The Redeemed

by Jonas Saul

  “Good,” he whispered. “Use your right hand to secure your left to the steering wheel. Do it now.”

  Slowly, with the barrel of his gun two inches from her cheek, Sarah rolled out a foot of tape and grabbed the top of the wheel with her left hand. Then she applied the tape and looped it around twice before cutting it with her teeth.

  “Now hand me the duct tape.”

  As he took it, she dropped away from him and lunged across the console for the base of the passenger seat. The steering wheel turned as her secured left hand yanked it toward her, but since the car was off, the wheel resisted. Fully extended, her right hand stopped one inch from the hammer’s handle. She pushed harder as he grabbed for her hair. It was hopeless. The hammer was out of reach. Her eyes watered at the sharp pain of having her hair yanked. She groaned with as she was forced back up to a sitting position.

  “What are you doing?” he asked. “I have a gun. Are you a simpleton?”

  He released her hair, grabbed her right hand and jammed it onto the steering wheel. He set the gun on the roof of the car, yanked a strip of tape out and leaned in to wrap it around her right wrist, locking her hands in the ten and two o’clock positions on the wheel.

  Sarah lunged forward when he was in front of her, mouth open. When her teeth clamped down, the man’s left ear lobe was caught between them.

  He screamed as he tried to yank his head out of the car, but Sarah held on tight, her teeth gnashing back and forth in an attempt to sever his flesh and take her pound.

  His elbow smashed into the center of her chest once. Then again.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him reach for the gun on the roof. For a brief moment she thought about getting shot again, but then she was probably dead anyway if she let him go.

  Suddenly his ear was clear of her teeth and he retreated. The thin part of the lobe was all she had gotten. The copper taste of blood filled her mouth. She spit out the offending chunk of skin, blood splattering on the steering wheel and dash.

  The man held a hand over his bleeding ear as he stumbled away.

  She watched him in her mirrors. When he was at the van, she applied her teeth to the top of the duct tape and bit down.

  Moments later, the cold tip of the gun jammed against her head.

  “Sit back,” he said.

  She stopped biting, having only made a small teeth mark in the thick tape. Slowly, she leaned back in the car seat and turned to face him.

  His ear still dripped blood, the bite deep enough that it wouldn’t clot too fast. He held a small cage filled with mice, two of them quite fat.

  “What’s this? You’re going to rodent me to death? Never saw that one coming.” She smiled, knowing blood still covered her teeth.

  He opened the cage door and tilted it so all the mice would fall onto Sarah’s lap. Each one landed in and around her legs. A couple of them scurried up and down the length of her one thigh, others jumped and hit the floor, preferring to hide under her car seat.

  “Here’s my friend’s dinner,” the man said. “He won’t need this anymore.”

  “Mice don’t scare me.” She looked up at him, more than half his face covered by the bill of the hat. “I’m not your average girl. Tell me you’ve got something worse.”

  “Your wish is my command.”

  He disappeared from the window. She lunged forward, her teeth going to work on the tape. With no need to check on him, she bit and bit until a portion of the tape surrendered to her teeth.

  As she pulled back on the flap she had cut out of the tape, he reappeared beside her. She ignored him, knowing she had to get her hands free. Or at least one of them.

  Something heavy touched her lap. There was no point in taking her teeth off the job to look at what it was. She was almost free. Freedom meant she could fight. She could get to the hammer. She could turn the car on and ram his vehicle.

  He set something behind her. It felt like a thick pillow, like the circular kind someone would use for lumbar support or for under their knees when resting on a massage table.

  Then the tape snapped off her right wrist. Her hand was free. She grabbed the car keys that sat idle in the ignition and twisted them, turning the car on. But something blocked her arm from the center console where she had wanted to drop the car into reverse to ram his van.

  Something squeezed her belly. She looked down. Repulsed, she reared up and tried to push the snake off, but it didn’t budge. She took a deep breath, held it and began hammering at the body of the snake with her one free hand as it wrapped another loop around her.

  “My gift to you,” the man said. “That’s an African Rock Python. He hasn’t eaten in a month. Quite hungry, actually.” He stood back and watched as the snake wrapped itself around her again, locking her upper arms against her body. “He smells the scent of the rodents on you, so naturally he thinks you’re food. Since he can eat deer, pigs and dogs, you’ll do just fine.”

  Only able to move her right arm below the elbow and not sure if the snake was venomous or not, Sarah could only watch as it slithered around her again, tightening as it went. The thickness of its body was impressive and intimidating at the same time, its strength intense.

  The snake wanted to crush her as it started to squeeze. She held her breath, waiting to see what would happen next, her mind racing on possible options.

  “You see where the snake has bit into the back of your car seat.” He leaned in closer. “Oh wait, I guess you’re all tied up. You can’t turn around and see. Well, anyway, you got lucky because this kind of python usually bites the victim to lock onto its prey and then begins the death wrap.”

  “Death wrap?” she managed to say, a tiny amount of breath coming out with the words.

  When she spoke, the snake tightened again.

  Shit! Won’t do that again.

  “Feel fortunate that she didn’t bite you. My precious snake has many sharp teeth that are curved backward. Pythons have attacked and killed humans before, so you won’t be the only one.”

  Breathing became a chore. Sarah struggled under its power, but was not even able to lean forward as its teeth clung to the shoulder of the car seat, its body locked on her, keeping her back.

  Absolutely helpless, her lungs yearning for air, her mind raced. There was no way to get to the hammer on the floor of the passenger seat. Whatever would stop this snake and allow Sarah to live had to come to her within half a minute or she’d have to expel her breath. Letting it out meant the snake would tighten more, refusing to allow her the life-giving breath she needed.

  “A snake tempted Eve,” the man rambled on beside her. “And now a snake takes you to Hell. Goodbye, whore. You’re no better than Lot’s wife. If I could, I would’ve turned you into a pillar of salt.”

  The man headed back toward his van.

  Sarah struggled, the mirror reflecting back her red face, blood on her lips.

  The man watched her from inside his vehicle. The rental car was still running but her arms were locked up. She couldn’t reach the center console.

  In an act of desperation, she let out a tiny amount of air and tried to suck in as much air as she could, but at the exact second her ribcage constricted, the snake tightened, cutting off any chance to catch even the tiniest amount of air.

  She would be dead in under a minute, crushed under the power of the snake unless she thought of something.

  The van’s headlights came on behind her. He started backing up.

  A horrible idea came upon her. A last resort.

  Her rental was still idling. She brought her right knee up to the gear shift, pressed in the black button and pushed the shift back one spot into reverse.

  It worked just as her lungs screamed for release.

  As the car reversed, she hit the gas and pressed back against the seat. The car raced backwards until it smashed into the van’s grill.

  Breath escaped her lungs again. The snake tightened. She wanted to scream with the pain as her ribs were about to b
reak.

  With her knee, she pushed the gear shift into neutral, then drive.

  The man jumped out of his van and ran at her, the gun aimed.

  She hit the gas, her lungs about to release the air whether she wanted to or not. If she exhaled, her rib cage would collapse under the snake’s intense pressure.

  On her last surge of strength, her last chance at life, she slammed the accelerator to the floor. The car jerked forward, away from the madman with the gun running after her, toward the short concrete abutment at the edge of the parking garage on the fifth floor.

  If it was possible to hit the abutment and whack the snake with the airbags, then there was hope. If not, she was out of options.

  The edge came fast.

  The gun fired behind her. The back window shattered. Another shot embedded in the dash by the stereo, missing her by inches.

  Maybe he’ll hit the snake and kill it.

  Suddenly, through the windshield, the abutment looked too small.

  Her lungs didn’t just wail for air, they threatened to collapse on their own as the car hit the concrete, jerking it to an almost complete stop, the back end lifting, then dropping down hard with the violence of the impact.

  The air bags didn’t deploy but most of the abutment broke off and fell more than fifty feet to the street below. The car dangled on the edge, more on solid ground than on air.

  She opened her mouth to breathe, knowing it was her last decision and that the snake was waiting for that moment.

  Another bullet slammed into the dash, closer this time.

  She let out some air as she hit the gas. The back tires caught on something and pushed the rental car forward.

  She released the rest of the pent up air in her lungs and tried to breathe as the car teetered over the edge of the parking garage, but no air came.

  At the same moment the car slipped over the edge and began a free fall for the cement below, Sarah pushed against the snake with her arms in an attempt to get air into her lungs as the snake tightened even more.

  For a brief moment, there was silence. Then the wind increased as the ground raced toward the windshield.

  See you soon, Vivian.

  A tear rolled out of her right eye.

  “Fuck you, snake,” Sarah whispered the second before the grill was decimated by the impact that continued into the engine, jamming everything toward the passenger compartment.

  One moment she was in a quiet free fall, the next crashing into the cement five stories below, face first.

  Her last wish was that the airbags weren’t defective.

  Chapter 21

  More gunfire in the distance. It had to be Sarah.

  “Take me that way.” Parkman pointed to where he heard the sound.

  “Come on,” Hirst said.

  They ran for the detective’s cruiser. Hirst squealed out of the area, a red flashing light on his roof.

  When they were two blocks away, Hirst’s radio sounded. Gunfire had been heard and there was a car accident within four blocks of Vicky’s murder scene.

  “What the hell is going on tonight?” Parkman asked.

  “We don’t know if they’re related.”

  “True. But it’s likely.”

  After two more turns, Hirst swung onto the road that led to a mall. Parkman saw the flashing lights of a police cruiser parked on either side of a ruined car that sat more on the edge of the sidewalk than the road. From the distance Parkman couldn’t tell what the vehicle had hit that would cause that kind of damage.

  When Hirst stopped the cruiser, Parkman got out. At first he didn’t recognize the damaged vehicle, but as he walked closer, he could tell it was the same color of their rental.

  A sickening feeling filled his gut. For a brief second, his step faltered. It all came together in the next moment. He looked up and saw that the edge of the cement railing on the fifth floor was broken. The car must have been pushed off. The trunk had damage that wasn’t consistent with hitting the ground.

  But all that could be figured out later.

  He ran to the driver’s side. One of the officers waved him off, but Hirst motioned and the officer stepped back.

  Parkman dropped to his knees as sirens wailed behind him.

  Sarah was scrunched up in an impossible position. Blood covered her face and ran down her neck. Her head and chest rested against the airbag like a pillow. He touched her neck and felt for a pulse.

  He couldn’t feel one.

  He tried again.

  A faint pulse at the base of her jaw beat under the touch of his finger.

  “She’s alive!” he shouted for Hirst.

  Vehicles stopped behind him.

  “Sarah’s alive!” he shouted again.

  What looked like a snake was wrapped in layers around her chest and parts of the seat.

  “What the hell happened here?” someone said.

  A hand landed on his shoulder.

  “Hey man, paramedics are here and we have firemen here as well. Please step back so we can extricate the young woman.”

  Stunned, Parkman stood up and allowed himself to be led away from the ruined rental car.

  Nobody hurt Sarah and got away with it.

  Nobody.

  Chapter 22

  Father Adams was shocked at what had happened in one of the buildings the church had bought. He was disgusted that the man responsible had stolen a church vehicle, run down a police officer and tried to kill the guest, Sarah Roberts, whom the police had asked to come help with the investigation.

  He entered the hospital through the main sliding doors and started for the admissions desk.

  “Good morning.” Father Adams spoke in his usual deep cadence when he wore the suit with his white collar. “I’m looking for a woman admitted recently. Her name is Sarah Roberts.”

  The nurse shuffled papers aside, found her computer mouse and clicked.

  “Can I have the name again?” she asked.

  “Sarah Roberts,” Father Adams said, his voice patient.

  “I’m sorry Father, are you family? Otherwise …” The nurse looked up. Adams could tell she wanted to help him as most people wanted to help a man of God, but something on her computer had cautioned her.

  “Check the list of approved names,” he said. “You’ll see that Father Adams is on it.”

  The woman clicked her mouse, then smiled before looking up. “You’re right. They’re expecting you. She’s on the second floor. Room 206.”

  “Thank you.”

  Father Adams walked away from the counter, passed the elevators and headed for the sign that showed the stairs. Once on the stairs, he pulled out his rosary and adjusted his jacket.

  On the second floor he opened the door to chaos. Two nurses ran by pushing a stretcher. Another nurse called out a doctor’s name. Two people, one a patient having issues walking while the other held him up, leaned against the wall by the stairwell door, evidently making little progress to wherever they were headed.

  Two young kids ran down the hall so fast they missed the nurse’s warning to walk.

  Father Adams took it all in for a moment, breathed deep, then read the sign on the door across the hallway. He was four doors away from Sarah’s room. He started down the hall, nodded slightly to the couple leaning on the wall, stepped aside to let another stretcher pass and made it to the police officer sitting in a chair outside room 206.

  “Must be a long shift,” Father Adams said when he saw the three empty coffee cups at the officer’s feet.

  “Yes, Father,” the officer said as he looked at a list on his clipboard. “Father Adams?”

  “In the flesh.”

  “Go right in. They’re waiting for you.”

  Father Adams pushed on the door and entered the room. Detective Hirst stood by the window. A man sat in a chair on the side and Sarah lay in the bed, her eyes closed, a couple of bandages on her face, the bed covers up to her chin.

  “Gentlemen,” he said softly as he let the d
oor close behind him.

  Hirst turned around, and the man in the chair got up and approached. They shook hands.

  “Glad you could come. I’m Parkman.”

  “I saw you the night Father Alvin was found. You’re Sarah’s friend?”

  He nodded. “We came to Los Angeles together to help Detective Hirst with his case.”

  Father Adams turned to Hirst. “And how is that going, Detective?”