"Are you a poltersedan?"

"No?"

"Are you going to slime me with petrolplasm?"

"What the… I don't even…."

There is nothing to be afraid of, not here in the scrapyard. Only dead things. Scrapped things. Six feet under things. There are few things scarier than dead things. Except for dead things that are supposed to be dead but are kinda moving around. Not like, you know, twitching.

"Look here, jumbo jet. I'm not here to hurt you. Those things you were hearing? They're just recordings. Trying to keep people away from here; I like my privacy. If you knew what was good for you, I would certainly fly away." The outline of a car stood several feet in front of me. He was almost out of my line of sight because I'm taller than him.

"Who're you?" my fear was starting to float away, but it wasn't out of sight just yet. "I recognize your voice."

"Well, Proto, we've never really met. My name is Rod Redline. I'm a former spy." He turned on a light and I could see his intense eyes.

"Hey! You're the glider that could turn into the car or is it vice versa?"

"I'm a car by manufacturing, a glider by instinct. Among other things."

"Why're you in the scrapyard? Aren't you afraid of poltersedans and ghostlifts?" I looked around, expecting to see a shadowy vehicle lurking around the tombstones.

"Would've set up shop in the nearby town of Radiator Springs, but… well, it's a little more peaceful out here." Rod backed up, rolled a wheel over a switch, and a platform opened up. He began to drive into it, but then turned to face me. "Sorry, but I don't think you could fit in here. You might want to fly on over to Radiator Springs. They don't really have a runway, but you could probably just sleep on a flat stretch of road." He disappeared into the underground garage.

"Bye. I guess." I'm pretty sure my expression was one of confusion. I like being confused, but it's a little confusing. Now this is just being more confusing. I'll stop with the confusing talk about my confusion, which I sometimes mistake for being the same thing as Confucius but he's a little different. I'm still a little confused on who Confucius was.

With a few of my wheels popped, I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Before I could tell Rod Redline, he had disappeared into his underground thingy. Looked like I would be spending the night in the graveyard. I'd be in the graveyard for a whole night… like, until it was morning or something. That's about a night long.

I tried to sleep. Tried to not let the cold of the night creep through my paint, into my hull, into my engines… but it was of no use. Why couldn't I take off from the airport and fly into dreamland? I had always been bad at falling asleep, but this time it was pretty bad. The cold was cold and the scary was pretty scary.

Something cracked behind me, and my radar showed a huge beast. It opened its mouth to roar, and I felt my insides freeze up and then… gyack! Can't breathe! Agh! Eeeeep!

There was a storm. It was like the one inside of the simulation. Clouds that rose in a huge thunderhead, mountains of clouds that raged on. A tornado came spinning by, and tractors were stuck inside of the funnel. They kept mooing and swirling around, and I'm pretty sure that's how they mass produce milkshakes.

"Keep steady," Blade Ranger said. "The fire will spread and there's not much we can do yet."

"Blade? Blade, where were you? I woke up in the hangar and I don't know where you went."

"Keep the questions for later, rookie. We've got a fire to contain. Reload back at the station and we'll go from there." Blade turned right and began to head towards the fire.

"What're you doing?"

"I need to make sure the ground team is doing well."

"But if you go too low, you might crash."

"Crashing is a risk you take, Proto."

Blade vanished into the flames, and I was left alone. The wall of fire came closer, and the tornado consisted of burning embers. They crashed into me and I was sent spinning. A jumbo jet forced through the air, sent through the fire, and I came through. What? Where was the forest? Below me was a racing stadium, and cars were speeding on the circuit.

"What?"

An announcement came booming through. "And the Hornet goes flying! Wow, this is a horrible wreck. Ambulances are coming onto the field, but who knows how he'll hold up? Is this the end of the Hudson Hornet?"

"I better get a closer look," I said, looking for a place to land. Good thing the road was wide; I landed a little hard but it was still okay in the end. "What time period is this?"

"Who are you? What are you doing in my dream?" a blue car, a Hudson Hornet to be exact, was giving me the evil eye. "Don't you have something better to do than entering a poor car's dream? I'm trying to get some rest, and some new vehicle comes in. Once I was able to have peace in life, I thought there might be peace in death. Instead, you come here."

"G…G…G…GHOST!"

"Let me guess… first, I must have you pave a road and then we can become friends in death. How did you die, airplane?"

"Am I dead?" curiosity overrode my fear. "I don't remember crashing or anything like that."

"That's the same thing the other fellow said when he came through. Of course you're dead. This is the roadway after the race. I'm Doc Hudson, by the way." He sighed. "I'm not resting as easy as I want to. I suppose you aren't, either. Doesn't help all the recently broken down vehicles are passing through my little slice of the afterlife."

"How did I die?" I thought for a moment. "Are you sure I'm not just asleep and having a bad dream?"

"You're dead, airplane. Your engines aren't working."

"I was in a scrapyard, then I heard something… then I froze all up." Oh poop. I was dead, and I had died of fright. Who knew that a plane could die of fright?

"It's hard to take in. That's what I told the helicopter when he buzzed around. There's always a fire to fight, inside or out. Guess when your engines stop working, you need to fight the fires on the inside, if you didn't solve 'em in life." Doc looked to the sky. "I thought I solved my problems, but I guess I didn't. It's a hard thing to do, solving problems."

"The helicopter that came through… what did he look like?"

"Red. Firefighter."

Blade. BLADE. BLADE RANGER.

"He was dead?"

"Was alive. Is dead."

"I have to help him!"

"Calm down, airplane. You've passed on, and there isn't anything to do. Problem solving is for the living. You ain't one of them."

"Then I'll just have to come back to life." I backed up. "Watch out, Mr. Doctor. I'm going to fly."

"Where to?"

"Back to the land of the living. I'm no poltersedan, nor am I a ghostlift." I let my engines begin to run. "If I can't help my friend as a dead plane, then I'll just help him as a living plane."

"Good luck with that, airplane. If you do make it out alive, tell Lightning McQueen that I said hi, and that I miss him."

"Will do." I forced myself into the air at a nearly ninety degree angle. The sky was the limit. If so, passing through the sky would be past the limits of life. The grim swather couldn't catch me, even if he wanted to.

Behind me, there lay the stadium and the afterlife.

In front of me… well, who knew? I only could guess that Blade Ranger was somewhere out there. Knowing that warmed my engines and brought them back to life. If solving problems is for the living, then I would live and solve my problems.

One particular problem had to do with a helicopter.