Helltown - Jeremy Bates Page 0,66

She stamped the gas at the same moment Earl fell and grabbed the steering wheel. His weight yanked it to the left.

The pickup truck arced on a dime, the cornering force tipping it onto two wheels. Cherry’s stomach lurched. She thought of bracing herself, grabbing hold of something, but she couldn’t with her bound hands.

The truck crashed onto its side. She heard the juxtaposition of crunching metal and shattering glass, followed by a dead silence.

Pain. Nowhere. Everywhere.

Cherry had no idea how long she laid in a crumpled heap in the crashed pickup truck, half cognizant, but then the pain sharpened, becoming more localized, coalescing inside her head and chest. She opened her eyes and tried to push herself upright. She cried out as sharp teeth bit into her hands. She glanced down and saw she lay on a bed of gummy safety glass. Where the driver’s side window should have been was jagged gravel.

Earl, she thought, and her fear of the man mobilized her into action.

Grimacing—not thinking about how broken her body was right then, though “smushed” seemed an appropriate description—she stood and became perpendicular to the seats. The engine hadn’t shut off. The dashboard clock read 12:11 a.m. The steering wheel protruded from the dash at her face level. A pair of sunglasses had somehow remained clipped in place to the sun-visor.

Cherry tried to shove open the passenger’s door above her head with her bound hands. She cracked it a foot or so but didn’t have the height or leverage to push it all the way. She wound down the window—the simple action of turning the crank took a Herculean effort—but she accomplished it. Then she climbed, using whatever she could for purchase: the driver’s seat, the center console, the dashboard, the steering wheel.

With a final groan she pulled herself atop the door. She didn’t rest or congratulate herself. Carefully, slowly, she slid to the ground. Her knees buckled on impact and she collapsed.

She wanted to remain there, on the prickly gravel, on her side. She wanted to close her eyes, go to sleep, forget the pain. But she couldn’t do that, of course.

Focusing, steeling her determination, she regained her feet and shuffled around the pickup truck’s hood. She stopped.

Earl lay on the ground, next to the exposed undercarriage. His ugly, piggy face was turned toward her, his eyes closed, his expression slack. Blood covered his pasty-white neck and singlet.

Was he unconscious or dead?

Cherry glanced about for the straight razor and realized with dread it must be somewhere inside the truck. For a moment she contemplated jumping up and down on Earl’s skull with her bare feet. But she didn’t. Because what if he was faking, playing possum, waiting for her to come close enough he could spring awake and snatch her?

Earl’s body hiccupped. A moment later his eyes opened. Cherry wasn’t sure whether he could see her or not—then his sightless eyes fell on her. They thundered over. He pushed himself to his knees, weakly, wobbly, like a calf minutes out of the womb.

Cherry stumbled back around the pickup truck’s hood and limped down the driveway. She glanced over her shoulder. Earl was up and loping after her, weaving back and forth like a drunk, one hand to his throat. They were both moving with the speed and grace of geriatric patients, and the scene likely would have been comical had the consequences of getting captured not been so horrifying.

Cherry forced herself to move faster and concentrated on not falling over. She barely felt the sharp crushed stone beneath her bare feet.

Earl, she noticed when she glanced back yet again, was no longer weaving and was closing the distance between them.

Knowing he would soon catch her, Cherry veered left, into the thicket that lined the driveway. Her feet sank into the wet leaf litter and she lost her balance but didn’t fall. She pressed forward blindly, recklessly, batting her way through the spindly branches with her bound hands.

Finally, when she could go no further, she stopped to recuperate. She listened. She could hear Earl behind her, panting, cursing.

Getting closer.

Cherry pressed on. She should have been focused on survival, getting as far away from Earl as possible, and she was, but at the same time her mind was also lecturing her for detouring to the pickup truck. She should have made a straight break for the trees. She might have been alone and wet and lost, but she would have been in a better predicament than she was in