Chapter 7


Aloha


Aloha avoided the garage for the rest of the week. Her father didn't say a word about it until he woke up for the fourth day in a row and found her crashed on the couch, still dressed in the ugly sweat pants she'd changed into the day the car decided to freak out on her.

That morning he brought her a mug of coffee and sat beside her on the couch. "Alo, sweetie. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," She said too quickly, "everythings peachy keen. Why wouldn't it be?"

He raised an eyebrow at her but didn't press for details. Instead he said, "Hows your bruise?"

"Going away," Aloha sipped on her coffee and closed her eyes in bliss.

"Are you up to a morning walk? It will do us both good."

'Do us both good'. Aloha recognized this as her dad's version of 'you're freaking me out'. He would never come out and say so, it went along with his 'never tell my child no' philosophy. Aloha turned it over in her head then agreed. Bracing herself, she hoisted her sore body up and ambled across the house toward the garage door.

Quietly and ever so slowly, she unlocked the door and opened it. Aloha made sure most of her body was hidden behind the door to shield herself. She peered into the bedroom, scanning the space with a critical eye before she focused on the wreck. It was as she'd left it, parked in the middle of the floor with its mangled body glinting in the faint light from the door way.

Aloha shut the door just as slowly as she opened it. Safely hidden again, she psyched herself up in the hallway and did some stretches to warm her body up in case she needed to run away again. Once she was pumped and limber, she yanked the door open, darted into the room, shoveled through her semi-clean clothes pile, yanked out what she needed, grabbed her backpack and wallet off the floor and vanished right back into the house before any incidents happened.

Aloha went through a quick scrub down in the shower and threw her clothes on before she met her dad in the kitchen. Together they ate then headed out.

The sun was already making its way up when they stepped outside. Their usual route took them several blocks over and toward the donut shop. Even though she was full, Aloha couldn't resist the magic of a bag of glazed donut holes, so she ran in and bought them both one while he watched the sky change colors in the parking lot.

On their way back, they walked past a vaguely familiar house and a group of guys working in the yard. Aloha stopped, squinting at them until she realized that this was the same crowd she bought the wreck from. Her feet took over her brain and suddenly she was across the road and racing up their driveway. The boys stopped and looked at her with alarmed eyes.

"Hey! Hey, do you remember me?" Aloha began, "I bought that cruiser from you at the-"

They scattered. Each one of them broke apart from their task like demolition and raced to hide.

"HEY!" Aloha gave chase across the fresh-cut grass. She had one of them in her sights. He slipped with a yelp and she was upon him with a war cry. They fell to the grass and tumbled.

Aloha grimaced when he kneed her gut while trying to attempt. "I just want to talk, dammit!"

"No! I'm not taking it back!" He fought for his life against her, "You bought it! Its your problem!"

"Not even if I gave it back to you for free?! You can still-"

"NO!"

Aloha rolled off when she was shoved. "Ouch, you dumb dandy." Aloha huffed, "at least tell me what you know about it."

He got to his feet and stared at her with his eyes wide like a deer in the headlights. "Its cursed, Satan and Ford's lovechild."

"Yeah, I've noticed," Aloha rubbed her throbbing abdomen, "what did it do to you?! I've seen it do some wild crap but you guys act like it committed mass genocide."

"Close enough! That thing is pure evil! When we first got it, it came alive and tried to electrocute all of us!"

Aloha stared at him, immediately thinking of the bright arcs of electricity that danced over the wreck's entire body when she kicked it the first day she had it.

"The car moved, it shook and the engine revved and locked up." He pointed at her, "I warned you about that car! And you still bought it! So don't come crying to us about it being exactly like it was advertised."

"Exactly like it was advertised?! Are you stupid?!" Aloha leaned toward him, forcing him to retreat a step. "You didn't tell me it was possessed! What am I supposed to do with a possessed car?! Burn some sage and throw a cross and a bible at it?! 'The power of christ repels you, car'?!"

"Its your problem now!"

Aloha wanted to punch him. "I know its my problem! Thats my whole stupid point! What am I supposed to do with it?!"

"Alo?" Her father cautiously stepped over the curb and into their yard with a concerned look on his face. Still, he smiled shakily at her, "Aloha, whats happening right now?"

"Just," The guy sighed and scrubbed a hand through his greasy hair. "I'm sorry things turned out like this but I can't help you. Please don't come back."

"Are you...are you serious right now? You pass this huge problem to someone without properly telling them what they're in for, and just move on?! What if it commits mass genocide on me!"

"Your goddamned problem!" He repeated in a tone that said the conversation was over.

Aloha growled menacingly at him, cutting him the most malice-filled glare she could manage. He whimpered like a beaten puppy and ran into his house. The door slammed and audibly locked. She scanned the yard and found that the other boys were long gone.

Heaving a sigh, Aloha turned from the house and walked back down to her dad. She grabbed the bag of donuts she'd flung in her mad rush to catch someone and stopped on the curb. "Sorry, dad. I bought something from those stupid boys at the auction and they didn't tell me about some of the, uh, problems it has."

Her dad blinked slowly at her, and she could just see him trying to match her excuse with what had happened and what he had perceived from it. He continued to smile, "Its okay, Alo. People do tend to lie a lot, or at least hold the truth to themselves."

Aloha nodded in agreement. "Home?"

"Home." He agreed. They finished their walk together and parted ways at the house, he to work and she to contemplate what she'd been told.

Later that morning, Aloha finally moved back into the garage. She kept an eye on the wreck at all times, even when she sat down heavily on the futon with lap top in hand. It behaved this time, sitting quiet and still in it's place.

Aloha slowly relaxed around it, eventually shifting her full attention to her computer as she began to research. What was supposed to be a new art project to test her abilities and raise her to the next artistic level, had unfolded into a huge mess that was potentially-and she tried not to think about this too much- life threatening issue. She didn't know where to start with this mess, but she would go small. Maybe if she discovered what model or issue, or whatever they called cruiser makes, it was then she could find out where they were generally used.

The guy who sold the wreck to her had mentioned it being a Ford, so she started there. Ford's were used for law enforcement, but the majority of them that were in state were larger vehicles than the demon-possessed wreck resting quietly in her room. Unless they were Crown Vics, but it looked as if those were becoming obsolete. The longer she sifted through google searches and images, the more confused she became. She couldn't find a cruiser anywhere that looked like the one she had.

Unless...it wasn't a real cruiser. Which would explain why the boys found it abandoned and without papers. But why was it painted like a cruiser? She wasn't too savvy on these things, but she imagined that a cruiser paint job would be illegal on anything but an actual cruiser.

Aloha looked over her screen at the car. Was she approaching this the wrong way? She cleared her search and opened another one on just Fords. After meticulously surfing through hundreds of images, trying to pair one to the crumbled front end of her wreck, she decided that it had to be some kind of Mustang from the body style. There was so many makes and models from there that it was hard to decide the exact one without the wreck being un-wrecked or getting a closer look at it than what she was comfortable with.

Unfortunately, she didn't know what else to do. She closed her lap top and set it aside before tip toeing over to the car. Before she was within touching range, she exhaled and promised, "If you don't hurt me, I won't have you dragged into a ditch."

She paused to listen, but it was eerily quiet. Aloha squatted down and examined the front end of the car, gently feeling the metal with her finger tips. Like before, it was giving off it's own heat. Which meant one of three things. One, she was losing her mind and this was the start of a bad downspiral. Two, this car was, in fact, Satan's spawn and it's life force was hellfire. Three, the car was...alive. Which was the least likely of the three. Because it was a car. And cars were inanimate. If it was true, Aloha was still checking herself into a facility to have her brain meat examined.

There was no emblem on the front of the car. Not that she really expected to find one with how her luck had been going lately. She lifted her fingers and rubbed the layer of grime now caked on them with a scowl. "Yuck."

She wiped her fingers on her jeans before standing up and making her way around. She paused each time she saw a new 'shiny' spot, places where the car used to be all torn up but were now in tact, she paused to examine it. The wreck was definitely straightening itself out, little by little.

Aloha forced herself to move on after carefully checking out the last shiny spot. Circling around the rear end, she again looked for some type of emblem to give her a clue. Again, there was nothing that could. Aloha made it to the other side and stepped back with her arms crossed. Nothing, absolutely nothing.

She shifted on her feet, knocking her heel against something solid. Aloha blinked down at the bricks that she had kicked behind the tires when it first arrived, now quite a ways away from said tires. More proof that she wasn't imagining things. Slowly, Aloha scooted the bricks back into place behind the tires with her foot.

She froze when a lock clicked and the door closest to her popped open. Aloha stared, terrified, and remained exactly as she was leaning slightly against the rear panel with her foot still in contact with the brick behind the wheel. Cautiously, she removed her foot and straightened up. Aloha swallowed her fear and reached for the door-

Only to have it slam shut before she could even touch it. Aloha jumped and snapped, "Would you stop messing with me?! Why can't you just be a normal bad-for-the-environment car!"

The door lock slid back into place cheekily. She glared at it and quickly retreated from the vehicle's space. She left her room, grabbing her lap top on the way and mumbling about devilish spawn with attitude. "My problem," She spat as she shut the door behind her.


I think Barricade is having too much fun jacking with her. We'll be seeing more in the next chapter.

Well, let me know what you guys think!

Aloha, her father, their shenanigans, and the story belongs to me. Transformers and all of its cannon characters do not.