Luckily, there were no lights until the freeway feeder road, and Kevin was able to maintain the separation between him and the Pontiac. Then he saw the freeway rising ahead, and a sign saying “US 59” flashed by. Once he was on the freeway, he’d be able to open it up and maybe even lose the Pontiac.
During Kevin’s race to school on the same route the day before, the adrenaline had flowed, but now it was a tidal wave pounding through his system. He had always wanted to go to one of those driving schools, the ones where you learn how to slide through a controlled skid or accelerate out of decreasing radius turns without plastering the car on whatever unfortunate objects were around you. He’d even fantasized about being in a car chase just like this one, thinking it would be a blast to tear through the streets at eighty miles an hour with another car hot on his trail. But the reality was nothing like his fantasy; all he felt now was sheer terror.
His fear inched up a notch when he saw the traffic backed up at the feeder road stoplight. He’d be stopped for thirty seconds, easily long enough for the thugs following him to run up and drag him from the car, probably flashing badges all the way.
There was an entrance into a strip mall on his right. It was a new Wal-Mart, and Kevin was sure it had an outlet onto the feeder road. He wrenched the wheel to the right and flew into and over the steeply inclined parking lot entrance, mashing the nose of the Mustang in the process.
After speeding down the side of the Wal-Mart, he rounded the corner and almost ran down an employee wheeling an empty shopping cart toward the store front. The startled employee jumped back, pushing the cart directly into the Mustang’s path. The car’s nose hit it low, tossing the cart into the right half of the Mustang’s windshield, creating a maze of cracks in the safety glass.
Kevin turned left and bypassed the crowded store entrance, racing across the empty fringes of the lot and struggling to see through the crazed windshield. He wiped sweat from his forehead, wishing he could use the air conditioner but not wanting to sap any power from the engine. Not that the air conditioner would do much good with the shattered passenger side window.
He took another look in his one remaining mirror. The Pontiac was still there, now a mere seventy-five yards behind. Kevin aimed at the closest exit.
Then Kevin saw the freeway entrance ramp he had taken yesterday. It was a hundred yards to his left. The only problem was the feeder road was one way, with two lanes of dense traffic coming towards him. To get on the freeway on this entrance, he’d have to head into the oncoming traffic and make a 180 degree turn to get onto the ramp. With the cars racing along the feeder at 60 miles an hour, he’d never make it without crashing into another car. He’d just have to make it to the next freeway entrance.
He took the feeder road toward the Loop, the beltway encircling Houston. To his horror, he saw orange cones diverting traffic away from the freeway onto a temporary asphalt macadam. Houston’s ubiquitous construction strikes again, he thought. The macadam led to an intersection which merged into Westpark. The makeshift light was green, and Kevin made a tight left to keep heading in the direction of downtown Houston.
He thought about staying on Westpark the whole way and decided against it. Too many lights. He went under the Loop and saw that the feeder road was blocked here as well. He’d have to go up to Newcastle, which was the first road that would lead back to the freeway. He’d been on it just three days before and hoped it was still open.
Kevin looked in the rear view mirror. The Pontiac was now only fifty yards behind him. The traffic was thinning out. Kevin floored it and accelerated up an overpass rising above several railroad tracks. By the time he reached the top, the distance between the two cars had opened to 100 yards.
As he crested the hill, the Mustang coughed. Kevin ignored the old car’s wheeze. From his vantage point on the overpass, he could see Newcastle a quarter mile ahead. Fifteen feet to the right of the Newcastle-Westpark intersection was a railroad crossing which cut across Newcastle. The signal began to flash, but the gates were still up. Below and to the right of the overpass, he could see a train slowly moving in the same direction, parallel to Westpark, its engine a few hundred yards from the crossing. To the left, Newcastle headed toward the freeway. Just as he thought, it was clear. In thirty seconds he’d be on the Southwest Freeway and might be able to put some distance between him and the Pontiac.
The Mustang coughed again. Kevin looked at the hood. No steam or smoke. It coughed again. In seconds the Mustang was sputtering, as if trying to catch its breath, the power falling off. Kevin glanced at the instrument cluster to see if the engine had overheated in the hot summer air. He gasped when he saw the gauges.
The trip odometer read 295 miles. The sputtering made sense now. The fuel tank was empty.
In his desperation to escape, he had forgotten that he’d driven home without filling up. Now he’d be lucky to make it to the freeway before the car lurched to a stop. He needed to get something between him and the Pontiac.
A ear-ringing blast startled Kevin. The train, which was 100 yards behind the Mustang, blew its air horn twice more as it approached the crossing. Kevin suddenly realized what he had to do and thought for a moment that he was crazy for deciding to do it so quickly.
The gates on the right were lowering. The barriers were long, long enough to stretch across the two lanes on either side of the road, but they left a hole about fifteen feet wide. If a car was angled correctly, it could make it through.
The Mustang continued to sputter. Luckily, the light ahead was green, letting the traffic on Westpark through. There were no cars between Kevin and the intersection. He didn’t want to tip his hand until the last possible second, so he drove as though he were going past Newcastle. Behind him, he could see the Pontiac closing the gap. The train was only a fifty yards behind him. He couldn’t be sure, but the distance looked long enough for what he planned. It didn’t really matter. He had no other options.
Just before he reached the intersection, Kevin hit the brakes and wrenched the wheel to the right. The Mustang went into a four-wheel drift with its nose pointed at the crossing. For a moment, he could see the surprised expressions on Kaplan and Barnett’s faces as the Pontiac steered to avoid hitting him. Kevin floored it, praying that there was enough gas left to get him across the tracks.
The sputtering got more violent, but the car responded, squirting through the gap in the barriers. The looming train filled the windshield, and the blast of the air horn was deafening.
Heading at an angle across the tracks instead of perpendicular to them, the Mustang careered toward the right hand curb and glanced off. Kevin was thrown against the seatbelt with the impact. Now hobbled, the Mustang limped forward, still scraping the curb. Kevin coaxed it a hundred more feet before the engine died. It took Kevin a second to realize he hadn’t been broadsided by the locomotive.
He didn’t spend time celebrating. He turned the key, hoping there were a few drops of fuel left. It was no use.
Kevin scrambled out of the car and quickly surveyed his surroundings, pausing for only a second to appraise the damage to his faithful car. It was pitiful. The broken mirrors, the crazed windshield, the bullet holes, the wheel skewed from the impact with the curb. He didn’t want to know what the passenger side looked like. He quickly put it into perspective though. Better it than me, he thought and then searched the street for a hiding place.
Kevin wasn’t heartened by what he saw. On both sides of the street, a high chain-link fence with barbed wire stretched as far as he could see before the end of the road curved out of sight a quarter mile ahead. On the left, the fence protected a electrical transformer station. On the right, construction equipment lay dormant. A sign on the fence said “Stratford Pointe — An apartment community for the future.”