by Donald Wells
They were all laughing aloud at one of George’s tales when the chief rolled onto the property with Traci Vargas at his side.
Everyone was silent as Jessica walked over with Rob to greet the new arrivals.
In a tremulous voice, Jessica said, “Jack?”
The chief’s face was grave as he answered.
“We found Juliet, and, although we still don’t have his body, the divers have recovered your husband’s cell phone, along with the jacket from the tux he was wearing.”
Rob walked up to him.
“Juliet’s truly dead?”
“Yes sir, I’m so sorry, but yes sir,”
Rob Stevens began sobbing, but a moment later, he was retching and fell to his knees, where he vomited out the meal he had just eaten.
Lena ran over to him and helped him to stand, a moment more and she guided him towards the house.
Jessica held up a hand.
“I want to understand this; you found some of his belongings, but not his body?”
“Yes, but, the search has been called off and all recovery efforts ceased. Burns thinks that his body may have been swept away to the nearby river, and from there... oh Jessica, I’m so sorry, honey.”
“He’s alive!”
The chief sent her a look of pity.
“I suppose it’s possible.”
“He’s alive, and someday he’ll come back to me,” Jessica said, and as her father and sister put their arms around her to guide her inside, she kept repeating two words.
“He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive...”
***
Two days later
Jessica stood upon her porch and waved goodbye to the last of her family as her father and sister drove away.
With the dog at her side, she entered the house and spoke to Rob Stevens.
“It’s going to seem awfully quiet here now that everyone’s left.”
Rob stood up from the sofa.
“I can make it even quieter. I don’t have to stay here.”
Jessica shook her head.
“No, I don’t think that it’s a good idea for either of us to be alone right now.”
Rob walked over and took her in his arms.
“Thank you, Jessica; I don’t think that I could survive this without you.”
“We’re in this together, Rob, and I need you as much as you need me.”
Rob hugged her tighter, as his chin rested on her shoulder, and an evil little smile played upon his lips.
TAKEN! 20 – ALIVE!
Three weeks ago
He slipped his phone back into an inside pocket of the tuxedo he was wearing, after having just taken a call from Jessica.
Juliet stood beside him near the entrance to the roof, while looking like a vision in her wedding gown. He had known her for many years, had always thought that she was a beautiful woman, but today, as she stood ensconced not only in white, but also bliss, he thought that she had never looked more radiant.
When they reached the helicopter, they found the pilot pouring the last few drops of coffee from his thermos into the plastic cup that came with it. The pilot was an older man with the look of ex-military about him. When he spied Juliet in her wedding dress, he raised the cup in the air, as if to make a toast.
“You, young lady, are one beautiful bride,” he said.
Juliet smiled. “Thank you,”
The pilot swallowed the last of his coffee and screwed the cap back on the thermos.
“Hop on in, folks, and I’ll have you there in a jiffy.”
He helped Juliet aboard the chopper and then climbed in after her.
Seconds later, the chopper lifted off and Juliet reached over and took his hand.
“I’m so damn happy; it’s like my life is just beginning.”
He smiled back at her and that’s when the charge went off and disabled the rotor on the rear of the aircraft. As the helicopter lurched, the pilot began to lower the pitch, but then the second charge exploded and damaged the cyclic stick, which controlled the angle of flight. An instant later, and the helicopter plunged nose-first towards the icy water below.
Juliet had just enough time to scream before they crashed through the ice and began to sink.
The pilot died on impact as his shoulder strap broke and his head smashed against the windshield with enough force to break his neck and cause his head to hang at an unnatural angle.
As they hit bottom, he looked over and saw that Juliet was beginning to hyperventilate as her gaze alternated back and forth between the dead pilot and the ever-rising water seeping in.
He grabbed her and gave her a shake and she calmed down just enough to stave it off.
He tried to open the door, but found that it would only open a crack, as the bottom of it kept hitting a mound of sludge and so he reached up front and freed the fire extinguisher from its cradle, to then slam it against the locking pins that held the door in place.
With all locks disabled, the door began rattling as water rushed in at a greater volume, and rose above their knees.
“Juliet, when I kick this door open they’ll be no air left, so take a deep breath. We can’t be more than fifty feet below the surface and when we reach it, we can climb up onto the ice.”
“Oh God, the water is so cold.”
“I know, but if we’re going to swim we can’t do it in these clothes,” he said, as he began removing his jacket and tie, along with his shirt and shoes.
Juliet looked down at the wedding dress she wore with a mournful look, but then slid out of it to reveal her underwear.
She shivered. “We’ll freeze before we ever make the surface.”
He laid a hand against her cheek.
“It’s the only chance we have, honey.”
After she nodded in agreement and had taken a deep breath, he took one of his own, turned, and kicked both feet at the door. To his shock, the door drifted a foot away from the helicopter and then took off in a streak, even as the helicopter filled with water.
He had the thought even as its reality grabbed ahold of him.
Undercurrent!
He and Juliet were ripped from the chopper along with anything else that wasn’t strapped down, such as the pilot, whose body, still held by the seatbelt around his waist, was bobbed about in the current like a rag doll.
The force of the current was dragging them backwards with astonishing speed and he reached out to grab Juliet’s hand, but she was too far away to touch.
After just a few seconds in the frigid water, he could feel his muscles begin to spasm and he knew that his time was growing short, as his body used up the sparse amount of air in his lungs to combat the effects of the cold.
He looked into Juliet’s panicked face and saw that she had reached her limits. A moment later, and she gasped, enabling the lake water to fill her lungs. In her death throes, she drew closer to him and he managed to snag her hand, and was holding it, as her struggle ceased and she died.
He released her and watched as her corpse drifted off into a cross current, along with most of the debris from the chopper.
Even as he mourned Juliet, he knew that he was soon to join her, as he felt his air dwindle away and his heart raced from the stress of the cold.
Then, complete darkness swallowed him and he seemed to be rushing downward along an underground tunnel of some sort. When his left shoulder scraped hard against a rounded concrete wall, it hurt so much that he nearly opened his mouth to cry out. Two more impacts followed, but they were minor, and he once more emerged into murky light, as he understood that he must have passed through the opening of a dam, and as the current ceased its controlling hold on him, he found that he could weave his path through the water and headed for the surface.
As his lungs burned intensely for air, he did a quick mental calculation on his distance from the surface and knew he wouldn’t make it, that without more air, he would die.
That’s
when salvation drifted upward across his path.
It was the pilot’s thermos.
He stopped swimming and grabbed for it, then, he took his knife from his pocket and plunged the blade deep into the plastic cap, which caused a stream of bubbles to flow from it, air bubbles.
He withdrew the blade and swiftly covered the slit with his finger, before bringing the thermos up to his lips, to suck greedily at the precious air trapped inside, as he again started towards the surface.
When he broke through the water, he was only halfway home. The current had carried him through the opening in the dam and into the nearby river, where he was being swept downstream.
The river was wide and its flow fast, and he felt as if he were taking two steps backward for every one forward. And although it was no longer a struggle to breathe, the water temperature was still a factor, and even his immense stamina was reaching its limits, as the minutes ticked by and his arms and legs grew weary.
Eventually, his efforts were rewarded and he felt the riverbed beneath his feet as he shuffled towards the riverbank.
As his strength ebbed, he fought his way through the ice and snow lining the river’s edge and found himself on a muddy strip that the water lapped at constantly.
He looked up and saw what appeared to be a near vertical climb, for just a moment he considered lying atop the muddy, narrow lip of the river to rest, but the river water was still rising due to the open dam and he feared being swept back in.
With the last vestiges of his strength, he began climbing as dark spots floated across his field of vision and his muscles trembled with the effort. Fortune soon favored him, as the final remaining yards of the climb lessened in their slope and he pulled himself up and onto the grass of a clearing bordered by trees.
From the time he exited the dam until he made it ashore, nearly an hour had passed, and in a corner of his brain, he realized that he must be far from where the chopper went down.
He attempted to crawl up onto his hands and knees but his command went unheeded by his body, as it had reached the end of its capacities and he passed out, with thoughts of Jessica swirling in his mind.
***
Joe Cowley removed his apron as he watched the two men circle the dining hall once again.
Fred and Barney, he thought of them as Fred and Barney. One of the men was well over six feet tall and had a barrel chest with unruly dark hair and a big nose. The other man was short, with a mop of blond hair and a not-so-bright expression on his face. Both men had big, wide feet.
“Louise?” Joe said to the elderly black woman standing beside him.
The woman turned and gave him a bright smile. “Yes, honey?”
Joe smiled back as he always did with Louise. He couldn’t help it; her smile was contagious.
I’ve never known anyone who smiled so much, except for—no, no I am not going there.
“Joe, is something on your mind?” Louise said, breaking him from his reverie.
“I just want to say thank you for everything, but it’s time I was moving on.”
“Right now?”
“Yes,” Joe said, as he glanced over at Fred and Barney. “I think now is a good time to go.”
He had seen Fred and Barney once before, at a youth hostel. He had stayed there for three days when the weather became far too brutal to stay outdoors, and although he had a good ten years on most of the kids there with him, he had gotten along well with them, and for a while, had even started to forget.
Since he was the only one among his group who had any money, it was he who volunteered to venture out and get croissants and coffee the morning the snow had finally stopped falling.
The little blond girl, Katy, she wanted to go along with him, and as they tramped through the high drifts of powdery snow, he spotted Fred and Barney looking at them from the front seat of a van with chains on its tires.
He barely gave them any thought then, after all, Katy was a beauty and most men would look her over. It wasn’t until he saw them again, later that day, when he was alone, that he paid attention to them, because they were paying attention to him, in fact, they were following him.
He lost them inside a crowded bar as he walked into the kitchen and out the back door. He had assumed that they were muggers and that he had escaped being robbed.
A day later, two of the boys from the hostel went missing.
Now, here are Fred and Barney once more, and as Joe watched them, he saw that they appeared to be evaluating each man they saw for some unknown quality, looking at them the way a predator looks at prey.
Louise gave him a good hug and a kiss on the cheek and off he went out the back door of the soup kitchen. Whatever the hell Fred and Barney’s game was, he wanted no part of it.
He tossed on his large backpack and adjusted the straps. He’d been traveling with the grey bag on his back for over a year now and the hefty weight bothered him not at all. Inside the pack was his whole life, a life he lived one day at a time as he waited for Lady Death to come and claim him.
He was too much of a coward to go to her, at least, that’s how he thought of himself.
Ten minutes later, he was walking along the line of small hills that skirted the river, and that’s when he saw the stranger struggling in the water.
The man was shirtless and as he fought to free himself from the river’s strong current, Joe could see the sinewy muscle in his arms and back.
Joe called out to him, but soon realized that with the distance and the rush of water in the man’s ears that his shouts had no chance of being heard.
He ran down the hill and alongside the river, trying to keep pace with the man, but the current was not only strong, but also fast.
By the time he came to the bend in the river where the banks climbed steeply upward, the man was out of sight and all Joe could do was to offer a prayer for him, except, he never prayed anymore.
He made as good a time as he could with the weight of the pack upon him, hoping to find that the stranger had won his battle and was lying along the muddy, snow-dappled bank somewhere farther on.
Long after he had given up on him, he found him, and marveled that the man had made the steep climb up the hill. The man was unconscious and bleeding from several minor cuts. His hair hung across his handsome face and his fingers were a light tint of blue from the cold.
Joe tried in vain to wake the man, even though his pulse seemed strong and he was breathing normally. He chalked it up to sheer exhaustion brought on by the man’s life and death struggle with the water and dug into his pack for gear.
Although it was a warm day topside, Joe knew that the water temperature could not be far above freezing, and in fact, some ice still clung near the shore.
He pulled the wet slacks off the man and was surprised to find that they were the bottom half of a tuxedo. Although the stranger was taller than he was, his corduroy pants fit the man’s waist with room to spare and he then went to the task of layering him in sweaters and a parka.
His feet, Joe looked at the man’s feet and saw that they were as blue as his fingers were. He searched the multitude of pockets on his canvas backpack until he finally found what he was looking for.
He began to shake the little packs of activated charcoal and broke the outer pouch, causing the packs to heat up.
The man’s feet were about his size, but before he placed his sneakers on them, Joe stuck heat packs into a pair of thermal socks and slid them over the man’s feet, and then repeated the process on his hands while using a pair of gloves.
When he was done, Joe stared down at the stranger and for the first time since his new life began, he wished that he had a cell phone.
He leaned over and patted the man on the chest.
“Hang in there, buddy, I’ll go get you help.”
Joe hated to leave his backpack behind, but if he was to reach the highway and flag down a car, he’d make much better time without it. He grabbed it, along with the stranger’s pants, and hid them bo
th behind a bush.
Afterwards, he sprinted back up the hill and slipped on a patch of ice, but recovered, and within minutes, he could hear the whine of the vehicles out on the interstate.
Once he got there, he wondered how he would ever get anyone to stop, as the traffic whizzed along at high speed.
As he was about to step into the roadway, he saw the black van parked along the shoulder a half mile away, and sprinted to it.
Sitting in the passenger seat with the door open was a woman with long, red hair that she wore up in a bun atop her head. She was drinking a beer and having a smoke.
Joe ran up to her out of breath, and bent over at the knees as he talked to her.
“Hi miss... listen... I need help... there’s a man down by the river... whoa, I need to catch my breath... down by the river, he almost drowned, but I think he’ll be fine once he gets some warmth and rest.”
The woman smiled at something beyond Joe’s shoulder.
“Hear that boys? We got two for the price of one.”
Joe spun around to see who she was talking to, and there stood Fred and Barney.
***
The first thing he became aware of was the movement of the vehicle he was riding in, the second thing, his exhaustion.
He could not recall ever having been so tired and it was a struggle just to open his eyes, when he did, he found that he was lying down. Above him was a white, metal ceiling.
The memory came to him of the helicopter crash, of his struggle for life, of Juliet’s death.
He had made it ashore. It had taken everything he had, but he had survived and soon he would be with his wife, he would be with Jessica.
The vehicle bounced as it encountered a pothole and the thought came to him that he must be in an ambulance, headed for the hospital, headed to safety.
As his head lolled over to the right, he saw that he was not alone. There was a man leaned up against the wall and his hands were taped securely together at the wrists, as well as his ankles. He also had a gag taped in place.
The man had dark hair and sad blue eyes.
He spoke to him, and his voice was so weak, so devoid of his usual timbre, that he wondered if the man even heard him.