LIFERS Chapter Five

Five

‘What was that?’ Jill said.

Vicky stared through the cracked windshield, her eyes wide, her hands still gripping the dash. ‘There was someone in the road,’ she said. ‘We hit someone.’

‘What?’

Vicky turned. ‘I think we just killed someone.’

Both girls looked through Jill’s side of the car along the stretch of road that fifteen seconds ago was behind them.

‘Could’ve been a deer.’ Jill said.

‘Wearing jeans and a jacket? And with the look of “Oh shit, I’m about to die” written all over its face?’

‘Okay, we need a flashlight.’

‘There’s one in the trunk, inside a shoebox with some of my old sneakers.’

As she reached down to pull the lever under the dash to pop the trunk, Jill gave Vicky a look but said nothing about having to rummage through old sneakers, she’d rather do that than what she was about to do. She opened her door and placed one foot in the dirt ready to climb out.

‘You’re coming with me, aren’t you?’

‘Are you crazy?’

‘I have to know what we hit.’

‘I saw what we hit, Jill, and believe me, it wasn’t a deer.’

‘Fine, you stay here if you want, but I need to make sure.’

‘What about the snakes?’

Jill paused, looked out her window again. 'Fuck the snakes,' she said, determined, then climbed out.

She walked around back to lift open the trunk and found the shoebox containing the flashlight; she then turned to find Vicky standing right behind her.

‘Fuck, Jesus,’ she half-whispered. ‘You scared the shit outta me.’

‘After you,’ Vicky said.

Jill turned to look along the road to see a dark figure lying about fifty yards away, a dark figure that looked to be around the size of an adult body, and then, with an almost silent click, the flashlight came to life and they started toward it. Jill leading the way, with Vicky two steps behind.

Ten minutes earlier the sky had been clear of cloud-cover, but now the moon’s ambient glow, though faint beyond any kind of helpful, was being interrupted by clouds gusting across its path. Thunder rolled in the distance and the night’s air felt muggier than before, almost to a point of eeriness, indicating the imminence of a large summer storm.

Jill turned to Vicky. ‘Care to join me?’

Vicky huffed, caught up, and then linked Jill's arm as they walked toward the dark shape lying in the road. Jill still hoped for some kind of stray animal, but the nearer they got the more those hopes faded. She saw a foot, a hand, a face.

They were standing five yards away and looked on in silence at the twisted body of a man. His left arm protruding out from under him and his right arm looking dislocated as it lay across the side of his head, which lay twisted in their direction. His legs, from the knees down, were bent the opposite way they should have been. He wore a black leather jacket over a white T-shirt and dark blue jeans. One white sock, his left, was visible as his boot had come off during the accident and now lay between them and the body.

‘We’re gonna have to check,’ Jill said.

‘Check what? You can see he’s dead. No one looks that twisted after an accident and lives.’

‘We don’t know that, and we need to check who he is, or was.’

‘Do we have to?’

Jill nodded. ‘We have to.’

‘Okay, but you’re going through his pockets because it's my turn to hold the flashlight,’ she said, snatching it from Jill.

The final five yards took longer to walk than the previous forty-five, and as they reached the body, Jill crouched to begin searching through the man’s pockets.

Vicky remained standing, the butt of the flashlight held tight to her chest and its beam aimed at Jill’s hands. ‘Try his inside pocket,’ she whispered. ‘That’s probably where he keeps his ID.’

Jill looked up. ‘Do you wanna do this?’

‘I can’t, I’m holding the flashlight.’

After a superficial search, which Jill thought thorough enough under the circumstances, she found nothing to identify the man.

‘There’s nothing here,’ she said.

‘Is he alive?’ Vicky asked.

Jill, very tentatively, placed two fingers on the point where she thought she might find the man’s pulse on his upturned wrist, as she did, she noticed the edge of something silver under his shoulder. She picked it up and was about to show it to Vicky when the noise they heard earlier stopped her. The “Woo-wooing was back, but much closer, and now there were men shouting and flashlight beams weaving between the trees.

‘Come on,’ Jill said, putting what she found into her jean’s pocket and looking up at Vicky. ‘We need to get the hell─’

But something else was wrong; Vicky stared down the road and Jill watched as her face changed colour, first blue, then red, then blue, then red again. She turned to see where the multi-coloured lights were coming from.

‘Shit. Now we’re fucked.’

The patrol car pulled up ten feet short of the body lying in the road, and Jill and Vicky took a few tentative steps back.

The officer inside the car switched on a high-intensity spotlight situated on the roof, then a solid white beam, much like a searchlight during a prison break, turned until it aimed directly at them. In response they each raised a hand to block out the light.

A few seconds later, a tall, thick-set man climbed from the car and walked into the peripheral light coming off the beam. The black silhouetted figure remained silent, only moving his left arm to put his hat on, then, and with a half dozen casual strides, he stepped over the body without looking at it and made for the girls.

Jill studied him in the few seconds available; if he was less than seven feet tall, then she’d have to say Dolly Parton needed implants. He reached mid-way between the girls and the body before he turned to take a short, unconcerned look at the dead man. At which point, the men running through the woods with the dogs and the flashlights came to s stop at the edge of the trees, the dogs still “Wooing” but in a subdued manner.

Without taking his eyes from the girls, and with an unhurried southern twang, the officer spoke to one of the men standing to his left. ‘Take em’ home, Zach,’ he said.

The one he referred to as Zach, along with another man, turned and dragged the dogs back into the woods before two more joined them, leaving six men dressed in what Jill took to be farm wear. Each carried a shotgun, all of them stood still, and every one of them stared at the two pretty strangers standing before them, both in tight jeans, and even tighter T-shirts.

‘It wasn’t our─’ attempted Jill.

But the man in the uniform held up a gloved-hand the size of a snow shovel and turned to face the men. ‘You lot too,’ he said, jerking his head to the left. ‘Go on, git.’ He looked skyward. ‘We ain’t got much time before the rain gets here.’

Without any word in reply, the six men shouldered their guns and turned to leave before disappearing into the dark of the trees.

Jill managed to get a quick glimpse of the officer’s face. She saw pock marks, dozens of them, and what could’ve been a faint, very old scar running from his right ear down to the corner of his mouth.

‘Not you, Billy,’ he said, lowering the hand. ‘Gonna need you to do some drivin’.’

Jill watched this Billy pass his gun to one of the others, then she turned back to the officer to try once more to explain what happened. ‘As I was─’

But again she had the hand pushed in her face.

‘Vehicle belong to one o’ you ladies?’

‘Yes, it’s mine,’ said Vicky.

‘You were drivin’ I take it?’

‘No, I was,’ said Jill.

‘You got a license, missy?’

Jill didn’t much care for the term he used, but didn’t think complaining about it would be in any way constructive.

‘Yes, of course I have a license, but don’t you think you─’

‘Well can you go get it for me?’ he said, his voice still unhurried.

With an indignant thrust, Jill’s hands shot to her hips and her head tilted to the right. ‘Are you deliberately not listening to a word I’m saying? This wasn’t our─’

‘NOW.’ he shouted, and again the crickets shit themselves. ‘And bring the damn keys back with you.’

Without further protest, Jill turned to get her license and the keys from the ignition. En route, she pinched herself, bit on her bottom lip, and clenched her fists hard enough to dig her nails into both palms, but nothing seemed to wake her from the nightmare she was having.

On her return, she passed her license to the outstretched shovel-sized hand then looked at the one the officer had called Billy. He was standing half way between the dead man and the edge of the road, she noticed him fidgeting like an excited child.

The officer held Jill’s license to the side, reading from the spotlight. ‘Colombia?’ he said.

‘No, Col-um-bia, South Carolina,’ she said, emphasising the correct vowel usage. She didn’t want him searching the car for drugs. ‘We were on our way to Richmond when …’ why bother, she’d only get the big hand in her face again.

He took another look at the body before returning his interests to the girls. ‘Looks like you’ll both be comin’ with me, just so’s we can get this little mess sorted out,’ he said, putting the license in the top pocket of his shirt. ‘Now, is the car driveable?’

‘Yes,’ said Vicky. ‘But it has a cracked windshield, a busted headlight, and maybe a dent in the front fender.’

He held out his hand in the direction of Billy. ‘Okay, give Billy here the keys.’

Jill reckoned Billy to be in his early twenties, she also reckoned his hair-do looked like a pineapple, and she saw a dark stain under his nose that had been smeared across his left cheek, like he’d wiped blood away with his sleeve. He reached out for the keys and smiled at Jill, and that’s when she noticed his odd-shaped teeth in the spotlight.

‘Billy, you go by Tarboro Ridge and drive careful now; we don’t want you slippin’ over the side, do we?’

‘Yessir, I mean no sir, Mr Robertson.’

The swiftness and ferocity of the backhand that knocked Billy flat onto his ass also caused Jill and Vicky to jump.

Robertson shouted, ‘You never say my name in front of strangers, ya hear?’

Billy pulled himself to his feet; he looked at the girls, then at the ground like a scolded schoolboy outside a principal’s office. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said.

‘Does he actually know how to drive?’ Jill asked, worrying he may not have the correct amount of functioning brain cells to summon little more than a passing thought.

Robertson indicated the twisted body. ‘Well he ain’t never killed no one, missy. Least not when drivin’ a car anyways. Now, if you two wouldn’t mind turnin’ round for me.’

‘You’re arresting us?’ said Vicky.

Robertson paused. ‘Well, the law says I have to bring you in for questioning, on account of what you done here. So I’d say yes, as of this moment both o’ you are under arrest.’

‘You can’t do that,’ protested Jill.

The cop smiled, neared his face to hers, his eyes little more than slits, his breath a mixture of sour meat and fresh vomit. ‘I think you’ll find that’s exactly what I can do, missy.’

‘But we’ve done nothing wrong. That guy ran across the road and we hit him with the car. It was an accident, plain and simple. If anyone’s to blame it’s him, not us.’

‘You got someone to verify what you just said? You got an eyewitness?’

Vicky’s hand half rose, half didn’t. Robertson looked at her, she lowered it. He looked at Billy. ‘Excuse me, young man, but did you happen to see what went on here?’

‘Sure did, sir, I was walkin’ down the road aways when I sees yon fella there tryin’ to hitch a ride. Then I sees that car come from nowhere. Swervin’ all over the road it were, goin’ this way and that like they was drunk or somethin’, and that’s when they hit the poor guy.’

‘What?’ Jill couldn’t believe what she just heard. ‘Are you two completely in-fucking-sane?’

‘Thanks, Billy,’ said Robertson. ‘Now go get the car.’

‘That’s not what happened,’ Jill shouted. ‘I said he’s lying. Do you not hear me, you cretinous moron?’

Robertson pulled two long strips of black plastic from his back pocket and looked directly at Jill. ‘Look, missy, what Billy said he saw is good enough for me. Now I’m gonna ask you both one more time to turn around and place your hands behind your back. Oh, and just to give you both a little heads-up here,’ he said, leaning between the girls. ‘Seein’ as you could be charged with reckless drivin’ and causing the death of a pedestrian, I’d shut my big fuckin’ pie-trap from now on if I were you.’

The girls looked at one another, and, following the vicious strike they saw Billy receive from Robertson, they were wise enough to adhere to his instructions, so they put their hands behind their backs and turned to face Vicky's car.

Billy already had the roof fastened down and managed to start the engine at the fifth attempt. Then, after he reversed on to the road in a plume of steam coming from the busted radiator, both girls looked on to see the red tail-lights disappear into the night, neither one knowing they would never see the car again.

“Zzzip”

‘Hey, Jesus,’ Jill shouted. ‘Not so tight.’

‘You can drop the flashlight,’ he said to Vicky.

Jill heard it hit the floor and watched as Robertson kicked it into the deep grass by the roadside.

“Zzzip”

‘Ow, Fuck you, you ass─’

A solid punch to Vicky’s right temple sent her crashing to the ground. Her left knee hit the road first, and, with no hands to save her, the left side of her forehead also struck the road. Not hard, but with enough force to scrape off a couple layers of skin. She screamed out as she landed, so did Jill.

‘I told you to keep that fuckin’ pie-trap of yours shut,’ he shouted, spittle glistening in the spot-light. He leaned over and gripped Vicky’s hair with his left hand and pulled her to her feet.

‘Leave her alone, you big fu−’

Robertson glared at Jill; the rim of his hat shadowing most of his face. ‘Follow me, please,’ he said, his voice once more unhurried. And again, showing the same disregard as before, he stepped over the body in the road.

On reaching the patrol car he opened one of the rear doors to allow Vicky in. ‘Don’t want you bangin’ that pretty little noggin of yours,’ he told her, a hand on her head.

Vicky shook from under the glove and pulled away from his reach. By now, small droplets of blood had seeped from the graze on her forehead and coalesced into larger drops.

The cop placed his hands on the roof of the car and pushed his face inside. ‘Scoot over,’ he said,

Vicky slid across the seat allowing Jill to climb in just as the door was slammed. Jill looked across at her friend and wasn’t happy with what she saw. They were both scared, there was no doubt about that, terrified in fact, but the expression of fear on Vicky’s face frightened Jill even more.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

Vicky's eye make-up ran in two black lines and thinned out as they reached the corners of her mouth. She also had one red line running down the left side of her face. She only nodded in response to Jill’s question.

‘The stronger we are the clearer we’ll think. We can’t let him know we’re scared of him,’ she said. ‘If we do …’ she trailed off, she didn’t see the point in finishing that sentence, attempting to realise their fate at this point just didn’t seem like a good idea right now.

‘What’s he going to do with us, Jill?’

Vicky’s voice sounded broken, her words more heart-felt than she had ever heard her speak before. And Jill couldn’t answer her question with any degree of certainty, she only wishes she could. But then again, if she had a wish, just one, it would be to wish she hadn’t left highway 85 in the first place.

She saw Robertson bathed in the spotlight as he walked back to the patrol car; his gait sporadic, jerky, like he was dragging something heavy along the road. He reached the rear of the car and opened the trunk, then Jill heard a thud’ud sound, at the same time she felt the back seat sink and rise again, then the trunk was slammed shut. She looked through the tight mesh grille and windshield to where the body should have been; the thud’ud sound now explained.

The cop was again in the spotlight, this time walking away from the car until he stopped to pick something up. On his return he tossed what he’d collected on to the front passenger seat. Jill noticed it was the boot belonging to the body now lying in the trunk. Then, just before he climbed in himself, the hat he’d been wearing flew across her line of sight.

With his open door still activating the internal light, he sat in the driver’s seat and turned to face them. ‘Now then,’ he said, looking over his right shoulder. ‘You ladies just sit back and enjoy the ride.’

That’s when she saw them, Robertson’s eyes, they were the bluest blue she’d ever seen, and if any other police officer had flashed them at her, one who didn’t have a face like a second-hand dartboard, or breath that smelled like a zoo-keeper’s boot, she would have volunteered to have herself arrested on the spot.

‘Where are you taking us?’ Vicky asked.

Robertson didn’t bother to respond to the question as he closed his door.

‘Hey,’ Jill said. ‘You didn’t read us our rights.’

Again he turned to look over his shoulder. ‘You have the right to remain silent; anything you say will result in severe pain and immense discomfort, or possibly even death. So, ladies, if I were you, I’d keep my big bitchin’ mouth well and truly shut.’ He smiled. ‘There, ya happy now?’