Free Darkthunder's Way by Tom Deitz Page B

questions, no secrets. No goddamn secrets, man!”
    Alec’s only response was to lower his head and close his eyes in despair.
    “Oh… shit !” Darrell spat in exasperation. “Damn it, McLean, I’m sick of this!”
    Alec slumped down even further, wishing this trip would end sooner than the fifteen or so minutes it would take.
    Darrell’s face suddenly lit with a fiendish glow. “By God, I bet I know one way to get the truth out of you!”
    He bent forward over the steering wheel—and jammed the accelerator to the floor.
    The van farted and jerked and spat out a cloud of oily black smoke, then slowly began to gather speed, though with far more noise than enthusiasm.
    “Look, Darrell,” Alec began reasonably—or tried to, though he could feel the shuddering of worn-out suspension as the van hustled along at speeds it was no longer easily capable of, especially given the tourist-season traffic. “If you want to talk about being straight, and all, you oughta realize there’re some things a guy just can’t tell anybody—like confession and all. I mean, I’m in a moral dilemma, man. I don’t like it any better than you do!” Tank-topped shoulders shrugged in calculated nonconcern. “So level with me, then.”
    “Darrell, I—oh, crap !”
    Darrell slammed on the brakes to avoid a dawdling Nissan Sentra that changed lanes right in front of them, then turned hard right into the little-used back road that had once been the main route to MacTyrie. The van began to gather speed again. He reached over and cranked up the stereo, let “Welcome to the Jungle” thunder through the cavernous space behind them. “Tell me!” he screamed.
    “I can’t!” Alec shouted back, wondering helplessly if his companion had finally gone off the deep end.
    Darrell began to weave across the road, inscribing ever-widening arcs. Once, Alec was certain, the right-side wheels lifted off the ground. He knew they were going to flip—but Darrell lifted off a fraction, and the van thumped back to the pavement. But now there was a hill ahead, and beyond it a series of long, tight curves. And perhaps no place in the whole county filled him with such terror, because if you were a good driver and had a fast enough car, you could get completely airborne coming over the top, and still live to tell about it. Unfortunately, though, Darrell was not a good driver; and even Alec, who was not much of a car nut at all, knew that there were considerable differences between the dynamic qualities of classic Mustangs like David’s or late-model Lasers like Gary’s, and decrepit Vee-dub vans like this one. If they went off, they’d not even have to bother about a coffin.
    And Darrell was obviously going to do it.
    The VW gathered speed; the volume of the stereo increased; Axl Rose’s voice broke into a staccato chatter.
    “ Tell meeeeeee!” Darrell shrieked gleefully, by now so far gone with his game that Alec doubted he much cared about the information.
    All Alec could do was close his eyes and pray.
    Faster and faster, and then the engine note changed and an awful, sick feeling slid into Alec’s stomach, followed immediately by a falling sensation and—the longest moment of his life later—a sickening crunch as the van landed hard, fully compressed its inadequate shocks, and slewed across the road, miraculously still under control and upright.
    Darrell swerved onto the shoulder. His face, when Alec looked at him, was white. “Dammit, McLean!” he raged. “You know what you just did? You almost got us killed !”
    “ I almost got us killed? You’re the asshole who came over Oh-shit Hill at ninety in a friggin’ Volkswagen van!”
    “And you’re the asshole that made me so mad I did! Shit, man, I’ve had it with you! I’m sick of all this secret stuff. You can take your goddamn secret and walk! Just get the hell out of my car!”
    Alec stared at him incredulously. “You’re not serious.”
    “The hell I’m not! Get out! Get out