Welcome to the maternity ward. This is where baby monsters are born. He's not looking for a car, reader. He's looking for a co-conspirator. Something broken, just like him, that he can rebuild into something dangerously fast.
Sully's Auto Salvage was a sprawling, rust-colored testament to bad decisions and worse luck. Cars were stacked three-high, their shattered windshields like vacant eyes. The air hung thick with the smell of old oil, baked earth, and decay. Johnny walked through the narrow lanes of dead machines with a singular purpose, ignoring the automotive carnage until he found it. Tucked away behind a mountain of bald tires sat a '93 Nissan 240SX. It was the color of faded blood, with a spiderweb of rust creeping from the wheel wells. One headlight was smashed out, giving it a cynical wink. It was perfect.
Sully, the yard's proprietor, emerged from a greasy shack, wiping his hands on an even greasier rag. He had a face like a collapsed road map and the disposition of a cornered badger. He spat a stream of tobacco juice near Johnny's foot.
"She ain't run in ten years, kid," Sully rasped, gesturing at the Nissan with a thumb. "Engine's seized solid. You're buying a thousand pounds of scrap metal."
Johnny didn't look at the old man. He was running a hand over the dented fender, his touch surprisingly gentle. His voice, when he spoke, was flat and devoid of emotion. "The engine doesn't matter. The frame is straight and the chassis is clean. Seven hundred bucks."
Sully squinted, taken aback. He was used to naive kids with more dreams than sense. "Listen, sonny, the sticker says twelve hundred. It's a classic."
"The sticker is a joke," Johnny replied, kneeling to peer underneath the car. "The rear differential is leaking and the suspension is shot. I'll have to replace the whole undercarriage. Seven hundred is generous."
"Tough talk for a kid with no fuzz on his face," Sully grumbled, but a flicker of respect showed in his weary eyes. This kid wasn't just kicking tires. "Fine. Eight hundred, and you haul it out of here today."
"Done," Johnny said, standing up. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled wad of bills—every dollar he had in the world, the money he'd been saving for a deposit on a city apartment with a fire escape. He counted out eight hundred dollars into Sully's waiting palm. The transaction was clean, cold, and symbolic. He was trading his old future for a new one. He paid another fifty to have the wreck towed, not to his house, but to a cheap, anonymous garage stall he'd rented that morning—a concrete box in the industrial park where his new life had begun.
Retrieving his old car was a necessary, and dreaded, final chore. He couldn't afford a second tow, so he borrowed a buddy's ramshackle pickup truck to drag the dead sedan from its resting place down the street from Emma's house. As he was wrestling with the tow chain, hooking it to the scarred frame of his first car, the front door of the house he would never again enter opened.
Emma's parents, David and Carol, stepped out onto the porch. They looked like they hadn't slept in two days. They were the first ghosts of his past he had to face, and he steeled himself, keeping his back to them as he worked.
"Johnny, thank God!" Carol's voice was strained, a mixture of relief and pleading. She hurried down the steps toward him. "We've been so worried. Emma is… she's beside herself. She needs to talk to you. She said it wasn't what it looked like."
Johnny continued to work, tightening a bolt on the tow hitch. He didn't look at her. "I'm sure." The words were quiet, polite, and utterly dismissive.
David, a big man who had taught him how to throw a football, stepped up behind his wife, his expression pained. "Son, just… listen to her. You two have been friends forever. Don't throw all that away over some high school stupidity."
Johnny finished his work. The chain was secure. He finally stood up and turned to face them, the two people who had been a second family to him for his entire life. He looked them in the eyes, his own face a blank, impenetrable mask. There was no anger. No pain. Only a vast and chilling emptiness.
"I'm sorry you were worried," he said, his voice level. "Have a good day, Mr. and Mrs. Davis."
The use of their formal names hit them like a slap. Carol flinched, a fresh wave of tears welling in her eyes. David's face crumpled in confusion and hurt. They were talking to a polite stranger, a ghost who wore their Johnny's face. He gave them a single, small nod, then turned, walked to the pickup, and climbed into the driver's seat without a backwards glance at them, or at the house.
And that's how you kill a ghost. Not with fire, but with ice. He just looked at two people who were practically his family and treated them like they were trying to sell him a newspaper subscription. The armor is holding, reader. It's brand new, but damn if it isn't bulletproof.