Coffin Dodgers by Gary Marshall Read Free Book Online Page A

shark attacks, hallucinations and eating your comrades, accidentally walk into the middle of a military coup, be captured, spend ten years in jail facing certain death for a crime you didn't commit, tunnel your way out using nothing but a chopstick, be abducted by aliens just as you escape the prison grounds, lead a bitter but ultimately victorious war against implacable intergalactic enemies, return to Earth and wander back into the garage and he'd still be there, talking, completely unaware that you'd even left.  
    Okay, he probably isn't quite that bad. But he's still pretty dull. You know when you post status updates online, and most people post pithy comments or links to cool stuff they've seen? Scott posts exactly what he's doing, often in real time. I hit the "block" button after this particularly exciting drama:
    "Getting a bit hungry." - Posted by Scott at 7.59pm.
    "Should probably make dinner." - Posted by Scott at 8.03pm.
    "Fancy some pasta." - Posted by Scott at 8.05pm.
    "Making pasta." - Posted by Scott at 8.11pm.
    "Had pasta for dinner. It was very nice." - Posted by Scott at 8.33pm.
    "I think I might have eaten too much pasta!" - Posted by Scott at 8.52pm.
    "Men in balaclavas waving machine guns have kicked in my windows, thrown grenades at the cat and shot all the prostitutes! I shouldn't have stolen heroin from the Colombians!" - Posted by Scott at 9.01pm.
    I made that last one up.
    He's still talking when Otto, from whom Ottomatik gets its hilarious name, pops his head round the door.  
    "Car's ready," he says.
    "Anything I need to worry about?"
    "No. All fine. You pay now."
    Otto isn't a big talker. He hands me the bill and of course, it's all the money in the world. I follow him to the till, where he swipes my card and hands me the keys.
    "Thank you bye," Otto says.

    If I hear My Generation one more time I may kill somebody.  
    All the radio stations are based on requests, so if enough people vote for a track the computer plays it. And the people who vote are just hilarious, so you never have to wait long to hear My Generation, Don't Fear The Reaper, Live Forever and worst of all, When I'm Sixty-Bloody-Four. I change channels but there's nothing but evangelists and crazy people on phone-ins, so I turn the stereo off and concentrate on driving.
    Not that there's much to concentrate on. The car does all the work apart from steering, and it only lets humans do that because the manufacturer doesn't want to get sued if you smack into a tree for no good reason. Everything else -- the brakes, the speed, the not-smashing-into-other-cars -- is done for you. It's not exactly fun, but the upside is that you get plenty of time to think.
    Inevitably, that means I'm thinking about Amy.  
    I've already told you how I feel about her. What I'm trying to work out is what I'm going to do about it. She's my best friend, the person who knows all my secrets, the one person I don’t feel weird around. I want to ask her out on a date -- a date date, not a friends date -- but I'm scared that if I do, it'll freak her out and I'll lose her altogether. But I don't think I can keep on like this either. Is it worth the risk? Should I let her know how I feel? Should I --
    What the hell?
    The car's accelerating, hard. That's not always a bad thing, but there's a sweeping right-hander up ahead and I'm already going a bit faster than is strictly sensible. I hit the brakes. Nothing happens. I press the accelerator in case it's stuck. It isn't. I stab at the control buttons on the dashboard. They don't do anything.
    The engine is making scary noises. The display's rev counter is showing silly numbers. The speedo is climbing. The corner is getting very close.
    I'm kicking at the pedals but it isn't making any difference.  
    I've read that when you think you're going to die, your brain goes into economy mode. You see in black and white, because your brain needs the processing power to look for a way out, not to show you things in