Intensity

this world, consume every scintilla of sensation that it has to offer, and he will leave behind a realm of ashes. Let the meek inherit ashes.

    
        Passing the motor home, going too fast to prevent the Honda from straddling the double yellow line all the way around the curve, Chyna had been afraid that the parched engine would cough and choke and fail. Now that she had seen the red warning light, she was aware of it-a peripheral radiance-even when she wasn't looking at the instrument panel. But the Honda ran confidently on dregs, on fumes, on some strange grace.
        She needed to put distance between herself and the killer, and gain time to set her plan in motion. She pushed the car as hard as she dared on the storm-greased pavement.
        The narrow road rounded another bend, straightened out, entered a gradual descent, took another curve, rose on a gentle slope, but descended again, and in spite of the intermittent interruptions of these extremely low inclines, the land was generally monotonous in its contours, making its way steadily down toward the Pacific, not many miles to the west. Now low ramparts of soft earth flanked the blacktop just beyond both shoulders, and this wasn't suitable for her purposes. But then the road returned to the same level as the surrounding forest, and she entered another almost imperceptibly declining straightaway and found the ideal circumstances she required.
        She figured that she had gained a full minute on him, maybe a minute and a half, depending on whether he had appreciably increased his speed after she passed him. Anyway, a minute should be long enough.
        She slowed to thirty miles an hour and nonetheless seemed to be hurtling through the woods. She let the speed decrease to twenty-five, wondering again about her headlong rush to heroism but still unable to fully understand it. Then she drove off the roadway, flew across the right shoulder, thumped through a shallow drainage swale, and rammed into the fortress base of one of the biggest of the redwoods. The left headlight burst, the impact-absorbing bumper cracked and crumpled and collapsed as it had been designed to do, and metal shrieked briefly.
        Because she was wearing a safety harness, she wasn't thrown into the steering wheel or through the windshield. But the diagonal strap tightened so hard across her breasts that she grunted with shock and pain.
        The engine was still running.
        With no time to get out and inspect the front of the car, Chyna was afraid that the damage wasn't sufficiently impressive to convince the killer that someone could have been injured in the crash. When he came upon this scene a few seconds from now, he must take everything at face value without hesitation. Otherwise, if he was suspicious, nothing would work as she had planned.
        Immediately she shifted the Honda into reverse and backed away from the tree, which stood inviolate. The ground was carpeted with wet redwood needles on which the tires spun before gripping, but not enough rain had fallen to churn the earth into mud. Rattling and clinking, the car bounced across the shallow drainage swale, which ran with only an inch or two of muddy water, and backed onto the pavement again.
        Chyna glanced toward the top of the gently ascending slope down which she had just driven. As yet there was not even a faint glow of approaching headlights from beyond the curve.
        He was coming. No doubt about that.
        Soon.
        She didn't have time to reverse even part of the way up the slope. But she needed to build a little speed.
        With her left foot, she tramped the brake pedal as far toward the floorboards as it would go, and with her right foot she eased down on the accelerator. The engine whined, then shrieked. The car strained like a spurred horse pressing against the gate of a rodeo chute. She could feel it wanting to surge forward, as if it were a living thing, and she wondered how much acceleration would be too much, enough to kill her or trap her in wreckage. Then she gave it a little more juice, smelled something burning, and raised her left foot from the brake pedal.
        The tires spun furiously on the glistering blacktop, and then with a shudder the Honda shot forward, rattled and splashed across the ditch, and slammed into the trunk of the redwood. The right headlight burst, metal squealed, the hood crumpled and tweaked and popped open with a