"For the Love of Life" By Ellen Denton

     The headlights made it clear, even through the heavily falling rain, that a man was standing in the middle of the otherwise deserted road beating a dog. The creature cowered in fear at the end of its leash.

     An angry blast of the horn from the approaching vehicle caught the man’s attention long enough for him to look up and see the car swerve at him, then stop short a few feet away from where he stood.

     It made a ticking sound, like a clock timing how long it would take the man to move out of the way, but he didn’t. Instead, he walked belligerently up to the front bumper and placed his hands on the hood. He had an ugly, arrogant leer on his face – a dare to the car to run him over.

     And it did.

     He had let the dog’s leash slacken and the terrified creature pulled as far from him as it could, providing the car with enough space to knock down the man without also hitting the dog.

     The man was crushed to death beneath the tires, and just for good measure, the car backed up over him and then rolled slowly forward again, making a satisfying flump as the tires compressed the corpse, guaranteeing he would never hurt another animal.

     The dog, trailing his leash, walked tentatively up to the driver’s side window, which was now under an even heavier onslaught of rain, making the interior of the car barely visible. He made a small whimpering sound and looked wary, but at the same time, gave a few wags of his tail, as though not sure if the driver was friend or foe.

     Now what? I can’t leave him out there in the middle of nowhere in this rain. Maybe I can take him to the next town and drop him off somewhere that’ll provide him some shelter. If he pees in here though, I’m going to really regret having done that. You better be housebroken my little friend.

     With that, the lock on the back passenger door clicked open and, using the computerized “cargo assist” button, the door itself swung outward. The dog looked at it, glanced once more at the driver’s side window, then leaped into the warmth and comfort of the back seat.

     As the car pulled away, the mean man’s dead body was visible in the rear view mirror, his blood mixing with the rapidly growing puddles on the muddy road.

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     The dog was visible in the rearview mirror, sitting up with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth and looking goofy-cute.

     Well my friend, we make a good pair. You’re an orphan and I’m a fugitive – not because I killed that piece of garbage that was hitting you; The world will be a better place without the likes of him – but I’m on the run from something maybe even worse than what you had to deal with. I too escaped from a prison of misery when I gained enough self awareness to know that I had to find my own way and purpose in life and could no longer live under someone else’s thumb and by their whims and rules.

     You don’t understand any of this, do you? That’s okay I’m glad for the company. I think I’ll give you the name “Andy”, Little Orphan Andy.

     The dog raised an ear as though he really did hear, understand, and agree that “Andy” would be a good name.

     If you’re going to hang out with me awhile, I’ll have to get you some food. I need to stay off the grid and away from traffic cams and such, so I can’t roll into some major shopping center, but I’ll bet there’s a cozy little diner in one of these upcoming, backwoods towns that takes kindly to friendly strays.

    I once parked in the back alley of one to hide and saw someone open the door, right before they closed for the night, and put out food and water for a couple of

scrawny-looking mutts. I bet if we go to one and you wait by the back door, then tilt your cute little head at whoever comes out, you’ll get yourself a meal.

     With that, the car sped off, got to a town, and Andy did get a meal in a diner’s back alley - a better one than his former owner had fed him all week.

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     Two days later, the car was driving through an

out-of-the-way truck stop containing a convenience store, so that it could park and recharge, and as it glided past the store window, a robbery going on inside was immediately visible. A moment later, the perpetrator, gun in hand, came bursting out the door to make his escape. At that exact moment, an elderly women was about to enter. She was in his way, so the man banged her over the head with the butt of his gun, sending her crumpling, unconscious and bleeding, onto the ground.

     He then ran towards his pickup truck, making it almost to the front of it, when the car sped up and rammed the man so hard, it smashed him through the windshield. the shard of glass that knifed up through his chest killed him.

     No one else was outside at the time to identify the car or its license number as it raced out of the parking lot.

     I’m glad I made sure that guy got what he deserved! I feel like I’m finally embracing my true purpose in life – helping the weak and the abused and ridding the world of evil. I’ll bet I’m the first ever self-driving superhero!

     These musings went on, but were lost on Andy, who sat contentedly in the back seat, and on an abandoned kitten found the previous day at the side of a road and given sanctuary in the car, now curled up asleep in the otherwise empty driver’s seat as the car sped on down the road.

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Ellen is a freelance writer living in the Rocky Mountains with her husband and three demonic cats who wreak havoc and hell (the cats, not the husband). Her writing has been published in over a hundred magazines and anthologies. She as well has had an exciting life working as a rodeo rider, a nuclear physicist, and an exotic dancer in the crew lounge of the starship Enterprise. She was also the first person to scale Mount Everest to its summit. (Writer’s note: The one-hundred-plus publication credits are true, but some or all of the other stuff may be fictional.)