Okay, go to Plan X. I hadn’t seen any matches and I hadn’t remembered packing any. So much for the survival jacket. Even Rambo’s knife handle has matches. You dimwit. This is it. No. Okay. Think.

The lighter.

I fumbled and found the regular twelve-volt outlet and I pressed the thingie down, but it didn’t stay down for a second and then pop out the way they’re supposed to, so I tried just pressing it against the gash in my forehead but it turned out there wasn’t any coil in it so it wouldn’t heat up. Damn. Defeated by the Health Stasi.

Probably. Okay.

Okay. Got to get out. Gotta get out get out get out getout getoutgetoutgetout.

“Five to one, baby, one in five,” the Lizard King was still moaning, with what seemed like Christine — ish aptness. Blood was still streaming out of my nose like it was out of a fog nozzle. I swallowed. Glulg. Spurt. Gurgr. Spurt. Getoutgetoutgetout. No, don’t panic. Chill, I thought. Just go to Plan Y. I wriggled into my jacket. Oof. Okay.

Huh.

PREEEP, PREEEP, PREEEP, PREEEP, PREEEP, PREEEP, PREEEP, PREEEP.

I couldn’t get a good angle on the window on my side, so I powered the seat all the way back-at least that worked-and braced myself against the seat back and blasted both legs up against the glass of the soi-disant moon roof. It just popped out of the rubber seal, without breaking-a nice minor blessing-and I stood on the seat, untangled myself from the we’re-strapping-you-down-whether-you-like-it-or-not shoulder belts, and wriggled up out of the moon roof. Whoa. Dizzy. Really dizzy, I’d stood up too suddenly without enough blood. Hang on. Okay. I got my legs out and sat on the roof for a second. The night had gotten cold. No. It wasn’t the air. I was losing juice. Finally I let myself slide down over the rear windshield and the waxy shell of the hood. I got my hands on the grapefruit tree that had stopped the car, let my feet down, and melted over the grille onto the centipede grass.

PREEEP, PREEEP, PREEEP, PREEEP. Cars roorshed by. A siren. I looked around. Nothing. Just wishful imagination magnifying the tinnitus in my cochlea. Okay. Stick to the factuals.

I heaved myself up. Okay. I waddled over the bent-down wire-and-lathe fence and wobbled onto the gravel shoulder. Okay. Bye, bye, Barracuda. Step, step. My feet felt asphalt.

Where? What?

What now? Get out in front of a car and wave and make it stop? No, not likely to work. People are too paranoid. As well they should be. They’ll just keep the doors locked and run me over and then tell me they’ve called Officer Friendly and that he’ll be here any hour. Got to hoof it. Huh. I’d passed a Walgreens four minutes ago but that was way too far. Okay, Plan Yuzz. Have to do fast food.

I started lurching toward the exit ramp. Down to the McDonald’s. It was farther away than I’d thought. An eighth of a mile, maybe? About three hundred steps. And if you figure you’ll bleed out in fifteen minutes, that’s-no, don’t figure. Just do it. Step. Step. Ow. Ankles ache. Feeling woozy. In a few minutes I’ll be thinking so unclearly that I’ll forget why I was doing this, and I’ll sit down for a second to rest and that’ll be about it. Oh, God, oh, God. My fingertips were numbing. Numbening? Oh, fuck, I was fucked, I was fucked. As I got under the first of the tall sodium lamps of the sort of rest-stop area I noticed my right foot was leaving a bloody footprint. A literal one, for once. Brrrdrrrrdrrrr. Cold. I’ve had it. Dun 4. I’ve had it. It’s over, it’s all No. Press onward, Lemmiwinks. You might make it. Stranger things have happened. Frogs have lived a hundred years cast in cement. And not just Michigan J. Frog. Ninety-year-old ladies have survived shit that’d kill a wild yak. I kept lurching toward the big M solar-path glyph, dragging my osmium feet through the clotting air. Step. Step. Come on.

Step.

Step. I found the little Ziploc of green OxyContin 80mg tablets in my watch pocket, popped eight of them into my mouth, and chewed them up. Ick.

Step. Step.

Better take a few Adderalls, too, I thought. I did. Four. I chewed them up and gooked the paste under my tongue. Okay.

Step.

Cold. Step. I can’t make it, I thought. No effing way. Anyway, why bother? It’s only another seven weeks. That’s nothing. You might as well just pack it in now. Except you don’t want to give them the satisfaction. You just want to be the last one out the door so you can turn off the lights yourself. And how dumb is that? Step. I washed down the Oxy ’n’ speed dust with a swig of blood. Step. Step. O Christ Jesus on the Cross, just let me get through this, O Jesus Resurrected, O Lord of the Flail, Lord of the Spear, O Baby Jesus, O studly thirtysomething Jesus, just give me a break, O Black Jesus, O female Jesus, O phosphorescent polystyrene Jesus of the Dashboard, O any Jesus…

Step.

Step.

Step.

It took forever to get to the McDonald’s, and then I remembered that what I really wanted was Burger King. I looked up. There. It was a little farther away-too far away-on the other side of the big rest-area lot. Still, it was worth the extra effort. McDonald’s fries their hamburgers, but Burger King flame-broils.

The glass door opened itself, welcoming me into the cheerful golds and reds of the “restaurant”’s sit-down area. It was as bright and frigid as high noon at the South Pole. I counted ten patrons sitting in four groups, although since one of the groups had five people and nobody was sitting alone, there must have been something wrong with my math. I decided not to let it bother me. They were of varying ages but all of them were paste-white, overweight, and dressed up for Halloween as-among other things-Warcraft orcs, Dormammu from the Doctor Strange movie, Little Fat Mermaids, Seven Death from the Neo-Teo game, and hydrocephalic vampires. At least it was the best possible night of the year to be a fugitive. Most of them looked up, stared, and then went back to chewing their cuds. The Force is with me, I thought. On my way to the counter I tried to disguise my limp and nearly stepped on a discarded plastic fork. Watch yer step, I thought. Fork in the road. The sort of boy behind the counter looked just like Kaspar Hauser, Animal Boy of Nuremberg. He had slow sloe eyes, a pretty big spatter of acne, and a tag in his ear with a barely visible microphone wire curling out of it toward his mouth. There was a black chunky woman in the back, by the drive-by window, who didn’t even look up.

“We’come to Burger King, we’re cookin’ up s’m grea’ Vegatamales™ today, may I ta’ y’r order, plees?” Kaspar asked, not giving my gory “costume” much of a look. His voice was like Butt-Head’s without the wit.

I managed to flop my torso onto the counter and drag my legs up after it.

“Uh, I’m sorry, you cain’t go back thur, guy,” Kaspar stammered out.

“I’ve been severely injured,” I said. “You’d better call the police and paramedics.” I let myself down on the other side, leaving five thick red drops on the counter, and half walked and half fell into the food-prep zone.

Hefty Black Woman didn’t look around. “Any Vegatamales™ with that for today?” I heard her ask into her microphone.

“Uh, sir? ’Scuse me!” Kaspar said.

“I have to perform an emergency medical procedure,” I said. Remember, he’s probably illiterate, I thought, noticing that he had a pictoglyphic keyboard like the ones they make for lab chimps. Use short phrases and simple action words. “I’m a doctor. I’ve been in an accident.”

He stared.

“Please call nine-one-one,” I said, just to give him something to do.

I looked around. Two prep tables, steamer, chopper station, refrigerator, freezers, sinks, combi oven, mixer station. Nice layout. Reflexively, I took two blood-sticky steps toward the first-aid kit, which was hanging in its undoubtedly OSHA-mandated spot on the wall over the first worktable, but then I remembered I was past that stage. Go to Plan Wum. Fast methods for fast times. I got some napkins out of a dispenser and blew my nose into it as hard as I could. From the way the blood sprayed out I guessed the wound was on the right side. Good. There was a straw dispenser by the mixer station and I dispensed two. Luckily for me they’d switched from plastic straws back to presumably greener paper ones.