by Peter Ackers
"…SURVIVE TILL MORNING…"
The beam of light pinned me. I put a hand between it and my eyes, and had a sudden feeling of déjà vu. But this had happened before.
"Now I have you, bastard," he said.
"How did you find me?" I asked, and genuinely wanted to know. I was on the verge of getting lost, after all.
"You glow."
I remembered. The fluorescent jacket I was still wearing. Embarrassed, I laughed. I started to take off the jacket.
"No, you can't do that," Tattoo-guy snapped. His tone had a strangely pleading quality to it, as if he thought I were cheating at some game. I tossed the jacket left and immediately moved right. The loader growled, shifted to its right as if to watch the jacket, then with a grunt snapped to the left - my direction - as if suddenly realizing the decoy. But it was too late. The big insect had shown me its flank and I attacked with the speed of a viper. In three steps I was up in the cab, left hand supporting me, right hand hammering on top of Tattoo-guy's head until he slipped out of his seat, preferring the tumble to the ground rather than continued punches. He lay there, moaning, trying to drag his useless legs away from the wheels of the loader. I considered making him flush with the ground.
I turned the spotlight on him. He covered his face much as I had under its glare.
The spotlight semi-illuminated the control panel, which was labeled. Every button and lever had a sticker by it, with a handwritten word or two to explain what it did. I found the ones that controlled the front bucket and carefully manoeuvred it until it was where I wanted it.
I had taken my eye off Tattoo-guy during my playing. I found him some fifteen metres away, covered in mud, and dragged him back by his dead legs. He tried to sink his fingers into the earth, but since he lay on his back this was impossible. I also took his training shoes and left him barefoot. The spiked shoes I tossed away. I didn't want him to worry. I got my own trainers from the pockets of the tossed jacket.
When I began yanking and pushing him to fit him into the bucket, he started trying to punch me and began crying right in my ear. I barely heard. But when he was in the bucket, he froze.
"We're going back to yours, and we're going to talk this through. But I'm driving. Okay?"
He looked at me, fearful. Then he nodded. He seemed to realize what I had planned - to ride the loader with him in the bucket. "Not too high, though. And please don't tip me out." His eyes begged me not to hurt him.
I got back in the loader. I raised the bucket until the boom was fully extended, high above the cab. Then I turned off the engine, took out the ignition key and tossed it away. Tattoo-guy started shouting at me. His voice echoed off the far hills. He seemed to think I was planning to leave him here, alone in the dark.
Dark. Oh yes! I turned off the spotlight, which ran off a battery. All was black.
I stuffed the fluorescent jacket under the seat in the cab, so no one would see it. At a distance of fifteen feet or more, the backhoe loader, painted black as it was, was almost invisible. And with the acoustics way out here in the middle of hills and fields, the sound of Tattoo-guy's shouts would be impossible to track. At least until morning. It wasn't that cold out here, despite being October. He would survive till morning.
I wondered if my girl would be as fortunate. Well, that would be up to the next few strangers I met. The vote was 1-1 in a best-of-5 decision. Out there, somewhere, were three people holding the fate of my girl and me in their hands. Time to get my skates on. The clock was ticking.
