by R. D. Power
He turned to see the other biker jab at him with his knife. He dodged, but couldn’t avoid the blade altogether. It pierced his left side just below his ribcage. He screamed in pain. “Bobby!” said Kristen. Now more worried for him than herself, she started toward him to see if she could help.
The six-foot-five monster viciously thrust his blade at Robert’s stomach but, with lightning reflexes, Robert seized his wrist and turned the blade aside; with his other hand, he grabbed the hand with the knife and propelled it backward. Kristen heard the crack; the man shrieked. Robert then took hold of the biker’s injured arm and spun him around. He put both arms around his foe’s neck and kicked his legs from underneath him. The man went limp, his neck broken. Robert let the body drop. All this in a few incredibly brutal seconds. There could be no quarter with Kristen’s life at stake.
Bleeding profusely, Robert crouched over to recover the knife, and stumbled toward Kristen as she ran to him. His adrenaline and strength spent, he collapsed into her arms, and the two fell to the ground. Kristen put her hand on Robert’s wound to staunch the bleeding. He grimaced in pain.
The man with the broken leg got to his feet and limped toward them with his knife. Robert, now feeling lightheaded, said, “He’s coming. Run!” He was too weak to throw the knife at the attacker.
“No. I’m not leaving you to die. Get up!”
“I can’t. Please, Krissy. If you stay and he gets us both, I’ve died for nothing. Get away!”
“If you die, I die. I don’t want to live in a world without you.”
Sirens could be heard in the distance, too far away to help in time. He began to lose consciousness. Desperate, Kristen took Robert’s arms and dragged him away from the enraged, injured animal. As the man closed in, Robert murmured, “Run, Krissy.”
Kristen, realizing it was hopeless to get Robert to safety, took the knife from Robert and stepped in between him and the attacker as Robert blacked out. The biker bent over and extracted a gun from the gang leader’s belt. Kristen threw the knife, but missed her target. She then lay across Robert’s body and prayed. Gunshots echoed through the trees.
Chapter Sixteen
Finally
“Krissy! Krissy!” screamed Robert as he awakened in a hospital bed the next morning. “Krissy! Where’s Krissy? Is she dead? Krissy!” Hospital workers struggled to calm him and sedate him. “Krissy!” he yelled in sheer panic. With an orderly holding him down, he was, at last, sedated by the doctor. “Krissy!”
Quickly, the sedative took hold, and he settled down. “Who is Krissy?” asked the doctor as he checked Robert’s sutures.
“Kristen Taylor. Is she …” Robert said as he fell asleep. The nurse, orderly, and doctor went back about their business.
As Robert was waning, Mark was waxing before reporters with his incredible tale of daring as he raced to save an innocent victim of motorcycle gang violence. He had called a press conference to inform the public about the astonishing events the night previous. He began, “I have a lengthy statement to make. Please hold your questions until I’ve completed my statement. Let me warn you that the incident in question was very violent, with several deaths. I’m tired and extremely upset over the bloody outcome, but I feel I need to explain this to assure the public that the worst is over.
“Last evening, as you know, I announced the arrest of the leaders of two rival motorcycle gangs that have been plaguing our city. After the news conference, I offered one of my campaign workers a ride home. I won’t mention her name for the sake of her family, who are legitimately worried about reprisals from the gangs. That’s the way these thugs think.
“While we were driving to her house, at approximately ten-thirty, a biker drove up alongside of my car and smashed out the passenger window, probably with a crowbar. I couldn’t let him get away with that kind of intimidation. If the chief of police looks the other way when he is victimized, we might as well all give in to the violence they cause, even if it was a last act of desperation after they’d already been defeated.
“I followed him into what turned out to be an ambush. He stopped his motorcycle, and I stopped my car to arrest him. Suddenly, eight more bikers drove out of a side road and surrounded my car. I took out my phone to call for backup, but one of them used the crowbar to smash my window. He tried to hit me with it, but I was fortunate enough to grab it and take it from him. In the scuffle, I lost my phone, so I couldn’t call for help. Much worse, as I was fighting for my life, another of the hoodlums pulled my passenger out through the broken window. Now they had a hostage.”
“What did you do?” asked a rapt reporter.
“Of course, my first urge was to get out and rescue my companion, but I realized it would have been hopeless. Outnumbered nine to one by armed ruffians, what were my chances? And they had a hostage that they could threaten at any time to make me back down. My sole course of action was to go for help. I hoped if I got away, they would realize the police were coming soon and they would be hesitant to harm their hostage.
“I floored my vehicle and hit … I’m still not sure if it was one or two of the bikers. Two more of them got on their bikes and pursued me. One of them had a gun and began shooting at me. That complicated the situation enormously. Not only was my life in imminent danger, I couldn’t just drive to the nearest farmhouse to get to a phone, because that would put more innocent lives at risk. So I took a calculated risk. I let them get close to me and hoped their marksmanship was poor.”
A few nervous chuckles pierced the silence of the awestruck crowd.
“Obviously it was, as I stand here before you. When they were just off my rear bumper, I jammed on the brakes. One of them ran into the back of my vehicle. He was thrown over the top and onto the road in front of me. The other avoided my car, but went out of control into the ditch. Fortunately that finished both of them.”
“Finished? Are they dead?”
“One died this morning; the other is seriously injured.”
“What about the hostage? How long did all of this take?” asked an anxious reporter.
“This was no more than five minutes after they kidnapped her. But I still hadn’t been able to call for help. I thought if I could find that gun, I could even the odds in a hurry. Fortunately, it was gleaming in the distance from the light of my headlights. I got the gun, dragged the body off the road, and put a flare there to mark where the injured people were. A motorist came by at that point, and I asked him to phone the provincial police.
“Then I raced back to the scene of the kidnapping. They were down an old, disused road, maybe a hundred meters from where my friend was taken. One of the thugs was unconscious at the entrance to the road, presumably one of my hit and run victims. I looked down the road and saw a fire. I ran down as fast as I could. When I got closer, I realized there had been a great battle there. There were several bodies sprawled on the ground around the fire.”
“What happened there?” “Were they dead?” “Was the hostage dead?” reporters asked.
“Forensic experts are still trying to sort out exactly what happened. We’re not sure yet. As I approached, I saw the hostage was still alive, but there was one biker pointing his gun at her. She was trying to help another man who was also an innocent victim of the gang.”
“What do you mean? They kidnapped him, too?”
“We think he may have been trying to rescue the woman, but didn’t succeed. He’s in the hospital, recovering, and we haven’t been able to speak to him yet.”
“Please, Chief, end the suspense. What happened to your campaign worker?”
“I shot the man aiming at her before he could shoot. She’s alive and recuperating in hospital.”
“Had she been sexually assaulted?”
“She was not raped, but was brutally assaulted. She suffered some scrapes and bruises, but the emotional trauma is more serious. A sexual assault counselor will help her through this.”
“So you ended up saving her and the failed hero to boot
.”
“I guess so,” Mark confirmed with a bashful smile.
“What was the condition of the other gang members on the ground?”
“Four were dead; the other had injuries consistent with getting struck by a car, probably my other hit and run victim. Preliminary evidence suggests at least three died from knife wounds.”
The questions continued as the media prepared to make a hero out of Mark Loftus once again. With the election just days away, Mark basked in the glory and thanked his lucky stars.
•
“Gertrude,” observed Mr. Carlton, “paper says the police chief saved some lady and a chump that tried to rescue her, but ended up gettin’ stabbed hisself. Freakin’ loser. Guess I’ll vote for the hero after all.”
•
Kristen had flinched when she heard the report from the gun. For an instant, she expected the bullet to strike her down. When she felt nothing and saw her attacker fall to the ground, she felt more confused than anything. Mark’s hand on her shoulder elicited a scream, but she turned to see his concerned face and realized her deliverance was at hand. He put his jacket around her and attempted to hug her, but she turned away from him. Her single concern at that moment was Robert. Now her skills as a physician would be critical to save his life.
“Kristen, are you okay? What in the name of God happened here?” asked Mark. Police officers streamed into the clearing to check on the bodies and secure the crime scene.
“Is there an ambulance? I need to get him to the hospital right away.” Mark told an officer to get the ambulance to their location at once.
Mark saw who it was. “Did he kill these men? Did he follow us here?” Mark asked.
The ambulance drove up. “Over here!” Kristen said. “I’m a doctor. I need O-negative blood right away.” She barked out her instructions and the attendants obeyed. She toiled to staunch the bleeding and stabilize him for the ambulance ride to the hospital.
“Did they rape you?” Mark asked.
She answered, “They were about to,” while working on Robert’s wound.
“I’m sorry, Kristen.”
Once satisfied he was ready to transport, she signaled the attendants to put Robert on the gurney and take him to the ambulance. She rode with him to the hospital. Once they were underway, she put both her hands, drenched in his blood, to her face and sobbed.
At the hospital, he had to undergo an operation to stop internal bleeding and repair a puncture to his small intestine. By the time the surgery was over, it was 1:45 AM. Mark was doing police work at the station. Kristen called her parents, who rushed to the hospital. While Bill cursed at the absent Mark, Lisa hugged and cried with her daughter.
“You need counseling, honey,” advised Lisa. Her parents had to insist she get medical attention for her injuries, which, fortunately, were superficial.
After getting the necessary treatment, she went to the recovery room, followed by her parents. She sat next to Robert’s bed and gingerly rested her head on his chest so she could hear the reassuring beat of his heart. She fell asleep for a short time, her head rising and falling with his breathing.
Her mother put her hand on Kristen’s shoulder and suggested she come home with them to get needed rest, but she wouldn’t leave. Still with her head on his chest and looking up at his face, she said to the sleeping man, “I’m so sorry you were hurt protecting me. I pray that this doesn’t drive you away from my grasp, even as it makes me more desperate than ever to have you. I love you more than you can ever know. I want you for all time.”
Her parents looked at each other and knew what had been missing from her life. Despite the trauma she experienced that night, they could feel their old Krissy had returned.
Kristen got but two hours of sleep on the chair in Robert’s room that night. Bill got no sleep whatsoever, ready to take on any gang member who might approach his daughter. Mark showed up at six, but Kristen wouldn’t talk to him other than confirming she was through with him.
“I’m sorry, Kristen, but if I tried to take on nine of them by myself, we might both have died. I got four of them and came back for you as soon as I could. You’d be dead if I hadn’t.” She glared at him and walked away without responding. Bill warned him to make sure Kristen’s identity was not released to the media.
Later that morning, she went across the courtyard for her first session with a sexual assault counselor. While there, she heard Robert screaming for her. “Krissy! Krissy!” could be heard through the office window echoing off the surrounding buildings. “Krissy!” She dashed out of the office and the building to his room. By the time she got there, he was asleep, and the doctor was just leaving. She asked what he had given him, got the answer, and sat in the chair again.
Two hours later, he opened his eyes and tried to see through the confusion that clouded his mind. Suddenly he called, “Krissy!”
“I’m here, Bobby,” she answered. He looked and couldn’t believe his eyes: she was all right!
“You’re really here?” he said as he reached out for her. “I’m not dreaming or dead?”
“I’m really here, thanks to you.”
“Let me touch you.” She took his hand and kissed it, and leaned over to kiss his lips. “Are you all right? I saw how those bastards hurt you.” He was talking languidly and slurring a little.
“Physically, I’m okay; just a few cuts and bruises. But I’m still upset and afraid.”
“Those goddamn animals. They deserved to die.” He lowered his head and closed his eyes for a few minutes. Then he roused again.
“I’m sorry to get you into a situation where you had to kill again,” she said.
“Don’t be. There was no choice. I know I killed the four by the fire, but did the other one die? The guy at the top of the road? I fired a rock at his head.”
“I think he’s in critical condition.”
“Are you going to be all right? You should talk to a psychologist.”
“I was talking to one when you called out my name. I heard you and ran.”
“Tell me everything will be okay.” She hugged him and nodded. “Oh, shit. Kara! I left her with Melissa.”
“Mom’s with her. She’s fine.”
“Thank you. I want to see her and Brian. By the way, I’m not feeling particularly hale. Am I expected to live?”
“You should make a full recovery,” she said with a smile. “The knife ruptured your intestine. The surgeons repaired it. You’re on an IV because you can’t eat for a while. We’re giving you antibiotics because there was some leakage from the bowel, which could cause a dangerous infection. You’ll need to rest in bed for a few days.”
He nodded. “So, what happened out there? How did we get away?”
“Mark saved us.”
Robert’s face fell. “How?”
“Just as the man was about to kill us, Mark shot him.”
“He had a gun all along?”
“No, he must have got it off one of the bikers.”
“So, is he your hero now?” Robert said with a half-smile.
She returned a refulgent one. “You followed us to protect me?”
“I thought something might happen as I told you last night.”
“What you did for me was unbelievable,” Kristen said as she stroked his cheek with the back of her fingers. “It was the bravest, most noble deed I can ever imagine.”
“Well, I was trained to handle those situations, though I didn’t quite pull it off. But you were at that monster’s mercy, yet you refused to abandon me. The raw courage that must have taken. Thank you. And you stopped me from bleeding to death, too, I guess.” She nodded. “God, woman, you’re amazing.” The two kissed. “So, how’s Mark handling all this?”
“He’s playing himself up to the media for saving the two of us.”
“That son of a bitch.”
“Yeah, I agree.”
“Did you get a chance to break off the engagement?”
She nodded with a smile
. Robert smiled back. She took a deep breath and declared, “I’d love to, Bobby!” recalling the way his mother invited his father’s proposal.
He smiled and said, “You’ll marry me?”
“Yes!” The two lovers kissed.
“Right away, Krissy. I mean like right now, before God finds out and fucks us up again.”
“God made us for each other. We can’t get married with you recovering from a serious injury in the hospital. Can we?”
“Why not? We can have just a small ceremony here. I know it’s not the wedding you dreamed of, but I need to make you mine now.”
“All right. I’ll call my mother, and we’ll make arrangements for tomorrow!”
•
The small ceremony took place three days later. It took that long to make the necessary arrangements and for Robert to recover sufficiently. Kristen was dressed in her mother’s wedding gown. Robert wore his only suit. On Robert’s side were Kara, Kim, Phil, and Brian, who acted as best man. On Kristen’s were her parents, brother, sister-in-law, Miriam as the maid of honor, and George. Brian had retrieved his grandparents’ rings from the trunk.
Robert slipped the engagement ring onto Kristen’s ring finger with a kiss before the ceremony and the wedding ring onto same during the ceremony. She slid his father’s ring onto his finger. They fit perfectly.
As the wedding ended, Bill, playing the part of emcee, said, “Bob, I’m very happy to welcome you to our family, if only so Krissy will stop brooding. I want to warn you of a couple of things as a new husband, though. First, don’t have that second child or your wife will get you neutered.” The assembled laughed.
“Second … um, how to put this? Expect less sex.” More chuckling. “You may have heard of a famous poll that found that twenty-seven percent of women prefer chocolate to sex. Well, I have further breakdowns that may be of interest. It turns out that only ten percent of single women prefer chocolate to sex, but fifty percent of married women prefer chocolate to sex, and seventy-five percent of married women with children prefer chocolate to sex. In fact, sixty percent of married women with children prefer scrubbing toilets to sex. And this is really telling: ninety-nine percent of married women with children prefer chocolate to sex with computer geeks.” Everyone laughed.