Short Fiction - Wrecker

Title: Wrecker

Genre: Horror

Rating: R (for graphic violence) 

Story Type: Short story
Warnings: Violence, death

Word count: 5,193

Summary: Kim has to keep running, or the man in the wrecker will get her.  She couldn't save her friends, but if she just keeps running, maybe she can save herself.

 

The hulking green wrecker slammed into the back of the car and Kim screamed.  Her body rocked forward and her chest slammed painfully into the steering wheel.  Her knuckles were white on the wheel and her fingers ached.  Her lungs burned in her chest, and her heart was beating hard enough that it was moments from bursting out.

     

There was little left of the car as it swerved across the yellow line and she jerked it back, just before going over the embankment.  Most of the trunk was gone now, smashed like an accordion thanks to the ramming of the wrecker.  The rear window was gone, and the tires were bald.  As she pressed the gas harder, trying to go faster than the little car would allow, the engine sputtered and threatened to give out.

      

When was the last time she had gotten gas?  It was long before the car was first run off the road, back when there were three of them, back before the maniac’s first attack.

     

This was supposed to be fun, a long drive home through the empty countryside, counting silos and looking for the ever elusive running cow.  There had been one, about four or five miles before the psycho.  The cow had been black with a white belly, and while the others grazed, this one took off like a lightning bolt across the field.

     

 The three of them had laughed.  Shelly’s toes wiggled while she laughed. Her feet were up between the seats.  Laurie laughed until she got a whiff of Shelly’s feet, then she gagged and bumped her legs.  Shelly’s feet hit Kim, knocking her to the side, and the car had swerved just a little.  The swerve could have led to something bad if there were others on the road.  With the three girls alone, the swerve was funny, and they all started laughing again.

      

Now, Kim wasn’t laughing.  Tears poured out of her eyes and moistened the dried blood that streaked her face.  There was blood everywhere, on her hands, in her hair, on her clothes, coating her skin.  How was she going to explain this when she got home?  Would she even make it home to have to explain?

      

The wrecker slammed her again, and Kim screamed, “Damn you!”  Again, she was going back and forth on the road, the edge of the tires along the ridge of the embankment.  “Leave me alone!”

      

This guy wasn’t going to stop, however, not until she was dead.  Kim wasn’t going to make it easy for him, though.  None of the girls had made it easy.  They had run the second the car hit the side of the road.  The key was stuck inside, and the ignition wouldn’t turn, otherwise, they would have driven away.  Then, maybe Shelly and Laurie would have been in the car with Kim, now, all three of them screaming and crying, but stronger because they were together.

     

 Kim was alone, though, and she was weakening.  The gas was going to run out soon, or he was going to run her over the side.  Either way, that crazy asshole was going to catch up with her, and all she could hope for was that it was quick.  If it wasn’t quick, then she could hope to hurt him somehow before he did her in.

     

 Again, the wrecker slammed into the rear of the car, and this time, it sent the trunk halfway into the backseat.  Kim screamed at impact, then screamed louder when she started to skid right.  The front left tire blew, and there was no controlling this one.  Kim was going to go over the side.

     

 The first dip was the scariest.  In the darkness, Kim could see nothing but a black abyss.  Her shrill scream resounded through the night as she went over, her eyes closed.  She did not want to look death in the eye, and that was going to be a long drop.

     

 Or maybe not.  Kim’s remaining three good tires touched down on loose, crumbling dirt and her eyes popped open.  She wasn’t dead yet.  Thank God!

     

 Kim did her best to steer down the side of the cliff, moving as well as she could around tree stumps, bushes, and whatever else showed itself in her path under the light of the crescent move.

     

 Hope filled her.  She was going to make it!  This had to lead somewhere, and even if there weren’t a road of some kind down at the bottom, the way down was far enough that there was no way he could drive the wrecker down after her.  The psycho would either have to climb down or find a way around to the bottom.  Either option would take some time, and by the time he got down there, she could be long gone.

     

 Of course, that was assuming that there was anything in the area.  So far, Kim had seen nothing, but then again, she’d not been looking too hard.  She had her sights set on the road, and hoped that she would see a cop coming down the highway.  She hadn’t really been looking too well for shelter.  For all she knew, there was nothing around but dirt and trees, and since Kim had never been too good at climbing trees, she would be pretty well fucked.

     

 No!  Kim was going to stay positive.  There was something at the bottom, and that something was going to lead her to safety.  Somewhere, there was a person, possibly a strong guy with a big gun, and he would protect her.  He would get her to the cops, and they would get her the hell out of whatever podunck town she had found herself being chased through.  She was—

     

 Thoughts, both positive and negative, stopped as she went crashing into a tree.  The sliver of moon ahead didn’t give her much light, and the headlights on the car were long gone.  He shot those out when he took aim on Kim, as she hot-wired the car and cried that she was alone, cried that she had to leave Shelly and Laurie behind, cried that she probably wouldn’t be able to lead anyone back to their bodies.

     

 Kim’s head slammed against the steering wheel.  The honking of the horn was loud and harsh at first, then started to lessen.  “No,” she muttered, “no.”  She was passing out, and she couldn’t afford to do that.  There was no telling how long she would be out if she let herself fall into unconsciousness.  She had to stay awake. 

      

Kim thought of Shelly, the way she had screamed when the psycho had buried his knife into her stomach, the way that the pitch changed, going higher as he pulled the knife up, then petered out into a whimper when he yanked it back out of her.

     

 Kim thought of Laurie’s head exploding just seconds after the shotgun blast.  Bits of bone and brain had splattered on Kim and stuck in her hair.  Laurie had never even been given the chance to scream.  One minute she was running, yelling for Kim to keep up.  The next, she was gone.

     

 Now, Kim could feel the dried blood on her skin, the weight of bone and brain in her black hair that she’d never gotten the chance to pick out. 

     

 There was wet blood, now, too, oozing down from a cut on Kim’s forehead.  Suddenly, the horn was louder, and then it was instantly gone as Kim sat up.  The blood was sliding down onto her eyelid and she wiped it away.

     

 She had to get out of the car.  If she sat too long, he would come down and get her.  Maybe, she would pass out and this time, she wouldn’t be able to keep herself awake.  Her head would fall and she would wake to stare into those angry, bulging black eyes before she was killed.

     

 Kim tried the door.  It didn’t move.  “Goddammit!”  She rammed her shoulder into the door until her pale skin was bruised.  Kim tried the window, but the engine had died when she hit the tree, and the automatic windows were gone.  At that moment, she really missed her beat up old Ford with the window crank.

     

 She was stuck.  Kim’s breathing came quicker, her chest heaving, her vision blurring.  The sides of the car were coming in on her, crushing her.  She couldn’t breathe.  The air.  The air was going quickly and she—

     

 No, wait, the air was not disappearing; the back window was wide open.  Kim’s head whipped around so quickly that her neck shouted in protest and the muscles on the right side tightened up.  “Are you kidding me!” Kim shouted.  Her hands shot up and she quickly, painfully massaged the rigid muscles.

     

 As she eased her neck, she was already climbing over the backseat.  One hand at her neck, she used the other to push herself through the front seats.  Her knee banged into the gear shift and she shouted, “Fuck!” 

     

 Kim threw herself forward.  Her hands landed on the bottom of the broken window.  Sharp spikes of glass broke her skin, and she cried, she screamed, but she didn’t stop.  She had to get out of the car.  Better to lose a little blood now than a lot of blood later on.

     

 Kim pulled herself out, biting her lip against the pain in her hands.  Glass stalagmites in the top of the window tore at her shirt and bit into her shoulder.  Her jeans tore, and she scratched her knees.  Kim lost her balance halfway out and a piece of glass jabbed her side.  She screamed as the point pierced her flesh, but she kept going.  She had to get out.

     

 After the glass, there was twisted metal.  It stabbed her hands, her arms, her legs.  Dots of blood spread into wider circles as she fumbled out the back, through the window, over the contorted wreck of the trunk.

     

 Kim fell to the ground.  She was bleeding and frightened and crying, but she was out of the car.  For a moment, she stayed on her knees in the dirt, her head bowed.  Why was this happening to her?  Kim was a good person.  She gave blood regularly, she bought food for the homeless, she even stood up for the geek in high school.  What did she do to deserve this?  What did any of them do?

     

 It didn’t matter.  This was a shit situation, and she very well might die, but the why of it didn’t matter.  All that mattered was that she was still alive, and she was fighting.  She had to continue to fight, and to do that, she had to get up off of the ground.

     

 Kim pushed herself up, and instantly took off running.  Big mistake.  She wasn’t all the way down the embankment, yet, and the slope was steep.  She ran a few steps, then she was sliding.  Kim hit the ground with a hard thump and rose her arms to shield her face from the branches that slapped against her.

     

 Her descent stopped with Kim’s feet in water.  She slowly lowered her arms, and peeked open her eyes.  What little light the moon gave her showed a small creek.  The water splashed over smooth rocks and hit her tennis shoes.  God, she was so glad that she had been driving.  Otherwise, she probably would have been wearing sandals, and those were not conducive with running.

     

 Kim stood up, and this time, she looked around.  First, she looked up the hill.  She could see the headlights of the wrecker, but she couldn’t see its driver.  Instantly, she started shaking.  Was he on his way down?  With the time it took her to get out of the car, he could have slid most of the way down.  He could be waiting for her at the bottom already, waiting to pounce.

     

 The absence of sound calmed her, though.  Kim didn’t hear footsteps, she didn’t hear anyone stumbling down the hill.  She could only hear the trickle of the water, and she took that for a good sign.  He wasn’t down there yet.  He might have even been sitting inside the wrecker, trying to figure out how to get down there.  If so, Kim had time to get away.

     

 Next, she looked downstream.  The brush was thick that way, and could be prime hiding ground.  However, she didn’t climb trees, and stumbling through the brush in the dark was dangerous.  What if there were snakes or scorpions or something?  There was no telling what kinds of things lived out here.

     

 Kim looked upstream, and that seemed to be the way to go.  There was a bridge up there, maybe a hundred feet away, and the route to the bridge was clear.  She had a straight shot, and then over the bridge and... What?  Through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go? 

     

 Kim looked up again, and the wrecker’s lights were receding.  Fuck it.  She had to go somewhere, and the clearest route was upstream.  Her best chance was upstream.

     

 Without checking herself over for damage, Kim took off running.  There was nothing wrong with her knees and ankles, and those were what she needed to run.  If she stopped to look at the rest of herself, she might freak out and this was definitely not the time to have a nervous breakdown. 

     

 Kim ran until her muscles ached and her lungs burned.  Her eyes were trained in front of her, searching out each footfall two steps before she reached it.  Track and field had never been her thing, but now, she was a sprinter, and her goal was that bridge.

     

 A rock the size of a volleyball appeared in front of her and Kim stepped to the side just in time not to fall.  She did stumble, but she stayed on her feet.  She had to make it to the bridge. Kim didn’t know where the wrecker went or when it would find its way around to her.  This guy probably knew the area, and he would know how to find her.  Why else would he send her over the edge?  He had probably been expecting her to hit the bottom and pass out, and then he could take his time getting to her.

     

 Well, ha!  Fuck you, asshole!  Kim was going to make it.  She was not going to disappear in the night and become a picture on one of those white “Have you seen me” cards that used to show up in the mail.  She was going to get back and she would tell and... and...

     

 And, again, it didn’t matter.  What mattered now was the bridge, and she was almost there.  Kim pushed herself, even though her body wanted to stop.  When she thought she could go no faster, she picked up a burst of speed and tore through the night.

     

 Her right foot landed on the bridge’s wood first, and then her left.  Kim kept running.  She stayed down the middle, her arms pumping.  She ran so fast that she could barely feel the ground beneath her, and she only stopped when her feet were back on solid ground and she was on the other side of the bridge.

     

 Kim looked back across the bridge and let out a barking laugh filled with fear and relief. “How’s that, you son of a bitch!”  Kim jumped up and let out a triumphant whoop, her arms straight up in the air.  “Fuck you!”  She jumped up, her knees bent, and when she landed, she heard a sound.  She heard the grumbling of an engine.  It wasn’t too close, the sound faint in the air, but it was there. 

      

The celebration was over.  Kim turned around.  There was a line of trees, and she didn’t know what was beyond them.  It could have been a huge forest, or it could have been a town.  Fear grew in her, churning in the pit of her stomach, but she pushed it down.  There was no time for fear, no time to attempt a guess at what was beyond those trees.  He would be coming soon, and Kim couldn’t be at that bridge when he got there.

     

 Kim took in a deep breath, promised her body a long hot bath when she got home, then she took off running.

---

      

There were more trees beyond the initial line, and they zigzagged back and forth, creating a canopy against the light.  Inside the cradle of trees, Kim could barely see the night sky, let alone the moon.  Everything was black, and she tripped over tree stumps and fell into bushes.

     

 Just beyond the first line of trees, a few stumbles inside, the rain started.  Now, everything was worse.  Kim had to move even slower, now.  She didn’t know what was in front of her, didn’t know the slope of the land.  What if there was a drop off somewhere?  She would slide down into a hole, a gulley, anything, and when she fell, she would break bones, and then it would be over.  He would find her, because he would know where she had gone, and then—

     

 No!  Kim had to think positively.  Though she could see almost nothing in the darkness of the forest, she was given some reprieve from the rain.  Drops fell from the canopy, but not so much that the ground was too muddy.  Her shoes didn’t even stick, and she had traction.  If she could see better, she could have run.  Without the ability to run, she just had to be careful not to hurt herself anymore.  Breaking something would be bad.

     

 Kim hit a stump and screamed.  The pain wasn’t too severe, not nearly as bad as when she pulled herself out of the car.  Kim’s scream was made of fear that churned in her belly.  He could be out there.  He could already be in the fold of the trees, waiting for her, using her sounds to find her.

     

 He could be out there.  Kim clamped her hands over her mouth.  She tasted blood and dirt.  He could be out there, so she had to be quiet.  She had to find her way out, and hope that he wasn’t waiting for her at the other end.

     

 Kim made her way slowly through the darkness.  She had no idea of direction, of time.  Was she going the right way?  How long had she been inside?  One bush felt like another when she fell into it.  Each one scratched her with the same intensity, though not always in the same places.  One scratched her face, while another scratched her legs.

     

 Her jeans hung off of her in tattered pieces.  Each strong branch that grabbed her pulled them a little more.  At one point, she thought of just taking them off.  They gave her cover, though, a little protection against the elements and the bugs and the branches.  Kim didn’t want to make it easier for him, either, if he wanted to rape her.  She kept her jeans on.

     

 A light up ahead excited her.  There was an opening, and the closer she came to it, the more Kim could see.  First, there was just a lightening to the darkness, enough light that her eyes were finally able to adjust and she could see the tree stump before she ran into it, and the bush before she fell into it.  A little more light, and maybe she would know if that was a poison ivy bush or not.

     

 Closer still, and the light grew, brighter and brighter until the area was lit light enough for her to run.  And Kim did run.  She pumped her arms and balled her fists and rose her knees so high that she thought they would hit her in the face.  She leapt over stumps and swerved around trees and dodged bushes.  Kim ran until she was a few feet from the exit and then she skidded to a halt, kicking up dirt and nearly falling on her ass.

What if he was just waiting there?  Her brain yelled at her to think positively, to have some faith in her luck, but she didn’t really have great luck, did she?  If her luck were better, she wouldn’t even be in this mess.  She would be in the car, with Shelly and Laurie, and they would be singing along with the radio and laughing.

She had better luck then Shelly and Laurie, though.  They hadn’t even made it this far.  Were they still lying back in the dirt, or had he picked them up and taken them somewhere?  He had been on her quickly when she jumped in the car, and back then, she had passed Laurie’s body with its head missing lying there on the ground.  He couldn’t have done it then

  

Maybe he had gone back when she went over the side.  Maybe he figured that Kim was dead, and he had plenty of time to go back and clean up his mess before someone found it.  If he went back, then he wasn’t waiting for her a few feet away. There were really only two options.  

Option 1- Kim could go to another part of the clearing, see how far it stretched, but he could be waiting anywhere.  If he didn’t come in after her, he didn’t exactly know where she was coming out.  Kim didn’t even know where she was coming out.  For all she knew, she had gone in a circle and would come out where she had gone in.

Option 2- She could just run out and hope for the best. 

             

There was no real thought needed for this.  Kim was tired and she didn’t have it in her to leap and bound any further.  Her adrenaline level was going down, and pretty soon, she was going to collapse.  She needed to find a cop or some shelter before that happened.

      

Kim took in a deep breath, balled her fists so tight that they bit into her palms and, around her middle finger, blood started to pool, and then she ran.

     

 Kim burst into an open night of rain and moonlight.  The driving rain was cold and stung her scrapes and scratches, and yet, it felt good.  Inside with the trees, the musk had gagged her and the humidity only helped to sap her strength.  Outside, the air was fresh and the cold rain falling on her upturned face gave her a moment where she forgot that she was being chased by a lunatic.

     

 Only a moment, though.  Kim’s eyes popped open and she looked around.  He wasn’t there, and she didn’t hear the roaring of his wrecker.  Kim only saw an empty road.  Black tar blended into dark brown mud as the pavement dwindled away and disappeared.

     

 Kim pushed her hair back from her face and her hands were shaking.  She was cold and she was afraid, and she only had so much time before he came back around.  He was out there somewhere, and Kim couldn’t believe he would just give up.  She could describe his car.  She could describe him.  He was going to catch up with her sooner or later.

     

 Later was preferable, so Kim started running.  Her body didn’t want to go, and the more her eyes noticed that there was nothing ahead of her, the less her body wanted to run.  Her arms wanted to stop pumping.  Her legs wanted to stop moving.  Her eyes wanted to close and her head wanted a nice, soft pillow.

     

 The ground was wetter out here than under the canopy, and her feet sunk at least half an inch with every footfall.  The mud made lifting her legs harder, and she found herself slowing as she went on until finally she was trudging along at a moderately quick stride, something just shy of a power walk, but she was no longer running.  The elements were in cahoots with her body and with her pursuer, and her run had been cut short.

     

 “I can’t believe this is happening,” Kim muttered as she forced her feet to rise out of the muck.  Yesterday, she was in a cheap motel room cracking jokes about Norman Bates.  Shelly had shown up with beer bottle like it was a knife when Kim was in the shower.  Laurie screeched the Psycho theme at the top of her lungs.  Kim jumped out of the shower naked and slapped both of them, then hopped back in the shower and washed the conditioner out of her hair.

     

 They were all laughing, then.  They were all laughing right up until the first bump of the wrecker’s grille.  Even when they first saw the disgusting hulk of metal, they had joked.  Shelly started singing, “Jeepers creepers, where’d you get those peepers.”  Laurie joined in, “Jeepers creepers, where’d you get those eyes.”

     

 Kim said, “If any of us had belly button tattoos, we’d be in so much trouble.” They all laughed, and then the first ram came and the laughing was over.  God, Kim wished she could laugh right now, but she had a feeling that she was not going to be laughing any time soon, if she laughed ever again.

     

 This road went on and on, but there were no mile markers.  Even if she had her cell phone, and if she had any wishful hope that she would actually get a signal out in the middle of nowhere, she wouldn’t be able to tell anyone her location.  She didn’t know what road she was on.  She wasn’t even sure what state she was in, anymore, let alone what town or county.

     

 Her hair was stuck to her head with black wisps smacking and sticking to her skin, skin so pale that it nearly glowed in the white light of the moon.  Her fingers were like prunes.  Kim wasn’t so cold anymore, and she started to think that was a bad thing.  She had to find cover soon, or she was going to die out here on this lonely highway. 

     

 Oh, well.  It was better than dying at the hands of that psycho asshole.

     

 No, no, no.  She was not going to die at all.  Kim stood up straight, and made her feet go forward.  She wasn’t running, but by the time she reached a bend in the road, she was in a strong, firm power walk.  All she needed was a leisure suit and bottle of water to make it more authentic.

     

 Kim kept going, because there was nothing else to do.  She kept going because all of her hard work and determination had to pay off, and it did pay off, or at least she hoped it was paying off.

     

 She saw the fencing, first, black wire stretching over empty land.  Why would someone fence empty land in the middle of nowhere?  There had to be something else, a house or a barn or something.

     

 Kim picked up speed.  Now, she was jogging, and she could see a house.  It was old and looked to be made of wood.  She came closer and saw smoke rising from the top.  A chimney.  With smoke.  Someone was home!

     

 Now, she was running, moving faster than she thought she could.  There was a house, and someone was in that house, and maybe they had a phone or knew where to find a cop or, ooh!  Maybe the guy in the house was a cop, and he had guns and he would track down the psycho and then she’d be safe and could go home and take a goddamned shower!

     

 Kim’s mind raced faster than her feet, already putting her inside the house, already telling her wild story, and moving so fast, she tripped over her own feet.  She fell with her body still moving, and she rolled and came back up without losing a step. 

     

 “Help!”  She wasn’t close enough to be heard over the rain, with no one actually listening for her, but she couldn’t stop the unnecessary screaming.  “Help!” Kim screamed, “Help!”

     

 Kim screamed as the wire fencing turned into a rickety wooden fence, and she screamed through the gate and right up the front door.  Kim pounded on the door with the flat of her palms until they stung, and then with balled fists until the sides of her hands were pricked with blood and at least one splinter.

     

 “Oh, God, please be in there, and please don’t be him.”  She didn’t even think of that option until it would have been too late.  That he could be inside made complete sense.  He had disappeared.  Kim had seen no sign of him since she went over the embankment and down the hill.  There was nothing else on this road, maybe a town miles down, but she had to pass this house to make it to the town.

     

 The door opened and Kim fell backwards.  She screamed and crab walked to the edge of the steps.  It was over now.  She had fucked up and run right to him, and he looked down at her with an evil, sadistic grin that told her that this was going to be a slow death, that this would be fun for him.

     

 Except, when she opened her eyes to look that death in the face, it wasn’t him.  He was well over six feet tall and he was thick and he barely had a neck at all.  His teeth had been brown and crusty, and he would have been grinning.  He would have been enjoying this.

     

 The man that stood over her, reaching out to her, was not having a good time.  This man’s face was etched with lines that deepened as the concern on his face grew.  He took in her cuts and bruises and scratches and scrapes.  He was talking to her, trying to tell her that it was okay, trying to get a story out of her.  This wasn’t a man that had expected his prey to show up on his front porch.  This was a man just as surprised by Kim’s appearance as she was by the circumstances.

     

 Kim let him take her by the hand, let him pull her to her feet.  She wasn’t screaming anymore, but she didn’t know when the screaming had stopped.  Kim didn’t care when it had stopped and couldn’t really waste the time to think about it because she was crying, now. 

     

 The rain was falling and now, with safety in her mind, she could hear the thunder and see the lightning that had guided her to this man’s house, and she was excited.  Finally, she was going to be safe.  Someone was going to help her.

     

 Kim fell against this new man, this poor guy who lived his solitary life away from the world but who still led her into his home.  She fell against him and cried and babbled, and all he did was hold her.  He held her, and thank God, this guy didn’t seem like a psycho.  Please, don’t let this one be another psycho.