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Good thing the hot cop didn't stay in the car. Now she can come back in the story as a helper to Jonathon and my love interest. Wait, I mean his love interest.
Monday, February 26. 2007The Nature of Things, Part 6
I really can't say what happened next. I heard shrieking metal and shattering glass. I smelled burning rubber and billowing dust. I saw flashes of light. At one moment, my body seemed to float. At others, I felt the seatbelt biting into my waist and chest. I couldn't say which sensation was first, or which one was last. They're all a jumbled blur.
The car sat squarely on all four wheels, a considerable distance away from where the semi had crashed through the guard rail. All of the windows were gone, splintered and scattered over the road. The driver lay face down, flung from the spinning car, akimbo like a rag doll on the floor. David sat beside me, staring ahead, paying no attention to the small cuts on his face. Something seemed to snap; he turned, looked at me, and said, "Did you see? There was no driver." He didn't wait for an answer, just unbuckled himself, and began kicking fiercely at the door. "We have to get out of here." About that time, I noticed that I still had a headache. "What's going on?" My voice sounded strange, even to my ears. "We have to go. We have to get out of here. Hurry up." He braced himself, and kicked at the door with all his strength. It sheared away from the car with the screech of tortured metal, and fell onto the pavement. I watched, fascinated, as it rocked back and forth. "Come on." David's snatching hands unbuckled my seatbelt and dragged me out of the car. He started to hurry away. When I didn't follow, he turned back, grabbed my hand, and tugged me behind him. Moments later, we were running down the road. The rhythm of pounding feet finally woke me from my daze. "Why are we running?"
"Didn't you see? No one was driving the semi." "What do you mean?" "I mean that they planned that accident." I pulled my hand out of his grasp, and stopped, panting. He stopped, too, and looked back at me. "I don't believe you. How? Why?" David began jogging again. In spite of my questions, I hurried to catch up. "Have you ever had to do something that you were afraid of? Something that you didn't want to do, but knew you had to do?" He didn't wait for me to answer. "I have. You know how I did it? I concentrated on it, and nothing else. I didn't speak to anyone, didn't look at anyone, just focused on my task, and eventually, I finished it." He looked over at me, as if to stress what he was about to say. "Our driver was just like that. He knew that he was committing suicide." My head hurt. My feet hurt. My mind was reeling. "But . . ." "They set this up. They pointed that semi down hill, locked the steering somehow, and boom. Their problems are over. All of a sudden, there's one less witch in the world." He said it bitterly. "Two." "Huh?" "Two. Two less witches. I heard them this morning. They think I'm a witch. They said, 'two birds with one stone' right before they put me in the car." "See?" "But they're the police. They're supposed to protect." We reached the bottom of the hill, and he pushed me off the road. "Under the bridge, now. We're following the river for a while." For several minutes, we splashed along without speaking. I tried to collect my thoughts, to form a question, but everything seemed to be spinning. They had tried to kill me. "Why do they think you're a witch?" His question cut like a knife through my thoughts, startling me for a moment. "Well, when they arrested you, it threw me into a tailspin. I don't know what I did that night. I'm not sure what I did the next day. . ." As the sun climbed higher into the sky, I told him the whole story, about my confusion, about the images, and about the voices. When I started talking about the prison walls, and their response to my request, I felt a deep sense of loss. Something had happened there, something significant, but I couldn't say what. When I finished, David was silent for a long time. "I'm sorry," he said. "I should have told you." Trackbacks
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Ancient of Days on :
I'm anxious to find out what caused the "deep sense of loss".
Johnny Elbows on :
Wait, I thought the Universe was your love interest. :)
The Mad Giggler on :
I'd comment, but you already have the next section up, so I'll read that instead.
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