I think the sign said, one hundred dollars.” There was marvel in her voice.

“Of course, it can’t be true.”

But he was already turning the steering wheel to circle them back to the spot where a car—a luminous ‘For Sale’ sign posting it’s position in the darkness—sat on a high, dark, off-road elbow.

A wall of tree trunks, an expanse of tall seed-headed grass grew into the headlights as the car turned.

“No,” she said as they rounded. “I was wrong. It’s nine hundred dollars.”

He’d already parked the car. Now he cut the engine; the silence sounded suddenly loud. She could see no houses, no driveways, no domestic lights. Only the golden glow of a tall fluorescent, positioned to show the direction of road, relieved the inky blackness. He opened his door and stepped out. She opened her door and swung her feet to the ground, listening for treachery.

“Why would anyone leave a car here overnight?” Her voice in the huge dark quiet, small and lost.

No answer, so she left the car and scrambled up the gravely incline after him, their feet struggling for purchase sounding like rats scratching for freedom. Not that she knew what rats scratching for freedom sounded like, but her mind made that connection.

Cupping their hands they each looked through car windows, he the front, she the rear, the high fluorescent their friend now. “There’s no radio,” he said. “And the dash would have to be fixed.”

“The seats are ok, and the head lining. Very important, no rips in the head lining.” She always searched out the positives whenever they found one of these automotive waifs. The car would be for her and she liked a tidy interior.

He kicked the tyres on his side of the car then walked round to do the same to those on her side. “It’ll need tyres.”

“Mmmm.” She was trying not to notice the car’s scarred, rust-pocked body.

He looked at her. “Those dents’ll come out easy enough, a new paint job…”

Hope died. Too much work would never get done, she knew.

“I don’t think…”

He was at the back of the car now, so she joined him there; it looked better from behind. It was not an old car; its shape was modern. “What is it?” she asked. “What breed?”

“I’m not quite sure.” He bent down, searched near the taillights for signage. “I’m still looking.” A piece of cardboard hung from the bumper, he flipped it up. The florescent, not so generous here cast shadows, and the writing on the cardboard was thin and scratchy. She glanced into the darkness either side and behind where they stood. She felt like a melodramatic actress in a B-grade movie. What could come out of the darkness to grab and mangle them?

She crouched beside him, rested her arm on his shoulder companionably—“what does it say?”

“I’m trying to read it. It says…no…m-o-t-o-r--- no…g-e-a-r-box. What the…?”

Straightening, they looked at each other, their faces wide-mouthed, wide-eyed in the gloom.

Jeanne Squires

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Jeanne Squires