Read "The Bullet" first.
Would you like to know what I found?
Mark's seat was full of blood and bits of un-identifiable bone and cartiledge; but no Mark.
The car wasn't a car anymore, now it was something that seemed borderline cage-like. The windshield was painted black on the inside, but it didn't seem like a natural black; but instead the color blood, life blood, gets when it's almost dry.
The rubber insulating on the steering wheel was melted and forever stuck in a drip near the bottom; and the leather seating looked ancient and cracked.
And noone was driving.
All of this information overloaded my eyes in the brief instant the light was on. Sometimes, when I drift off to sleep, I still see that horrible image; and sleep eludes me.
But the year was 2004, and we were all young then.
I remember crying, loud wracked sobs that seemed to rattle my ribccage with each inhale; Mark's voice telling me that all we were doing was going for a ride.
The way he described it was perfect.
I thought that going insane would have been different, but just how he said, "It's like having internal bleeding in your brain."
"It's like bleeding to death."
I mumbled.
Would you like to know what I found at the end of this road, Marty?
"You didn't find anything, Mark... This road has no end."
Marty, when did you get in this car?
"I can't remember, Mark."
Did you ride the Bullet, Marty?
"This is the Bullet."
This is the Bullet.
"What happened to us?"
I already knew the answer.
The tree trunk, the impact.
We're riding the Bullet.
...
But this "Bullet" was just a term for something more sinister.
"Mark."
Marty.
"We aren't going for a ride are we?"
You are.
"Where are you then?"
There was a pause, a shift in the darkness.
I love you, Marty.
The painful light shoved itself in my eyes.
Red and blue lights.
White light in my left eye.
A paramedic with a flashlight, checking for movement.
I was going for a ride.
The ambulance hit a bump.
I blinked.
He jumped.
They told me later in the hospital that Mark had crashed into a tree.
They told me it was on purpose.
The Bullet we rode was only a mile long dirt trail.
Mark had ridden it the night before; and I'm glad we crashed before I got to the end.
He never told me what he found.
Sometimes I hear him in my dreams, asking me if I want to know.
I do.