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dead?"
    J.D. didn't know what to say. It wasn't the
kind of thing he could look up in the troubleshooting section of
his owner's manual.
    "Still got a few miles left on me," she said,
tugging at the strap of her dress that had slipped too low over her
mottled chest. Her eyes were wide but as dull as Volkswagen
hubcaps. "Besides, all I need is a little body work and I'll be
good as new."
    "What's the big idea, screwing up my date
like that?" J.D. angled his head so he could look at her out of the
corners of his eyes.
    "Your cheating days are over, rough rider.
You've only got room in your heart for one girl now."
    "Whatchoo talking about? And why did you dump
over my toolbox?" J.D. couldn’t be sure, but it looked like
radiator fluid was leaking from her eyes.
    "A lady's always in search of that one good
tool. What say we get it on?"
    "No. I'm going to stuff you behind the seat
of that Suburban over there, and you're going to stay until you're
both a collector's item."
    "J.D., is that any way to treat a lady?"
    "Well, you ought to be glad I think enough of
you to leave you in a Chevy. There's plenty of Datsuns out
here."
    She shook her head, and tattered meat swung
below her face. "I don't think so, muscleboy."
    Her finger flexed like a carb linkage as she
beckoned him closer.
    J.D. couldn't help himself.
He was as captivated as he'd been by his first Hot Rod magazine. She smelled of
gasoline and grave dirt, hot grease and raw sex. She'd oozed out
all over the spare tire. He'd never get his trunk clean.
    "I think we're ready for a midnight run." She
slid her mangled tongue over her teeth.
    He leaned over the back bumper. He felt a
cold limp hand slide behind his Mark Martin belt buckle. She put
the mashed blackberries of her lips to his ear.
    "And from now on, I ride up front," she
whispered, and her words came out with no breath.

    Three months, and J.D. was dragging.
    The summer heat was wearing on him, and he'd
lost twenty of his hundred-and-forty pounds. But it was even worse
for her. She had gone from pink to green to gray and still the meat
clung stubbornly to her bones.
    He hid her during the day, in a self-storage
garage he rented. Floyd had given him hell at first, asking him why
he walked all the time these days, was he afraid of putting another
dent in Cammie or what. But lately Floyd had quit the ribbing. This
morning Floyd said J.D. looked like he'd been run all night by the
hounds of hell.
    "Something like that," J.D. wanted to say,
but he'd promised to keep the affair a secret.
    And that evening, as he'd done every night
since he'd picked up his new passenger, he carried a five-gallon
can of gas to the garage and filled up the Camaro.
    And when the sun slid behind the flat
Midwestern horizon and midnight raised its oil-soaked rags, he
backed the car out and pointed it toward the street.
    "Where to tonight, Cammie?" he asked, as if
he had to ask.
    She grinned at him. She was always grinning,
now that her face was mostly skull. "The usual, muscleboy."
    He drove out to that three-mile stretch of
open black road and idled. Oblivion beckoned beyond the yellow
cones of the headlights.
    "One-sixty-five tonight," she said.
    He gulped and nodded. One-sixty-five. He
could do it. Probably.
    Not that he had any choice. He could damage
her flesh, but couldn't break the timing chains of love.
    "Okay, Cammie," he said to her.
    As J.D. stomped the accelerator and jerked
his foot off the clutch, he wondered if this would be the night of
consummation. Would she let him release the steering wheel as he
wound into fifth gear, making them truly one, all blood and twisted
metal and spare parts?
    He glanced at her. There was no sign of
requited love in the dim holes of her skull. She was as cold as a
machine, unforgiving, more metal than bone, more petroleum than
blood.
    She was going to ride shotgun forever, as the
odometer racked up miles and miles of endless highway.
    If only he could please her. But he was
afraid that he was