22Torture on the Tortuous Road
A story by James Palagar
A car was approaching. Fifteen-year-old John Laurer could not make out exactly what type of car—it was much too dark, and the road that he walked on was way too torturous to get a good look at it—but he could hear it nonetheless, a barely audible sound increasing in audibility as it came closer toward where he stood on the street.
He didn't think much of it—a car usually came by at least once every five minutes or so on this street—and so he didn't even bother to turn around again to see what it looked like when it came into view. Whether it was a Volvo station wagon or a Ferrari, he frankly didn't give a hoot. It was late—past his curfew, no doubt (although he didn't know the actual time), and he was returning home after a visit to his grandma, who was in the hospital. The hospital that she was staying in was only a few miles from where John and his mom, dad, and younger brother lived, and so John had decided to walk there and visit her before the hospital closed.
John, unlike his younger brother, was very found of his grandma and had made a scrupulous effort to keep on good terms with her. She was going senile, and she had lately been getting angry at the nurses and doctors that were caring for her. She had adopted a certain antagonism years ago and had never fully trusted other people—even family members—since. Except for John; she loved him dearly, and John her.
She had been a rather vivacious woman in her early days, and she still held a fraction of this vivacity today, even in her old age. She was always delighted whenever John visited her, and he felt a certain delight as well. He had lived with his grandma during his summer vacations, and he had always loved his stays there; but now, with his grandma confined to the small space of the hospital, he found it extremely hard to find time to visit her, but tried to get in a visit at least once every few weeks.
This had been one of those weeks, and John, now walking home from his visit, a bouquet of flowers now off his hands and safely by his grandma's hospital bed, was happy that he had went. That is, until the car came.
The car turned out to be a state cruiser. The driver, a young cop with short, crew-cut black hair, slowed down as he approached John.
Great! John thought. Now I've done it. He's going to ask what I'm doing out here this late, and I'm going to probably get nervous and say something stupid to get arrested. He's going to see the guilty look in my eyes, and that's enough for these people to arrest you. That alone.
The police officer had veered off to the side of the road and had come to a complete stop, leaving the brights of his car on to glaringly shine at John like luminescent eyes. Accusatory eyes. Eyes that made him feel instantly guilty—helpless—like a deer in the middle of the road about to get run over. Or, in his case, arrested.
The officer approached him solicitously, his hands by his side next to his service pistol. His eyes were fixed on John, who looked away with curt timidity.
"Good evening," The officer said conversationally. "How you doing?" He had an oddly high pitched, suave type of voice when you considered his huge size. He had tough features; he was tall—at least five inches taller than John, who stood at a respectable five-ten—and had long arms. Not the lanky arms that you see on many tall people, though; his arms were big and well-defined, as well as the rest of his body. He had dark black eyes that bore into you like a human lie detector. He looked like the kind of guy you wouldn't want to cross, John thought, and he soon found out that he was right. Too right.
"Fine," he said, looking at the officer.
"That's good. What you doing out here so late, son? You can't be over eighteen, and state law says that anyone under eighteen out on the streets at night is against the law. You know that?" The police officer gave him an accusatory look. A look that was of stern discontentment, but also, it seemed, a bit forgiving. It appeared that he meant to scold John for doing wrong, but perhaps John wouldn't be so unlucky after all. He still had a chance to wiggle his way out of this one.
"I just got back from visiting my grandma," John said truthfully, "and I didn't know it was so late. Sorry." He said this while looking down at the ground; he couldn't bring himself to look into the police officer's eyes, even though the police officer seemed calm, unperturbed by the current situation. A sudden thought entered John's head, something that was not that big of a deal, but altogether queer: the police officer hasn't given me his name yet. John brought his head up a little to look for a nametag that might have been pinned to the police officer's chest, but couldn't find any. He wondered if police officers didn't always give their names. Surely they did; they must have had some sort of policy, because in all the Cops episodes that he watched (albeit only a few), the police officers always gave their names first as an introduction, or at least had nametags clipped to their chest. John found it somewhat eerie that this officer had neither introduced himself nor had a nametag. Although, he supposed, the cop was young (he doesn't look a day over twenty, for Christ's sake, how the hell is he a police officer? John had thought with mild curiosity), and was probably new to the job.
"Well, I hate to be a burden to you, but the law is the law, kiddo," the cop said, still staring at John (who continued to look away). "I'm not going to take you to jail or anything, and I won't call your parents, but if you want a lift, I'll be happy to give you one. I just don't want you wandering the streets at night. It's not safe; there are lots of creeps out at night." John finally managed to looked up to the police officer's face and was pleased to see that the he wore an inviting smile; he had expected to see a face of a person who was giving fierce reprimand instead. It made him feel as if the officer really had his best intentions in mind and didn't just want to get him in trouble.
The police officer had short black hair that matched his dark eyes, and he was one of those people who had a great smile. John always thought a great smile was synchronized into two separate categories: a good smile and a bad smile. And this guy had a good one.
"Sure, I could use a ride. My house isn't far from here, but I'm tired. Thanks."
"My pleasure," the cop said, smiling at John as he led him to the back of the police cruiser.
The car sported four seats—two in the back and two in the front. The back seat had a metal cage that separated the front from the back, and it was the back two seats that the police officer led John towards. John wondered why the police officer wanted him to sit in the back if he wasn't under arrest, but then thought that it was probably some sort of police procedural stuff. Probably for safety, he thought. Although the cop undoubtedly trusted him, he clearly didn't trust him enough to sit in the front seat where there were guns in the glove compartment and, John noticed with slight misgiving, a shotgun in the middle.
John got in the back, and the first thing he noticed when he entered was the smell. It was one of the worst smells he had ever smelled in his life, and it made him feel sick to his stomach. It was very bitter—not like the smell that you get when one of your friends releases a little gas on a Friday afternoon and you and your friend laugh about it. It was worse—much worse. John wondered what the hell could have been in the car—or possibly still was—to cause such a foul stench, but his curiosity changed to sudden fear. The police officer, who had just entered the front seat, had locked all the doors in the car and had already started goosing the gas pedal. The car quickly accelerated down the tortuous road, not toward John's house but back toward where the police officer had come from. John cleared his throat and said, in an atypically high-pitched voice, "Um . . . sir? My house is the other way." The cop looked into his rearview mirror and smiled again, but unlike his first welcoming and accepting and forgiving and oh so convivially affectionate smile, this one was much different. It was self-indulgent, like he was not smiling at John, but rather smiling at himself. The kind of smile you get when you pull a prank on someone and finally admit that it was all just a joke, all just a setup, all just pretend.
The police officer didn't show any signs of hearing what John had said besides that smile, and he didn't turn the car around either, but kept going at a constant speed, going away from John's house, away from safety, away from John's mom and dad and brother. Fear spread throughout John like a poison spreads from an incipient snakebite wound. He tried speaking again—tried to ask what the police officer was doing, just what the hell he was doing—but nothing came out. His heart hammered in his chest. This man isn't a real police officer! He thought fearfully. He's just a man who must have stolen a police car or something and had put on the uniform. And then he wondered what must have happened to the person who had originally worn the uniform that the imposter was now wearing. He thought sickeningly of murder, and then remembered the stench that was so unbearable when he had got in. He could still smell it, although it smelled as if it came from someplace far away; the events that had happened when he had entered the car had harbored a fear so deep that it had caused him to temporarily forget about the acrimonious smell that had seemed to permeate from the trunk. But now he could smell it quite distinctly, a smell that caused him to gag and almost throw up. He could now make the connection between the smell and the man's eccentric behavior: the body of the original owner of the police car and police uniform was in the trunk, not even five feet from where John sat now.
my god oh my god there is a dead man in the trunk of this car there is a dead man just a few feet from me this man is crazy this man is going to kill me please let me go sir please I don't want to die I don't want to—
"How you doing back there, son?" The man asked, talking for the first time since entering the car. John didn't respond. The police officer turned his head briefly from around the seat and looked through the metal barrier that separated him from John.
"I never introduced myself," the man said sociably. "I'm Max. Max Orwell, at your service. What's the matter?" The man asked, changing his current amicable tone of voice to compassionate curiosity. John didn't answer; he couldn't. He was in a state of shock, and the result of this shock made him go blank. He couldn't speak, and could hardly move around or shift in his seat, which was turning out to be extremely uncomfortable.
"You're not scared, are you, kiddo?" He asked, smiling again. John managed to shake his head and say, in a very quiet, hesitant voice, "No . . . I'm. Fine. Wh—Where are we. Going?" He could barely get the last word out, and all of what he said was jumbled up. His throat seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. He could feel his heart pounding ceaselessly in his chest as if it was trying to break free and flee from the rest of his body.
"We are going to my house for a . . . 'relaxing' time. You'll like my house. By the way, you won't need those cloths on you when we get there. Why don't you take them off, kiddo? Might speed things up a little."
Max then burst out laughing. His laugh was high-pitched, oddly similar to the laugh of a donkey. He even looked like a donkey as he laughed, his short black hair suddenly looking much longer, his face and neck somehow elongating whilst his skin turned grey. Huh-hee-huh-hee-huh-hee-huh. He laughed and laughed, and didn't stop until almost a whole minute had gone by. Then he grew serious; his face regained its stern look, and his friendly, somewhat casual voice changed to that of obdurate anger.
"I said take them off, damnit!" He yelled, slamming his fist on the dashboard and giving John a look of pure hatred.
John, realizing that Max was serious (this guy is crazy crazy as a shithouse what the hell am I doing in here what the hell am I doing), reluctantly started to take off his shirt, exposing his scrawny chest. He put his shirt in the seat next to him and then stood stock still.
"And the fucking pants, take the fucking pants off!" Max squealed eagerly, donkeying again. John was amazed that the same man that had used such an amicable tone introducing himself just moments before could have made such a sound. His temper was akin to that of a freight train; once it got going, it kept on gathering speed, going faster and faster. The advent of his anger was the advent of disaster, and Max seemed to be getting crazier and angrier by the second.
Just then, as John remained ambivalent about whether or not he should comply with Max's demands of taking off his pants, John spotted another car coming in the opposite direction. Max must have seen it too, because, for the first time that night, fear seemed to come upon Max and he said, in a commanding voice, "Get down, boy! Don't do anything stupid and no one will get hurt!" The cars came closer and closer to each other, and John was struck with a sudden idea. Quickly, he took off his seatbelt and looked for his shirt. Meanwhile, Max goosed the engine a little. The speedometer read forty-eight.
John grabbed his shirt and wrapped it in his hand. He gave the area outside a cursory glance before making a decision. It was now or never.
The car was coming closer, and there wasn't much time.
John, unsure if it would work, pulled his wrapped up hand back and punched with all his might at the window next to him to his left. The window broke with a thunderous crash.
"What the—?" Max sputtered, stupefied.
The cars were three hundred feet apart of each other.
John, seeing there wasn't much time, knocked off the remaining shards of glass still attached to the window. Then, without a moment's hesitation, he stood up on his seat, grabbing the oh-shit bar while doing so.
The cars were within two hundred feet now.
John stuck his head through the window, his left hand still wrapped in his shirt, which now was torn but otherwise in good condition. Max looked behind him through the metal barrier, a malevolent look teeming in his eyes.
"Boy, you get down now, or I'm going to hurt you!" Max bellowed. John, whose head was outside the now-broken window, hardly heard this. Now for the hard part, he thought grimly. Hoping against hope that it would work, he pulled his right hand back the second time.
The cars were within one hundred feet of each other.
John's hand came smashing down on Max's left window, breaking it, throwing Max off guard. John, realizing that it was now or never, reached his hand into Max's window and grabbed hold of the steering wheel.
"Let go you little shit!" Max screamed, pushing John's hand away.
The cars were now within fifty feet of each other.
John, with all his might, tugged at the steering wheel, pulling it to the left. Max, infinitely stronger than him, would have on any other occasion won this weird version of tug-a-war. But when John had smashed the window glass had flown into Max's face, and he had been completely thrown off-guard.
The cars were now twenty-five feet of each other.
Twenty.
Fifteen.
Max finally regained control of the steering wheel, had time to look away from John's hand and his now-broken window, and, as his eyes widened in fear at the sign of the approaching car and the imminent crash, uttered a solitary, monosyllable word: "Shit!"
The cars smashed head-on. The driver of the oncoming car had tried to swerve out of the way at the last minute, but had swerved too late, and the result was the front of the police cruiser hitting the passenger side of the other car, which John later noticed was a rather large van. The police cruiser was knocked off the side of the road, spinning and spinning like a top, until it crashed with an anticlimactic thud into a tree, stopping it dead in its tracks. The van, although much heavier than the police cruiser, had tipped over to one side and had skidded down the road almost fifty feet away.
John, who had been still outside the window when the crash happened, had been heaved out of the car and had flown better than twenty feet in the air, only to eventually crash down on grassy terrain on the side of the road, his body landing on his left leg first, making an audible crack sound as it did so. After a moment John started to stir a bit.
I must've broken all my bones, John thought through a whir of pain. He had an innate human desire to just sit there and rest, to close his eyes and repel the pain away. But he knew he had to get up somehow. He had to check. Just had to.
He tried to stand, couldn't, and then tried to stand again and couldn't again. Pain—excruciating pain—had impeded his ability to try a third time. He now knew that he had at least one broken bone, and that was in his left leg. But it felt as if all of the bones in his legs had been shattered. His back also ached dully, but was not nearly as bad as the pain in his legs.
He was forced to crawl, and even that was extremely painful, but by now John was so full of adrenaline that he could cope with it quite easily. He had to make sure. Just had to make sure.
He crawled toward the direction of where he thought the police cruiser had crashed, the wet, dewy grass staining his jeans as he did so. He crawled—crawled like a giant worm—toward the road, determined to get to the other side. After about a minute of painful crawling he reached it and started to follow the skidding tire tracks. Eventually, after almost three minutes of grueling effort, he reached the police cruiser. He couldn't see the front and passenger seats from this view, but he felt that Max was still inside there. Still inside and dying, he hoped. He crawled toward it.
When he finally reached the front of the cruiser he used his hands to pull himself up the hood and peered inside. Sure enough, Max was still inside, and, by the looks of it, he had seen much better days; fresh blood rolled down the side of his head and massive shoulder, where a shard of glass was wedged in, poking out of his back and even partway through the seat. John was repulsed at the sight, but he felt no pity; he was glad that the bastard was dead. John, assuming that the situation was no longer dangerous, allowed himself to lie on the side of the road.
As he did so a very powerful emotion overcame him. He had been able to fight off this emotion by substituting it for alertness and vigilance in order to stay alive, but he could no longer hold it off.
What the hell just happened to me? What the hell just happened? I thought I was going to die, I thought that I was going to die, I thought I was going to—
Die? Yes, he had deeply believed that he would have died, and he had been prepared for it, too. What he had not been prepared for was to have been suddenly taken by a crazy man yelled at forced to take off his cloths was going to be raped was never going to see his grandma or his parents or anything again and what the hell he was just walking home walking fucking home and then next thing he knows he is going to die what the hell happened what the hell—
A noise?
John, who had been lying down on the side of the road crying, crying for the first time in over two years, jerked his head up. He had heard a noise within the cruiser—it was unmistakable. John's adrenaline had gone away, but now it was coming back. He was still not safe. Max was still alive; he knew it. That old proverb came to mind, like all old proverbs do: anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Then three things happened simultaneously: first, John heard a sound down the road, next to where the van had spilled out; at the same time he heard more movement in the cruiser (his heart skipped a beat at this); but his attention had been distracted by the sound of a distant car traveling down the street, which he had noticed for the first time. Another car, he thought, wondering vaguely who it might be.
"You little shit!"
John jerked his head up.
It was Max. Max, looking as dangerous as ever; Max, with a maniacal look in his eyes; Max, with a folding stock-pump shotgun pointed right at him.
John froze up. This was going to be it. This was going to be his end. Well, at least it would be quick. He probably wouldn't feel anything.
Max pulled on the trigger of the gun while John prepared for the blast. But it didn't come. Of course, John thought. The gun is jammed. Max looked at the gun, nonplused. Then, with a loud scream, he yelled, "I'm going to kill you with my bare hands, you little shit!" He started to open up his door, but that turned out to be jammed too. Max yelled out another shriek of anger.
This is not good this is not good oh god this is not good.
John, finally drawn out of his reverie of shock, started to crawl across the street again. To his left, where the van had crashed, he heard the sound of oncoming footsteps. He wondered if the person in the van was alright. To his right he saw the oncoming car, only about a hundred feet out now. It was already slowing down. John managed to get across the street before the car stopped. The windows rolled down and a man leaned over and poked his head out of the one to his right.
"You alright, kid?" The man driving the car asked. He looked old—no younger than fifty. He had a confused expression pasted on his face.
No, I'm not okay! Help me, there is a crazy man in a police uniform, there is a crazy man in a police uniform that's going to kill me!
He wanted to say this, but again he was struck with the inability to speak. The guy started at him inquisitively, waiting for a response that would not—could not—come.
Then John caught sight of Max, who, to John's horror, had made it outside of the police cruiser somehow. He was standing up to his full height, looking completely uninjured and ready for a fight. Max's shoulder, which still had the shard of glass jammed into it, was dripping blood, as well as his cut forehead, but other than that he looked perfectly fine. And he also, to John's tremendous horror, was holding a handgun at his side, and John had a feeling that his luck was running out. This gun wouldn't be jammed. This gun would be the real murder weapon. Max raised the gun and pointed it at the inquisitive old man, who was still staring in the direction of John. He still had that same confused look on his face.
"Look out!" John managed to yell. The old man turned his head to the other side and then saw Max.
"Oh, hey, mister, are you—Oh my lord!" The old man managed to say. It was the last words that ever escaped his mouth. Max pulled the trigger, and the right side of the old man's face was blown off by the resulting bullet. Blood, skin and brain blew out through the car and splattered the side of the road. A fraction of it got on John, who just lay there on the side of the street, mortified.
Max didn't seem to have any compunctious feelings about killing the old man; right after he had committed the murder, he walked around the car the man had been driving (it was still running idly in the middle of the road) and toward John, as if he had said "Why, hello, sir!" to the old man instead of blowing his head off.
"I only wanted you to have a good time with me, boy," Max said, stopping just a few feet away from John. "I didn't mean to have to do all of this. This man needn't have died if you had been a good little boy. But you had to be a little shit and force me to do this. I regret to have to kill you, but it must be done." He lifted the gun and pointed it into John's face. John still sat there on the road, the throbbing of his legs now completely unfelt; his nerves had stopped working.
This is it. This is the last thing I'm ever going to see. John closed his eyes; he didn't want his last image in life to be a gun and a bullet. He felt that, if his fifteen years of life had to end here, he should at least think of happy thoughts. He thought of his grandmother, and tears started to roll down his eyes. He thought of his brother and mother and father and all the wonderful things in life he had yet to experience. He didn't want to die. There were too many beautiful things in life that he was going to miss; the simplistic feeling of enjoying life, of cherishing it, was gone; he would never be able to live another moment. He braced for the shot.
And then it happened. Two sounds:
Whack
Thud
I'm still alive, right?
John opened his eyes to check. He was still in the middle of the street, but Max was on the ground—a man stood over his body. John's eyes trailed up until he saw the man's face. The man was staring down at him. He had a golden grey beard and mustache that matched his bright blue eyes, making him have a sort of bright and fresh look to him. He looked perhaps thirty.
"You okay, son?" He asked.
John's eyes darted from Max's unconscious body on the street to the man standing over him, the man that saved his life, the man that he now realized must have been driving the van. The man seemed not to have even the slightest scratch on him, despite the fact that he had just been in a terrible accident, and his countenance held a look of affectionate concern. In the distance, John could hear the sound of approaching sirens.
"Yes," John said, looking around. "Yes, I think I am."