R4

Do what you should have done

He woke up in a sitting position. For a moment, he didn't know what it was he was sitting in, but then he recognized the almost lying position as the position of a man inside a Formulacar. Why was he in a car? It was pitch black, he couldn't see where he was, but he knew he wasn't inside the pitbox. It smelled not like the pitbox. In this room the smell of lubricating oil and rust was overwhelming. He could almost taste it in the back of his mouth and he gagged. It was like a very old, rusty thing was just set into oil. But why? He felt his hands laying around the steering wheel, but around his hands wasn't air. He wriggled his hands a little and felt a stinging pain on the top of his right hand. At first, he hadn't understood what it was, but when he felt some warm, sticky fluid flowing through his sleeve, he gasped. His breathes accelerated and he started to pant.

"He, hello? Is somebody there?" he cried, but it stayed silent. A place in his neck was stinging, like when you had just gotten an injection at that place. How did he get that? While he was trying to control his breath, he suddenly remembered something. He was interviewed by the Dutch

interviewer asked him why he did push George away. He took a deep breath and told the story he had made up while he was finishing the race. He had just lost control and wasn't fast enough to prevent that his car was going to the right. Russel was just in the wrong place in the wrong time. It was certainly not his very intention to push George away, but he had to admit he could have lifted.

"But Lance, why didn't you do that, if you could?" Off course he had predicted this question and he had an answer for this one to.

"I just didn't know we were still going so fast, so I thought George had enough time to connect behind me before he should reach the truck." The fat interviewer frowned, but nodded.

"Thank you," he said and Lance nodded to him. He had seen the interviewer didn't believe him, but he wasn't very worried. They knew he was a little uninformed at some times, so they would laugh about this and leave it. They wouldn't think he pushed George away on intention. Very satisfied with himself, he walked away. When he turned a corner, someone grabbed him and planted a sharp thing in his neck. Before he passed away, he saw the man was having a pig head.

"No, he was wearing a pig head mask," he whispered to the dark. He felt a little bit better, knowing he was kidnapped by a human, and not a mythical creature, as he first had thought. A little more careful than with his hands, he tried to bring his feet from the pedals they were pushing against. This time he felt the sharp thing before it pierced his skin. It was not a knife, as he first had thought, but a sharp pole made of something very hard. The cold metal felt very dangerous and Lance shivered. What was the meaning of this?

"Helloho, can somebody explain all this to me?" he cried again and again he didn't get any kind of answer. He sighed and tried again to wriggle his hands free from the steering wheel. Again, he didn't succeed but now he lost his patience instead of panicking. The fear he had felt earlier was gone. "Let me out of this shit! I have to do stuff!" He laughed out loud by these words. Everybody has to do stuff. Lance took a breath to tell the dark what he needed to do, but the words stayed in his throat. The lights in the room went on. One by one, with a zooming sound followed by a loud clap. First, the ones behind him, then above him and finally before him. He squeezed his eyes because of the bright light. The afterglow let his head bang. When he could finally see something, his breath got stuck in his throat. Before him, before the Formulacar, rose a trail up towards the ceiling. Near the ceiling stood a very large thing. He leaned forward to see what it was. He realized the source of the oily smell was the thing on the rails. Before the hand wide wheels, the rail was lifted upwards, so the heavy thing stayed where it was.

"What is this for?" he asked. Suddenly he realized he was on the rail himself. If the rail before the heavy thing, lifted down, the heavy thing would crash in his car, and if he wasn't out of it, in him to. Now he started to get really afraid. He wriggled more and scratched his right hand and foot against the metal poles. He looked around him, but saw nothing except dirty, concrete floor tiles. The crack between some of them was ruptured apart. His look swept back to the thing on rails. The front of the thing was bright yellow, it looked like someone just painted it. Lance frowned while cold sweat was streaming along his back. The rest of the thing was heavily rusted and looked very old, but the front was newly painted. Why? It was like this thing was prepared for him by painting it yellow. What yellow thing was relating to him? He tried to think, but his thoughts wouldn't stay clear. He inspected the yellow thing again, but his eyes wouldn't leave the turned-up rails. What if the rails lowered and released the, no don't think about it! With shivering body, wet of sweat, he finally managed to snatch his eyes of the rails and on the front. Letters, there stood black letters. He squeezed his eyes and tried to read the letters.

"K, O, N, A, Komatsu, it is the front of the Formula 1 tow truck!" he screamed. The tow truck they were driving behind the

safety car they drove so slowly. Especially the Williams before him drove very, very sluggish. Could he please drive faster? It wasn't so difficult was it? His irritation grew while they were driving through corner by corner. At the straight where the accident had happened, Russel slowed so much down he came with his own car besides his. With steam out of his ears, he steered rough to the right. Russel's Williams dived aside. With a mean smile, Lance watched him struggle. When he looked ahead again, he almost screamed. The yellow tow-truck stood only a couple of meters before him. He yanked the steering wheel towards the left and shoot only a couple of inches along the truck. Russel hadn't got so much luck and crashed frontal on the truck. It sounded like a tortured robot. Later he heard Russel's legs were almost broken, but that he was been very lucky. A frontal accident on that speed could have turned out worse.

"Did you kidnap me because of the accident? What do you want?" It was as if the walls had heard him because a door opened. But it wasn't a man who drove the car that had rode inside, but a puppet. Lance's hackles rose. The puppet was wearing a black jacket with red bow around his wooden neck. His large, white cheeks were decorated with red spirals. Red eyes and medium length black hair finished the scary look. After the first look, the shock leaved Lance. It was just a puppet, no more and no less.

"I want to play a game," said the puppet with a deep, hoarse voice. Lance screamed; a highly pitched, girly scream.

"What?" was the only thing Lance could say.

"You were almost a murderer on the track. If you do what you then should have done, you will live, but if you don't, the rails will connect and that what almost killed your colleague, will certainly kill you. You have ninety seconds. Live or die, make your choice." The puppet in the car was pulled back. Above the door, a red clock started to countdown. Ninety, eighty-nine, eighty-eight.

"What the hell! What do I have to do!" His thoughts stumbled across his head and for a full ten seconds, he didn't do anything. "What I should have done," he whispers while the countdown was showing seventy-seven, seventy-six. He should have lifted and steering to the left earlier. With racing breath, he lifted his foot of the pedal and felt an extraordinary pain. The medal poles! He had completely forgotten about them! He felt tears streaming across his cheeks. A quick look on the counter let him lose his grip on his bladder and he felt a warm fluid spreading across his legs. Forty-three, forty-two, forty-one. He pulled his foot more from the pedal and more blood leaked out of it. Biting on his tongue, he managed to pull his foot far enough from the pedal and thereby into the pole to imitate a lift. A loud crunch let him scream again, but it was a good crunch, because the whole rails started to lower a bit. The truck would not go very fast now, if he was released, but still. He bit so hard on his tongue, that he felt salty blood in his mouth. The countdown started to buzz, and he saw had only thirty seconds left. He only had to steer to the left and thereby pierce his hand also. Tears stayed streaming down his cheeks and snot clogged his nose. With shaking hands, he turned the wheel, but not quite far. It hurt so much! "Help, help!" he screamed, but no one could hear him. The buzzer buzzed harder and harder, but Lance couldn't manage to bring the courage to turn the wheel. Five, four, his foot burned and was wet from the blood, what already was a thick, sticky substance. Three, two, it was all or nothing right now and Lance went for it, despite the pain, but he was too late. A bold man appeared in the doorframe while the turned-up rails started to slowly lower. With a loud hiss, the metal around Lance's hands flinched away. Lance screamed because of the pole that had been inside his hand, was pulled out. He put his hand out to the man and cried for help, but the man grabbed the door.

"Game over," he said and slabbed the door shut.

"Nooooooo!" his scream was over sounded by the loud clank of the rails falling into place. The well-oiled wheels started to roll, faster and faster. Still with his hand put out, the front of the tow truck crashed into his car. His feet and knees were immediately destroyed, the steering pole broke and a piece slammed into his scrotum, what again let to a highly pitched scream. But it didn't last long, because his ribs were drove inside his lungs and snap, snap, snap broke. His head got crushed and pieces of his brain flew away; slapping with a wet sound against the walls. Only his right hand survived the crash. Only his right hand was found by the police men the next day. But not how he had left it, but with a piece of skin carved out of his wrist. A puzzle piece...