Choose Your Own
Nuthouse
Section 82
(Paul)
Terror has bestowed some rather unaccustomed lung capacity upon you, so you reach your car only very out of breath, where a non-terrified smoker of your level would be gasping on the road, coughing up decaying alveoli all over the place.
Into your car you go, slamming the door shut across your ankle. You scream, pull your leg into the car, and fumble with the keys. Skull-head is only a handful of yards up the hill, flailing his skeletal arms and shouting. Through some miracle of coordination, you manage to properly insert the correct key into the appropriate hole. You turn the key and are immediately induced to a violent fit of cursing as the coughing reluctance of your car to start reminds you that you are out of gas.
Thinking quickly, you pop into neutral and release the e-brake. The car starts rolling down the steep hill, gaining speed rapidly. But it’s too late. The fleshless terror has managed to grab your side mirror. Screaming, you roll down your window and begin beating at its bony digits as the car accelerates backwards down the road. This tactic is unexpectedly successful; The skeletal horror lets go and bounces down the road. Unfortunately, its foot becomes tightly lodged in your front fender. The skeleton’s Armani suit is ruined within seconds as the flesh-deprived monster is dragged down the road at what is now a ridiculously hazardous velocity.
If you try to stop, it is likely that the now doubtlessly angry animated skeleton will get up, brush itself off, and slaughter you in a most unpleasant fashion. On the other hand, if you don’t try to stop, you will almost certainly die in a horrible accident.
In a rare stroke of brilliance, you develop a Plan. If you cut the wheels around hard enough, you might be unable to swing the car around and then proceed downhill with the front end pointing in the right direction. This will hopefully accomplish two vital goals, namely: 1) Maneuvering your vehicle into a more manageable orientation and, 2) Dislodging Mr. Muderskulldeadguy. You might even run over it and, if not kill it, then perhaps break it into several immobile pieces.
You grit your teeth and cut the steering wheel sharply to the left. The car’s back end swings into the road, rubber squealing in protest, and the car almost immediately flips along its long axis. You failed to take into account several important factors, i.e. 1) Your velocity; 2) The steepness of the incline; 3) Newton’s Laws of Motion and Inertia; 4) Your ludicrously terrible luck.
Your poor car performs a spectacular display of vehicular acrobatics. You are injured rather badly and yet, through the pain and terror, you can’t help but wonder how cool this must look from a by-stander’s point of view.
Especially the next bit, when, in a shower of sparks, bits of your car, and a spray of gasoline, your vehicle sails over an inconvenient precipice and flips end over end through the twilight. This would be worth one fat Insane Stunt Bonus if you were playing Grand Theft Auto.
But you aren’t playing Grand Theft Auto. It is becoming increasingly apparent that you will never, ever play Grand Theft Auto ever again.
The fuel spraying out of your ruined tank ignites, and You, the car, and the unfortunate passenger attached to your fender plummet toward the earth below like a meteor burning through the night sky, trailing flame, debris, and the echoing exclamation of a bad word, which is the sole attempt on your part to do anything about your predicament.
The car hits Terra Firma nose first at terminal velocity.
This is not to be interpreted as ‘lethal velocity.’ Your airbags are spectacularly efficient. You’ll have to write a nice letter to the people at Nissan.
Although you are alive, you are nonetheless in pretty bad shape. You tumble out of the car and lay on the ground, laughing (despite the pain of a lot of broken ribs), and thanking Providence that you are alive.
A noise beside you put all urge to laugh out of your mind. With some unpleasant popping and cracking sounds coming out of your neck, you turn your head to see the very-much-the-worse-for-the-wear Terror of Nightmarish Doom reaching its bony hand toward you. Ignoring the pain it causes, you crawl away from the Skeletal Foe as quickly as your body can manage.
Then you seize upon an idea. You also seize upon a large rock. Thus armed, you crawl back to the skeleton and begin and bashing its skull in.
You feel good.
“I have defeated you, foul specter! Die, thou skeletal hellspawn!” You scream, triumphantly.
<> Dying, your Unnatural Tormentor gasps, “You jerk…I just…wanted…to offer…you…a…ride.”You don’t deserve to live, but you do. Go back to section 38 and try again. I don’t even want to look at you, you prick.