Finally, he moved back up and stood next to Jewel.
“How bad?”
“As bad as it gets. Worse than anything I’ve seen,” he said. “We’re dead. No doubt about it.”
“So why are we still here?” she asked.
She looked up through the tall pines into the soft rain at the same time he did, but there was no white light or tunnel coming for them. Just more rain.
“Not a clue,” he said, “but let’s get back up on the road and wait for help to arrive. One way or another.”
“No help is coming,” she said. “They’ll never see the wreck down here. And if we’re ghosts, they won’t see us either.”
“When we went over the side,” he said, “I flicked the emergency beacon. All patrol cars have them in these mountains. They’re pretty darned near indestructible. The sheriff will be here in fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“You want to call a couple white lights while you’re at it,” she said.
“Out of my jurisdiction,” he said.
He reached out and took her hand, which felt wonderful in his hand, somehow. He was a ghost and he was still attracted to her.
That didn’t seem right.
Together, they slowly worked their way back up the steep hill toward the road above them.
It took them almost ten minutes of climbing, sometimes on hands and knees.
And by the time they reached the edge of the road, they were both panting, which also didn’t seem very ghost-like.
FIVE
JEWEL FLAT COULD not believe she was dead. The rain had soaked her white blouse making it almost see-through, and she was cold, as cold as she could remember being.
They had found a place to sit under a tree on the far side of the road on the hill, and she had snuggled in against Tommy. She liked how he felt, and could feel his warmth helping her.
She had no doubt that in the war in the desert, he had seen his share of death. But he seemed to be as confused about all this as she was.
“This feels nice,” he said, putting his arm around her and pulling her tight.
“It would be a lot nicer if I wasn’t so damned cold and already dead.”
He said simply, “Someone will be here soon.”
She wasn’t sure how that was going to help. She had a ski parka and gloves down in that mangled wreck of a car with her body, but no way was she going back down that hill to try to get them.
Something very strange had happened, she had no doubt about that, but being dead seemed to be not part of the equation. She knew death as a doctor. In her residency, she had seen more death than she had ever wanted to see.
And every time, with every patient, she had fought against it. And now, with her body down there, she was fighting against the idea of it now.
This was like no death she had ever imagined.
Finally, through the silence of the dark forest around them, they heard a car coming from the direction of Buffalo Jump.
The bright lights lit up the night before it came around the corner and Tommy stood and stepped down on the edge of the road, flagging down the car.
The car didn’t stop, but it wasn’t going very fast.
As it passed she could tell it was the sheriff’s car, clearly looking for the signal Tommy had triggered. The sheriff was behind the wheel and he had another man beside him.
Tommy shook his head and came back to sit down, again putting his arm around her and pulling her close, which felt damned nice, even under the circumstances.
“The sheriff has Ben with him,” he said.
She had met Ben, a young kid with the brain of a gnat, but Ben did as the sheriff told him and that was good enough it seemed.
The Sheriff’s car went on around the corner of the road and vanished, leaving the dark night, the gentle rain, and the silence.
“They’ll be back once they realize they have passed the signal,” Tommy said.
She nodded and snuggled in closer to him, trying to get some of his ghost heat from his hot body.
Three minutes later Tommy was right. This time the sheriff’s car was moving very slowly, and it finally pulled over on the side of the road right about where they had come up the hill.
Neither of them moved, but just watched.
Both the sheriff and Ben climbed out of the car, leaving it running. Both were wearing rain slickers and had on hats with wide brims.
She would give just damn near anything for one of those rain slickers right about now.
When Jewel had met the sheriff the first time, she figured him to be about sixty. He also had a solid round ball for a stomach, which meant he was a candidate for a heart attack at any moment. No way was he going down and back up that hill.
Deputy Ben, on the other hand, was as skinny as they came. And young. She guessed Ben to be around twenty-five, more than likely a local who had never left the area.
She watched as they both went over to the edge and looked down.
Then the sheriff said something she couldn’t hear and Ben went back to the car and got a huge flashlight from the trunk.
Ben handed it to the sheriff, who clicked it on and shined it down the hill toward the wreck. The powerful yellow beam was clear through the misty rain.
After a moment the sheriff let out some cusswords that made her guess he wasn’t a regular at the church with the big white steeple.
Tommy had been right. Help had arrived.
Now what?
SIX
TOMMY LOOKED AT Jewel sitting beside him next to the road under the slight shelter of a tree. Her hair was wet and her soaked white blouse was showing a wonderful body very clearly. She had not put on a bra.
He was cold, but she was shaking she was so cold.
There was no doubt in his mind they were dead, that they were ghosts of some sort. But if that was the case, why were they so cold and why were they still getting wet?
“Let’s go see if the sheriff and Ben can hear us,” Tommy said, starting across the narrow pavement.
“I’ll just stay here under the tree and shiver,” she said.
He nodded and headed toward the man he had worked for the past two years. Tommy really respected the sheriff for his knowledge, his clear thinking, and his ability to handle the people of this county.
Ben had gone back to the car for a pair of walkie-talkies and a second flashlight.
Clearly he was going to scramble down the slope to the wreck. When Ben came back over to the sheriff and handed him the walkie-talkie, turned on and set, the sheriff said, “Be careful.”
Ben nodded.
“Don’t bother,” Tommy said. “We’re dead down there. Call tow trucks and the morgue van.”
Neither man seemed to hear him. Ben turned and scouted along the edge of the road looking for a good way to head down.
Tommy stood beside the sheriff, watching, as if he was actually still alive and investigating the wreck.
Finally Ben eased down over the side and started down, using one hand against the steep slope for balance while hold the light in the other.
“He’s not going to like what he finds,” Tommy said.
The sheriff just ignored Tommy, or more likely didn’t hear him.
So Tommy reached out his hand and tried to touch the sheriff on the shoulder of his rain slicker.
His hand went right through.
As it did, Tommy had a sense of the worry and fear and anger the sheriff was feeling, but nothing else.
The sheriff didn’t seem to notice at all.
So Tommy stood there and watched as Ben got closer to the wreck. The poor kid slowly came up on the driver’s side of the smashed patrol car, then directed his light into the window.
The kid would live with that image the rest of his life, Tommy was sure, because Tommy knew his neck was twisted around and bones were jutting out and blood was everywhere and his nose was gone.
Poor Ben, it was as if someone had punched him.
He staggered a few steps
back into the hillside, swung around, and threw up his dinner.
“Told you he wasn’t going to like what he found,” Tommy said.
“Damn it all to hell,” the sheriff muttered and swung around and headed for the patrol car, walking right through Tommy before Tommy had a chance to move.
Tommy shuddered, and again he got a sense of the sheriff’s thoughts.
Once again the sheriff didn’t seem to notice.
“Was that as weird feeling as it looked?” Jewel asked from across the road.
Tommy stood there shivering, and he wasn’t sure if it was from the cold and rain, or the contact with the sheriff. He really didn’t want to try that again anytime soon.
But it gave him an idea of what he and Jewel might do to warm up.
He motioned for her to join him and she reluctantly moved toward him, her arms clasped so hard around herself, he thought she might hurt herself, if that was possible for a ghost to do.
Tommy went over to the patrol car, which was still running. The sheriff had just put in a call for a couple of tow trucks, a lot more help, and the morgue van.
Then the sheriff shut the front door of his car and went back over to the edge of the road to check in on Ben.
“What are you thinking?”
Tommy tried to grab the handle on the back door, but his hand passed right through it. Then he stuck his entire hand through the door and could feel the warmth of the inside of the car on it.
He pulled it out and nodded.
Then he took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and just pretended the back door was open and sat down in the back seat.
The wonderful warmth of the car felt great.
And he actually seemed to be seated on the back seat. He wasn’t falling through it, and the back seat floor felt solid under his feet.
He had no idea how that worked. Or why it worked that way. But he was just happy it did.
Jewel was standing outside, shaking her head, her mouth open staring at him.
He reached his arm back through the glass of the window as if it wasn’t there, indicating that she should take his hand.
It took her a moment, but then she took his hand.
Her skin felt cold and wet against his wet hand, so he made sure he had a good grip, and before she had time to fight, he yanked her into the car with him.
She sprawled across his lap on the seat and it took them a moment, a wonderful moment he had to admit, to get untangled and her sitting beside him on the passenger side of the back seat.
She was breathing hard and her eyes were huge.
“Was that as much fun for you as it was for me?” he asked, smiling at her.
She brushed her wet hair back off her face, took a deep breath while looking around, and then said, “Kinky. You take all your dates to such a high-class place?”
She patted the seat, clearly wondering the same thing he had wondered about how they could be sitting and not falling through, yet able to come in through the door.
He laughed as she once again started shivering from the cold.
“Thank you,” she said between shivers.
“My pleasure,” he said. “And it was.”
SEVEN
JEWEL WAS SO cold, she could hardly think. Even the warm air in the sheriff’s car wasn’t helping cut that. She took a deep breath and noticed that Tommy was also shivering. He was even more soaked than she was, if that was possible.
She made herself stop and think for a moment, then realize that if she were facing someone in this condition, this wet and this cold, she would get them into a warm place and out of their wet clothes.
They were in a warm place.
So they were going to need to do that second part as well.
“How long are we going to be here?” she asked.
Tommy shrugged, pretending he wasn’t shivering either. “It’s going to take an hour for everyone to arrive, then a couple more hours at least to get that car up the bank and our bodies, or what’s left of them, out of it. Four or five hours, at least, before the sheriff leaves and takes us back into town.”
She was afraid of that.
“We need to get out of these wet clothes,” she said, “wring them out, let them dry, and let our bodies get warm.”
“You think ghosts can die of hypothermia?” he asked, looking at her, puzzled.
“I don’t know about that,” she said, “but I’m damn tired of being so cold I can hardly think.”
She started working with her numb fingers on the button on her jeans and zipper.
He watched her for a moment, then nodded and slipped off his wet sheriff’s shirt, wringing it out onto the floor and then opening it and draping it over the back of the sheriff’s driver’s seat. Then he pulled off the Berkley t-shirt and wrung it out as well.
She had watched him do that, marveling at how toned and in-shape he was. He must run and lift weights as well to stay in that shape.
“That already feels better,” he said.
“When was the last time you undressed in the back seat of a car?” she asked.
She was now working on getting her boots off and failing because of the tight back seat and her cold fingers.
“First year of college,” he said. “Her husband was home and my roommate was home.”
“Oh, that had to be fun.”
“Actually it was. Let me help,” he said, indicating her boots.
She swung her legs up and around on his lap and he quickly got them both off.
“So how about you?” he asked as she pulled off the socks and wrung them out and draped them over the back of her seat close to the window beside her head. Her feet were so cold, she couldn’t even feel them anymore.
“High school senior prom,” she said, remembering that disaster of a night. “I didn’t take my dress off, just my underwear. Nothing happened. I touched him, he touched me, and it was all over. But he did have to clean the back seat of his parent’s car.”
Tommy actually laughed. “Poor guy. That had to be embarrassing.”
“I always figured that was something better to learn early about a guy rather than later.”
Then she turned back, raised up her hips, and worked her pants down over her hips. She had worn white standard underwear, not some of her fancy stuff. They were so wet, they looked transparent, but at this point, she didn’t care.
He managed to kick off his cowboy boots and pull off his socks.
Then as she was working out of her jeans, he pushed his down as well.
His underwear was soaked wet as well and clung to every shape. The cold clearly wasn’t affecting that part of him at all, and she liked that view a lot.
Wow. Could ghosts be sexy?
The exercise was warming her right up, or something was.
She wrung out her jeans as best she could, then draped them over the back of Ben’s seat. Tommy did the same to his jeans, spreading them out over the two front seats.
Then she unbuttoned and slipped off her white blouse and got the water out of it, hanging it off a door handle. Then at the same time, they both slipped off their underwear and wrung them out as well.
“I think I might actually warm up now,” she said, letting out a sigh.
“I know I’m warming up,” he said, laughing.
She glanced down at his penis, which was clearly larger. “I can see that. I didn’t know you were into necrophilia. I’m dead, remember?”
He just shook his head and laughed again, something she was really enjoying. She loved how easily he laughed, even in this situation. She had only hoped as a doctor after years of practice to be that calm in the face of death and crisis.
“Put your feet up there between the passenger chair and the door,” he said. “Should be hot air flowing from the heater there.”
She put her feet up toward the passenger door and he turned slightly so his feet were toward the driver’s door in the same position. Then she leaned against him and he put his arm around her.
; This is nice,” she said, taking a deep breath, enjoying the feel of his chest against her back and his strong arm around her.
She was dead, she knew that. They both were dead in a tragic accident.
And now they were ghosts for some reason.
Still, sitting here naked together in the back of this patrol car just felt right.
And she had no idea why.
EIGHT
TOMMY WAS ENJOYING sitting naked with Jewel in the back seat of the sheriff’s car more than he wanted to admit. How they were sitting, he could see everything about her body, from her small, firm breasts with tight brown nipples to her flat stomach and brown pubic hair.
Somehow, he managed to keep his arm on her arm, but a number of times he wondered if she wanted him to just ease his arm over and touch her breast.
Damn, he felt like he was back in high school again. How was that possible? He had just died.
“Shouldn’t we be upset that we were killed?” he asked her.
“I would think so,” she said. “But I don’t feel that way for some reason. In fact, I feel like I’m still very much alive, which is more than likely why being dead hasn’t sunk in yet.”
She was right. He was feeling alive as well. Very much so, and very much attracted to the woman in his arms.
“Me too,” he said. “Maybe more alive than I was before the wreck.”
She turned her head and looked at his penis, which was not in full erection, but very much alive as well.
“Yup, I can see that,” she said, laughing softly.
“Trust me,” he said, “if your fantastic body didn’t do that to that part of my body, I really would be dead.”
She reached across and squeezed his arm that was holding her. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” he said.
She laughed. “Are you going to have to clean up the sheriff’s car before we leave?”
“Not without some pretty significant help from you,” he said.
At that moment, the sheriff and Ben got back into the car.
Both Tommy and Jewel sat up quickly, but neither of them had a chance to move their clothing.
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