by Ed Wood
Lark turned to Rhoda. “Who was there, Rhoda?”
Rhoda gulped.
“Tell him, Rhoda,” ordered Lila. “He’s got to know!”
Rhoda gulped again. “Just Lonnie, Rick and Babs, besides Dee and me.”
“I should kill you,” he said with deadly softness, and Dee backed toward the door.
“Let her alone, Lark,” said Lila softly. “The damage is done and I got use for her.” Then she turned her full voice to Dee. “But so help me if you screw up once more I’ll cut you up into little pieces and feed you to Babs.”
Dee shuddered.
Lila turned to Rhoda. “You get to those boy wonders and tell them to keep quiet or it’s their asses.” Then she looked back to Lark. “Both those jerks are on the hard stuff too, so they won’t talk. And if we need more leverage against them, they did that school teacher in. A word in the wrong place and they’ve had it.” She swung around to Rhoda again. “Make sure they know that little piece of advice.”
“Sure, Lila.”
“And stay in a spot where you know every move they make between now and after the boat party tomorrow night. Anything out of the way I want to know about it immediately.” She looked at Lark. “Where will you be in case of an emergency?”
“On board my boat with the motor running—in case of an emergency!”
“Where is it and how do I get there?”
“I’ll give you a map and the radio phone number. I trust you won’t be saying anything over the phone we both might be sorry for!”
“Sure. I’ll give facts and figures,” sneered the older girl.
“What do you want me to do?” questioned Dee reluctantly.
“Go to hell, but in the meantime round up the Chicks and make sure they meet with me at four tomorrow afternoon. Don’t tell them about the party or anything else, unless the information has already slipped through. I’ll tell them how to dress and anything else I want them to know when the time comes. Now beat it while you got lots of time and you don’t have to come cryin’ back to me with excuses.”
Dee was glad to be on her way. She picked up her plastic raincoat and slipped quickly into it. As she tied the belt she looked to Lark.
“Could I have my knife back?”
“He’ll give it to you where it’ll do the most good if you don’t get out of here and do as you’re told!” shouted Lila, and the girl pulled up her raincoat hood and disappeared off into the rain without another word.
Rhoda adjusted the hood of her raincoat. “I’ll start checkin’ around about the boys.”
“Okay, kid. I’ll either be at home or on Lark’s boat. Now just remember. The slightest thing out of the ordinary about those two creeps you get to me as quick as you can. Check the house first. I don’t want Lark’s radio phone suddenly getting too busy.”
“Smart girl,” he beamed.
“Give her the number!”
Lark took out a small card from his pocket and wrote on it with a silver pen. He handed the card to the younger girl. “Memorize the number.”
“Smart boy,” mimicked Lila.
Rhoda looked to the card for half a minute then handed it back to Lark. “Okay, I got it.” Then she turned and followed the trail of Dee as she went out into the rain.
Lark looked to the card in his hand, then gave it over to Lila. “Maybe you’d like to ride out to the boat with me for a while? It’s better than a map. My power launch is under the pier.”
“Why not?” She liked his invitation and knew what it meant.
He put his hands lightly on her shoulders. “You know, baby, right after the shindig tomorrow night I set sail for Mexico again. Another pick up for the big boys up North. How’d you like to go with me?”
“That’s a question you don’t have to ask twice.”
“Sure. You can stay there, safe and sound. And I can see you when I come down on every trip. Like that?”
She took his hand and led him toward their raincoats. “Let’s get out to your boat. There’s something else I’d like.” She started to slip into her raincoat. “You got some whiskey out there?”
“Plenty.” He buckled the front of his raincoat. “And a soft bed . . .” he smiled broadly. “Just like old times. Only this time not in bedbug-ridden rooms. We have a trawler.” He took her hand and they left the dock.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lonnie handled his souped-up rod with the skill of a race car driver and he might well be classed as such. The needle of his speedometer reached a hundred and ten on the straight desert road and danced between eighty and ninety on the curved mountain roads. He held a sardonic grin on his features during the entire trip and Miss O’Hara, who rode in the seat beside him, kept her eyes on the road ahead.
The teacher was on nerves to a point nearing sheer exhaustion, but she wasn’t about to make that fact known. She rode silently, her arms folded over her breasts. She might have spoken several times during the course of the ride, but she had been sure the fright she felt would show in her speech. So she kept quiet and waited for Lonnie to make the first breakthrough. But Lonnie also remained silent throughout the speed-maddened trip. He had looked at her many times to see how she was taking the pressure, but he received little confirmation from her stony glare. There was only the perilous road and the rumble of the twin pipes to keep them company.
Then suddenly, at a great rise in the road, Lonnie jammed on his brakes and in a squeal of brakes and the smell of burning rubber, the jalopy jerked to a stop.
“There it is,” he informed as he turned off the motor and Miss O’Hara looked ahead through the windshield.
They were halted on the crest of the mountain road which looked down at a sixty degree angle to the valley floor five miles below. And far below, on the valley floor, tiny lights on each side of apparently the road, flooded the area in a straight line which resembled an air strip.
As if realizing her thoughts, Lonnie said, “It’s five miles straight road to those lights down there.” He took a short length of rope from under the seat and proceeded to tie one end to the steering wheel and the other tightly to the car’s wide wing. “Those lights down there come from my gang’s cars.”
Miss O’Hara’s eyes were fastened on his rope tying action. “What are you doing?” Some of her nervousness did come through.
“Interested now, huh?” he grinned.
“If you’re wondering whether or not I’m frightened, you’ll never know.”
“Ah, you’re some kind of a nut fink,” he exploded as he tied the rope into several secure knots. “You ain’t so brave.”
“No one said anything about my being brave. However, face facts. It may appear like you’re out to kill yourself, but I don’t think you’d deliberately commit suicide.” She breathed easier as she realized the importance of her own words.
“I believe I’m relatively safe as long as you’re in the car with me.”
The smile disappeared from his face. “Yeah! As long as I’m in the car with you.” He was angered at her apparent disregard to his mental tortures. He pulled the marijuana butt from his pocket and lit up. The blast of sickly sweet smoke he exhaled crossed under Miss O’Hara’s nose just as she took a deep breath. She choked violently for a brief moment, and Lonnie laughed loudly. “They all do that the first time they get pot in their lungs.”
She looked directly at him, anger burning in her eyes finally. “Are you smoking marijuana?”
“Well, now, teach. It ain’t corn silk!”
“And you’re going to drive?”
“The stuff steadies my nerves,” he taunted. Then he looked directly to her. “You gonna be a good girl and stay put, or do I have tie you in?”
“You’re leaving?” The fright once more climbed out of her stomach and upwards toward her neck, but still she fought it back.
“Not very far. Just under the car. Some adjustments to make before we start off.” He looked at her steady eyes. “Naw. You come this far, I guess you won’t be goin’ no
place.”
He got out of the car and Miss O’Hara heard him puttering with something under the car, then almost before she knew it, he was back again. “Now that didn’t take long, did it?” He smiled. “Ohh! I just cut the brake cable.”
“I’m ready, but don’t you think you’d enjoy seeing me squirm more, if I knew what the eventual end to this ride might be?”
“That’s right, teach. You don’t know the scoop yet. Well, let’s take it from the top. This here hill is five miles long. A straight road all the way down to that last set of lights down there.” He pointed out through the windshield to the last set of headlights far below. “Then, right there, the road takes a sharp left turn. Only we don’t turn. We go straight across another quarter of a mile, right across the open field. And what looms up ahead of us there? A stone wall, teacher. A good old stone wall. And this old car goes smack into it. Only nobody’s killed . . . IF YOU JUMP IN TIME. The CHICKEN jumps first. Nobody’s ever outwaited me, teacher, nobody. And I got the wheel tied so nobody can turn off the straight and narrow if they wanted too. You get the pitch, teacher. Now we’re gonna see who’s CHICKEN.”
“We can be killed, jumping out of a speeding automobile.”
“You can. I can’t. I know how to roll . . .” He laughed his weird, self-satisfied laugh again. “Your big problem now, teach, is it’s too late for you to back out. Just think. You could have been taken care of back at the cabin. Now, your best bet is to faint before the big jump and it will all be over . . . or hit the wall and be all over it. Yes sir,” he finally said. “That old wall makes quite a mess out of a car . . . ’specially when the car hits it straight on doin’ around eighty. But remember, you don’t gotta prove you got guts by spillin’ them all over the wall. You can jump anytime you want. Maybe you won’t get too banged up. Jump anytime you got a mind to . . . only, first one who jumps is CHICKEN to the crowd for evermore. That won’t be me.”
“What happens if I win?”
“It won’t happen. But if you do? Well, when me and the gang take care of you later, you can die knowing you rode it out. I might even be able to keep the bunch from givin’ you a gang bang on the mattress before we crap you out.” He shoved the gears home and the twin pipes exploded and the car shot forward, down the hill.
Lonnie had bragged over and over that his jalopy could reach sixty m.p.h. in less than ten seconds. His brags had not been unfounded. The jalopy streaked into ever-increasing speeds. Only the road in front seemed to be visually clear; the road on either side became a quickening blur of undetermined origin and disposition.
Miss O’Hara let her right hand tightly grip the bottom of the seat. It reminded her of a time she had once rode a non scheduled airliner. A two-motored air vehicle in the days of jets. A white knuckle airliner, it had been referred to. She had held tightly to her seat arms the entire, tortuous trip, the same as she then strained her fingers into the automobile’s seat frame.
Every crack, every indentation in the ancient highway hit the speeding wheels with the force impact of a pending major disaster. The singing tires, the thundering pipes and engine, the whistling air as it raced by, fused into a terror of sound—a terror the teacher had never dreamed of. A terror she could not admit except to herself. But all of it couldn’t be completely hidden from view. Beads of perspiration began to dot her forehead. The hand which was locked so tightly to the seat had become wet and clammy. She wanted desperately to wipe it dry but she couldn’t seem to unlock it from the framework. Fright held it motionless. She looked from her straining white knuckles across to Lonnie. The excitement was splashed generously over his face. There was no mercy for life or machine as he held the accelerator to the floor boards. His eyes, a glare of madness in them, held steady on the road. He clenched the marijuana butt between his teeth but the excitement of the ride didn’t permit time for him to inhale. The grey smoke drifted aimlessly up around his head and toward the open window where it was quickly dispersed into the rushing air. He laughed drily without opening his mouth as a jack-rabbit stood in the road ahead, transfixed, hypnotized by the headlights. One second it had been a living, breathing animal. The next, it was a bloody pulp on the road behind them.
Again, stomach pressure threatened to explode the teacher’s already empty stomach. She forced her eyes to focus on the headlights of the cars in the valley and marvelled at how surprisingly close they had become and steadily grew closer, each vehicle taking its own individual form. Her stomach suddenly belched as she realized the ride’s violent end was so near. It was more than possible the last few seconds of her life were speeding toward her shaking body. Her stomach pumped violently up against her lower ribcage. Her breathing came in short gasps. She bit her trembling lower lip to keep from screaming. She had to speak and the words came in a rush of air. “Don’t you realize you’re looking into eternity?”
“Sure. Everytime I do it,” he grinned. Then his eyes darted to her. “Who’s the world watching now, Miss O’Hara?”
The first set of hot rods were suddenly in front of them and just as suddenly they were behind. Miss O’Hara’s eyes jumped up to the rear view mirror and she could see each set of cars join in behind as they were passed. They became a speeding funeral procession following the leading hearse. And then ahead was the sharp left hand turn in the old road. It was the turn they did not attempt to make. The hot rod left the cement and shot across the field, slowed minutely, almost imperceptibly, by ruts and holes, the headlights glaring against a stone wall some two hundred yards ahead of them.
Lonnie suddenly threw open his door. “Jump you fool!” he screamed, but waiting, himself, for her to go first.
Miss O’Hara did not budge. It was doubtful she could if she had wanted to. The terror of the wall was only preceeded in her mind by the terror of actually making such a jump.
Brakes of the cars behind could be heard squealing. Lonnie hung half out of the door, one hand on the window and the other on the steering wheel. His eyes snapped from the wall to the girl and back, then to the girl again. In those last fifty or so yards he knew she was not going to jump. “You’re crazy!” he screamed and flung himself out of the speeding vehicle, but in so doing his hip connected with the door in such force the rope securing the steering wheel snapped and in the same instant Miss O’Hara came to sudden life. She threw herself across the seat, snapped off the ignition key which killed the motor and with both her hands and all her strength she pulled the steering wheel to the left. The tires below blew in two fast explosions, then the wheels snapped and the axle and hubs ground into the hard dirt. The hot rod slammed sideways into the wall with a resounding kaleidoscope of crashing sounds: tearing metal, exploding tyres, breaking glass. The radiator blew and boiling water shot high into the air. The rear seat tore loose, flew into the air, hit the top of the car and fell, lodging itself between the dashboard and the back of the front seat, directly over Miss O’Hara, but holding the front end of the car from jamming back to crush her.
Miss O’Hara only felt the first impact. The deep black of unconsciousness saved her from further physical and mental tortures.
Lonnie had fallen flat, and rolled over on the ground in time to see, as well as hear, the impact. He waited expectantly for the fire which was bound to explode, but the explosion didn’t come. Slowly, painfully he got to his feet. Rick and Danny were the first to join him, with the many other juveniles almost immediately behind them.
“You alright?” asked Rick, without taking his eyes from the crash scene.
Lonnie didn’t bother to answer the question. He started hobbling painfully, favoring his right hip, toward the wrecked hot rod. “It didn’t burn,” he mumbled unbelievingly. “How did those wheels turn?”
“Musta’ hit a big chunka’ hole . . . look how them wheels is busted. Your rope tie musta’ broke, only thing that coulda’ happened.” Rick walked in beside Lonnie and took his arm in an attempt to be of aid, but Lonnie brushed the hand away to continue on unaided.
“You musta’ run outta’ gas,” optioned Danny. “That’s why it didn’t explode and burn.”
They looked into the car and none of them noticed the ignition key had been turned to the OFF position. All eyes were fastened on what they could see of Miss O’Hara’s body . . . only one badly bleeding hand and arm, and her left leg, at a grotesque angle under the ruptured seat were visible.
“The teacher looks dead enough,” observed Rick.
“Yeah! She’s dead! Nobody comes through a smack like that.” Lonnie looked at the badly bleeding hand for a long time. When he spoke again, there was a measure of respect in his voice. “One thing she gets credit for. She wasn’t no yellow belly.” He turned to Rick. “Siphon some gas outta’ the cars,” he directed quickly as he looked to the many vehicles back along the field. “We’ll burn it where it stands.”
Rick turned away, then everyone became motionless as the sound of a screaming siren filtered through on the quiet breeze. Rick looked back at Lonnie. “That’s probably the highway patrol. The noise of a crackup like that carries a long way on the desert. We ain’t got time to torch her up!”
Lonnie looked around to the others who needed no direct orders. They raced headlong for their cars.
“We gotta get outta’ here, Lonnie!” shouted Danny. “Them highway guys shoot first and ask questions later. You know that.”
The dozen or more hot rods blasted into life and, en masse, took off for the highway. “Get our rod, Danny,” commanded Rick. “Lonnie can’t run for it with the leg he’s got.”
Danny, without further delay, raced for his set of wheels and was back to help Rick aid Lonnie into the car, then they took off with all the speed the rod could muster.
An hour later, Danny braked his rod in front of the desert cabin. None of the three had spoken during the entire trip; their minds had been strictly on getting away, keeping their rod at top performance. Then at the cabin Danny reached toward the key in the ignition.