Chapter 45: "Speed. I Am Speed."
The sky was barely pink when the front of the mansion was already alive with noise.
Police cruisers and ambulances rolled in one after another, their sirens cutting through the early morning quiet of what had been, until very recently, a perfectly isolated country estate.
Hanson — who'd spent the better part of the night zip-tied and controlled by Rango and the others — was now in handcuffs, being walked to the back of a patrol car by two officers who looked like they'd rather be anywhere else.
Professor Oldman, surgical scar still fresh across his forehead, was lifted onto a gurney with the kind of painstaking caution usually reserved for antique furniture — the attending paramedics visibly terrified that one wrong jostle might make things significantly worse.
Worth noting: the lead detective on scene, a broad-shouldered Black cop who introduced himself only as Marcus, listened to Cindy's account and the corroborating statements from the others, then nodded once and closed his notepad.
"We're good here," he said. "You all don't need to come in."
"You sure?" Rango asked. "No statements? No follow-up?"
Marcus shook his head slowly, cigarette clamped in the corner of his mouth, eyes already somewhere far away. "I've got bigger fish. You people are the least of my problems today."
Rango looked the detective over — something about him was nagging at the back of his mind — then took a shot in the dark.
"Something big drop in the city?"
Marcus glanced at him sideways. Seemed to make a decision. "You look like someone who can keep his mouth shut."
"Famously."
The detective exhaled a long stream of smoke. "Two days ago, we pulled a female body out of a field in Queens. No trauma. No cause of death we could pin. She was six feet down, buried clean."
Rango nodded, produced a cigarette, and offered it over as a goodwill gesture. "And?"
"And," Marcus said, accepting it, "we kept digging around the site. Forty, maybe fifty more bodies. Some of them—" He paused. Took a long drag. "Some of those people have been dead for close to two hundred years. And none of their social connections overlap. Not one."
Rango let that sit for a moment. "So you're either looking for an immortal with impulse control issues, or a copycat so dedicated he's been working in shifts for two centuries."
"That's exactly where my head's at, and it's been keeping me up for three days straight." Marcus rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Only solid detail we have: there's a headstone at every single burial site. Name, date of birth, date of death, carved right in. Neat as you please."
Rango straightened slightly. He didn't say what he was already thinking — that this had nothing to do with a human killer — but he kept his voice level.
"Start with the families of the most recent victims. Work backward. My guess is the whole thing unravels faster than you'd expect."
Marcus pointed at him. "Yeah. Yeah, that was my read too." He clapped him on the shoulder. "Appreciate the smoke, man."
He was in his car and pulling out before Rango could say another word.
Rango watched him go, then turned back to look at the mansion behind him.
He'd walked into this place expecting a quiet, low-stakes haunted house situation — the kind of thing you'd see in the first twenty minutes of The Haunting of Hill House before anything actually happens. What he'd gotten instead was a cannibalistic butler, a sentient marijuana plant, a telekinetic ancient, and now apparently a mass grave situation that was going to make headlines in about forty-eight hours.
And not a single person here — not the guests, not the professor, not even the cop — had been what you'd call normal.
He needed to leave before it started rubbing off on him.
It didn't take long for everyone to pack up.
The original plan had been a full weekend at the estate. After one night that had included a near-lobotomy, two supernatural encounters, a house fire (contained, mostly), and a visit from the police, the group consensus was unanimous: get in the car.
Cindy found Rango near the front steps, luggage already at her side.
"I owe you an apology," she said. "I sold this as a paranormal research trip. I didn't expect it to go this sideways."
"Don't." Rango pulled her into a quick hug. "Tell Cody I said hey. And next time something like this comes up — a haunted house, a cursed road trip, anything — call me first. I mean that. This was the most fun I've had in months."
She laughed despite herself. "You have a serious problem."
"Yeah." He grinned. "Safe drive."
He walked down the line — brief goodbye to Bradley, a handshake with Brenda — and when he got to Sheila, she didn't bother with words. She grabbed the back of his head, kissed him like she was trying to set a record, then spun on her heel, tossed a "Call me~" over her shoulder, and got in her car.
Rango watched her drive off.
Gloria's flying in next week. He exhaled slowly. That era of casual chaos might be coming to a close.
Once the last car disappeared down the driveway, Rango didn't follow.
He went back inside.
Standing in the center of the entry hall — dusty morning light slanting through the windows, the whole place finally, genuinely quiet — he spoke to the empty room.
"Hey. I held up my end."
The mist came first, curling up from the floorboards, and then Carolyn materialized — translucent, guarded, but with something softer underneath it now.
"You've got options," Rango said, rolling his wrists loose, keeping his tone easy. "You don't have to stay tethered here. I can move you on — and I'll be careful about it. You have my word."
Carolyn looked at him for a long moment.
Then she shook her head. Took a step back. And when she spoke, her voice was quiet but certain. "This is my home. I want to stay. That's my choice."
Rango studied her. Nodded once.
"Then it's your choice."
There were three categories of spirit he wouldn't force out, and Carolyn fit one of them cleanly. He wasn't going to push.
He raised a hand — step back a little — and she drifted to the edge of the room as he moved to the center of the hall and opened his palm.
The summoning gauge was full.
Just like last time, the slot that had belonged to Megan had been replaced. The new symbol that had taken its place was... a ghost. Shadowy, spiked at the edges, faintly menacing.
These keep getting stranger.
He didn't overthink it. He focused on the wheel and triggered the spin.
The golden light appeared between the four symbols and began cycling — slow at first, then faster, then fast enough that the individual icons blurred together. He watched it, jaw tight.
It slowed.
Slowed more.
Stopped.
Sports car.
"Yes."
He actually pumped his fist. He'd been hoping for this one since the last spin.
Carolyn watched from the corner, visibly puzzled, as Rango aimed his palm at the open floor of the living room. Blue light exploded outward, and the car materialized piece by piece — first the low, aggressive silhouette, then the details filling in like a photograph developing.
It was wide. Low-slung. The kind of car that looked fast sitting still. The paint was a deep, saturated red — not cherry, not crimson, something in between, the kind of color that seemed to pull in the light around it rather than reflect it. The rear spoiler was massive. The quad exhaust tips were the diameter of coffee cans.
That body shape... Rango squinted. Is that a Dodge Viper? Or—
Then the engine fired.
The sound didn't start — it detonated. A full-throttle roar that rattled the windows and sent a fine layer of dust cascading from the ceiling, like something enormous had just woken up and was very happy about it.
And then, before Rango could process any of it—
"SPEED. I AM SPEED!!!"
The car launched. Zero to terrifying in about one second flat, straight at him — then locked up the brakes at the last possible instant, rear end swinging wide, completing a perfect, screaming 360 on the hardwood floor before snapping back to center.
Then the windshield lit up.
Two bright, animated eyes blinked open on the glass. The front hood creased and folded into an enormous grinning mouth, revealing a full set of clean white teeth.
The car looked up at Rango.
And in a voice that was somehow simultaneously a race announcer, a best friend, and a NASCAR engine:
"Master! Lightning McQueen — reporting for duty!"
Lightning McQueen is the protagonist of Pixar's Cars (2006). "Speed. I am speed." is his pre-race mantra from the film.
The mass grave subplot references the structure of supernatural procedurals like Supernatural and The X-Files, where law enforcement stumbles onto cases that are obviously paranormal but can't name what they're actually looking at.
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