Burnout

Prologue Careful what you do with your dreams. Some towns'll take 'em and twist 'em into full-blown nightmares. Nowhere'll do that better than the L.A. And here lies another dreamer. Chewed up on Sunset and spat out on a hillside. An arm hanging limp out of a smashed window. The pale moon turning the blood an oily-black. It runs steady down the arm. It comes from the back of the head and over the left shoulder. But a blunt trauma is the least of a dead man's problems. The car is like the body trapped behind the wheel. Mangled, squished, upside down. Steam eases out of a broken radiator. I straighten up, almost slipping down the steep hill. It sits way above the bright city lights. Some of 'em twinkle. Some of 'em don't. I hear the faint cry of sirens in the far-off distance. Could be for anything. If they're coming for this poor bastard, they're bloody fast. I check my pockets for my phone. May as well call it in. But s**t, I left it in the black Ford SUV I’m driving. I look up the hill to the missing section of barrier. The car must have come off at speed on the bend, caught some serious airtime before tumbling to a stop. I decide to head back up the hill. I start walking, but get a sense of something. Ever feel like you're being watched? Well I glance up beyond the SUV, where the road curls tight in a hairpin. It rises steep, to a higher level up the hill. A stranger stands and watches. Nothing but a shadow with the orange dot of a lit cigarette. The shadow takes the cigarette from its mouth and flicks it into the bushes. It climbs into a car. An engine roars and a headlight powers on full-beam. I start up the hill again. Walking. Running. The gradient sapping the life out of my legs. Or maybe it's the shock. The scene of the crash. The sight of the body. And I don't shock easy. I make it up to the SUV. The stranger swings back down the hill and around the bend. Driving a dark-grey saloon on fat tyres with just the one working headlight beam. The car roars past and down the hill into the distance. This is all my fault. And the stranger's gotta be involved. I've gotta catch 'em before they get away. I jump behind the wheel and drive.