Hello there! Still alive, didn't kick the bucket just yet. I'm hoping to update my unfinished story soon, but at the moment I've got a little bit of writer's block. So here's a short story for you that I wrote a little while ago. Hope you like it! Please note that it is rated T for abuse. The story is complete right now, still, I might add another chapter to it in the future. Concrit well received!
Sera was too small to remember when they got the car.
It had always been in the attic, and for all she knew it had been there since long before she was born. Every day, as soon as her uncle came home, he went up there with a new tool to work on the car. He told her never to go in there, but Sera didn't listen. It might sound horrible that she routinely disobeyed him, but the girl knew that because he didn't expect her to be there it was the safest place to go. Every day, right before her uncle came home she would sneak into the attic and creep into the car for a while.
It was the best place to hide in the whole house, because her uncle couldn't open the car doors. She didn't dare to ask him why.
As she grew older, her uncle brought more and more equipment up to the attic. He attached wires and strings and whatnot to it, and very late at night, long after dinner when Sara was in her real bed, she could still hear him using the tools on the car. He was always talking at the dinner table about how he was this close to opening the hood or the trunk or the doors, but for some reason he could never seem to do it.
He was smart, though, and found other things to do. The car always seemed to have a full tank of gas, so he attached it to a generator. Whenever the power went out, the tires would roll on a moving sidewalk underneath the car and they had all the electricity they wanted. Her aunt once asked how he could turn on the car without being able to open the doors, but her uncle slammed his dinner dish hard onto the table. Her aunt never asked him again.
One day her uncle bragged at the table about a new chemical he was going to use on the car, and that night, Sera found a brown scratch on the hood. This was memorable because up until then the car was always black and glossy, no matter what her uncle did with it.
The next night she found another scratch. She was a little worried that her uncle would find a way inside the car while she was hiding in there, but it seemed that no matter how many scratches he put on the car he could never seem to find a way inside. The scratches multiplied, and pretty soon the car had more brown stripes on it than a zebra has black ones. It was soon more brown than black.
And every once in a while, when Sera touched the brown scratches, she thought she felt the car shiver. But that was just her imagination, of course.
Her watch beeped. That meant it was time to get up. Sera groaned, and opened the car door to get out. Time to get into her own bed before-
"What the heck are you doing here?"
Sera stopped mid-way through exiting the car, in shock.
Uncle.
"Haven't I told you not to come up here?" He asked, stomping up the last step of the attic, "I swear, if you touched anything..."
He broke off as he stared at her.
"You opened the door," he said, sounding surprised.
"I'm sorry," she began.
"You opened the damned door," he said, moving quickly over to her.
Sera remained quiet.
"Get out of the car," Uncle said, grabbing Sera by the arm.
"Uncle," she began.
"Shut up," he said, dragging Sera out of the car.
He positioned her right in front of the hood.
"Now," he said, "You're going to tell me exactly how you managed to open that door."
"I don't know," Sera said, "I just opened it."
"Right," said Uncle, "And I'm a plumber. What secret button did you press?"
"S-secret button?" Sera asked.
"Just tell me, how-"
Click.
Uncle turned to the car. The door, which had been open, was now closed.
"No," he said, grabbing the handle. Nothing happened. "No, no no!"
He grabbed Sera roughly by the arm. "Open it!" He said, dragging her to the door.
Sera obediently grabbed the door handle and pulled. To her surprise, nothing happened.
Uncle growled, and slammed his fist against the windshield. "Idiot!" He shouted, most likely talking to himself, "Open up!"
He yanked the handle again, and once more nothing happened.
"Stupid, stupid!" He shouted, "I should have known not to let go of the door..."
He turned to his niece. "Come here," he said, grabbing her again. He dragged her back to the front of the car, right in front of the headlights.
"Now, open up before I take drastic measures," he said, "Stand here," he ordered Sera.
Obediently she stood where she was, and Uncle grabbed something off the shelf. Sera gulped, and she imagined that the car shivered. She couldn't be certain, but it look like the stuff her uncle used that scratched the car so badly.
"Now," Uncle said, brandishing the bottle and aiming it at the vehicle, "The door. Or better yet, a word. Yes, that's it! A word. Anything. Just talk to me."
"About what?" Sera asked.
"Shut up!" Uncle said, grabbing her left arm.
Sera looked, and she saw that it wasn't her imagination. The car really was shivering. Maybe it was the small moving sidewalk underneath the car, the one used to power the generator. Yes. That must be it. Whenever her aunt wanted to tease her about what the car in the attic looked like-her aunt didn't know she'd been up there-she said the moving sidewalk sometimes moved, and it made it look like the car was moving.
"One word," her uncle said, moving the little nozzle of the stuff close to her arm, "Just one word!"
Nothing. But the car was shaking so hard now that some of the metal wires underneath it were clacking against one another.
"Fine," Uncle said, "Be quiet, Sera."
Sera never liked to remember what happened next, but he squeezed just a little of the stuff out of the bottle and onto her arm. It took a long while for her to stop crying, and even longer for the wound to stop bleeding.
"You know," she heard her uncle say to her aunt as she sniffled from the bathroom to her room, to get dressed for school, "This might sound crazy, but I don't think it can talk anymore."
"I got hurt before school, Mrs. Hurst," Sera said to her teacher.
"Well, I'm sorry to hear that," said her teacher, "What happened?"
"An accident," Sera said, "I bandaged it myself."
"You know what?" Said her teacher, gently grabbing her arm to look at it, "You did a good job bandaging it. Of course, you should probably have the school nurse look at that to make sure it's been properly sterilized."
"Thank you," Sera said, walking out of the classroom.
"Rich crybaby," someone whispered as she left.
"I wasn't crying," she whispered back.
She walked all the way to the nurse's office before she changed her mind. Taking a look first down the hallway one way, then down the other way, she turned around and walked all the way to the exit.
"I'm just going to get some ice cream," she told herself, "Then I'm going to come back to class. And everything will be fine."
She opened the door and walked out down the steps.
"But I don't have any money," she remembered.
She almost turned back around, but decided that she would head to the ice cream shop anyway. Maybe she could find some money on the road, if she looked hard enough.
She really wasn't thinking when she left the school, but she figured that it was better for her uncle to be mad at her for leaving class than to be mad at her for going to the nurse's office. She was nearly at the ice cream shop when she happened to look up.
"Wow!" Sera said.
Parked right outside the police station was a car that looked exactly like the one in the attic.
Sera almost couldn't help herself. She ran up to the car and began to stare at it.
"Isn't it beautiful?" Sera said, walking around the car. It looked exactly the same as the car in the attic used to look, right down to the black glossy finish. She bent low to investigate the tires. Everything about this car was exactly like the other one.
"Alright, what's the emergency?" A man asked, slamming the police door behind him as he raced down the front steps, "What's going on here?"
"What?" Sera asked.
"Huh?" The man asked. "Oh. Did you just touch K-the car?"
"Oh," said Sera, "I was just looking. I have a car just like it."
The man laughed. "Sorry," he said, "The car has a-er, a very advanced alarm system. Guess it just went off. Again. Hi, I'm Officer David."
"You're not wearing a uniform," said Sera. Would she get in trouble for talking to a police officer?
"Plainclothes," Officer David said, flashing his badge at her, "Now, what are you doing out of school?"
"I got the day off," Sera lied, pointing to her arm with her opposite hand, "I'm going to the ice cream shop."
"Uh huh," the Officer said, leaning against the vehicle, "Right. Well, come with me into the station. One of my buddies there will drive you home."
"No!" Sera shouted.
"Why not?" the Officer asked.
"If my Uncle sees a police car take me home, I'll be in trouble," she began, "And I don't want to go home anyway."
"Why not?" Officer David asked, but the girl wouldn't answer.
Officer David sighed. "Sorry," he said, "But your parents will be worried. Now come inside the station. You're making K-the car uncomfortable."
"Can I touch it first?" Sera asked, "I like this car."
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized how strange they sounded.
"What?" asked Officer David, looking confused.
"I don't want to go inside yet," said Sera, "Can I please touch it?"
The officer laughed. "Well?" He asked, apparently addressing the car, "What do you say?"
There was no answer.
"Go ahead," said the Officer, nodding to Sera.
"Thank you!" Sera said, gently reaching out her good hand and touching the vehicle. Her smile grew bigger.
"It feels just like my car!" She said.
Officer David chuckled.
"I mean it," Sera said, taking her hand off the car, "It feels just like mine!"
"I highly doubt that," the Officer said, "This one is special."
"So's mine," said Sera.
"Well, I can't argue with that," said the Officer, "I haven't seen your car, you know. Come on, let's get inside."
And with that, the two of them went inside the police office.
This would have been a good time for Sera to tell the police about their uncle. But the truth was that she had lived with their uncle for so long, she was afraid he would hurt her if she told anyone about him. In fact, as soon as she walked through the door she was thinking about a way to stop the cops from taking her home, or at least stop them from taking her to the front door.
Finally, it was all arranged-and far too quickly. A nice pair of policemen-one of them a woman-bundled her into the back of a cruiser and headed back to her home. Despite everything that Sera said to them, they insisted on walking her to the door.
Her aunt answered it. One look at her face and Sera knew she had a hangover. Fortunately or unfortunately, though, it wasn't as obvious to the officers.
"Hello ma'am," began the gentleman officer, "We found your child walking home instead of being at school. Excused absence."
"We didn't want her walking home alone," the lady officer explained, "So we gave her a ride."
Her aunt nodded, her hand tightly grasping the door.
"Well," said the other officer, "We'll be going now."
"G'bye!" Sera said sadly, waving her good arm, "Thank you for the ride."
Aunt herded her inside and watched the policemen from the window, holding onto her tightly so that she wouldn't leave her side.
"They're gone," she said finally, letting go of her at the same time that she let go of the breath she had been holding, "What were you thinking, bringing the police here?"
The girl was silent.
"Listen," said her aunt, "I don't care if you did ditch school. But I don't want you making a racket while you're here. Understand?"
She nodded.
"You know what? Here," said her aunt, grabbing her wallet from her purse, "Go out and watch a movie or something. Just be back before your uncle gets home."
"Thank you!" Sera said, hesitantly taking the money. It wasn't a twenty. It was a hundred. Her aunt must have grabbed it by mistake.
"Quiet!" Aunt said, "Just get going. Ugh, my head..."
Quickly, Sera left the house.
"Should I really see a movie?" she asked herself. She looked at the money in her hand, "Or should I get on a bus?"
It was almost unthinkable for a girl as young as Sera to get a bus ticket and leave her aunt and uncle forever. What if the rest of the world was worse than they were? But this chance might never happen again.
"But what about the car in the attic?" she asked herself. Did she seriously want to leave that car? It was all the security she had.
"What'll I do when the nights are scary?" she asked. "Maybe I'll get another car. When I'm old enough. One that plays nice songs on the radio."
She glanced back at the house. She could still see it from where she was.
"I still don't like to leave it," she said as she crossed the street.
Then she saw it. On the corner of the street was the car identical to theirs.
"Oh, wow!" Sera called out. She almost thought of ditching her plan to run away, right then and there.
"Ahem," said a voice, and she suddenly noticed the man on the other side of the car.
"O-officer," she said nervously, "I was just heading-"
"Away from home, apparently," he said, "Come on. I'll walk you home again."
"My aunt said I can go to the movies," she said, possessively holding her aunt's money to her chest.
"She did?" The officer asked, lifting an eyebrow. "And she's letting you go alone? This is a pretty big town."
"I'm fine," Sera said, "You know, my car is just like yours," she tried changing the subject.
"About that," said the Officer, "My partner on the force wanted to ask a few questions about your car."
"What?" Sera asked, "Why?"
"Hang on, I'll call him," Officer David said.
He picked up his phone, but before he could dial any numbers the phone rang. Without hesitation he answered it.
"Right," he said, listening to the other end but looking at his car, "You see, my partner has been searching for a Trans-Am just like this one for a while."
"What's a transam?" Sera asked.
"This car," said Officer David, "Anyway, he wants to know where you got yours."
"Don't know," Sera said, "Uncle got it, and that was a long time ago."
"Alright," said Officer David, "You heard that?" He asked into the phone. "Wait..." he said, "He wants to know why he hasn't seen it in the city."
"We keep it in the attic," Sera said.
Officer David laughed. "The attic?" He asked, "Is it broken?"
"Yes," she nodded, "I think so. We don't drive it. I like to sit in it sometimes. But don't tell uncle. I'm not supposed to be up there."
The person on the other end of Officer David's phone began talking again, but the girl couldn't hear what he said.
"Hang on," said the officer, putting the phone to his ear, "What was that?"
He looked at Sera again. "Has the car ever...talked to you?" He asked.
Sera burst out laughing.
"Cars can't talk!" Sera said.
"Thank you," said Officer David, nodding, "That's all he wanted to know."
"Oh, okay. I have to go now," said Sera, "Nice seeing you again."
"Just a minute," Officer David said, "You don't really think I'll let you run away from home, do you?"
"W-what?" Sera asked.
"You can't fool me," said the Officer, "I was a kid myself once, you know. Now come on. I said I'd walk you home, and that's just what I'll do."
"What were you thinking?" Her uncle yelled, "Stealing from your aunt, and then trying to run away? If that policeman hadn't found you, do you know what would have happened? They'd have searched the house, that's what!"
"I'm sorry, Uncle," said Sera, "It was a mistake-"
"You bet it was a mistake," said Uncle, "My mistake! I should never have taken you in, brat. What if he wanted to come in after you dropped you off, huh? Ever think of that?"
The girl was silent as her uncle stewed.
"Fine," he said, "But you're never going to do it again."
"No uncle," she said, "I'm not."
"Liar," said Uncle, "But I'm going to teach you a lesson. Get me the salt."
"What?" she asked.
"Salt, salt! Get me the salt!"
Sera quickly ran into the kitchen, and came back with the salt.
"Now watch closely," Uncle said, taking the top off the salt, "This is what happens to people who try to run away."
He grabbed Sera and began undoing the bandage on her hand. Almost instantly, she figured it out.
"No!" She cried, trying to pull her arm away from him, "Don't do it, Uncle! Please!"
"Shut up," Uncle said with a wicked gleam in his eye, "Now watch!"
There is an old saying about putting salt in an open wound. The point is that it hurts, as Sera soon found out. She didn't cry much, because she knew that if she did he'd only put on more, but as soon as he was done he let her leave the table.
"You've had enough salt for a whole meal," he said, "No dinner for you tonight."
Sera left quickly, heading for the bathroom.
Her aunt started to get up.
"Sit down!" Uncle called to her, "Your punishment is that you are going to leave her to fend for herself. Now sit down and eat. And get me more salt from the kitchen for this junk you call food. This stuff needs it."
As soon as Sera had taken care of herself as best she knew, that is, as soon as she had washed the open would and wrapped it with a towel, she crept upstairs.
She needed to go to the one place she felt safe. She needed to go to the attic.
The car looked worse than she remembered. It seemed as if there were many new stripes on it, mostly centered around the door. Some of the brown was peeling off, and underneath that was another dark color. But Sera didn't pay much attention to that. She had forgotten that she couldn't open the door earlier, but even if she remembered she shouldn't have worried. The door opened almost before she grabbed it.
However, despite the open door she had to push to open it enough to get inside. The very car seemed to groan and shiver, and every time she touched one of the stripes on the door it stuck for a few seconds. But Sera was small, and as soon as she had it open enough she squeezed her way inside. She slammed the door shut and crawled into the backseat.
"I almost ran away," she said outloud, a slight sob in her voice, "I really almost did, but they made me come home. Uncle got mad."
She shivered as she peeled back the towel to look at her wound.
"A good thing happened though," she said, trying to take her mind off things, "I saw a pretty car. It was as black as this one. Just like this car."
The car was no longer black, but that was how Sera saw it.
She sighed, and closed her eyes. Inside the car and away from her uncle, the radio turned on quietly-almost so quietly that she might have been imagining it.
She often dreamed that the radio turned on to sing her to sleep. It was one of her favorite dreams.
When Sera woke up the next morning, she was still in the backseat. She knew it was morning because light was coming in through the attic window. But this wasn't right. Her uncle could find her up there any minute.
She crawled over to the front seat and tried to open the door. It wouldn't open.
"Come on, come on!" She said, "Open, open open!"
It still wouldn't open. It was almost as if the car didn't want her to leave.
But Sera wanted to leave. She didn't like sitting in the car alone so early in the morning. Who knew when her uncle would come in the door to work on the car? Besides, she hadn't had any dinner or breakfast yet. So she began to cry while she frantically tried opening the door. To her surprise the door opened easily, and she stepped out.
Quickly, she ran down the stairs. She didn't hear the small click of the car door closing itself behind her.
While she had rushed down the attic stairs quickly, as soon as she reached the hallway Sera became as quiet as a mouse. She snuck past the room her uncle and aunt shared.
But no one was home. She breathed a sigh of relief before she noticed the clock.
"Oh no," she said, "It's eleven fifteen," she said, staring at the digital 11:15, "I'm supposed to be at school!"
Without bothering to see if her aunt and uncle were still at home, Sera raced down the hallway and ran out the front door, letting it slam shut behind her. She raced down the empty driveway and tried to remember which way it was to go to school. Was it the left, or the right?
She turned right, and raced down that street. She ran faster, and faster, until-
"Whoa there!" Said a voice, and a pair of hands stopped her from slamming to the pavement at the force of the collision, "Hey, it's you! What are you doing here?"
"I'm late for school!" Sera said, looking up at Officer David, "Everyone's gone and I need to get to school!"
"Well, that's the first time a student ever came to me with that problem," Officer David chuckled, "Wait a minute. What happened to your hand?"
Sera looked down, and realized for the first time that she had run out of the house without bandaging her hand.
"Um, an accident?" she said.
The officer's face grew grave.
"Come with me," Officer David said, taking her by the other hand, "We're going to have that looked at."
"And then can the police-people take me to school?" Sera asked, "I'm really, really late."
"We'll see," he responded, walking up to his parked vehicle, "Karr, look at her arm. Is this an accident?"
"The damage was certainly no accident," said a new voice, making Sera look around for the speaker, "It was created by a highly modified chemical compound, in a pattern inconsistent with accidental injury. In addition, my scans show traces of salt within the wound."
"Who said that?" Sera asked.
"Sera, this is Karr," David said, "He's a talking-er, car. Now on to business. Who did this to you?"
"What?" Sera asked, "Um, it was an accident."
"Sera," David knelt down to her level, "This was no accident. Who did this to you?"
"I can't tell you," Sera said, breaking away from eye contact with David and trying to hide herself against Karr.
"Sera," Officer David said, "Why not?"
"Because he'll hurt me," said Sera, "If I tell."
"He can't hurt you if you tell me who he is," said Officer David, "I will lock him up and he'll never hurt you again."
"Um," Sera said, "But he might hurt you!"
"He can't hurt me. I'm a police officer."
"He can still hurt you..."
"Can you tell Karr?"
"What?" asked Sera.
"What?" asked Karr.
"You always liked him, right? You have a car like him at home. Right?"
"Well yeah, but that's different. Ours doesn't talk."
"So?" said David, "Just tell Karr who is bothering you. No one can hurt him."
"Well," said Sera, "Alright. I'll whisper it."
"That's right," said David, "You do that."
Sera walked over to Karr's front hood and bent down low to the ground.
"My uncle," she whispered, before stepping back up.
"Now see?" David said, taking her by the hand and leading her down the street, "That wasn't so bad, was it? Come with me, we're going to the station to get you bandaged up."
Karr started his engine and followed after them.
It was a small station. Small enough that Sera could hear them interrogating her uncle. They had apparently pulled him from work just to talk to him about her. Sera didn't know what to do or who to talk to. She could only listen. And she was scared stiff of what would happen when her uncle brought her home.
"I can't believe it," Her uncle said to the police in the station, "Why would she tell a lie like that? My little niece is a bit imaginative-"
"I'm sure she didn't imagine the wound on her arm," the policeman addressing him responded, "Tell me, how did she get it?"
"How should I know?" Her uncle asked, "Kids play. They get hurt. So what? That's life."
"This was deliberate," Officer David said, walking into the room.
"And who the heck are you?" Her uncle asked.
"Plainclothes," Officer David said, flashing his badge, "We have proof that the wound is deliberate. If you didn't do it, do you have any idea who did?"
"What? Of course not! Don't you think I'd call you guys if someone put acid on my niece?" Her uncle asked.
"I never said it was acid," Officer David responded.
"Of course not!" her uncle said quickly, "Sera told me. Right before you walked in."
"Right," said Officer David, "From all the way over there. Gentlemen, I believe we have the proof we need for now. Lock him up. We'll let the judge do the rest."
And then, to Sera's infinite surprise, her uncle was placed in handcuffs and escorted out of the room.
"Wha-what happened?" She asked.
"We arrested him on charges of child abuse," Officer David said, "And we're going to go to your house to talk to your aunt about her role in all this."
The police took Sera with them when they went to her house. She asked to ride in Karr, but David said he that Karr didn't like other people riding in him. After knocking at her house door for five minutes and realizing that her aunt's car was gone, however, it was clear that her aunt wasn't home.
They waited around for a while, until finally someone radioed into them that they now had a search warrant. What they could be searching for, she hadn't a clue, but as soon as they broke down the door Sera realized it meant they were all going into the house. So of course she asked them what was to her an obvious question.
"Can I show you the car in the attic?" Sera asked David eagerly, "Please, please please?"
"Sure. I guess so," said David, glancing at Karr mischievously.
"Come on, come on!" Sera said, pulling him behind her.
She had never had a friend in her house before. She pulled David after her, not even allowing him a glimpse at some of the finer and more expensive items in the house before she was dragging him up the attic stairs.
"What's so special about this car?" asked one of the police officers who had followed them up.
"It's just like Officer David's one!" Sera said, finally making it to the top of the stairs and gesturing at the car.
"Whoa," said the other policeman, looking around the room, "What the heck was that guy doing up here?"
"Look at all this machinery," said the other policeman, "That has got to be illegal."
But Officer David had eyes only for the vehicle in the middle of all the wires.
"Oh wow," he said, stepping closer to it.
"See?" Sera asked, "Doesn't it look like yours?"
"You're right kid, he sure does," David said, looking at some of the brown stripes with what might have been fear or surprise.
"Kitt?" He asked, "Is that you?"
The other officers looked at David like he was crazy.
"Who are you talking to?" Sera asked.
"I'm a friend," David said, "I work with Karr. He's been looking for you for a while."
There was silence.
"Um, David-" began one of the other officers.
But Officer David sighed, and put his watch up to his mouth.
"Karr, come in," he said, astonishing the other police in the room with him, "I think we've found Kitt."
"Tell me you're serious." Karr responded through the watch.
As soon as Karr's voice came out of Officer David's watch, the car in the middle of the room came alive. To Sera's surprise the engine started, the tires squealed, the doors opened and closed-the car did everything but speak.
"Yeah," said Officer David, watching the suddenly-active vehicle, "I'm serious."
Sitting once more inside the police station, Sera was listening to David speak with the chief of police.
"Well, the girl is fine. She's pretty lucky, all things considered. But Karr and I will be leaving now that the entire precinct knows that my partner is my car."
"What about the other car?"
"Kitt?" David answered. "Bonnie checked him out as soon as she got here. Most of his parts are being replaced, but he's fine. All except for one thing. He can't seem to speak."
"Can't that be fixed?"
"Not with tools," David said, "Everything about his voice is working just fine, except that he can't use it. Maybe he doesn't want to. I don't know."
"Hm," said the Chief.
"I know he'll get through this though," said David, "Especially since he's going to live with Sera."
"What?" Sera asked, jumping off the chair, "Is he really? Really truly?"
"Yup," said Officer David, turning to look at her, "He's going to live at FLAG, and so are you."
He leaned in closer to her.
"Listen," he whispered, "I'm sure he can speak, but he needs your help. He needs a good friend, one who will sit in him for sleepovers every once in a while. Can you do that for him?"
Sera nodded. Yes. Yes she could.