I groped for my lighter, forgetting that I lost it somewhere.
"Need a light?" Rasped Kerry as he pulled out a Zippo with a pair of crossed wrenches embossed on the front. I opened my mouth in astonishment, "That's my lighter you bastard!" Kerry simply chuckled as he cast the small object to me. I caught it and began to study it looking for the telltale marks that it was indeed my lighter.
"I know it's yours pal, that's why I'm returning it to you. Like I told ya, you ain't a stranger to me." He laughed again as he worked his hands around the engine checking different parts for a failure.
"Were the hell did you find this?" Venom seeped into my words.
"You dropped it when you crossed over," he said nonchalantly as his hands continued to work over the engine.
"Crossed over? What the hell are you talking about? What is this place?" A wash of realization crossed my face as my mind flicked back to the dark night, the last thing I could remember, upside down in my Camaro with the rain pouring in, and blacking out. Kerry must have noticed the expression on my face, his thin smile appearing again. I dropped my cigarette as the question formed in my throat and crossed my tongue, "Am I dead?" Kerry crossed his arms and leaned up against the front end of my car, the smile on his face getting wider, to an almost disgusting cheshire grin.
"That you are my friend" He chuckled again looking down to the ground.
"Is this heaven? Cause it sucks."
"It sucks because it's supposed to, this is hell my friend," his raspy voice echoed through the stillness as he burst out into a raucous laughter.
"Hell? There's no fire, or lava, or demons. No Satan either? Unless..." my gaze shifted to Kerry, who began to laugh even harder.
"No pal, I'm not the Boss, I'm just an employee." He composed himself some and continued on, "As for the fire and shit, that's elsewhere; no, where we are is technically part of Hell, this is Nether, sort of a midpoint between Hell and earth, and Earth is a midpoint between here and Purgatory, which is next door to heaven. I think you get the picture."
"Yeah, I kinda do. But why am I here? I don't think I've done anything bad to deserve damnation." My head began to swim a little as everything started making sense in my head. I took out another cigarette and lit up.
"Well, to be honest, you're not damned. Not yet at least, that's up to you. The Boss will explain it to you when you see him." I opened my mouth to ask another question but Kerry cut me off with a raised hand. "First things first, your Camaro is shot. It didn't just overheat; the radiator is cracked and three hoses have failed. I'm a little surprised that you didn't see the pool of coolant under the car." He pointed a finger to the ground and I followed his gesture to a massive pool of liquid under the front axle, an ink like rainbow swirled within it.
"There's an oil leak too" I flatly stated, grim faced.
"Oops, must have missed that." Kerry laughed once more, his white hair flipping around his head, barely restrained by his hat. Without another word, he climbed back into the cab and turned over the engine. There was a loud clunk as he shifted the transmission into reverse and the white lights sitting adjacent to the tail lights lit up and the gravel creaked as he eased the tow bar closer and closer to my Camaro. With the engine still running he scampered down the running boards and drew the cable down and hooked it to the undercarriage of the car. He waved for me to sit shotgun while he hoisted up the front end of my car. He opened the door and set the car in neutral before he made his way back to the truck. With a creak the driver's door opened as Kerry took his seat next to me. The cab was disturbingly neat, not even the tiniest speck of dust was present. A C/B radio was mounted in the middle of the dash board accompanied by a pair of sunglasses and a bobble head of the cliche 20th century portrayal of Satan, the red skinned figure with a deep blue pinstripe suit, ram horns that protruded from the forehead, and a devious looking mustache and goatee which framed an even more mischievous smile.
"Cute."
"Don't worry my friend, that is not how the Boss really looks." Kerry gave a slight chuckle as the slammed the transmission into drive and eased onto the accelerator propelling the truck forward slowly so as not to snap the tow cable. I shifted my gaze out the window and followed the featureless and bleak scenery as it flicked by the window with every passing foot. The truck's engine fell into a steady rhythm of whining up to five thousand revolutions per minute and being punctuated by the thunderous clunk of the gear change. The passing of ground was almost hypnotic, just orange gravel flicking by with increasing speed, still not a cloud in the sky.
"Does this place get anymore interesting?" I casually threw the question over to Kerry.
"Well, like I said, this is Nether, but we're almost to Hell. Just sit back and relax."
"That's easy for you to say" I mumbled as I resumed looking through the spotless window on the expanses of nothing. He took a hand off the wheel and plucked the aviator sunglasses from the dash and put them on, careful to not show his eyes. Suddenly the ground on either side of the road fell away sharply to deep gorges and the lighting began to shift from the dull orange hue to more red and the sky became flecked with patches of black, soot laden clouds. The horizon started to darken as the truck drove on along the blacktop. A massive object loomed upon it, like a fortress, and it started to grow larger and larger with every passing second. At first it seemed as a massive gloom titan, a giant wall that stretched for as far as I could see, as the distance shrunk, details came into focus: smoke stacks belching smog from massive maws; the wall itself a dense amalgam of buildings huddled together haphazardly dotted with lit windows. The truck kept accelerating to the giant structure, faster and faster, the wheels complained against the sudden strain. Ever closer we drove, a massive demonic statue rose out from and above the hellish city, wings outstretched, blocking out a good portion of the burning red sky. A massive head sat upon it's shoulders with horns stretching out and contorting in an unholy manner upwards to pierce the sky. Accompanied by a cavernous mouth filled with jagged teeth and a furious pyre raging within; barely contained by the fangs and bellowing smoke high over the face, struggling to occlude the fires burning in the gargantuan eye sockets. The body was a skeleton with every bone expertly carved, much like the rest of the statue, out of pure obsidian. The tow truck sped forward at over one hundred miles per hour along the black top putting the lake of lava surrounding the structure into clear view.