I have waited long to tell this story. I can only hope that I have picked the right moment, for if, despite the wrinkles in my face, I am still too young, he will come. And I will be taken as I almost was, all those years ago. Perhaps I should keep it bottled in my brain forever, but that bottle has developed cracks you see, and if I were to lose this story, I will not have warned all that I must warn. In that regard I have waited too long.

It started when I was young- but more importantly- it started when I was beautiful. This may come across as conceited, but it is the truth. I am not beautiful now, so any jealous out there, be at rest. But when cars still had crank-up windows and your mother had to ring a bell to get you to come inside for dinner, I, Christine Sitell, was the most beautiful girl you could picture. And damn, did I know it. I knew it far, far too well. I knew it so well it made me hungry. If I was walking down the street, I would turn to see my rosy-cheeked reflection in every shop window. If there was a boy, of any age, of any attraction, I'd turn to him with hooded eyes and toss my sugary brown curls up into the light, to be fawned over, to be admired. I was not out for love see, not love, it was attention I wanted, and attention I demanded. I wanted attention like a wolf wants a deer- and I hunted in the same way. The girls couldn't stand me, of course, and the boys adored me (of course), so attention came about through love. With the gift of retrospect, I can safely say that I was one of the worst type of people you could have the misfortune to come across. My pretty head was so far up my own ass I am shocked I could breathe. Thank goodness I changed, although I would have preferred a much more pleasant method. My final catalyst was an experience that too this day invokes a child in a dark room, screaming for her parents to turn on the lights. It is what glues me to my mattress in the middle of the night. It is what haunts me. And it happened, as most scary things happen, in the middle of a beautiful summer.

I forget the year, but I was seventeen. I was at my peak. Baby fat fully gone, hair to my waist so I could swing it in whatever direction I wanted. I'd perfected my makeup, but I didn't need it. I didn't need anything. Yes, my net was ready, but there was little attention to catch. Summer meant no school and without school, I simply didn't see many people. I lived in a small town just on the border between Kansas and Colorado. Mountains wouldn't pop up for miles, so the earth there was flat as a farmer's foot and twice as ugly. Miles of starving dry grass. Miles of dirt roads. My town was small, but fortunately, it was relatively compact. I had a house, the Augustins, directly across the street from my family's, and it took only fifteen minutes to walk through both of our front yards to get to it. To walk to any other house took thirty. To walk into town took fifty. Not the most opportune hunting ground. I could have driven into town, but that would be too much work. I had a sizable ego too. They had to come to me. Luckily, my brain was as polished as my nails, and I had a plan before school was even out. 

My car was a convertible from 1955, a gift from my daddy. We had a farm, so we weren't rich, but we had a good farm, so we weren't poor either. My daddy was in the prefect middle where he could buy a nice car with a fully functioning radio for his daughter but would never dream of buying one for himself. "Why would I need one?" He'd say. "I can just drive yours- or the tractor." He'd nudge my momma and she'd laugh. Yes, those were good times. Problem was- I hated that damn car. I was grateful, or I tried to be, but that car had broken down, busted out, or any other turn of the phrase more times that I'd like to count. I couldn't stand it. But the boys in Colorado and Kansas liked two things- pretty girls and nice cars. Even in this season of poor attention pickings, I figured they couldn't resist the combination. So I'd go out with my hair in braided pigtails and white shorts that were a little too small and drive my car all the way down my mile-long driveway. And right next to the Sitell family mailbox, I'd wash my car. There was a spot to screw in a hose a couple feet away, so I wasn't at the exact end of my driveway, but it didn't matter. You could see me just fine from the road. I'd get my buckets and soap and hose that car will it shone like the boiling sun above. But more importantly, I washed it until my shorts became so wet you could see my white panties right through them. I washed it until my shirt pressed against me like a second skin. I washed it. And man, I was right. The boys flocked to me and I soaked attention like the sponges I clutched in my petite little hands. 

I don't know exactly how the news got out, but I imagined (oh, how I imagined) it going something like this. The five Augustin boys that lived across the street would look out their window and see my car and me just having a good time over at my driveway. And they'd go "Wow-WEE look at Christine this morning!" and run and grab their long-corded kitchen phone and call up all the boys from this town and the one over. And once they'd done that, they'd get their big tractor and their busted black radio and drive through their front yard to the road. And there they would sit in the big iron bucket of the tractor and admire me. This last part was not imagination, for the very first day I washed my car, they came out almost immediately and hollered amicably at me from over the voice of some country CD wailing from the radio. "How you do?" The oldest one, Howie, called. "You looking mighty fine today, Chrissy." And I blew him a kiss and said "I know, Howie." That was the ticket. Howie's friends came in droves, bringing beers and even louder radios. A coincidence? Maybe, I thought. But the next time I went out, they appeared again. 

Now, I was quite pleased with this result. It went better than I had even hoped. I washed my car twice a week one I realized what a beautiful lure it was. Sometimes I hadn't even driven it in between washing, but I didn't care. I washed it all the same. It felt like the best of times to me. I couldn't have been happier. And then, about a month into my new routine, I saw it. 

The car.

Howie and his pa had driven to California for the next couple days, but I decided to still go out. Howie was my favorite. He was handsome enough to be in movies, waves of blond hair and blue eyes, short muscles bunched underneath his skin. It was no wonder he liked California, cause they would certainty like him. Oh I would miss him, but even without Howie, the other four would come down, and their friends cars would still drive past and honk their horns and lean out their windows. The ground was littered with cigarette butts and beer cans, Patsy Cline was Falling to Pieces on the radio, and there were two boys from the next town over sitting around the tractor. It was going well. I had just turned to soap up the hood when I heard a faint "What the hell..." from one of the boys behind me. I looked down the road.

There was a car slowing down to look at me, hugging the edge of the road to get close. It was the nicest car I had ever seen. James Bond could've driven it. Red, two doors, 15 inch wheels. We stared, me and the boys behind me, because a car like that had absolutely no business driving down our little hick street. No business whatsoever. But we also stared because it had to be brand new. Cars like that hadn't been made but this year, or maybe the one before. And yet that car held all the wear and tear of a 20 year old industrial steel plow. Rust burned through the paint until it had popped in places, warped, bumpy, and rotten. One headlight had been smashed in and the other was so scratched, I doubted it would work either. But the really incredible thing was the sand. Colorado and Kansas had dirt. Field and roads and, in Colorado's case, mountains, of dusty, rocky, or smooth dirt. You could take your pick. But neither Colorado or Kansas had sand. And this was sand. Fine red sand, so fine it could almost be dust. It coated every window, every mirror, and both of its license plates. Any logos to identify the car were gone under the sand. I'm surprised I could even tell it was red.  It pulled in close, nice and slow. It was so slow it almost stopped for a moment, right where my driveway ended, but right before it did, it gave a long deep honk.

One of the boys hopped out of the tractor bucket, the first to break from his trance. He took a tentative step towards the car. 

It sped down the street at once, kicking dirt behind it like a racehorse.

I went inside immediately. The boys booed as I sped off, spooked but not enough to deter them. Howie, if he'd of been there, would've brought them in, but without the authority of pa or their big brother, the boys were free. They booed. I ran into my house and slammed the door behind me. In my plain kitchen I sunk to the floor, dripping wet and feeling like a damn fool. I'd never even considered abandoning the hunt- and here I was inside. The more I sat there, the more my fear resolved. Obviously it was just a car from California. I thought. Obviously it was some rich fool with a lot of cars that likes to race in the desert. I'll never see him again. It was a pleasing thought, so pleasing it drowned out the others. But they weren't gone. As I lay in my bed that night they reappeared in my dreams. Rust like that doesn't come that quick. They warned. And he honked. They never honk with the windows up. NEVER.

I wish I had listened to them. I wished Howie had stayed in California. I wished I hadn't been, in my own words, a damn fool. But that car didn't care about my wishes. That car didn't give a shit, and neither did poor young Christine Sitell.

I broke schedule. I went out the next day, the moment I woke up. Part of it was defiance I think. I wasn't going to let that car boss me around, no sir. I was never going to see it again. I had no reason to be afraid. I put my hair up in those braids and marched to my car, soap and sponge in hand. 

My confidence rose with the sun. The four boys (Howie was still in California) came trotting down with breakfast and hollered at me ('missed you yesterday Chrissy' 'please make this a daily event Chrissy'). Two men rolled by. One whistled and one blew me a kiss, which I caught with a giggle. I squatted down behind the car to wash the custom license plate which spelled 'Crisy' (Chrissy was already taken), when I heard the rumble of a car on the road followed by a faint gasp from the Augustins- then a low metallic tremor, the sound of boys scrambling out of a tractor bucket. But I couldn't move. My eyes stopped, fixed on my misspelled name. The sponge was getting squashed into a bubbly pulp by my long red nails cutting slowly into it. I heard the tires, scratchy and evil. I was waiting for the horn.

Instead I heard the voice of Howie Augustin.

"You alright, Chrissy?"

He had rounded the car and was standing right next to me, shirtless and sweating in the summer sun. A curl of black car grease trickled down the side of his face and almost seemed to blur his freckles together. 

"My brothers weren't giving you trouble were they?"

I'd always liked Howie, as I thought most girls probably did with his whole blue eyes and blonde hair and square jaw thing-- but in that moment I truly loved him. 

"You're back so early!" I exclaimed, finally standing and looking over the road, where his pa was pushing their old pickup solemnly down the road. Howie's brothers had rushed from the yard to their house, no doubt to avoid pushing it themselves.

"Well it's the darnest thing." He leaned against my car, arms crossed, so heavy he almost made the convertible go sailing out into the road. "Halfway through Utah and she's doin' fine. Miles of empty road, big beautiful desert and plateaus, the works, you know? Beautiful stuff. And then this car. It just came racing out the desert, not on a road or nothin'. Just plum out of nowhere! And it passed ol' blue there and she just sputters and stopped. Got her back up for a couple miles and she stopped again..."

Howie trailed off, looking down at me. I wish I could tell you the precise look on my face, but I'm sure it was A-grade horror. Now, I don't know how my face looked, but I remember the feeling. It was worse than the car driving by. It was worse than the car driving up the driveway and smashing me to bits. It was worse than that. It was probably a different car. I mean, what are the odds, Christine?  I gulped and sat awkwardly on the edge of my bumper. Howie squatted beside me and put his hand on my shoulder. I should've loved that. I didn't even notice. My head was too full of a horrible paradox. It was too big of a coincidence for it to be the same car, yes. But it was a much bigger coincidence for it not to be the same car. 

Howie, bless his heart, had no idea what was going on. I think he decided I was having some sort of medical fit, because he grabbed my shoulders with his catcher mitt hands and led me firmly up my driveway. I think his pa yelled at him once, but he yelled something back and that was the end of it. The hose was still on. I heard it hissing like a garden snake all the way up the driveway. 

Honestly, I was quite unsure on why I was so scared of the car. I had seen it once, for maybe a minute. It had honked at me. A frightening honk, a jarring honk, but it was a honk that should not have rendered me the level of useless that I was. I had even gone back out! I was willing to face it. Looking back, now that I've had a good long while to think about it, I've concluded that it was the dust. Without the dust, I would look through the window and see, in bold clarity, who was driving. I'd see the logos. I'd see the license plate. And no matter what these things held- even if there was no one driving the car at all, I would know. And that would be enough. Yes that was Part I of the Fear. Part II was Howie's escapade, which meant several things (I have had several years to ruminate this in my mind- allow me a single paragraph of ramblings). One, it meant that the car was real. Whenever anything strange happens, I think it is human nature to at least consider the possibility that it was all in our heads. But Howie hadn't seen the car, or heard about it yet, and the run-in still occurred.  So, it was real then. Two, it meant it had the power to kill. Ol' blue was a car, yes, but it was still dead. And Three, it meant the car would return. 

"Howie?" I asked. Howie had released my shoulders to open our kitchen door, but at my voice he came running back.

"Yes, Chrissy?"

"Which way was the car going?"

"East."

I felt a cold hard lump settle in my throat. It was not an obstruction of sadness however, but one of true and total dread. East. Away from California. Back towards me.

I did not sleep that night, but instead told Howie everything. I described the car using no less than six metaphors and other random various descriptions, each more vibrant than the last. Dust like on the moon! I'd said. But red, Howie, redder than blood, redder than the dawn, red, red, red. I don't think I ever described it appropriately, but Howie understood I was afraid, and he was always a simple man. Not stupid, understand, never stupid, but simple. He saw black and white, yes or no, good and evil. We sat at my kitchen table, my mamma and my daddy sleeping above us, and he listened to every nonsensical word I said. Every single one. And when at last I took a long deep sigh, and a subsequent swing of the beer Howie knicked from the garage fridge, Howie said

"Chrissy, you know what I think?"

I shook my head.

"I think it's some creep. Some creep took a fancy to you, and he just wants to come oogle while you wash your car- that's all."

"Oh damn!" I said, "I left the hose on!"

"I'll go get it." Howie offered, standing from the table. He never got a shirt, all this time, and I remembered how cold the summer nights could be. 

"No, it's okay." I stood from the table myself, and before Howie had time to object, I grabbed my sweatshirt off the back of my chair and ran from the house. For at heart, I was a spoiled and conceited girl, but I was not a heartless girl. And I didn't want to let Howie go out there. And quite honestly, it never occurred to me that I could've just let the hose run. The thought seemed ridiculous. 

The Kansas-Colorado border had never been a lively place. But that night it was especially silent. I stood, barefoot, just outside my garage and waited for the crickets to start, for the muffled music from the Augustin's house maybe even a coyote howl- sounds that normally accompanied the night. But that night, it was like the farm was in a little glass display dome. It was absolutely silent. As I started to walk, even the soft slap of my feet against the gravel driveway seemed like too much noise. I started to get an itchy embarrassed feeling, like when your phone rings in the middle of a library. I sighed and instead turned my attention upwards to the stars that twinkled in thousands of clusters and millions of colors, especially out here, where the lights of the city didn't quite reach. The night air smelled like all of Kansas and Colorado smelled, like grass, dirt and cows. But in the brisk clear night, the air smelled like something much cleaner, like it does in the middle of winter sometimes. I got a sharp chill down my back and slipped my sweatshirt over my head. For a moment I was lost in a haze of pink fabric and fuzz, until I at last found the head-hole and wrestled it down my torso. Once my eyes were free, I saw the end of the driveway, with the dim shape of my convertible waiting for me. I'm almost there! I thought happily, glancing back at my garage's warm welcoming lights. But unfortunately, I remembered something. My heels skidded to a stop, scattering the gravel in ear-shattering clangs. It really was too quiet. I should've heard the hose running. I listened, carefully, but instead of the hose I heard the low rumble of an engine starting up.

I was glued to my spot. The car's lights flicked on like fireworks, revealing its spot right in front of my mailbox. The light illuminated nothing but the shape of the windows and headlights, tinted red by the sand, cloudy and obstructed. But there, right behind the film of sand, was a slowly shifting shadow. It looked like a person, but it couldn't have been a person. It was too thin and too tall, and, although I couldn't be sure, I thought it had a pair or horns, horns like a deer. I saw a long, thin arm reach out- and a horn pierced the silence. I heard it the second time, and this time I understood. It was beckoning to me. 

I ran the complete opposite direction- flying like the wind.

I had turned just in time to see Howie appear out the door, shouting my name and looking terrified. His eyes glossed over in horror and he stopped, amazed, at the edge of the garage. The engine of the car roared from behind me, but I didn't dare turn. I was hauling ass up that driveway- and I would've made it all the way in a snap if there hadn't, at that moment, came a sound like every trash compactor in the world had been flipped on at once. It was a great metallic crunch and the roar of an engine- and a horn again. It sounded less like a car horn and more like the horn of a hunting party closing in on a kill. A car horn is meant to be a surface sound, one that skims off the ears, but this was a sound that nestled into the space between my ribs and resonated. But even it was drowned out by the great metal crunch. It was so loud, I stopped and threw my head down between my knees, hands clasped over my ears so they wouldn't burst. I twisted my head around, as slow and careful as I could manage, and saw the shredded ruin of my convertible, tires popped off and rolling, sparks flying into the night like fireflies, spare bits swinging sadly in ruin. My convertible was shredded- flattened to a pulp, mutilated to where I couldn't see my beautiful Crisy license plate or the yellow paint I had cleaned so frequently. Just like that- it was gone. I'd never liked that car, but I was sad to see it go. If anything at all, it was the barrier between the long mysterious road and me. Now it rested like roadkill under the tires of the car. More specifically-the back tires. For the car was still driving. It was still hungry.

Lord, it was not even slowing down. I got up, easy now that the noise had stopped, and ran once more, ran like I'd never run before, ran to Howie- who must've gone back inside. The open door of the garage beckoned to me, and I was almost there, almost there- but despite the muscles I pulled in my legs, one seventeen-year old girl could not outrun a car.

It caught up just as I reached the garage. I stepped into safety and security just as the car ruined it. Its engine magnified in the small space, a whirl like an especially strong wind- the kind that ripped through children's kites and tore out the pages of books. The kind you'd stay inside and slam your shudders for. The car paused, but the engine continued to roar. I was pinned against the back wall. The door to the garage was just to my left, but I'd never make it. The car was going to flatten me. One single tap on the gas and my legs would pop like a snake under a tire, blood would coat the walls and the floor and even the ceiling of my nice country garage. Maybe I'd stay alive once my legs were crushed, alive just long enough to see whatever horrible thing was in the car. I'd live just long enough to wish I'd never lived at all. The smell of a hot greasy engine would be my last sensation.

The car honked again. I cried out in agony, clamping my hands on my ears.

"WHAT DO YOU WANNNNT!" I screamed at it, a horn of my own in response. 

There was a light honk. The engine roared. I looked down at the dusty hood of the car, just inches from my thighs, twisted and warped with rust. I looked at the lighted window, and saw the figure's head tilted, waiting. Waiting. The headlights were like eyes, looking at me, illuminated. Waiting, waiting.

I don't know why I did it. I had no better ideas.

I bent at the waist, my hands still over my ears, eyes screwed together, and kissed the hood of the car. It was so hot my lips blistered afterwards, and it tasted, not like metal and sand, but like hot burning sulfur of hell. I looked up from the dusty wet spot, where the stamp of my lips stood out among the sand, and faced the shadow in the car. The engine still roared on, loud as ever, but I heard it anyway, such a different sound that it stood out merely by contrast. It was a laugh, a low laugh, a laugh that sounded like the crunch of gravel underfoot. And it was the laugh that scared me, more than the horn, more than even the car. The car was a shell. That laugh was what I should've feared all along. And yet- it did me no harm. The car's engine dropped lower, but it still roared all down the driveway as it sped off, just as fast as it came. I could see the shadow all the way down, and hear it's laugh all the way down, but the farther away it went, the higher the laugh became, until it was so shrill and piercing that I could hardly stand it- and then the car hit the end of the driveway. And just like that, it was gone.

I never saw it again. 

I turned, feeling stiff and heavy, towards the door. Howie was standing in the lit doorway, holding my father's shotgun against his chest. 

"Did you hear that laugh Chrissy?" He asked, and that expression told me he had seen everything. But I simply brushed past him and went upstairs, past my parents, still sleeping peacefully in their rooms, past my family photos lining the walls, and past all my old makeup kits and mirrors lying just outside my doorway. I walked into my room, which encompassed me like a nest around a bird and I slept- slept for two days straight. I would never want attention again.

For Howie, it all seemed like a terrifying but great adventure. For weeks afterwards he would brag.

"I was with her! Yes sir, I was." He'd say. "Christine Sitell, a woman so beautiful, the Devil himself came roaring after her!"