ZID PART V CHAPTER 9 NIGHT FLIGHT

[The Urbane Spaceman]

Night Flight.

When you are driving a vehicle to escape from someone, it is essential that you Do Not Panic.


You can get away if you keep your wits. That was why Sean would always be the driver. He could handle high stress situations when others would balk. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug, and your body makes this drug for fight or flight response, but not for precision and accuracy, nor for delicate maneuvers.


We slipped past those police officers heading on into the building. There was a riot going on in that broken church. They were looking for instigators, not for folks seeking safe harbor.

They did not know that we were the impetus.

We slunk into the hearse and Sean fired that bad boy up. He drove off form a different direction than we had come. Roads in the desert are straight and long, and while the friggin dead-ends pop up everywhere, you can usually find more than one way to get where you are going.

Huh. Ya know, the phrase “More Than One Way To Go” would make a fine title. For what, I have no idea.


The moon rode high in the black sky, chasing us along the blue desert nightscape. I watched that big, glaring eye through the side window of the hearse. It was staring at me. It was angry.


Jerry said, “Sean! Slow the fuck down! We ain’t being chased!”

Joey looked out the rear window and he said, “Yeah, no one is behind us dude!”


Sean shouted back at them. He said, “I’m fucking going 20 miles per hour! You boys need to take a fucking chill pill!” I know, a dated phrase. But that was how folks talked back then.

Them other two stopped they shouting and started to laugh. It was true. If anything, we were going too slow. But that ZID thing was pulsing along with our adrenaline and made everything seem much more than it actually was. Kudos to Sean for being able to drive at all.

Sean said, “Somebody spark up some spliff before you all start your panicking again.”


That’s what Jerry did. He had some hidden under the dashboard. It’s called a dash board because those used to be made out of metal, and that was where you dashed your brains out in a car accident, before someone thought to invent the shoulder parts of the seatbelt. The original belts only crossed your lap. Of course, the lap belt was invented in 1959 by Volvo, but you can look that up on Google if you wanted to.


Yeah, that vehicle had many compartments, with many things inside. It was like Batman’s ride, or perhaps the Ecto 1.

That smoke soothed our racing minds, and it made our travel even slower. Jerry turned on the radio because he thought it might help us. KKDJ was playing this. He didn’t want to play any punk or metal from one of his cassettes at that moment, I think.


But soon, even that became a bit too much for us all. Sean said, “Can you turn that off? I need to concentrate.”


We opted for the cooling breeze from the desert air through open windows, which blew the smoke out in long tendrils that floated up to the heavens in the moonlight.


It probably looked like the hearse was a dark demon, escaped form hell.


That was when Sean remembered to flick the headlamps on. Now he could see better, and he picked up the pace a bit.


He said, “You guys have more of that shit, don’t you. We should get more of it. I know a party that will be going on.”

Well, that seemed like a perfectly good idea.


Yeah. About that. Now rest your weary mind. It’s time to awaken to a new day in a few hours.

Time to Drink!


.