by Jeff Strand
Rachel and I had stopped walking, but Baker prodded us forward.
"We can't let you do this," said Mr. Hastings.
"Are you fools seriously trying to obstruct me in the line of duty?" asked Baker. "It's like there's not a full brain between you."
"I'm just watching," said Louie.
"Well, stop watching. Go home. All of you. Now."
The men looked at each other, sort of sheepishly. Then they headed back toward their vehicles.
"Jesus Christ," Baker muttered. "I don't even want to live here anymore, much less be sheriff. Get moving."
Rachel and I resumed walking toward the tape. How much prison time was I looking at? Any? I hadn't killed anybody. Maybe I'd just get parole. Chuck's head would explode, but I could still draw Off Balance. It made me sick to think of Rachel escaping from one cell only to get thrown into another, but what could I do? Grab Baker's gun?
(I had no plans to go for Baker's gun.)
Rachel gasped and stopped walking. When I saw what she'd gasped at, I stopped walking, too. The fifth man, the one whose name we didn't know, had reached into the back of his pickup truck and was now pointing a rifle at us.
"What the hell are you doing, Gene?" Baker demanded.
Louie, Erik, Mr. Clower, and Mr. Hastings all seemed to notice the rifle at once, and they all took several steps away from the truck.
"He doesn't represent us!" Mr. Clower insisted. "Nobody told him to do that! That's all him!"
"It's true!" Louie said. "I've never met him before tonight!"
Baker pulled his revolver out of the holster and pointed it at Gene. "Put the gun down, Gene."
The rifle wobbled in Gene's hands, as if he was wavering between lowering it or not. "But...but we were making them leave town!"
"Gene, lower the gun!" Baker shouted.
"Lower the gun, you dumbass!" said Mr. Clower. "What you're doing now is worse than what we were trying to hide!"
"I...I...I'm already in trouble, right?"
Rachel walked forward, moving with the confidence of somebody who was certain that the idiot with the rifle would not actually shoot her. He wasn't pointing it directly at her, but it wouldn't take much of an adjustment in aim for that to change.
"Rachel!" I called after her.
"He won't do anything," she said, not looking back. She walked up to the crime scene tape, ducked underneath it, and continued walking toward Gene. He looked confused and terrified; a man who'd made a ridiculous decision and wasn't sure how to fix it.
Surely she was right. Even somebody as demonstrably unintelligent as Gene would not murder a woman in front of six witnesses simply to hide his involvement in covering up a previous murder.
I just stood there, scared to make a sound or do anything that might startle Gene into squeezing the trigger.
"Lower the gun, Gene!" said Baker. "I won't tell you again!"
"Lower it, moron!" said Mr. Clower. "What the hell's the matter with you?"
I think Gene wanted to lower it, but he was paralyzed with thoughts of "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit..."
I held my breath as Rachel walked right up to him.
She yanked the gun out of his hands.
Gene quickly stepped away from her.
I breathed a sigh of relief. But Rachel didn't drop the rifle. She held it up and waved it back and forth. Baker pointed his revolver at her.
"I'm not pointing this at any of you!" she clarified. "You see that, right? Nobody is in danger of getting shot unless they make the first move! Do you see that, Sheriff Baker? I'm not specifically pointing this at anybody!"
"I see that."
"So don't shoot me!"
"Put the gun down, Ms. Kramer!"
Rachel shook her head.
"Do what he says!" I shouted. "You're gonna get shot!"
"I don't want to go to jail! I'd rather be a fugitive!"
"Yes, but you're gonna get shot!"
"Sheriff Baker won't shoot me! I'm not threatening anybody! The rifle is not pointed at any particular target! Everybody sees that!"
"Please don't shoot her," I told Baker. "She's just scared."
"Put down the gun, Rachel," said Baker, doing a remarkable job of keeping his voice calm. "This can be worked out."
Rachel took a step toward my car, which was about thirty feet away. "Jason, you don't have to come with me. But I do need your car, so I need you to throw me the car keys. I'm not stealing it. I'll make sure you get it back, I promise."
"No, no, I'm coming with you," I said. I wasn't really up for an exciting life of running from the law, but since this couldn't possibly end well, I didn't want her to flee on her own. I'd come with her and talk her into surrendering. Hopefully there'd be no hailstorm of bullets before we got to that point.
I headed for the tape. "You're not going to shoot me, right?" I asked Baker.
"That's correct."
"Thank you."
I ducked under the tape and joined Rachel.
"So, what, you're just going to let Blister get away?" asked Louie.
Rachel spun toward him, but pointed the barrel of the rifle at the ground. "Don't call me that! Don't you dare call me that! You want a scary local legend? I'll give you one! I'll be the scariest deformed creature any town has ever seen!"
It was too dark to see, but I think Louie wet himself. He glanced down at his crotch, looked pained and humiliated, and walked toward his car.
"Rachel, I'd like you to calm down," said Baker. "Everybody needs to stay calm, and we can work this out."
"I've already worked it out. Jason and I are leaving."
"I can't let that happen," said Baker.
"Yes, you can. You wouldn't be here alone if you'd told anybody what you found in the car. You're trying to keep this quiet. Well, guess what, if you let us leave, it stays quiet."
"It's not quiet! The whole damn town knows about it! People from the outside were analyzing the crime scene that we're illegally trampling all over right now! You don't know how hard we're working to stop this from becoming a media circus! It's not quiet!"
"Quieter, then. Less talk of the past."
Baker lowered his gun. "Go. Just go. I don't want to see anybody get hurt tonight. I'll be putting out an APB on the car, and you won't make it out of the state, but if you insist on waving around a rifle, fine, I'm going to end this standoff."
"Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked Rachel. A high-speed chase didn't sound appealing. Nor did plowing through a police barricade. Nor did any part of this, to be perfectly honest. This was going to get us killed.
"Yes," said Rachel. "It's better than prison."
"You might not go to prison."
"I bet I will."
"A jury might be sympathetic."
"No jury is that sympathetic."
"Plea bargain?"
"So I can get out when I'm eighty, and it doesn't matter what my face looks like?"
"Let's continue this discussion in the car," I said.
"Somebody needs to shoot that freak!" said Louie.
I don't know why, knowing that Rachel still had the gun, Louie would say something like that. Perhaps the shame of his wet pants was so intense that it further blurred his ability to discern "smart" from "really dumb."
Rachel just glared at him.
I opened my car door. Rachel started to walk to the other side, then hesitated. She walked back to me.
"Give me the keys," she said.
"Why?"
"Because you're not coming with me."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm running away alone."
"The hell you are."
"I've ruined your life enough. If I let you come with me, I'm a horrible person. Give me the keys."
"Absolutely not."
Rachel raised the rifle, pointing it right at my face. "Give me the keys, Jason."
I dug the keys out of my pocket and held them out to her. The barrel of the rifle was too long for her to take
the keys out of my hand while pointing it at me, so she lowered it for a moment and reached out. I could have tried to knock the rifle out of her hands, but that seemed like a good way to accidentally get shot. And if Rachel wanted to steal my car and flee from the law...well, I wasn't going to stop her.
Rachel took the keys, then pointed the rifle at me again.
"I'd really like to come with you," I said.
"You just want to talk me out of it."
"I'd like to discuss it, yes."
"Some other time, maybe." Rachel looked as if she were trying to hold back tears. "I..." She sighed. "Never mind."
I was almost positive she wanted to say, "I love you." I started to say, "I love you," back to her unfinished sentence, but decided that it was a terrible idea. Louie and the Dipshit Squad were already riled up. Why give them another reason to do something stupid?
"I'll see you later," I said.
Rachel shrugged. "Maybe."
She got into my car, closed the door, and started the engine. The rest of us watched as she drove away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
"You can't just let the freak get away!" Louie insisted. "What if she goes on some kind of murderous rampage or something?" He pointed accusingly at Baker. "That blood will be on your hands!"
"You're done talking," said Baker, walking over to the tape. "All of you, you're done! Go home. Do not say a single word about anything that has happened tonight. Not one word. If your family asks where your dumb asses have been, you say you've been out bowling. I've got cause to arrest every one of you, and I'll do it if I have to." He ducked under the tape. "I'm dead serious. Don't make me hunt you down. Clear out and wait for me to get in touch. Idiots."
The men reluctantly returned to their vehicles. Baker walked over to his car. "Get in," he told me.
I hurried over to the passenger side and got in. "We're going after her, right?" I asked.
"Yep."
Baker started the engine and peeled out of the driveway. He floored the gas pedal and I quickly buckled my seatbelt.
"If we can't catch up to her, I have to call this in and put out an APB," Baker told me. "I can't just let her go free without knowing where she's headed or what she's planning to do."
"I understand."
"But if we do catch her, and we can chat without those chuckleheads around, we might be able to work something out."
"Really?"
Baker didn't answer right away. "Want my prediction? This ends badly. She goes to prison for murdering her father. I lose my job and do some jail time. You do some jail time and people stop reading your strip. Shitty end for everyone."
"Let's talk about your bit of optimism."
"In a perfect world, those imbeciles will keep their mouths shut—which they might. They've got plenty to lose. In a perfect world, the story that Malcolm killed Allen and then skipped town is enough to explain why Malcolm isn't around any more. In a perfect world, we don't get caught getting rid of his car."
"Rachel and I were going to do that tomorrow," I said.
"Well, I'll do it better. Plenty that can go wrong, but if the glue holds those pieces together, we might get a happy ending for everyone except Allen and Malcolm."
"It seems too easy."
"Easy for you. I'm the one who has to clean this mess up. And none of it matters if we can't catch Rachel. That's too big of a loose end."
We reached our first intersection. A right turn led to town. A left turn led to...I had no idea. A dead end? Freedom for escaped murderesses?
Without asking my opinion on the matter, Baker turned right.
"Do you have any idea where she might go?" Baker asked. "Did you discuss any future plans?"
"Yeah, she was going to move in with me. At least for a while. But it's not like she would drive down to Jacksonville and look up my address. I have no clue where she'd go to get away from the cops, except to drive away as fast as she can. Are you sure we can't just wait for her to let me know where my car is?"
"We don't know when that will happen."
Baker was driving way too fast. I understood that driving fast was sort of the point of a high-speed pursuit, but it wouldn't help us end this nightmare if we plowed into a deer. I reached to buckle my seat belt, even though it was already buckled.
We were coming up quickly on another turn.
A car pulled into the intersection, preparing to turn onto our road. Baker's headlights illuminated the side of the car, which was extremely familiar.
"Is that—?" I started to ask.
My mind flashed through several things at once.
Yes, it was definitely my car.
Why had Rachel turned around?
Had she changed her mind?
Where was Ignatz?
I'd left Ignatz sleeping in my car.
She was bringing my dog back.
She was making a dangerous left turn.
Baker probably didn't do many high-speed chases.
We were going to hit her.
There was a moment where I seemed detached from everything.
The deafening crash.
The flying glass.
The jolt in my chest as I was thrown toward the dashboard.
The sight of Baker's head whipping forward so violently it looked like it might rip off.
And then I was right back to full awareness of pain and horror.
Baker lay against the steering wheel, eyes closed. He'd taken a lot of safety glass to the face. It wasn't until he gasped for breath that I knew he was still alive.
I fumbled with the button to release my seat belt. It took three or four tries, but then I got it. The buckle popped free. I reached for the door handle and was able to pull it open on my second try. I tumbled out of the car.
I threw up.
My vision was kind of blurry, so I couldn't clearly see the damage to my car, except that it was bad.
I reached for something to use to pull myself up. Missed. Managed to stand up on my own.
I stumbled toward my car, pausing to double over and throw up again.
Lots of steam. Lots of hissing. At least the car was right side up. It was facing the opposite direction, so I guess it spun around. It wasn't that far away. I could make it.
I felt something running down my neck. Blood? Yeah, had to be blood. Though my vision was blurred I knew it wasn't eyeball juice.
My right leg tried to give way beneath me but I wouldn't let it.
I made it to my car. All of the windows were shattered.
I could hear Ignatz whimpering in the back seat.
Rachel was still in the driver's seat. It was good. It meant she hadn't gone through the windshield and onto the crumpled front hood.
It was too dark to see her clearly, except that she wasn't moving.
When I focused on her, I could see the blood.
Lots of it.
I tried to open the door, but it was far too badly damaged. I kept jiggling the door handle for several seconds before I realized that this wasn't going to work.
The back door worked.
Ignatz jumped out. I could see glass and blood in his fur, but none of his legs were broken. He'd be okay.
I staggered around to the other side of the car. As I did so, I wiped my index finger over my face to see if maybe the wetness just came from tears, but, no, my finger was red.
I opened the passenger-side door.
"Rachel?" I asked.
Rachel did not answer me.
I leaned into the car.
She was a mess.
"Rachel?" I repeated. "Rachel? Please talk to me."
She couldn't talk to me. She wasn't even breathing.
"Rachel, you have to open your eyes," I pleaded. "You can't go out like this. It's not fair."
Should I try CPR? What if she had broken ribs? I could stab her in the lung, if that hadn't happened already.
"This sucks, Rachel. Don't end it like this."
Her right arm was obviously broken,
so I reached across her body, getting blood all over my arm, and grabbed her left wrist. It was warm and slick with blood and I couldn't tell if there was a pulse or not.
"Anything?" asked Baker, startling me so badly that I actually screamed.
"I—I don't know. I don't think so."
Baker looked horrible. He wiped some blood out of his eyes. "I called it in. An ambulance will be here soon."
"Thank you."
I could take her and run.
I could drag Rachel out of the car, carry her in my arms, and run through the woods to freedom.
We'd live in a cabin, foraging for our own food. I didn't need restaurants or hot showers or Off Balance. Just me and Rachel and Ignatz, living off the grid.
Baker wouldn't stop me. What was he going to do, shoot me in the back?
I could do this.
I could really do this.
I could pull her out of the wreckage, jostling all of her broken bones, sending even more blood spewing from her wounds, breaking her neck, and carrying her gore-drenched corpse into the woods.
I'd kill her if I moved her.
There was no escape plan.
It was over.
"Please, just open your eyes," I said.
Then she did.
* * *
She said nothing while we waited for the ambulance. I kept telling her that everything was going to be okay. I'm sure she didn't believe it, and I sure as hell didn't believe it, but it was something to say.
I refused to leave until the paramedics got her out of the car and onto a stretcher. It took forever.
Then we went to the hospital.
Rachel went to intensive care.
After I got my injuries patched up, I went to jail.
EPILOGUE
Ignatz lived happily ever after.
The rest of the story is a bit cynical. I learned some things about myself and about life in general.
First, love makes you do some insane shit.
Second, when your agent is already furious at you, the phone call where you ask him to bail you out of jail is extremely unpleasant.
Third—and this is the one that's kind of cynical about society—if you're a successful cartoonist, you can afford a really good lawyer.
This lawyer may be able to convince a jury of your peers, and Rachel's peers, that a Mr. Malcolm Kramer, enraged by the fact that you brought the evil threat of Allen back into his daughter's life, attacked you. A really good lawyer could even convince this jury that Malcolm intended to kill you...or, at least, that Rachel was certain beyond a reasonable doubt that this was his intent.
