The car sat on the far corner of the lot ever since it rolled in that gray stormy day seven years ago, a soft-top sporty convertible that had barely gone two thousand miles. Two doors and a large sporty engine, the car should have been exceptionally popular. However this was not the case. With paint that looked like dried blood, the car was just ignored by everyone. Everyone that is except for sally may, a girl who lived just three doors down from the car yard. Every day Sally would walk past the yard on her way home from high school, and every day she would stop and look at the car sitting alone on the corner of the yard.

On her sixteenth birthday, sally walked past the car lot, just as she had done for years. As she walked past the yard on her daily ritual, she noticed the owner of the yard looking out at her. Smiling, sally waved and continued walking. She had only gone a few steps when the owner hurried towards her, calling her name and waving. Sally stopped and looked at him as he approached. The owner came to a stop just a few feet to her right. Sally asked what he wanted and the owner quickly explained that he had written off the blood red car and was going to have it towed to the junkyard for compression and demolition. Sally’s eyes went wide and she was speechless. The owner paused for a moment before continuing……."However, if you hand over $100 its all yours to drive away right now." Sally thought for a long moment before reaching for her cellphone. Placing a call to her father who was at home, she explained the offer and all the details. Begrudgingly her father arrived a few minutes later with the money.

As money and keys were exchanged, sally was over the moon. She drove the car home and lovingly washed it inside and out. After dinner, sally took her new car out for a drive. Slowly sally piloted the car out to the back roads. The back roads were long, straight and abandoned. Perfect thought sally as she began to let loose. Letting the engine roar, sally tore down the long empty roads. Slowly sally could smell an odour filling the car. Ignoring it, sally opened all the windows and lowered the top of the car. With so much fresh air flooding the car, sally expected the smell to fade. In the distance, a small grove of trees stood guard on the bend in the road. As sally approached the bend, the smell seemed to grow stronger. Sally glanced quickly in the rear vision mirror. The smell seemed to be forming a cloud on the back seat. Sally sat transfixed on the cloud growing in the back seat of the car. Sally began to panic, stamping on the brakes. The car began to slide across the road. For a second it seemed that a crash was imminent. Everything seemed to turn white. Time seemed to slow down as the guardrail on the side of the road…

Suddenly sally found herself several dozen yards back down the road facing the other way. Sally blinked several times before realizing that she wasn’t crashed into the guardrail. Drawing in a deep breath, sally took off at speed, sending a shower of gravel and dust behind her. As soon as sally got home, she told her dad everything that had happened, the smell, the glowing eyes and the grove of trees. Promising action in the morning her father went to sleep. Morning rose and her father, with sally in tow, went down to the car yard and had a long talk with the owner. The owner explained that the car had been brought in several years ago and had never been officially sold to him. Slowly sally and her father walked home. When they arrived, her father suggested that sally drive him out to the spot where the smell started to get really bad and the cloud started to form. Slowly sally drove out to the spot where the smell started. As with the last time, the smell started getting worse. Only this time the smell was almost suffocatingly strong. Sally and her father rolled down all the windows and opened the top of the car. As the grove of trees drew closer, the eyes started to appear, with the smell of rotting meat. Growing brighter and brighter. As the grove of trees drew nearer the cloud seemed to call out.

Sally’s father asked sally to stop the car up near the grove of trees. Sally reluctantly did so and pulled the car off to the side of the road. Slowly the two occupants exited the vehicle and walked over to the grove of trees. The guardrail had been shattered between two support posts. The closest tree had a large smear of blood red paint on its trunk. The smell of gasoline hung heavy in the air. A pair of trees just over a car width apart had large chunks of bark ripped from the trunks. Deeper into the grove, the smell of gasoline mingled with the smell of smoke. As sally’s father moved deeper into the grove a faint orange light flickered in front of him. Sally’s father crept further forward and saw an upturned car that resembled sally’s car. Sally’s father peered into the abandoned vehicle. All the doors were shut and the fabric soft-top and crumpled inwards. Not a soul could be seen in the dim light that partially hid the interior of the vehicle.

Suddenly the car began to burst into flames. Tongues of yellow, red and orange leapt out from the interior of the car. The blanket of silence that had fallen over the small grove of trees was shattered by a bone-chilling scream. Sally’s father turned and ran back towards the car. As he left the grove, he could see sally engulfed by the same tongues of yellow, orange and red, yet sally was not screaming nor even trying to put out the flames. Attempting to get closer, he was beaten back by the heat from the flames that had engulfed his daughter. For a brief second the eyes of father and daughter met as the flames began to encircle them both. A smile hung on sally’s lips as she whispered "goodbye daddy". So sooner had the words left her mouth then her father noticed that he had become trapped by the fire. Slowly everything turned white as the flames drew higher and nearer. Time seemed to stop as he was engulfed in a sea of white.

Slowly he opened his eyes. He was lying on the gravel at the side of the road. The last thing he could remember was being encircled by the flames. Looking around he could see no evidence of the fire, nor his daughter and her car. Noticing a couple of empty beer bottles nearby, he wrote the fire off to a drunken dream. Only the fact that his clothes and hair were slightly singed and reeked of smoke and gasoline argued with his assumption. Walking home he could only repeat to himself it was all a dream, it was all a dream. However the nagging voice in the back of his head hissed "or was it?………"