The Howling Cliffs

by Mary Deal

  It was about seven miles to the nearest town of Hanapepe. Some stretches of road were flat and straight. If he stayed with her, it would be a long harrowing seven miles, but she could find help to lose him in a town. She prayed a cop would somehow see them.

  She pressed harder on the gas pedal. The truck sped up and stayed with her, its engine making that loud rumbling sound. That driver might have thought she was someone else. He seemed intent on venting some rage.

  Suddenly, the truck moved away but the windows were too high and too dark to see the driver. It came fast at her again. Sara swerved to the shoulder to keep from being side-swiped. She slammed on her brakes, but too late. The right wheels of her minivan slid into a shallow ditch. She both felt and heard the underside of her car scrape the shoulder before she began to roll.

  The sudden deceleration from a high rate of speed caused the frontal airbags to explode and smash her back into the seat. As the car flipped, both side door airbags deployed. All she could do was protect her face and try to curl into a knot and hope her legs didn't get pinned.

  The car rolled onto the passenger side, flipped upside-down and rolled again as the airbags deflated. Sara's upper body was tossed side to side. Screams escaped her throat as her left elbow bounced off the side window. Shattering glass and the crunch and crackling of metal was all she heard.

  “No more!” She had screamed it, as if commanding it to be so. “No more!”

  The airbags swung limp against her face. She gasped and breathed in the effluent, the dust-like particles and gases from the bags. As the car tumbled, she choked and gagged.

  Her head hit something that smashed her left ear and caused the most excruciating pain imaginable. She tried to reach for her ear but couldn't feel her arm moving, couldn't feel the arm at all. Then the car stopped rolling. Something fell on her face and skittered away. The smell of fresh dirt mingling with the effluent filled her nostrils.

  As consciousness began slipping away, she thought she had been thrown out of the car all together. Laying in the field would be a good place to expel the vomit welling up in her throat… in the field… not in her new car.

  Chapter 21

  “This is On-Star. Do you need help?”

  The words barely came through the confusion. On-Star seemed a foreign term. “Help…” The strange voice startled her. Sara struggled to speak. “Who's there? Help…”

  “Yes, this is On-Star. Do you need help?”

  Sara had forgotten the new system installed when she purchased the car. She had opted for the Advanced Automated Crash Response that notified On-Star of a situation the moment airbags deployed. She had heard the voice, not knowing from where it originated. “Help…” She struggled to raise her voice as her head reeled with dizziness.

  She didn't know how much time had passed when she became conscious again. It had turned pitch-black out as the clouds drifted over the sliver of moon. Reality slowly filtered in. A dim glow of a distant light across the field produced just enough reflection to make out how she found herself. The minivan had come to rest almost on its right side. If her movements might cause the car to roll further, restrained by the seatbelt, she would hang upside-down. The roof of the van was smashed and enclosed the claustrophobic area in which she lay. Trapped by the seat belt, she got her arms free but had little feeling and movement remaining in the left one. Pinned by her weight against the seat belt latch that wouldn't come loose, she couldn't move around, nor found much strength to do so. She struggled to grasp the lever to turn the headlights back on. When they didn't come on, she managed to find the car key to turn the engine on again but no sound emitted. She tried the headlights again but no light shown.

  Dizziness engulfed her. The smell of blood assaulted her senses. She felt numbed and began to tremble and shake. She was going into shock! She poked and squeezed at her body as much as she could with her right hand, trying to ascertain from where the blood smell originated. She pressured the top of her head and screamed in pain. She tried to talk and sing to hear herself and stay conscious but all that came out were weak pathetic moans. It took every bit of discipline to keep from passing out again.

  Thin moonlight broke through as she opened her eyes once more. She glanced about. The windshield hung outward, nearly detached. The moonlight and distant light in the field caught in the prisms of the shattered glass and made the windshield look like crushed ice. The driver's side window was gone. Looking upward through the open space, she could see an occasional star between the slithering white drifts across the night sky. She had been sprinkled with glass and weeds that ripped out of the ground as the car rolled. Now rain came, a sprinkle at first, then the clouds let loose.

  “I'm not going to die here!” She meant to scream it but realized she was barely coherent enough to speak.

  She shielded her eyes from the rain pouring in as best she could. Then, as tropical rains go, the clouds passed mauka, taking the downpour with them.

  Vertigo came again. She was now cold, wet and disoriented but became aware of stinging pain at the top left side of her head. She kept her right elbow against the passenger seat to keep herself propped up, trying to keep her head above the rest of her body because she suspected she had an open head wound that would continue bleeding if her head to lay in a downward angle. She tried to hook her left arm over the steering wheel to have something to hang onto. Moving her left arm caused her to yelp. Something ran down the side of her neck!

  She fell back and clutched at her neck and felt around. “No centipedes! Not now!” It was more a thought then actually uttered. “No centipedes!”

  She found nothing creeping through her hair but her hand felt slippery. The smell of fresh blood on her palm assaulted her nostrils as she tried to wipe rainwater from her face. Determined not to bleed to death, she propped herself up again. Blood ran over her face and found its way into her mouth. She was bleeding badly. Not wishing to taste it, she forcefully spat.

  She blinked and wiped it out of her eyes. Her head ached. Her elbow stung. Her ear had no feeling. She needed to put pressure on the top of her head to stop the bleeding and hoped she wasn't pressing glass shards deeper into her scalp. The effort soon weakened her and she slumped downward once more, her right shoulder popping loudly from the pressure.

  She groped at her waistband. No phone. She felt around the seat as best she could. The thought of dying came to mind again. “That's not going to happen!” She yelled as forcefully as she could. She sounded the horn, long and hard. It took all her energy to do it. She kept sounding in several sharp blasts. The absence of car lights passing indicated no traffic or she had rolled some distance from the highway. She should save battery power for when headlights might appear.

  Faint noises came from the area outside. Weeds rustled. The movement started and stopped. It started again. Something tinkled. Then she heard sniffing. It was a dog!

  “Come here, baby.” She tried to whistle but had no breath. Maybe, somehow, if she could befriend it, she could get it to go for help. Just the dog being nearby brought waves of comfort. “Come… come here…” She couldn't see clearly, but heard the sniffing. It was close by.

  Moonlight flashed on the tinkling metal tags hanging from its collar. “Help.” She hoped the animal was familiar with the word. “Get help.” Instead, the animal made a guttural squeal, almost like crying. Rustling sounds in the weeds said the dog had taken off running. The disappointment was overwhelming.

  Then she heard them. Faint at first and drawing nearer. Sirens! Sirens in the distance. She finally remembered. On-Star! The monitoring system had already notified police and rescue of the exact location of her accident. Help was on the way! Relieved and thankful, crying helped her stay conscious.

  Then she heard the dog. It must have been on the highway. It was barking! It never stopped barking. Blessed animal! It probably would have barked to get attention from any vehicle passing by. Sara cried some more.

  As the sirens approached, she blasted th
e car horn again and again. Rotating blue lights told the police had arrived. Fire truck noises came to a stop. The dog stopped barking. She kept honking till her energy gave out.

  Men yelling orders meant the fire department's paramedics were on the scene. She again began honking the horn. Spotlights shone over her location. Voices and rays from flashlights hurried to her. Two men's lower bodies appeared outside the shattered windshield and bent down, peering in. The dog paced nearby and sniffed. Reflective strips on the firemen's uniforms were all she saw.

  “My belt won't come loose.” She spoke angrily as she dangled, too injured and delirious.

  A swarm of people wearing yellow with reflective strips seemed everywhere. The thought held only long enough for her to feel she might have help. Darkness was closing in again. Two firemen ripped away the windshield. One dropped to his knees, leaned in and placed a hand under her head to hold it up and to support her cervical area. Great relief from the effort to keep herself propped flooded her. She let herself go limp. She was losing consciousness.

  “Hang on! We've got you now.”

  The other called to his buddies. “She's alive! Get an ambulance out here!”

  The dog whined.

  The man bracing her head laid flat out on the ground atop shards of glass, and while holding her head elevated, pressured her gushing wound with his other hand. He would keep her from bleeding to death.

  Someone yelled orders, something about turning their cars around. Headlights from the vehicles on the highway further illuminated the area. More firemen appeared outside the windshield. The chaos was welcomed relief.

  Men shouted to others to lean against the car to keep it from rolling further onto its side. The one who supported her head managed to gently ease a collar around her neck. Then he quickly checked her vitals. “What's your name, ma'am?”

  “What…?” With help finally at her side, she wanted to simply let go and get away from the shock. She had to will herself to remain conscious.

  Chapter 22

  Other men struggled to get the bent and stuck driver's side door opened. Absent more powerful equipment, they used crowbars. Finally, the metal groaned and the door stuck straight up in the air above her. A fireman forced it backward till it lay against the front fender. The unique squeal and crackling of metal bending told how badly her car was damaged.

  A fireman leaned into the car above her and cut the seat belt, then gently lifted and freed her twisted legs.

  A backboard was slid in place outside the windshield area. Great relief flooded her when the seatbelt clip no longer painfully pressured her hip. Two other men eased her out through the vacant windshield opening and onto the backboard and quickly fastened straps over her. A medic started a saline IV and kept track of her vitals. The firemen ran with her on the backboard as fast as they could through the weeds and clods of dirt in the field to the highway. The sound of another siren approached. The ambulance cut its wail and was directed to stop beside them.

  Inside the ambulance, the woman attendant washed her face with a cool towel and monitored the head gash. The twenty-five mile trip to the hospital in Lihue was another blur with the siren screeching and the ambulance swaying around curves and flying over hills. Outside the rear windows of the ambulance, the town lights of Old Hanapepe Town, Kalaheo, soon Puhi, and finally Lihue flew past in a blur. She had choked back nausea but wasn't sure how long she could control it. Once inside the hospital, Sara was quickly assessed by the emergency room doctors. She felt no vanity when all her clothing was quickly cut away. Just the relief of knowing she was safe settled her fears and her stomach.

  The vigilant doctors and nurses worked swiftly to treat her many wounds, cleaning the dried and clotting blood and dirt away to stop the bleeding. Still in a mild state of shock, she felt none of it and could only watch their frantic actions. She was rushed to Radiology tucked under only a sheet.

  She didn't know how much time had passed or what they had done to her but she felt better. A doctor came to her bedside in the recovery room. “We used nine staples to close a gash on the top left of your head.”

  “Either my head or my left elbow smashed the side window.” Sara spoke quietly to keep her headache from pounding any more than it already did. She had refused pain medication but the surgical anesthesia was wearing off.

  “The gash on your elbow took five stitches.” The doctor continued his report in near monotone speech. “No bones were broken but you've got massive bruising and chafing on your left collar bone area and right hip from the seat belt equipment.” He pointed his way down her chart as he spoke. “The worst is that you also have a serious concussion.”

  After being moved into a private hospital room, seeking information, a police officer was shown in. The officer was middle-aged, short and husky and projected a feeling of being tired. “Did you try to avoid something in the road? We found skid marks from your left tires on the pavement and the gouge your right tires made in the dirt on the shoulder. What was it that took you off the road?”

  “I was forced off.”

  “Someone ran you off the road? We saw no other tire marks.”

  “A truck, it didn't stop, just kept coming closer till I had no place to go.” She proceeded to tell him what happened as he took copious notes. “All I know is that it was a black truck or a big pickup with monster tires. It could have been on hydraulics. The cab was higher than the top of my side window.”

  “Well, it was dark out, but we didn't find any other tire marks.” The officer sounded as monotone as the doctor in the recovery room. “Ma'am, I have to ask you this.” He paused and then continued. “Are you sure you just didn't fall asleep at the wheel. It was late and—“

  “I did not fall asleep!” Sara felt her headache thump with every word. “Some idiot tried to play road tag with me and I didn't want to play!”

  “Officers will go back out there in the morning and have a look around.”

  “I would hope so.” Sara felt instant anger at being suspected of causing her own near-demise. She was going to have to get her point across. Her anger was like fuel.

  The next morning, a different officer came to tell her that no other tire marks were found, no evidence of any other car being involved. She had rolled over a dry canal and then into an old sugar cane field full of stout wild cane, weeds and tall over-grown buffalo grass. Had it not been for the alarm system in her car, she might not have been spotted by anyone from the highway, at least, not until morning. “Hanging upside down with the type of head wound you have, you could have bled to death.”

  “That's a sobering thought.”

  “Be glad, too, that your engine didn't blow and start a fire.”

  “Ha! In that dry overgrowth, and me not able to get my belt loose, I'd have been roasted.” Another disquieting thought. She discreetly felt the mattress she lay upon to assure she hadn't crossed over into a parallel universe and had truly died.

  “You say this truck dogged you for a ways?”

  “At least a mile. He kept coming close and pulling away.” Sara tried to move her hands and arms to further explain but felt every muscle cry out instead. “I thought he was playing chicken.”

  “Maybe he was falling asleep.”

  “I doubt it. I saw the brightness of his brake lights light up again and again every time I stepped on mine. He was definitely trying to stay beside me to run me off the road.”

  “The lights tell me he might have been falling asleep.”

  Evidently the officer wanted to assure she knew what she had seen. To listen to this officer's implied denial and the hospital PA system calling out orders was nerve wracking. “If he were falling sleep, why would he stay even with me whether I sped up or slowed down?”

  “Do you remember anything more?”

  Sara strained to think while her headache banged away. “Oh! The truck, it rumbled, like it might have had a hole in the muffler… I don't know… the engine sound rumbled or sputtered.”

 
; The officer raised an eyebrow. “Okay, if it's true he dogged you and then finally made this push to run you off the road….” He didn't look up from his notes.

  “And?”

  “Do you know where you went off the road?”

  “I only know it was into a field. I rolled like a beach ball.”

  “You were out by the wall of mail boxes southeast of Waimea.”

  Not having traveled to the south shore or west side but once before, Sara vaguely remembered the small Post Office facility and bank of mail boxes near the highway at the edge of an abandoned sugar cane field. It was a central point where outlying farmers could receive their mail without going all the way into town. “You mean that mail building in the middle of nowhere?”

  “My partner thinks if that driver was dogging you, he might have meant to run you headlong into that concrete structure.”

  “Why?”

  “The next thing I need to ask is… do you know anyone who would want to do that to you?”

  Sara sighed and gestured with her right hand. Her left arm was in a sling. “I've only been on the island a month or so.” She couldn't help speaking through clenched teeth. “Find him, will you? I want him found.”

  “You have every right to be angry, but we have little to go on.”

  “Angry?” That caused a bout of exasperation. “I'm not just angry. I'm mad as hell! If you guys can't find him, I will scour the island for that truck myself.”

  He smiled sympathetically, the first time he showed any emotion. “Maybe three-fourths of the trucks on this island are black.”

  Shortly after lunchtime, Sara hobbled out to the nurse's station, finding a doctor looking over her chart and approached him. “I'm going home.” She so wanted to be free even though every muscle and joint ached worse than she had ever known.

  He seemed surprise. “You really should stay. You need a bit more respiratory therapy. You probably inhaled a lot of effluent when the airbags exploded.”