Gnarly Little Thrill

The Gnarly Trip Back to the Sunset Strip

The roar of the '86 Interceptor's engine was deafening, a primal scream that matched the chaos erupting in Haldy's mind as she floored the accelerator. "Holy hell, Lana, this thing's fast as fuck! If we're gonna be in a high-speed chase with the FBI this is definitely the car to do it in."

"Focus, Haldy!" Solana clung to the dashboard, her tight ponytail whipping wildly against the side of her face, eyes wide as dinner plates behind her winged eyeliner. "We've gotta reach LA before the feds realize what happened!"

The desert became a blur, the Interceptor slicing through the night air with an urgency that mirrored their own. Lana's hazel eyes flickered to the rearview mirror, half expecting to see a horde of black SUVs on their tail but finding only the dark empty desert. "This is some shit I did not see coming," she spat out between clenched teeth, her slicked-back ponytail swinging as Haldy swerved around a corner like a pro rally car driver.

"I know, right!" Haldy countered, her voice all diamond-stud defiance despite the tremble in her hands.

Haldy's foot hammered the gas pedal, thrusting them forward with such force that for a moment, they seemed to defy gravity. Skyscrapers loomed over them like monoliths of a forgotten age as they barreled down the freeway, the cityscape of Los Angeles rising ahead like a phoenix from the ashes of their past lives.

"Remember when we thought playing the AlleyCat was our biggest problem?" Lana mused aloud, half-laughing at the absurdity. Her heart drummed a rapid beat, syncopated with the thrum of the Interceptor's pistons.

"God, we were so Fucking naïve." Haldy's gaze was fixed on the glowing horizon, the neon promise of LA's nightlife. "I'd kill for those days. No feds, no high speed chases through the desert, just us against the world."

"Us against the world," Lana echoed, her voice softening with a slow-burning nostalgia. That had been one of Kip's favorite phrases. The tension between them crackled like static from an old amplifier, charged with fear and determination.

"Hey, remember that time we drove all the way to middle of nowhere for that party in that junkyard and we found Winston in the roof of that smashed Prelude like twenty feet in the air, ass up? Like, I still don't know how she got all the way to the top of that pile of cars," Haldy attempted a laugh, but it came out more like a hiccup of hysteria.

"Christ, I'll never forget that. Kip was the only one crazy enough to climb up there and get her ass down. Winston spent the rest of the night literally tied to Kip by that bandana she borrowed from some guy. I remember begging Winston to shut the hell up after she sang O' Suzanna for the 8th time that night," Lana's chuckle was a brief reprieve from the panic, a fleeting moment of levity as the needle on the speedometer crept toward 90mph.

"Yeah, that shit was so funny Ronni pissed herself." Haldy's lips curved into a wry smile, though it was laced with regret for the raucous group they'd lost touch with.

"The last time I heard anything about Winston was in 95'. Someone said they saw her at Lollapalooza. Wonder what her crazy ass has been up to for all these years?" Lana's voice was tinged with humor as the car vibrated with the raw power of their escape.

Suddenly, the world outside the Interceptor stretched and contorted like freshly made salt-water taffy, the distant city lights streaking into elongated stars as if the universe itself was warping around them. Haldy's grip unconsciously tightened on the steering wheel, knuckles white, as time itself seemed to bend to the will of their flight.

"Shit, Haldy we must be doing over 100 now! Everything is wrapping together and all blurry," Lana's shout was a mixture of excitement and terror, her pulse racing with the thrill of the unknown stretching almost endlessly before them.