Driveless

By Sarah E. Seeley

Howard Carlson received a self-driving car after a terrible accident left him paralyzed and took his wife's life. When he buckles up for the first time, a straightforward trip to the grocery store with his seventeen-month-old daughter turns into a high-speed nightmare as his new smart vehicle goes rouge and races down the highway toward an unknown destination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sarah E. Seeley
• Release date: Mar 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463839324

Sarah E. Seeley

Sarah E. Seeley is a fantasy and horror author, and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association. She has a Master of Science in Paleoanthropology and Palaeolithic Archaeology from the University College London, and enjoys studying dead things to figure out what makes life on Earth so amazing. She explores the bright side of being human by writing dark fiction.

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DRIVELESS

By Sarah E. Seeley

Ebook Edition

Fist Publication © Copyright 2014 by Sarah E. Seeley

Standalone Publication © Copyright 2020 by Sarah E. Seeley

All Rights Reserved

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written consent of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

For more information about Sarah E. Seeley and her writings, visit www.slithersofthought.com.

"YES, 911 EMERGENCY," A COMPOSED but serious female voice broke over the car’s built-in speakerphone.

My car won’t stop, I said. I’m a paraplegic. I have a baby-blue Driveless Prius that just turned onto the highway, heading eastbound out of Sparks. I’m going almost 65 now. The car was supposed to take me to the grocery store and home again. But as soon as it pulled out onto the main street by my house, it made three circuits around town and then decided to take this detour. I have no idea where it’s going and the control screen appears to be frozen. I don’t know what to do. I have a baby in the back seat.

What’s your name, sir?

Howard. Howard Carlson.

Howard, which way is your car headed? Apparently, she hadn’t caught the direction the first time.

Eastbound, on Lincoln Highway.

Okay, sir. Are the brakes working?

Um. . . I stared down at my legs, my darn freakin’ useless legs that looked like a couple of sticks draped in denim, despite ten months of physical therapy. I’d already tried slipping my dead left foot over the brake and pushing down on my knee with my hands, but I couldn’t get enough resistance to push down on the pedal. There was nothing else handy I could use to poke at the pedals, and there was no way I would crawl under the steering wheel just to get myself stuck in some painful position while trying to use my hands. I don’t know. I can’t really reach the pedals. I wasn’t supposed to need full functionality to operate this thing you know? Especially not for a trip to the grocery store.

Understood, sir. Are you in any position to manually steer the car?

I gripped the steering wheel with both hands and attempted to wrestle control away from the autopilot. The wheel was stiff but not impossible to maneuver. The car swerved,