Wraith Cars: Part I
The workshop was empty. It had been for some time now. Years, in fact.
Antonio could still smell the rubber, the fuel, everything. It hadn't left the building. Or, maybe more accurate, it had never left Antonio.
The place was derelict. Grass and weeds had sprouted up through the floors. The brick walls that once held up concept sketches and maintenance schedules now were littered with spray paint and profanity. Antonio's old office was the worst for wear. All the windows had been broken, and there was a used syringe lying within the pile of shattered glass.
This is what can happen to a place left abandoned for a decade or two.
But Antonio had returned, though not a savior. He had tried for years to resurrect the company he had started right here, but had fallen short.
From 1979 to 1984, Antonio Augustino was a power in the Italian supercar scene. In fact all of Europe had taken notice of his unique and sometimes outlandish designs. A meteoric rise after the release of 1979's Augustino D-VL, a sleek and speedy wedge designed supercar, found Antonio right in the middle of the competition, sales matching those of big companies like Luganotti and Fazaralla.
Augustino Motors was just getting started.
1981 brought the release of the D-RK, a more advanced and track friendly speedster. Antonio had turned heads with a near flat design, with wicked arches and curves and a huge spoiler. The look caused mixed feelings, but that car's performance helped it maintain its elite status.
It was around then that Antonio was being interviewed by every magazine of importance, and getting international acclaim. It was all building to a peak, which the company quickly hit in 1982.
The final model from Augustino Motors was released in late 1982. The D-TH, was a spaceship with wheels. Antonio's design had gotten more wild, and the car was a hit.
That was, until the fall of 1983.
The D-TH was selling very well, until a fatal flaw had been discovered with its seat design. If the car got into an accident, at any decent speed, the seat welds would not hold, and the seat itself would eject into the front windshield.
News of the defect had reached Antonio. He struggled to get a quick recall, and tried to see if he could perhaps do something under the radar. Unfortunately, the D-TH model was being used in an Italian action film, and tragedy stuck. In a stunt gone awry, the D-TH being used crashed, and the actor inside was propelled into the windshield, becoming a gruesome tangle of flesh and broken glass.
All had been caught on film. All eyes now fell on Antonio Augustino.
Before the recall could be fully met, four other deaths occurred. As this happened, Antonio's rivals jumped at the opportunity to drive him into the ground.
Luganotti, Fazaralla, Bosconi, DeRigossi, and even German manufacturers Gunthrom and Voshagen sent out slanderous adverts and helped to bankrupt Augustino Motors by the middle of 1984.
Antonio watched all he had built crumble before him, and saw his future becoming bleak. His biggest concern was that of his wife and daughter, the latter having just been born on New Year's Day, 1984. This sense of responsibility and guilt led Antonio to his lowest point.
To pay off his debts, to just break even at zero, Antonio sold off all of his concepts and sketches. He was selling all of his most precious creations to all the companies that had driven the nails in his career coffin.
Antonio had been reduced to a job as a car salesman, and he was not as good at selling other cars as he was at creating and marketing his own. He struggled, and so did his family.
A final breaking point for Antonio had come in 1991, when his wife, Jasmine, was struck by a speeding car and died on scene. She had been walking to work, because the family could only afford one car, and Antonio had used it on a business trip, a trip to interview for a design job with Luganotti.
Antonio had a mental breakdown so severe that his daughter had been taken from him, for her own well being.
The next two decades came and went for Antonio, with time slipping by and his soul fading away inside of him.
However, his daughter, Ava, had recently found him. They had a emotional reconciliation, where Ava encouraged her father to reach out and do something about what had happened, and to do what he could to create a new future.
The talk had resonated with Antonio, and he had first found his way back to this building, his old workshop.
Antonio had begun to find his way to his own redemption just before Ava had found him, but she had now become a catalyst, and Antonio had started reintroducing himself to the car world once more.
His timing could not have been better.
Just a few days away, an unprecedented event was to occur. At a racetrack near the workshop, a place Antonio knew well, there was to be the biggest expo of exotic supercars ever seen. Every company across Europe was to be represented, and the culture of the European supercar was to be on display.
Knowing this, Antonio had made a strong push to be involved in some way, and had at last secured a pass to the event. Time had healed some of the wounds and damage to the once prestigious name of Augustino Motors, and the event coordinators saw no real harm in him just simply attending.
There had been a strong pushback from the heads of Luganotti and Fazaralla, but it was overruled.
A small victory, Antonio thought, before the real war began.
As Antonio paced through the old workshop he found his way to the garage. He took a moment, letting memories come and go. He remembered the busy work, and the laughter that always filled the room. They were good memories and he held them close once more.
"Please! God! Let us go!" A pained voice screamed out, snapping Antonio from his warm daydream.
A woman, one of three people chained against the brick wall, was screaming at Antonio. The other two had passed out from the pain of their imprisonment, but the woman managed to find the strength to continue on.
"What have we done to you? Why? Why us?" She was crying now, as her body shook, and the bruises on her arms and legs from the chains began to bleed as the skin began to tear away.
Antonio looked at her and felt pity. There was no real reason as to why they had been chosen, but he needed three. Three to begin the ritual he would finish at the expo.
The last two decades had taken Antonio down a dark path. A very dark path. The occult had found its way to him, and Antonio saw it as a means to return to his former glory.
He studied forbidden texts, spoke with shadow leaders of underground cults, and had been training in the dark arts for sometime. His moment had finally arrived.
"My child. Know you serve a true purpose now. Your blood will be the gasoline that I will ignite, and revenge will burn bright in the coming days. Your life will have been for something divine. Take solace in that." Antonio said gently.
"You're fucking crazy! Let me go!" The woman shouted. Antonio closed his eyes and pulled out his sacrificial blade, a steel forged from the frames of his own fall from grace, a D-TH.
The woman's scream drowned in her own blood as Antonio ran the blade across her throat. He repeated the action to the other two, who also convulsed and shook as their life was taken from them.
Antonio collected their blood in a small bowl. He sat in a circle of candles, and began to recite evil hymns. Antonio then drank the blood, and marked himself with ancient glyphs, the words he would use to bring his revenge forth.
The glyphs formed one word, written over and over on his skin.
Wraith.
STAY TUNED FOR PART TWO TOMORROW
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