“It's not this man's fault,” Jessica insisted. “Agent Cratterson came to the jail. She managed to get past the deputy that Sheriff Butler assigned to protect me.” Jessica grew silent for a few seconds and listened to the icy rain fall. Farther North the rain was slowly turning into snow. “I hid under the desk in the office but...oh, I was so foolish...Agent Cratterson located me, and when I saw her bend down in front of the desk with a gun in her hand, I kicked at her.” Jessica looked Mandy deep in the eyes. “The woman fell backward...her gun went off...she...Mandy, she accidentally shot herself in the...in... the head.” Mandy listened with a racing heart. “I... all I remembered next is somehow making it outside, and then this man was there. It all seems like a horrible dream in my mind.”
Mandy squeezed Jessica's hand. “I'm sure it does, Jessie,” she agreed, as she raised her eyes and focused on Jacob. “If a woman is dead, that means trouble, right?” she asked. “I mean, this Wendy Cratterson woman was with the CIA, right? And she went to kill my sister, so that means the CIA wants my sister dead, right?” she nearly yelled. “Answer me!”
“Mandy--” Jessica tried to speak.
“No,” Mandy snapped. “You were almost killed and I want answers!” Mandy raised her right finger and pointed at Jacob. “What's your name? Who are you? What do you want? Answer me!” she yelled through gritted teeth.
“In time, Ms. Andrews,” Jacob responded in a calm tone.
“No! Now!” Mandy demanded. “Right now, or I'm taking my sister and leaving. Is that clear? And if you try to stop us, I'll yell for help at the top of my lungs.”
Jacob studied Mandy's upset eyes. The woman meant business. It was time to give a little. After all, it was only fair. “My name is Jacob. Don't ask for a last name. I work for an agency called 'GCOS'. My job is to handle the political landscape of world countries in order to create, or enforce, a secure America. In other words, my job is to make sure America stays a free Republic.”
“What does this have to do with my sister?” Mandy demanded. “What did her husband do?”
“In time,” Jacob assured Mandy, and slowly began to stretch his back. “Right now, we have a very long and tedious ride ahead of us.”
“We have to go to Wyoming,” Jessica explained to Mandy. “We're being taken to a safe house.”
“And along the way,” Jacob added, “we're going to have to ditch your van and this jeep, and get us some new wheels.” Jacob glanced around the wet parking lot again. The gas pumps were empty except for his jeep, but a few vehicles—mostly work trucks—were parked in front of the Pilot Center. “As a matter of fact,” he said, and quickly changed his mind about gassing up the jeep, “maybe I'll ditch this jeep right here. You ladies go inside the Pilot and wait for me.”
Mandy looked up at Jessica. Jessica was focused on Jacob's face with worried eyes. “Should we split up again?” Jessica asked Jacob.
“Only for a few minutes.” Jacob pointed to the Wendy's. “I'm going to park the jeep where the employees park. It's still early, so the jeep shouldn't be red-tagged until sometime tonight. That will give us a few good hours to get down the road.”
“I guess,” Jessica agreed. She took the handles of Mandy's wheel chair into her cold hands, and began walking off toward the Pilot Center. “I'm very sorry--”
“Don't apologize, Sis,” Mandy begged, as Jacob jumped back into the jeep and drove off. “I'm worried if we can trust that guy?”
Jessica spotted Jacob driving the jeep toward the Wendy's parking area. Something deep down inside of her heart felt that the strange man was trustworthy. Jessica wasn't exactly sure she was willing to trust a stranger with her life. The voice that had ordered her to fight Wendy Cratterson, seemed to be insisting that Jacob would not harm her. In fact, the voice seemed to be crying out that Jacob would lay down his life for her, if the situation required such a dramatic end. “I think he's safe,” she told Mandy, in a voice that sounded only half certain, even though her heart was fully certain.
“Is he?” Mandy asked, and waited for a large, fat man wearing work clothes to exit the Pilot Center. The man didn't offer to hold the door open. “Hey, pal, ever hear of chivalry?” Mandy yelled. The fat man glared down at Mandy with a hotdog in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. Mandy stood her ground. “I'm a woman in a wheel chair.”
“Yeah, so what?” the fat man asked in a hateful tone. “You women are always yelling that you're equal to men, so open the door yourself.” The fat man made a sour face at Jessica, and then walked off toward a work truck, where another man sat smoking a cigar. The man smoking the cigar started laughing at Jessica and Mandy.
“Jerk,” Mandy hissed.
“Come on,” Jessica sighed, opening a glass door, and helping Mandy get her wheel chair through.
The inside of the Pilot was warm and refreshing. The smell of fresh, hot coffee and hot dogs were mingled in with the aroma of travel and mystery. Jessica always found a travel center to be a place that felt strange to her, like an old high school. Thousands upon thousands of students passed through the doors of a single high school over a period of time; each student finally leaving through the doors one last time, to go in a different direction from all the other students. They were departing from a building that served as a second home; a place of security and familiarity. A travel center, in a sense, felt the same way to Jessica; a quick second home a person could rest in, along with thousands of other people, before stepping back into the world and traveling off in a different direction. Each took with them a souvenir, a hot dog, a soft drink, a candy bar or bag of potato chips. “I think I'll go wash my hands. Please come with me.”
Mandy spotted a very sweet cashier standing behind the front counter, ringing up a hot dog and soft drink for another worker. “That's Wilma,” she whispered to Jessica, and pointed at a middle-aged woman who was a little pudgy around the waistline. Wilma spotted Mandy and waved a quick hand at her. “My friend needs to use the bathroom, Wilma.”
“Oh, sure, hon. Bathrooms are that way.” Wilma pointed toward the bathrooms, and went back to her customer.
“Wilma is divorced, has two daughters who think they are entitled to get everything free in life, and a brother who drinks his days away,” Mandy whispered, as Jessica began pushing her toward the bathrooms, passing through an aisle lined with items invented for vehicles. There were small gas cans, oil, gas treatment fluids, air in a can; stuff men understood, but most women simply ignored. Jessica didn't consider herself to be a woman who felt the need to compare her role in life to a man's role in life. It was a man's duty to maintain the health of a vehicle, and not a woman's. Of course, her belief would be attacked by the current mindset of the world. Jessica knew she was supposed to be some 'Mighty Woman' who didn't need a man; who could work a million hours a week flying combat missions in a 'Man's' war, and still find time to burn her bra, insist toxic masculinity was destroying her life, and ignore the cry of motherhood, instead of simply embracing, with love, her role as a tender woman. A woman who was meant to marry a good man, raise a family, tend to a home, and be content with her life. Instead, the world had turned upside down. Men were no longer noble. Women were no longer polite, men were absent from the family, forcing women into the work force to earn a living in order to be able to eat; and women, in return, not the insane feminist, were becoming bitter, transforming into creatures that no longer nourished families or a home. Instead, women seemed to be embracing bars and night clubs and parties. Women who were sixty were dressing like sixteen year-old girls, shaming themselves. Not all women, of course; and not all men were scumbags, but all a person had to do was look around with open eyes to see the moral decay taking place within the collective conscience of American citizens. And why? Because years back, Jessica thought, pushing Mandy into a clean and bright bathroom that was meant for woman, and not men dressed as women, the family unit came under a planned, systematic attack that had managed to invade and undermine the parental authority of men an
d women who were determined to raise their children through Biblical truths. Television, music, books, comic books, movies; all were enemies of every single caring parent in the world, or so Jessica personally believed and felt. She was simply one woman who was invisible to the world, until now.
“You better try and use the bathroom, too,” Mandy warned Jessica, scanning the bathroom stalls.
“I used a bathroom at the jail,” Jessica explained, letting go of Mandy's wheelchair. She checked a line of stalls, found them empty, and then went to wash her hands under some hot water. “Jack was old fashioned,” she told Mandy, feeling hot water begin to touch her hands. The hot water felt familiar and comforting.
“What?” Mandy asked, staying near the door in order to protect Jessica. Jessica didn't know Mandy had a C9 model 9MM Luger stored in her purse. The gun was basically a pop gun, but strong enough to knock someone down, and keep them down, if needed.
Jessica looked down at her hands. “Jack believed in traditional values, like me,” she told Mandy again, feeling a strange urge to talk rise up in her heart. “Jack wanted a family, and so did I. Jack believed a woman's place was in her home. So did I. Jack believed it was a man's responsibility to take care of his family and earn a living. So did I.” Jessica raised her eyes and found her sweet, protective sister in the mirror. “Our beliefs were, according to the current world, outdated, if not criminal, but Jack held on to his beliefs, and I loved him for that.”
“Men like Jack Mayes are rare, Sis,” Mandy pointed out. “Men today will use a woman and throw her into the gutter, and women do the same to men. It's rare to find a man and woman who marry for true love, want a family, and want to live in the old ways, the good ways,” Mandy emphasized. “You were single once. You were once trapped in the same scene I am...I mean...you….were….oh, Jessie, I'm sorry, I didn't mean--”
“It's alright,” Jessica assured Mandy in a gentle voice. “Mandy, Jack's physical body may be buried, but his heart is still with me, and no one can destroy or kill that truth.” Jessica lowered her eyes. “We're all going to die someday. Our bodies are simply carrying cases for our spirits,” she continued. “Jack once said that our bodies are like cars that eventually break down for good, and when that happens, your spirits just steps out.”
“Good analogy.”
Jessica continued to let the hot water soak her hands as if she were hoping the hot water would somehow wash away the nightmare she was trapped inside of. “The body may die but the heart...what lives inside of our heart lives forever, and true love, the love Jack and I shared, is forever.”
Mandy watched Jessica staring down at her hands, like a lost little girl needing to be held by a loving dad. “Jessie--”
“I was prepared to go be with Jack today,” Jessica whispered, hearing her voice turn strange and alien. “I wanted to go be with Jack. I wanted to escape all this pain, but I heard Jack yell at me to fight. I was so close to being with my husband again...” Tears began to fall from Jessica's eyes. “I was so close to being with you, Jack. Why did you want me to fight?” she whispered. Pulling her hands from underneath the hot water, she covered her face, and began to cry. “I was so close to being with you again...”
Mandy sat very still and very silent. Jessica was now a broken woman; a woman who Mandy barely recognized. At one period in time, Jessica Mayes had been a vibrant, outgoing, sweet and happy woman, full of life and laughter. The woman standing in the bathroom with Mandy was simply an open grave, slowly filling with funeral rain...funeral rain...icy, cruel, funeral rain.
Outside, in the icy rain, Jacob sat in his jeep and put through a call. “Dad,” he spoke to President Green, “I've encountered some major problems.”
President Green, who was sitting aboard Air Force One, racing through the sky toward Europe to attend a private summit, looked down at a black folder sitting in his lap. “I know, son, I know,” he said in a voice that nearly forced Jacob to give up the fight.
((((((((((*))))))))))
“I think I'll get a root beer and a bag of hot chips for the road,” Jacob told Jessica and Mandy in a voice that didn't sound exactly encouraging.
“I have plenty of snacks in my van--”
“No root beer or hot chips. I checked,” Jacob informed Mandy. “You ladies go ahead and start loading into the van.” Jacob walked off to a back cooler lined with soft drinks, snatched out a root beer, and then wandered away to locate a bag of hot chips.
“Something’s wrong,” Jessica told Mandy as she watched Jacob wander onto an aisle stocked with a variety of potato chips.
“That would be fitting,” Mandy sighed. “On a day like today, if something actually turned out right, I think I would fall over backward in my wheelchair.”
Jessica stared at Jacob for a few more seconds, feeling a sinking feeling of dread enter her heart, and then pushed Mandy back outside into the rain. Mandy waved goodbye to her new friend Wilma. Wilma, was now tending to an old man from Canada who had gotten himself lost. The old man had taken the 75 split in Chattanooga, instead of the 24 split. “Be safe, girl. We're supposed to be getting snow by tonight,” she called out.
“You do the same,” Mandy called back. “I hope you get promoted to Manager.”
Wilma rolled her eyes and laughed. “In this lousy place?” she replied, and then waved one last goodbye at Mandy.
Mandy felt a sad feeling enter her heart as Jessica pushed her back outside into the rain. Wilma was such a sweet, kind woman, yet the world was throwing one hard punch after another at her. Why? Where was the fairness and...? Mandy suddenly forced her mind to stop complaining, and glanced up into Jessica's beautiful face. “I sound like you,” she whispered in a miserable voice. “I sound like a woman preparing to...stop caring.”
Jessica didn't hear Mandy. Instead, she aimed the wheel chair toward her sister's van and walked out into the icy rain, while thinking about Jacob. The man was obviously upset, but what about, Jessica wondered? Jessica didn't know and, deep town, was terrified to find out what was bothering Jacob. She quickly pushed Mandy to her van, opened the side door, and helped her sister with the metal lift. “This rain isn't good for the lift,” Mandy explained, as she positioned her wheelchair into a safe position on the lift. “Rust, you know.”
“I can imagine,” Jessica nodded her head. She lifted her hand into the rain, and then looked up at a dark gray sky. “Ice is starting to mix with the rain.”
“I can feel the ice,” Mandy said, raising the metal lift. “We better get a move on before the ice shuts down the interstate. I don't want to get stuck so close to Dalton.”
Jessica feared the weather. On numerous occasions, she had been trapped on highways that had been shut down due to ice and snow. A hasty escape was needed, even though Jacob no longer appeared anxious to start the four wheels on Mandy's van moving, and the weather was becoming a real hazard. “All set?” she asked Mandy, hearing the lift reach its destination.
Mandy nodded her head. “I guess Jacob will do the driving. I'll sit in my wheel chair, and you can sit...well...on the spare tire,” she explained and then winced. “Sorry, Jessie. I had the passenger seat removed when I bought the van.”
“No problem,” Jessica promised, ignoring the rain and ice. Funeral rain today...funeral rain every day she heard her mind whisper in a creepy voice. So close to the grave...you can't escape. Jessica didn't understand where the creepy voice was originating from? The voice seemed to be an enemy of the voice that had ordered her to fight. Deep grave...flooded with funeral rain...can't escape...it's the ultimate end.
“Jessie?” Mandy asked, looking into Jessica's troubled face. “What is it? What's the matter?”
“Huh?” Jessica asked, feeling the rain and ice forming into a thick haze, wrapping itself around her mind.
“You look pale,” Mandy explained in a worried voice. “You look like someone just walked across your grave.”
Before Jessica could answer, Jacob exit
ed the Pilot carrying a plastic bag in his right hand. He spotted the van, and simply started walking, as if his legs had absolutely no purpose. “It's useless,” he whispered, staring at Jessica. Jessica was standing out in the rain, like a lost little girl, looking as if her life was slowly falling down into a bottomless abyss filled with endless screams. “America is too rotted. Civilization is too rotted to win this battle,” he finished, approaching the van, and handing Mandy the plastic bag in his hand. “I'll do the driving. Keys?”
Mandy looked at Jessica. Jessica slightly shrugged her shoulders. “Keys are in the ignition. Who would want to steal this hunk of junk?”
Jacob nodded his head. “Mrs. Mayes, I guess you're going to have to find a place to sit down,” he said, as he peered past Mandy into the womb of the van, spotted a lot of empty space, and then made his way around to the driver's door.
“Something is horribly wrong,” Jessica whispered to Mandy. “That mans' entire demeanor has changed.”
“Just...get in, okay,” Mandy begged. “Go through the passenger door.”
Jessica hesitated and then helped Mandy close the side door. “Something is horribly wrong,” she whispered again, casting her eyes up at the dark sky. She then crawled into the van through the passenger door, feeling like a small child squirming through a play tunnel. “In,” she called back to Mandy, closed the passenger door, and then focused on Jacob. “What's wrong?” she asked in a pleading voice. “You made a call. Who did you call? What was said?”
Jacob slowly placed his hands on the brown steering wheel covered with a worn-down brown steering wheel cover. The inside of the van smelled of W-D 40, roses and old coffee. The air felt damp, cold and lost. Jacob's emotions weren't far behind. “Mrs. Mayes, I will do everything in my power to protect you and your sister,” he spoke in a low, careful voice, as his eyes locked onto a road that lead to a small, lonely town. “My people will continue fighting the good fight, but I can't promise...I can't promise...” Jacob drew in a weak breath. “I can't promise...victory.”
The Accident Page 12
