2:07 a.m., dockside district. Sodium lamps buzzed overhead, turning the mist the color of nicotine. Ray Collins spotted the target parked nose-in between two dumpsters: midnight blue '09 Crown Vic, VIN ending 8765, three payment booklets in arrears. Plates already stripped, windows fogged. A repo man's Christmas.
Ray rolled the truck alongside, killed the headlights, and stepped down. The Vic idled, a faint heat shimmer off the tailpipe. He tapped the glass. Empty. He smelled old french fries and something sweeter, like the inside of a new coffin.
Wheel lift ready, he slid the slim jim past the weather strip, popped the door and the column, and shifted to neutral. The driver's seat twitched forward an inch; nothing more than worn rails, he told himself. He hooked the wheel cups, winched the front end high, and chained the rear. The Vic's weight settled with a sigh, almost grateful.
Ray climbed back into the cab. In the mirror, the sedan dangled like a caught shark, headlights dimming as the truck's alternator pulled voltage. He cracked the window, lit a cigarette, and rolled out toward the county impound.
Halfway there, the steering wheel on the flatbed jerked hard left. Ray felt the tug in his own wrists before he saw the strap part. The Vic's front tire bit through two inches of nylon and the car rolled off the lift, nose dropping, rear bumper kissing asphalt at forty. Sparks showered the windshield. The flatbed skewed, guardrail spearing the passenger door. Cable whipped back, laid Ray's forearm open to the bone. Blood dotted the dash like hot solder.
The Vic came to rest sideways across both lanes, engine still idling. Headlights blinked twice—lazy, satisfied—then the motor coughed and died. Steam drifted from the hood seams. Ray sat behind a cracked wheel, sleeve red, heartbeat louder than the diesel.
He wrapped the arm with a shop rag, limped back to the car, and winched it aboard again—tighter this time, chains crossed like a straitjacket. The Vic never rocked, never squealed tires. It just rode, patient.
Back at the office, dawn leaking through the cracked blinds, Emily Lyman met him with a folder fat enough to sprain a wrist. Five previous repossessions on KX98765, each ending the same way: driver quits, driver moves, driver vanishes. The last guy, Arnie Bell, left his clipboard on the driver's seat. Ink had bled upward into the headrest fiber, feathered like frost.
Emily handed Ray the dashcam card she'd pulled from evidence. "Graduate student owned it before the bank. Microbiology."
Ray slid the SD into the dock computer. Night vision footage filled the screen: the student driving, talking to himself about "respiration rate of polymers," cabin light on. The seat seams flex like gills testing air. The feed freezes: the student's mouth open in a silent cough, shoulder belt cinched so tight the tongue disappears under his jaw.
Ray ejected the card and pocketed it. "I'm taking it to the pit."
Emily started to argue, but Ray was already out the door, Vic chained behind him like a captured wolf.
The shop pit sat under a corrugated roof, oil-blackened concrete sloped to a drain. Ray lowered the lift until the Vic's tires kissed the rails. He killed the bay lights, leaving only the fluorescents overhead, the kind that flutter before they die. Hood up, he reached for the ECU harness.
The hood slammed. Not dropped, slammed, metal biting the bones of his knuckles. Ray yelled, jerked back, but the hood held like a bear trap. From the engine bay came a wet click, then another: hoses detaching themselves, the airbox splitting along a seam that hadn't existed. A coolant line whipped up, spraying pink fluid that smelled of saliva and copper. It lashed Ray's cheek, searching for ear, nostril, any entrance.
He snatched the slim jim from his belt, drove it through the radiator. Pale red fountained out, steaming. The Vic shuddered, engine coughing in spasms, headlights flickering like dying flashlights. Ray felt the hood slacken; he yanked free, stumbled back, slipping on the slick. The car settled, exhaling. For a moment, the garage was quiet except for the slow drip of fluid and Ray's own ragged breathing.
He wrapped the arm again, now both arms ribboned, and drove the empty flatbed back to the yard. The Vic stayed in the pit, hood pinned with a forklift tine, chains webbed around axles. He told Emily he'd file the destruction paperwork in the morning. Then he went home, swallowed four ibuprofen, and slept with the lights on.
Morning never quite arrived.
At 2:14 a.m. the next shift, Emily sat alone under the fluorescents, dispatch screen blue on her face. A new order spat from the printer: same VIN, new address, two blocks from where Ray first hooked it. She rubbed her eyes and keyed the mike. No answer. She tried Ray's cell; voicemail picked up.
She listened.
First came his voice, low: "It's still breathing. Listen—"
Then a soft creak, like someone settling into a recliner.
Then wetter sounds: fibers tearing, foam compressing, a seat belt ratcheting home.
Then nothing.
Emily stood and walked to the lot. The Vic sat gleaming under the pole light, midnight paint reflecting the moon like a puddle of oil. Driver's door ajar, interior light on, seat belt tongue dangling like bait, mileage rolled back to 000017.
She lifted the mike to warn the next driver. The belt snapped out, blurred across the asphalt, looped her wrist. Before she could scream, it retracted, yanking her off her feet. She slid across gravel, shoes scraping, fingers clawing for the doorframe. The belt whipped again, across her torso, click of the buckle as loud as a gunshot. The door slammed. The engine turned over, headlights brightening to a surgeon's glare.
Inside, the cabin smelled of warm vinyl and something copper. The seat molded around her, side bolsters hugging like old friends. She felt the fabric breathe against her spine. The Vic rolled forward, crushing Ray's forgotten clipboard under a front tire.
In the dispatch office, the printer woke, spitting out a fresh work order:
REPOSSESSION – 09 CROWN VIC – BLUE
VIN: 2FABP7BVX9KX98765
DRIVER: TBA
Paper piled in the tray, curling like a tongue.
© 2025 VenusIsHell. This text is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.