IT’S LONG DARK BY THE TIME he sees the girl , darker still when he plucks up the nerve to approach her , lanterns casting ghoulish murmurs of harlequin chatter over the walls of the alley as he pulls over , the thrum of his stereo ( plundered from an open crypt of an abandoned car dealer’s yard he’d chanced upon ; a product , though certainly magnificent , melting its way into his bones with its bass , of an insatiable greed that’d only , upon retrospect , bloomed after he’d woken to watch his body being lowered into the family plot . pre - death : good boy , gilt - reared , tongue thick with yearning . post - death : CAR THIEF / HELLION - HEWN / ABRIM WITH LAZY LECHERY . perched upon his throne of the hood of a pink cadillac ) turned down , down, down to a gentle whisper as he leans forward , fingers restless at the curve of the steering wheel .
another moment passes , silent with uneventful disquiet , and then , almost as an afterthought , he scrambles for the handle on the side of the door , rolling down the window with a tittering whirr . ` uh , hey , lady ’ gaunt in the moonlight , he can almost see the blanched pallor of his face in the puddle at her foot , waxen and deathly and certainly creepy as all hell . ` d'you need , like , a ride? ‘cos …… !! ’