by Ed Hurst
middle. He quickly crushed the remaining shards across the bottom of the window frame and poked out the ragged bits hanging from the top.
The huddled figure raised her face and stared at him with the most pitiful look, and those huge blue eyes that nearly swallowed him where he stood. Her voice managed to croak out the words, “feet ... caught.” Kneeling to take a look, he saw the front seat had been shifted by the force of the impact, and barely avoided cutting off her legs at the ankle. Remembering the big club in his hands, he stepped down into the back seat with one foot and began levering at the tiny space between the seats, just to one side of her right leg.
It took a few minutes, but he convinced her to pull her shoes off, turn her body and twist her legs so her feet could be worked out. While the front seat didn’t budge at all, he was able to compress the rear seat back a bit and free her, one leg at a time. Despite very obvious physical exhaustion, she scrambled up out her prison and grabbed him in a vice like grip, weeping and rasping out heaving cries of relief.
He dropped the club and literally carried her off the trunk lid of the wreckage. She wasn’t that large, rather slender, with long blond hair down almost to her waist. Her frilly t-shirt and matching Capri pants bore a few blood stains, but he could see no wounds aside from the scrapes where she escaped from between the seats. He decided against trying to get her stand in her socks in the mud, but turned to let her rest on the back of the car. She clung to him for dear life, begging him to get her away from the car. Glancing behind, he saw a suitable spot on the one of the downed trees and carried her there. Convincing her to sit there a moment and lean back into the crotch of the giant limbs, he promised to come back with something to drink.
Stooping and pawing his way back through the path he cut, he pulled his lunch box from the rack on the back of the motorbike. It was a battered old half-sized insulated cooler, and he realized now the wisdom of bringing extra food and sodas. When he reappeared from the passage, she was staring straight at him while picking debris out of her hair. Despite the circumstances, her beauty was striking. Having outlived the days of schoolboy intimidation by such sights, he shrugged it off and simply tried to help her. She readily accepted the canned drink and consumed it too fast, giving off a very unladylike belch. Barely composed enough to be embarrassed, she took the sandwich he offered and ate ravenously, washing it down with what was left of the soda. Taking back the empty can, he crushed it by first grabbing the top and bottom and twisting the soft wall of can, then locking his fingers and pressing the ends together between the heels of his palms.
He dropped it back into the box with the sandwich wrapper, set it down and looked at her. Finally she offered a half smile and reached out to hug him again. The raspy whimper was replaced by a gentle, smooth alto. She thanked him repeatedly and kissed him on the cheek.
3
“Do you want me to get your shoes out of the car? It might be pretty messy to walk around here in your socks.”
Her face went suddenly very dark. “No!” Lowering her gaze, she said rather subdued, “They’re soaked in blood.”
He offered, “It must not be your own, because you don’t seem to have any injuries.”
Looking up, she stared off into the twisted tangled mass of what had been the forest. “Two guys, both dead... thank God.”
He was taken aback, but decided to let it pass for now. “Anything else in the car belong to you?”
She turned her gaze back to him, still subdued. “Just a purse, if you can find it in the front seat.”
He decided it might be worth a try, but first there was other business. “I have my cellphone. Is there someone you want me to call before I call 911? Those bodies have to be moved.” He had noticed a faint whiff of decay, not at all surprising, given how long since the storm had passed, with the moisture and heat.
She recited the number of her aunt, and he punched it in the phone. When his display indicated the number was ringing, he passed the phone to her. Her whole demeanor changed. She was apparently not her aunt’s favorite, and the exchange was unpleasant, to say the least. It was then he realized the woman was a real hellcat. When the conversation ended, she handed the phone back to him. Still slightly animated, “That was almost a waste of time. She might let me have my stuff back, but I have to find my own accommodations now.”
He waited to see if she would say anything else. She glanced away a moment, then turned back to him with a deep pleading in her eyes. “I need help. Those guys were trying to kidnap me. The one in the passenger seat had a gun. Even if the frame hadn’t been crushed, I could never have gotten out of the car. The back door handles were gone. They were going to force me into prostitution.”
The story seemed plausible enough. He decided to delay a bit longer calling the authorities and wandered back to the car. He took a closer look. Sure enough, no inside door handles in back. Studying the situation, he could see the outlines of what had been two human bodies in the front seat, body fluids having oozed into the back floorboard. There wasn’t much left of them; the sycamore must have fallen very hard. Then he spied a strap which wasn’t part of the car. Crawling up on the trunk lid, he reached in between the bucket seats up front and tugged at it. Surprisingly, it came out rather easily, a woman’s purse. As he pulled it free, he spotted the barrel of a handgun. He carefully avoided touching anything else.
She still sat on the branch, watching him as he brought the purse in one hand. Holding it up, “This it?” She snatched it and thanked him yet again.
“Decide now what you want to tell them, because I’m calling now.” Punching the code quickly, he waited. A recording told him to leave his information and a short description of his emergency, noting all units were busy and more were being brought in from surrounding counties. After citing his name, address and location, “Private car crushed under a tree; I see remains of two adult males. I rescued one adult female from the back seat and I’m transporting her to the hospital at this time.” He closed the phone.
She took up that half-smile again. “You talk just like they do.”
With his own half-smile, “My work brings me into contact with them more often than I like. But I know how they talk and what they expect. I’m going to pretend I didn’t think to identify you, just rushed you to the emergency room. For them, you’ll be lost in the shuffle. Sound good to you?”
Her answer was to hug him one more time and kiss him on the cheek again. While still clutching him, she said in his ear, “I have enough troubles with the system already right now.” Pulling back, with her hands still on his shoulders, “I don’t need any medical treatment, just a safe place to stay for a day or two. Do you know where that might be?”
He pictured in his mind the big house he still owned, empty but for him and his stuff. “Depends on how much you trust me. My house has a spare bedroom with its own bath. It’s the opposite end of the house from mine. Unlike your friends,” gesturing with his thumb over his shoulder, “I have no intentions of using or abusing you. Right now, I’m going to pull my bike as close to here as I can, and I’ll be glad to carry you as far as the path I cut, but I can’t prevent getting those pretty little socks muddy.”
“Socks I can replace.” She let go of him. “Just get me out of here in one piece. I’ll be a good girl.” She slipped off the branch and began wading through the mud toward the only exit.
As they mounted the motorcycle, he mentioned his name was Gregory.
4
During the ride to the address she gave him, which required some backtracking, and a side trip some miles away from the storm path, she told him her name was Melissa.
He decided he didn’t want to be close enough to hear anything anyone said after they arrived. After a rather short wait while the tempest raged inside, Melissa emerged with a small duffel bag. Still wearing the muddy socks without shoes, she mounted the bike behind him without expression and said quite simply and firmly, “Let’s go.”
She was silent the entire ride back
to his house. He mused she must of have been roughly two decades younger than him, in her mid-thirties. Since the burger stand was open as they passed, he asked if she would eat food from there. They pulled up under the awning and she rattled off her preference in the abbreviated chatter of the carhops. So he activated the speaker and repeated what she said and added his own.
She seemed well practiced at riding two-up, and kept the food from slipping without any problem, yet managed to stay huddled up against him comfortably in front of the cooler and chainsaw strapped on the game rack.
Once inside the house, she shed the dirty socks and put on sandals she took from her bag. He showed her the spare room, and pointed out the sheets for the bed were stored in the closet. While she stowed her stuff, he spread the food on the table and began to eat his share. She joined him soon enough and ate in silence, never looking up to meet his eyes. He guessed it would be like that often enough, and occupied himself with thoughts of how he might get back to work. He could return the bike, since folks had completed some of the cutting he had started in his effort to get out that morning. Having his truck with all the equipment would make things a lot easier.
He cleared off the trash and sat back down, letting her decide if she was going to
