Chapter 15
1
1995 Janice considered her options as she sped along
Highway 26 towards the Pacific Ocean. The
highway had a sub-title of Sunset Highway Forest Wayside as it wound through
the small mountains of the Coast Range.
Janice always laughed to herself when she saw the signs. They were supposed to evoke some kind of
scenic beauty provided by the State Transportation Department, but she didn't
trust anyone with the initials STD. She
knew what they really meant, she thought to herself, and it didn't take any
special powers to figure it out. It was
merely a highway they cut through the forest as a way to get to the trees. They chopped so many down you could now see
the sunset.
"God,
don't get me started," she said out loud, to no one in particular.
Granite
turned his head towards her for a moment, then returned to staring out the
front of the car. He knew that she
wasn't talking to him, because her voice wasn't in that special tone that
humans reserved for their pets. He also
could sense, even smell, how upset she was.
She had been upset all day, and the smell of fear and anger had been almost
overwhelming to him.
He
knew it wasn't because of anything he had done. Granite had been a good
dog for as long as he could remember, except for running after the
car. But he could tell she wasn't upset
about that. He would of known if he had
been a bad dog. Bad
dogs got tied to a rope on
the side of the garage, not allowed to go in the car and sit in the front
seat.
He
could also sense that she was going to whatever upset her so much. The smell of fear wasn't as strong, but the
odor of anger was almost frightening to him.
He knew to be on his best behavior.
He also knew that he had to be with his master, to protect her, like a good dog.
Janice pulled off the side of the road, and turned up a little gravel driveway. She stopped the car and looked as far as she could up the driveway that turned into the small trees and up the hillside. There were no signs of habitation or regular usage, so she turned off the ignition and reached into the glove box for her emergency roll of toilet paper.
She
got out off the car, leaving the door open for the dog, and immediately
squatted down to relieve herself.
Granite jumped out behind her and started to sniff out the perimeter
around the car and up the driveway.
"Don't
go too far Granite," she shouted.
Goddamn
beer, she thought to herself. Give me
tequila any day. It may destroy your
liver at warp speed, but at least when you die and they do an autopsy you won't
have stretch marks on your bladder.
When she was finished she walked back to the car and found Granite
already inside, ready to go.
"Granite,
you amaze me. Any other day and I'd have
been calling you for fifteen minutes," she said as she reached past him
and exchanged the toilet paper for a map of Oregon. "Good dog."
She
sat back in her seat and unfolded the map across the steering wheel. Her immediate goal was to get to Astoria and
the toll bridge across the Columbia River and into Washington State. There were several ways to do that, but all
of them seemed made of windy single lane highways through wide spots in the
road with names like Tophill, Vinemaple, and Mist. She decided to stick with the familiar and just take Highway 26
to 101, then head up along the coast through Seaside and Sunset Beach. During the summer that would have cost her a
lot of time in traffic, but on a rainy Friday in January, it shouldn't be too
bad. Besides, she thought to herself,
maybe a spin by the ocean would relax her.
She
reached behind the back seat and grabbed another Bud Light out of the paper
bag, popping the top of the aluminum can before she even had it in front of
her. She took a swallow and fired up
the Nissan, dropped the transmission into reverse, and backed onto the empty
highway.
2
Eddie
watched as the single engine Cessna wobbled and bounced across the airfield
towards the north end of the runway. He
was still fuming about Sara leaving, but was amazed how quickly his desire for
her was beginning to wane. There would
be plenty of secretaries in short skirts and wannabes in heat when he got to
Washington D.C., he reminded himself.
The toughest part would be deciding which one he wanted to bone
first. He chuckled at the thought and
popped a few more rivets out of the wing.
Besides,
he had a lot of loose ends to tie up this afternoon, and having Sara around
would have only made things more difficult.
Still, a tight pussy was a terrible thing to waste. Or was that supposed to be a mind is a
terrible thing to waste? He chuckled
again. When it comes to women, it's the
same difference, right? He popped a few
more rivets in the tail section.
God,
this is easy, he thought to himself.
Great fun. He envisioned himself
as some kind of scorned lover in a field of daisies, picking off a petal at a
time. She loves me; tink goes the
rivet. She loves me not; tink goes
another rivet. She loves me; tink. She loves me not; tink. He could do this forever, and he imagined it
would take at least a couple of days at this rate to pop every rivet in the
plane. But he didn't have forever,
which reminded him, just where in the hell was Jonathan anyway?
Maybe
it was better that he wasn't here to distract him right at the moment, he
considered. He was going to have to be
popping rivets at an Olympic pace here pretty soon, if Mangione ever decided to
take off that is. Suddenly, like a
child building his first model and running out of patience, he found himself
just wanting to get it over with.
"Come
on Joe, you little son of a bitch, let's get this show on the road. I've got bigger fish to fry."
Almost
as if he had willed it, the Cessna turned around at the end of the runway and
instantly began to gather speed for take-off.
As it sped by him, he lowered his umbrella and blew Sara a kiss. Then he lowered his head in concentration
and closed his eyes, blowing out an entire row of rivets running down the
rudder of the plane.
"Have
a nice flight, you two." Eddie
said to no one but himself.
3
Joe kept the speed up as turned the plane
around at the end of the airfield. He
didn't stop like he normally did, to do a final check of the aircraft before
taking off. It was against his better
judgment and years of training, but the field was just too soft. Instead, he pushed the throttle up a little
higher and guided the plane down the center of what had once been a well-kept
runway. A quick look at the instrument
panel showed him all the gauges were reading normal, and that was going to have
to do for now. He leaned over and
shouted over the engine noise to Sara.
"Here
we go, next stop, hot coffee and a real runway in Ilwaco."
Sara
just nodded in agreement, holding on tightly to her seat belt as the Skylane
began to gather speed. She looked out
her side window as the plane bounced along the grassy runway. Eddie was standing out in front of the
hangar in the rain, umbrella at his side.
"What
do you make of that?" shouted Sara, nodding towards the hangar.
Joe
had his hands full keeping the plane headed straight down the runway with the
winds coming from the side, but took a quick glance out her window anyway.
"What
can I say?" he asked, as he returned to business, pushing the throttle to
full take off power. "Eddie's
crazy as a loon."
Sara
looked across the field to Eddie, just in time to see him blow her a kiss. She assumed it was for her. There definitely wasn't any love lost
between Eddie and Joe. She quickly
turned her head around to the front of the plane, wanting to avoid Eddie's sight. Just what in the hell was that about?
She
turned back around again, this time to find Eddie with his head down, still not
moving. God, you'd think he was at
someone's funeral or something, she thought to herself.
At
that moment, the Cessna hit a large clump of blown down grass and lifted off
into the air momentarily. They still
didn't have enough speed to maintain flight, and the plane dropped back to the
ground, causing Sara to let out a little scream. She turned to face the front windshield, too embarrassed to look
at Joe, not realizing that he was concentrating too hard to have even noticed
much.
The
plane bounced once again, coming down softer this time.
"Come
on baby, come on," coaxed Joe, as the Cessna jumped a third time.
Sara
tensed up, waiting for the expected bump that never came.
"Airborne!"
shouted Joe, as he brought the plane up gently. Unlike the take-off in Olympia, he traded altitude for airspeed, gaining
just enough height to safely clear the trees at the end of the airstrip. He left the landing gear down, letting the
rain and wind clean the mud and grass off.
He planned on leaving them down until he reached Ilwaco. It would slow them down some, but he wanted
to do a thorough inspection before he cycled them again, not wanting to take a
chance on the gear locking in the up position.
Joe
glanced over at Sara, who seemed to be holding her own, considering. He leveled the plane out, and dropped the
throttle down a little. No sense in
gaining too much altitude, Ilwaco was just a few minutes away by air. He leaned over towards Sara.
"You
okay?"
"Yeah,
fine. Glad to be out of there in one
piece," she said.
"Me
too."
"Sorry
I screamed back there," apologized Sara.
"I guess that bump just caught me off guard."
"Saved
me from having to do it. I was just as
surprised as you were, let me tell you."
"You
ever get afraid, Joe. I mean really afraid?"
"A lot, when I was younger anyways. Fear's like a drug, you build up a tolerance after awhile if you keep doing it enough."
"Eddie
scares me," she said.
"Welcome
to the club. Having a fear of Eddie
sounds like a healthy thing to me," Joe replied, glancing at Sara. He thought to himself for a moment, scanning
the instruments.
"You're
quite fond of Jonathan, aren't you?" asked Joe.
"Does
it show?" she replied, looking back at him.
"A
little. Does he know?”
"Jonathan? I doubt it," she said
sarcastically. "All he ever thinks
about is his stupid politics."
"Doesn't
surprise me. Men are always the last to
ones to figure out this romance business.
Love's a four letter word to most of us, something that's gonna end up
getting our balls clamped in a vise.
It's not that we don't care, it's just that we don't have the skills to
cope."
"You
ever fall in love, Joe?" asked Janice.
"Me? No.
Don't know too many women that would want to take me on. Too much extra baggage," said Joe
sadly, then he put on a friendly smile.
"Besides. I've got the sex drive of a teenager, don't
like to shave everyday, and have never met a woman who could cook up a better
marinara sauce than my mama."
"Joe,
there's got to be a million women out there looking for a man like you,"
Sara returned with a warm smile.
"You
keep talking like that, little missy, and Jonathan will have to wake up and
smell the roses pretty quick. Otherwise
some hot shot pilot is going to come along and swoop his girl off to the
Bahamas," joked Joe. "How's
your marinara sauce?"
"Can't
cook for shit!" replied Sara.
"Too
bad," said Joe. "Should have
known it would take something along the lines of one of those fancy airline
pilots to snag the likes of you. Some
ex-Air Force puke with a nice suit and a lots of gold braid, Porche in the
driveway and ambitions of being a senator.
See how you are?"
Sara
started to blush, not knowing what to say.
"Look
Sara, if it means anything to you, when we get to Ilwaco I'll make the phone
calls. But I'm going to stay on this
thing myself, too."
"Oh
Joe, would you? I mean, you know him; you've
seen him. I've got some money stashed away, I'll pay you whatever you're…"
Joe
cut her off quickly.
"Look,
Sara, you keep your money. Don't get me
wrong, I don't do charity work, and I'm not one of those people with a Good
Samaritan sticker on the bumper of their motor home. But I don't have to stand for little assholes like Eddie, shitting
on everyone they come in contact with, just because they think they have the
right. If I ever get that little shit
by the balls though, I'll squeeze them extra hard once, just for you.
"This
is between me and Eddie now. People
like you and Jonathan don't have any business dealin' with the likes of that
scum," said Joe flatly. Then he
smiled again.
"Besides,
I've already had my rabies shots this year."
"Joe,
you're the greatest," Sara said with all her heart and soul.
"Yeah,
me and Mohammed Ali get that all of the time.
But we still like hearing it," Joe said with an ever wider smile.
Suddenly
the plane swerved sickly to one side, and then slowly back again as Joe fought
the controls. Sara looked at Joe, and
could see that his smile had been replaced with a grimace of real concern.
"Joe,
what's wrong?" asked Sara.
"I
don't know yet!" snapped Joe, as the plane began rocking left and right.
Sara
looked out of her window past the wing and towards the ground as the plane
banked sharply to her side. It was then
that the right aileron broke free of the rear spar. It flapped in the wind for a second, held only to the plane by a
couple of cables, and then fell clear of the aircraft. Sara screamed again.
"Joe! Joe!
Did you see that?" she yelled, pushing on his shoulder with her
open hand.
"Yeah,
I saw it," he shouted, fighting to keep the plane in some kind of level
flight. "The whole damn plane
seems to be breaking up!"
He
looked out his side window and saw a skin panel starting to flap in the
wind. He stared in amazement at the
rows of empty rivet holes along the underside of the wing. How in the hell?
He
quickly brought his mind back to the problem at hand, namely being to get this
deteriorating piece of aluminum back on the ground with it's occupants in one
piece. Even with one aileron gone, he
didn't think he should be having such a hard time keeping the plane in a
relatively straight line. He quickly
turned around to look out the back window, and his fears were instantly
confirmed. The tail rudder was falling
apart before his eyes; he knew it too would be soon gone.
His
first instinct was to grab the radio and call in a mayday, but he didn't dare
take his hands off of the controls. A
plane without ailerons could be dealt with.
A plane without a rudder could be dealt with too. Either loss would take an experienced pilot
to cope, but if he lost both, the ability to turn would cease to exist, and
they would be at the mercy of the winds.
He
decided to start nudging the plane towards the right, out to sea. To the left, the calmer Willapa Bay would
have been a better choice, but he didn't know if the rudder would hold out that
long. Crashing uncontrollably into a
bunch of trees wasn't an option he wanted to consider.
"Sara,"
he shouted with authority, "I need you to work the radio!"
Sara
was as afraid as she had ever been in her life. Being a secretary just didn't prepare a person for days like
this, she had been thinking to herself as her life began to flash before
her. She didn't want to die like this, any
way but this.
"Sara!"
yelled Joe again at the top of his lungs.
"What?"
she screamed back.
"You're
going to have to work the radio for me.
Pick up the headset on the dash and I'll tell you what to do. Now, Godammit!"
"Okay,
okay," she yelled back, reaching for the headphone-like unit that she had
seen Joe use before.
She
grabbed the headset with both hands and began to put it on her head when a
searing pain shot through her hands.
She let out a scream and dropped the microphone onto the floor.
"What's
wrong?" shouted Joe.
Sara
turned over her hand, and both could see the blisters beginning to form between
the patches of melted black plastic that were sticking to her palm.
"It's
too hot to hold!" yelled Sara.
Joe
glanced down at the radio component in the dashboard, and saw smoke beginning
to rise from the panel.
"Shit!"
he yelled himself. "This is
crazy!"
He
dropped the throttle again, wanting to lose altitude without having to
actually maneuver the plane and put any more stress on the failing parts. Luckily they weren't more than five hundred
feet above the ground. The bad news was,
that was four hundred and ninety-nine feet more than he wanted if he had to
fall out of the sky.
4
Eddie
looked up as the Cessna was still bouncing down the runway, trying to gain
enough speed to stay airborne. At first
he thought that maybe he had overdone his dismantling, which would have been a
disappointment, to say the least. A
bent prop and some bruised foreheads wasn't exactly what he had in mind for
those two. He unwillingly found himself
rooting right along with Joe and Sara for the little plane to lift off in one
piece.
On
the third big bounce it did take off, and Eddie waited for it to clear the
trees before he went back to chipping away at its control surfaces. He worked at as fast a pace as his newly
recharged power would let him, but found it harder to accomplish the task as
the sound of the plane started to fade away.
He had always known that there was a limit to the range at which he
could perform physical acts of destruction.
He just wasn't sure what that range was, since it seemed to increase on
a daily basis lately. He could still
see the plane, although it was too small to tell its color anymore, and it
seemed to be flying along just fine.
Damn it all to hell!
He
decided to concentrate on just one section of the plane, the right wing aileron
as it turned out to be, although he didn't know the part by name. He disintegrated the rivets as fast as he
could imagine them, until there was nothing left for him to picture. It was then that he realized that the part
was no longer on the airplane. That
boosted his spirits somewhat, although he was starting to fear that the two
might actually get out of range before he could finish the job. He knew that Joe was an experienced combat
pilot, and if he didn't finish the job off right and be quick about it, Joe
could probably bring it down in one piece.
He
remembered seeing the radio in the middle of the control panel, and he quickly
shifted his attention to the microphone.
Within seconds he knew he had melted it to a point of uselessness. Just as the speck of black that Eddie had
been watching was about to fade from his sight, he saw it start to turn slowly
towards the ocean.
He
changed his focus of attack to the tail section, and gave it all that he had
left. A searing pain shot through his
head as if someone was driving railroad spikes into his temples. His vision began to darken, so he closed his
eyes and tried to ignore the distraction.
Brilliant spots of lights started to explode across the inside of his red
eyelids as the pain intensified past all thresholds he had known before, but
he kept on going. He could no longer
focus on any particular row of rivets or part of the airplane, so he just began
to mentally claw away at what he thought must be the tail. His knees began to get weak, and nausea set
in, yet still he struggled to inflict any act of random destruction that he
could.
Finally,
he could take no more. He crumpled into
a heap on the gravel driveway. He knew
he couldn't afford to be found this way, or stay this way for long, but he was
too weak to get up. He reached out
slowly for the umbrella that had fallen by his feet, and pulled it over his
upper body and head. At least it
blocked the wind and rain somewhat. It
was all that he could do for the moment, so he laid his head on his arms and
closed his eyes, wishing that the terrible pain in his head would go away.
5
Janice
was speeding along Highway 26 and had just crossed the Nehalem River when the
pain hit her. She involuntarily
dropped her beer can onto the floor of the car, and swerved to a stop on the
side of the road. She knew right away
that she was having another Eddie attack, as she bent over the stick shift and
began to vomit. Granite began barking,
as she watched the beer she threw up mix with the spilled beer on the passenger
side of the floor. The stomach spasms
were so strong that she found herself paralyzed, bent over and unable to even
raise her head.
She
watched as bits of garbage that had been on the carpet floated to the top of
the pool of beer. A gum wrapper; some
pine needles; and oddly enough, a few sesame seeds. At first she thought she was hallucinating, but then she remembered
the Whopper she had shared with Granite a week ago. Usually the pain would quickly subside, but this time it only
intensified, bringing tears to her eyes.
Now the puddle of beer was only a kaleidoscope of swirling pastels, and
it reminded her of staring into the clouds on a windy day. She tried blinking the tears away, but that
only changed the patterns, as if she had twisted the ring on the kaleidoscope.
This
went on for about a minute, and then the stomach pain nearly stopped
completely, only to be replaced with a crushing headache. There was a ringing in her ears that made it
hard for her to hear Granite yelping. There
was another sound, but she couldn't quite make it out, and then it went
away. It quickly came again. It was a loud crunching sound followed by
some talking, but it was too garbled for her to understand. This time she recognized what it was, a CB
radio, and her heart almost stopped.
Granite was going crazy and he gouged his nails through her clothes and
into her back as he climbed across her into the back seat of the car. She fought to get up on one arm, and look out
the rear view mirror. Her worst fears
were confirmed.
Sitting
a few yards behind her car was an Oregon State Patrol car, with his blue and
yellow lights flashing. The nausea
returned. The officer was already out
of his car, and when he saw her head come up, he began to come closer.
"Fuck!"
she cursed. "Just what I need
right now."
She
turned around and did her best to sit up straight in her seat. It was a lame attempt at best. She looked down at the floor and saw the
puddle of beer. Her nose was so full of
mucus that she couldn't smell a thing, but she had no doubts that the patrolman
wouldn't be suffering with the same handicap.
Her heart began to pound as her body went into fight-or-flight mode,
sending an overabundance of adrenaline into her bloodstream.
'Face
it Janice, you're screwed,' she thought to herself.
She
watched in her side mirror as the officer approached her car, casually
unclipping the restraining strap on his holster. God, he's young enough to be my son, she thought. She turned and yelled at Granite to be
quiet, but it did little to stop him. She
turned around and quickly rolled down her window just before the officer got up
to her car, hoping for a little fresh air to displace the smell of the
beer. Then she remembered the empties lying
in the back of her car. Instantly she knew
it was hopeless.
"Good
afternoon, ma'am. What seems to be the
problem?" he asked in a way that caused her to imagine him sitting in
front of a mirror and practicing until he got the tone just right.
"I
don't know what came over me," she started. "I just suddenly felt sick and had to pull over."
"I
see. Have you had anything to drink
today, ma'am?" he asked with that same monotone politeness.
"A
couple of beers, that's all," she replied, hoping that for some reason the
gods would be kind to her today.
"Are
those beer cans in the back seat the ones you're referring too?"
She
was done for, no doubt about it. The
only luck she would have today would be the kind that she made herself. But she needed time to think. She went through the motions of looking into
the back of the car. The dog was still
growling, but had somehow realized that barking wasn't exactly what her master
needed right now.
"Granite,
you calm down," she said, trying to do anything to keep the officer from
being more of a problem than she knew he was going to be already. She turned around to face the patrolman.
"No,"
she lied. "Those are some old ones
I forgot about from when I was at the park with the dog the other day."
"I'll
need to see your driver's license and registration."
"You're
not going to believe this, but my car got broken into the other day, and they
stole my purse. It had my wallet and registration
in it," she said, feeling totally ridiculous, adding, "I was going to
check on different auto insurance later that day."
"I
see," he said, obviously not buying her story. "Wait right here."
Janice
watched in her rear view mirror as the officer walked back toward his patrol
car. She knew she had to act fast,
before he got a chance to call in her plates, if he hadn't already. She opened the car door and stumbled out of
the car, shutting the door before Granite could get out. The patrolman stopped in his tracks, turning
around as he heard the door slam, reaching for his weapon as he did.
Janice
walked towards him, leaning on the side of the car as she went, Granite barking
away from inside.
"I
don't . . . feel so good," she stuttered.
"I think I'm having some kind of a heart attack, or
something."
She
fell across the back of the trunk, with her head facing the officer, but with
her eyes not quite closed. She watched
him as she began to slowly slip down the side of the car towards the
ground. He took his hand off of his gun
and ran towards her, not feeling threatened enough to be more cautious and
make his radio call first. It would
turn out to be a mistake he would never make again.
He
caught Janice under the shoulders just before her knees hit the ground, pulling
her up so he could drag her to the back of the Nissan. As he spread his legs to sit her down, he
felt her become tense, but couldn't react fast enough to block her rapid knee
to his groin. He doubled over in pain
as she rammed her right palm into his nose, snapping his head back. When he fell forward again she chopped him
in the throat with her left hand, causing him to go into a breathing spasm.
He
fell off her legs to one side, and landed on the ground by the corner of her
car. His blue eyes were wide with shock
as his hat was knocked into the road.
He quickly recovered his senses and reached for his service
revolver. Janice had jumped up by then,
and beat him to the draw by grinding her heel into the back of his hand. He howled in pain, which wasn't uncommon for
someone who had just had several bones in the back of their hand fractured.
She
swiftly kicked him in the crotch again, much harder this time since she had the
full swing of her leg in effect. He
rolled on his side and drew into a little ball, clutching at his manhood. She reached down and pulled the .38 from his
holster. A quick inspection of the weapon
showed her the safety was already off.
"Keep
your face in the dirt, and I won't have to kill you," she shouted, looking
up and down the road for traffic. There
was no one to be seen, but she knew that couldn't last for long at this time of
day.
"Please
don't shoot me, lady," he protested.
"I got two kids, I'll do anything you say."
Janice
felt horrible for what she had done, but she didn't have time for sympathy
right now. She knew that Eddie was up
to his tricks again, and every second might count. She also knew she couldn't afford to have the combined forces of
the Oregon and Washington State Patrol out looking for her. Murder wasn't an option either, so she opted
for fantasy with a side order of positive reinforcement.
"Look
man, I ain't got time for this shit right now," she barked. "So listen up, I'm only going to say
things once. Do exactly as I say, and
you'll get to tuck your kids in tonight.
Fuck up, and you'll be leaving this world short a couple of
kidneys. Let's start with you putting
your hands behind your head where I can see them."
"Whatever
you say, just don't shoot me," he pleaded, and did as he was told.
"Okay,
just shut up and stay still!" yelled Janice, as she looked around at her
present surroundings. She knew that she
would have to do something to keep this guy under wraps for a few hours. And it wouldn't be in her best interests to
leave an empty police car sitting by side of the highway either. She hastily formulated a plan.
"Where's
your handcuffs?" she asked.
"There
in that pouch on my belt, just to the . . ."
"Never
mind, I see them." She reached
down and pulled out the heavy chrome handcuffs. "Put your hands down behind your back, I'm sure you know
the drill."
He
did as instructed and she soon was finished locking the cuffs.
"Now
get up," she said, as she walked in front of him, pointing the gun at his
chest. She bent down at the knees and
picked up his hat, and motioned him back to his cruiser.
"Walk
backwards to your car, driver's side," she shouted, motioning with the
pistol. She was becoming increasingly
glad for the times she had gotten stoned and watched 'Cops' and all the other
police shows on TV.
"Keep
going," she said firmly. He felt
his way around the front of the big sedan and down the side of the car. When he was almost to the rear of the car
she told him to stop and turn away from her.
She opened up the front door of the police car and pulled his keys out
of the ignition. Thirty seconds later
she had opened the rear passenger door and forced him to get inside and lay on
the vinyl covered seat. She shut the
door, and then got into the driver's seat.
She threw his hat on the seat next to her.
"How
do I turn off these damn lights?" she demanded.
"It's
labeled there, on the dash," came his muffled reply through the glass
protector panel. Janice quickly
found it and turned off the flashing lights.
Much better, she thought to herself.
She put the keys in the ignition and fired up the engine, dropped the
transmission into Drive and slowly pulled out past her Sentra. She saw Granite trying to launch himself through
her car window as he watched her drive by.
She
drove up the road about a hundred yards until she found another turn off. It was just what the doctor ordered, with
faded No Hunting and Private Property signs nailed to the trees. By the length of the grass standing between
the tire tracks, it looked like it hadn't been used in months. She turned up the muddy drive and went
almost a half a mile before the road came to a dead end in a small clearing.
There were several tree stumps around, and a small stack of old weathered split
wood in one corner of the clearing.
Someone might have had plans for this place, but they were obviously
moving pretty slowly if they did.
She
got out, opened the back door, and ordered the officer to stay still as she
pulled his wallet out of his pants pocket.
She went through it until she found his driver's license, noticing a
picture of him and a lovely girl she imagined to be his wife. There were more pictures of two very small
boys.
"So
you're Larry Lee Jackson, of Hillsboro I see," said Janice.
"Yeah,"
he grunted back, finding it hard to talk with a swollen nose and lying face
down with his hands behind his back.
"These
pictures of your wife and kids?"
"Yeah. Look lady, if it's money you want, there's a
couple of hundred dollar bills that I keep tucked up under my credit cards for
emergencies."
"Look
Larry, we don't have a use for much of anything humanoid on my planet,
especially money," she started.
"Your
planet?" asked Jackson incredulously.
"That's
right. Now I'm sure you think that I'm
some kind of whacked out drunk and prone to delusions of grandeur, but the
truth is, I was on my way to Manzanita to get picked up."
"Picked
up?" asked Larry.
"That's
right. Picked up. Beamed up, if you like. But that's not exactly how we do it,
unfortunately. Although I have to admit
I've picked up a taste for your beer, I really can't handle this thing you call
driving. But that's a story I don't
have time to get into right now, Larry.
You see, I'm on a very tight time schedule, and you've made it even
tighter. That's left me in a dilemma. Namely, what am I going to do with you? We don't believe in unnecessary killing; on
the other hand, we can't afford to have our departure to be interfered
with. Do you see where I'm coming from,
Larry?"
"Yeah,
sure, I guess. Look, I didn't see
anything lady, all right? I'll do what
ever you say…"
Janice
cut him off. "I'd like to believe
you, Larry, but what would we do about your radio?"
"What
do you mean," asked the officer quickly.
"Well,
you must have made a call into your controller before you pulled me over,"
she said, fishing for answers.
"No! I didn't, I swear. I didn't pull you over lady.
You were already on the side of the road. I thought you were an abandoned vehicle until I saw the dog and
your head pop up."
"Too
bad I can't take that chance Larry," she said, as she reached down and
grabbed his impeccably shined black shoes and pulled his legs out of the car
far enough to touch the ground.
"Stand
up," she ordered, as she grabbed his collar to help pull him to his
feet. He did as she instructed.
"Spread
your feet wide, and lean against the car.
That's it. Now, I'm going to
unlock these cuffs, but if you do anything stupid, you're going to make my
decision extremely easy. Do you understand me, Larry?"
"Yes,"
he said, leaning forward on the cruiser and spreading his legs. He hadn't been in this position since he had
practiced with his partner at the academy.
Janice
asked him where he kept the key and then proceeded to unlock the cuffs.
"Okay
Larry, turn to your left and walk over to that big stump by the wood pile. Don't look back, just walk."
Larry
began to panic, wondering if this would end up being the part where she shot
him in the back. He started walking
toward the stump. But why had she even
bothered to undo the cuffs if that was the case? Who ever he was dealing with, had it together too much to be
drunk, but he couldn't even
begin to believe that shit about being from another planet. One thing was for sure, he should have made
a radio call, and if he got out of this alive, he would catch hell for being so
stupid.
"Stop
there, Larry." He did.
"Look
lady, you've got to believe me. I
didn't make any radio call. I should
have, but I didn't. That's the
truth," he pleaded.
"Larry,
you know what? I think I believe
you," Janice said as she watched the young man heave a sigh of relief.
"But
I don't think you believe me," said Janice, "and that might make you
want to do something stupid when I leave; and I need to leave right away Larry."
"If
you say you're an alien, you're an alien," he said, knowing he didn't
sound very believable, even to himself.
"Spare
me, Larry," she said, finding herself getting into the role. She didn't want to have to hurt the officer
any more, but she did find that part of her was enjoying having the shoe on the
other foot. She had been hassled many
times by the cops in her earlier years with Randy, usually over nothing more serious
than looking like a hippie.
"I
want you to grab that rock down by your feet, Larry, and hold in it your
hand."
It
was a stone actually, about the size of a large potato, but he bent over and
picked it up in his left hand. He usually
would have used his right hand, but it was pretty much out of commission after
getting smashed by his alien high-jacker’s foot.
"Hold
it out to your side Larry. Is it cold
and wet?" she asked.
God,
this woman is definitely in need of some serious help, thought Larry, but he
answered her as calmly as he could.
"Yes. It is."
"Standby
for a reality check, Larry," said Janice, as she concentrated on the rock,
quickly heating it up to almost two hundred degrees. It was one of her favorite exercises, as she called them. She practiced it every time she was alone
and wanted to fire up the charcoals in her Weber.
"Shit!"
yelled Larry, as he dropped the rock onto the ground, where it lay sizzling in
the wet grass. He looked at his hand. Blisters were already starting to form on
his palm and finger tips. He started to
turn toward Janice with a look of disbelief, but she stopped him.
"Turn
back around, Larry, and look at the rock.
The show's not over yet."
She concentrated on the rock some more, and lifted it off the ground and
gently sat it back down on the stump a few feet away.
"And
now for the grand finale!" she shouted as she heated the rock back up to
the point the wood around it caught fire, then, if as on queue, the rock
exploded.
"Jesus
Christ!" exclaimed Jackson, as he ducked to avoid the fragments of exploding
rock.
"Different
planet, but I can assure you that it’s quite real also," said Janice,
feeling that she had probably made a believer out of Larry. Now for the finishing touches, and she could
get back to her original plan.
"Now
I want you to think about something, Larry.
Think about it real
hard. If I can do that to a rock,
imagine what I could do to your balls, and those little raisins that will
someday be your son's balls. Scary
thought, isn't it? But that's exactly
what will happen if you don't just decide to let this all go like it never
happened. No radio calls, no reports,
no sightings of aliens. Just go out and
finish your shift, and chalk it all up to having a bad donut day. In other words, you forget about me, and
I'll forget about you. Deal?"
"Best
deal I've had all day," said the relieved, but hurting, young patrol
officer.
"Good!"
said Janice, just as glad to see this come to a relatively happy ending.
"Now
unbuckle your Batman utility belt, drop it on the ground, and kick off your
shoes. Make it snappy Larry, I ain't
got all millennium."
He
did as he was told, and she walked over and picked them up, keeping the gun
trained on him as she did.
"I'm
going to leave these in your car, with everything else," she said as she
backed up towards the cruiser.
"It'll be at the end of the road when you walk out. You just stand there for a few minutes and
think about what I've told you, and by then I should be gone."
She
got in the car, and started up the engine.
Then she rolled down the window and yelled out to the shoeless man in
the Oregon State Patrol uniform. "Oh,
and Larry! Have a nice day!"
She
turned the car around in the clearing and headed back down the muddy road to
the main highway. She was pretty sure
that she had convinced Larry to give up any hope of tracking her down. If not, at least she had bought some
valuable time. By the time she had
pulled up near the highway where she planned to leave the police car, she had
come down from her adrenaline high.
She
spotted Larry's lunch box laying on the floor of the passenger side, and
decided to play Goldilocks while still in fantasy mode. With all that had happened in the last half
an hour, Janice realized that she was starving. She opened the box, and checked out the two sandwiches
inside. Ham and cheese, that'll work,
she thought to herself. Ooh, a Snickers
Bar and an orange, my kind of guy. He
can have the coffee, or what ever it was, she thought as she looked at the Thermos
in the top of the lunch box. He'll
probably be pretty cold by the time he walks down that Oregon Trail of a road
in his stocking feet, in the rain.
She
got of the cruiser, walked down the rest of the drive to the main highway, and
started jogging for her car. She was
relieved to see that there wasn't an entire S.W.A.T. team around her Nissan,
and Granite was barking at her through the front window. She quickly got in and hugged the dog. He rewarded her lavishing her with his big
wet tongue.
"Cut
it out, Granite. I'm glad to see you
too, okay? Yeah, you're a good dog; now
settle down. Here, I brought you
something. Ham and cheese sandwich, no
lettuce, you're favorite. Compliments
of the Oregon State Patrol."
She
pulled a sandwich out of the plastic zip-lock bag, and split it between
them. Then she reached in the bag
behind her seat and pulled out a sweatshirt and used it to sop up the mess on
her floor. She threw it and the empty
beer cans out of the car then pulled back onto Highway 26. She looked at her watch. It was ten 'till three. Damn!
She had lost almost forty-five minutes.
Of course, if she wouldn't have taken things into her own hands, she
would have needed the rest of the day to get out of jail. Plus they would also have confiscated her
car. She decided to count her
blessings, and resolved herself to stay within the speed limits to avoid any
more unwanted run-ins with the law.
She
gave Granite the other sandwich, and then wolfed down the candy bar
herself. She was starting to feel
better, and decided to have another Bud Lite.
They were getting a little on the warm side, but after the first sip,
she decided they had never tasted better.
"Hair
of the dog, right Granite?"
He glanced
up at her with that 'don't bother me, can't you see I'm eating' look. She reached over and patted him on the head
lightly, understanding his meaning exactly.
"You know Granite, we
make a good team. I don't like to eat,
and you don't like to drink. We were
made for each other."
Granite
turned to lick her hand once, then went back to his sandwich.
6
Larry Jackson stood in his
wet stocking feet and watched as the alien from who knows where drove off with
his cruiser, his gun, and his shoes.
"Shit!"
he finally exclaimed to himself once the car was out of sight.
He
walked over to the stump where Janice had performed her exploding rock
trick. The rain had put out the fire,
but steam was still rising from the burned spot where the rock had sat. He looked at the palm of his left hand, now
covered with blisters. He was soaking
wet and still had a half a mile to walk out.
More if she had lied about leaving his car at the end of the driveway.
"How
in the hell am I going to explain all of this?" he said to himself as he
started walking gingerly down the road.
His
thin black dress socks did little to cushion his feet as he headed back to the
highway, and running was out of the question.
It was almost fifteen minutes before he turned a bend in the driveway
and saw his patrol car sitting there, air in all of the tires, seemingly in one
piece. He had envisioned several
different scenarios while he walked. One
of them included having all of the windows broken and the seats slashed. Another had him trying to explain how his
service revolver and shotgun had disappeared, but a quick inspection inside the
car proved that nothing was missing.
Even his wallet was lying on the seat next to his pistol. He quickly thumbed through it, and decided
that everything was still there, including the hidden hundred dollar bills.
The
keys were still in the ignition, so he tried starting the engine, half
expecting something to be wrong. It
turned over right away. He quickly
turned the heater on at full blast and placed his frozen wet feet next to the
vent under dash. He reached down to
grab the radio microphone, but thought better of it. Having your gun taken away from you, getting hog-tied with your
own cuffs, and having your squad car driven off by a stranger would effectively
end his promotions through the ranks for years. Having it done by a woman
would make him the laughing stock of the division. Telling them that it was an alien would get him
kicked off the force.
He decided the woman was right, he should just forget about her. He knew that he could never do that, but he could keep it a secret, not to be shared with anyone, even his wife. If he was lucky, he could get back to his house and grab a fresh uniform before she got home from work, and be back at the station for his scheduled change of shift. He looked at his face in the rear view mirror. Maybe the swelling in his nose would even go down by then, but he doubted it. She had popped him pretty good. That was going to be hard to explain, along with his burnt and broken hands. But it could have been worse, he reminded himself. At least he was still among the living, still had his job, and last but not least, his gonads were still intact.
He
quickly put his shoes on, and then got out of the car so he could put on the
heavy belt and holster. When he had
everything back in place, he opened his lunch box to pour himself a cup of
coffee, and saw that everything besides was gone.
"Guess
she developed a taste for ham and cheese, too," he muttered to himself, as
he shakily poured himself some coffee.
A
minute later he was back on the highway heading east towards Portland, glad to
see that her car was gone from the side of the road. He doubted he would have stopped even if it had still been
there. As a matter of fact, he didn't
plan on stopping anyone for the rest of his shift. Better yet, the rest of the month, he decided. Maybe the wife was right. It might be time to start thinking about
another line of work. There were too
many crazies out there.
"Hell,
too many aliens," he added out loud, hoping he was speaking to no one but
himself.