NEIGHBORS
"Hurry! Oh god, hurry! She's in there!" The frazzled woman was shrieking and peering into a slanting hole halfway up a rocky ridge. Her left ankle was encased in a dirty cast, her gnarled toes covered in dust.
The middle-aged couple leaped from the pickup truck, the man waddling with an overhanging belly while the woman staggered under weight long carried badly. "Stacy, we're here!" she yelled and almost fell as she made her way up the rock-strewn hillside.
"Harriet! It's Harriet!"
The man raced up the hill with surprising alacrity and reached Stacy, hesitating a second before grasping her upper arms to steady the frantic woman. "We saw you from the road. Where's Harriet? What happened?"
Stacy gulped and cried out "Harriet fell down the hole! She was looking for her shiny rocks and I heard her scream and when I looked..." Stacy's face crumpled. She fell forward.
"Jonah! Catch her!" Jonah did his best, desperately trying to keep them both from falling down the incline. "Help me, Mabel! I thinks she's passed out." Mabel did her best, but Stacy lifted her head and pointed mutely to her right, where two aluminum crutches were lying. Mabel quickly got them to Stacy, who propped herself up, to Jonah's deep relief.
"Get her, Jonah! Oh god, you have to get her out of there!"
Suddenly, from deep and far, a plaintive cry chilled the air. "Mommy! Help me!" The voice broke, its weakness a more powerful signal than any scream. Jonah and Mabel gaped at each other, pale and fearful. Mabel turned and raced down the hillside, oblivious to the rocks or her long-unused body. Jonah cried out to her, but bit his lip and said "There's rope in the truck. But we need rescue people, firemen or police or something. I can go to the house and call 'em."
Before Stacy could say "No!" the pitiable voice wafted over them. "Please help me! Mommy! Mommy!" Jonah's spine quivered and he swallowed hard, as the little girl's voice squeezed his heart like trap.
Mabel had somehow found the rope as was rushing up the rocky slide, her eyes fixed like embers on her husband. "Jonah! I heard Harriet again! Please help her!"
Stacy slumped on her crutches. "She's all I have. Please get her out of there."
Jonah slid down a few feet to get the rope from his wife, grabbed her hand and almost dragged her to the edge of the hole. Finding a large rock spur, he wrapped one end of the rope twice around it and expertly knotted it. His face was beet red, sweaty and grim. Mabel fluttered around him, moaning softly, fearing the voice and fearing not hearing it again. With a series of grunts, Jonah tossed the rope into the hole, watching as it slithered in and clittered into the deepness. "Harriet! It's Mr. Gibson! I'm coming down! I'm coming to get you!" He turned to Mabel, his face losing color until he was almost ashen.
The pained voice rose up from the dark. "Help me! I'm hurt. Mommy!"
Mabel moaned "Get her, Jonah! Please get her out!" He reached out to his wife and they clasped hands like they did so many years ago.
"I'm gonna try." He tucked the rope around himself and lowered his bulk into the hole. Within seconds, he was lost to sight and Mabel leaned over to yell "Be careful, Jonah! Be c--"
The crutch pushed against Mabel's ample back, toppling her into the hole with screams, meaty crunches and screams that cut off abruptly. Stacy waited a few seconds, then removed the fake cast and tossed the crutches into the hole, smiling as they clattered.
She made her way gingerly down the hillside. The recording would play itself out in another ten minutes and Harriet was due back from theater camp in about an hour. By next summer, thought Stacy, the Gibson land will be ours...
A GOOD MAN FOR CINDY
"Battle stations!"
The warped whoop-whoop of the siren rose above the soft thunder of steps hammering in the corridors and the ladders of the U.S.S. Sea Hound, the 73 men aboard scrambling to their positions as a voice crackled over the intercom: "Hold on! Hold on!"
The Sea Hound was slammed as the roaring whump of a depth charge churned the submarine, tossing its crew into unyielding walls and equipment. Several of the men screamed as bones broke, quieting quickly as the silent deep discipline took over. The intercom crackled again: "Damages."
Stations reported and medical kits appeared to take care of the injured. The Sea Hound tilted as it sought the deep, the crew that could do so adjusting their stances to the new angle and the prostrate injured being held as they bit their lips to keep from crying out. Another crackle: "Another one coming! Hold on!"
The sub tilted to port heavily, hammered by the exploding depth charge. A tiny leak appeared in the engine room and an ensign, fighting panic with every heartbeat, slapped a marker seal on it and hung on for the next explosion. It came like a charging bull, this time from below, lifting the Sea Hound and causing more injuries as surprise overcame strength. Crackle: "Damages!"
The reports flowed in and the panicky ensign, Mardsden, from the Cincinnati Mardsdens, welded a seal over the leak so quickly he never noticed the burns on his left hand, where a glove should have been.
Crackle. "We're going up! Secure! Secure!"
The Sea Hound's nose rose as ballast was ejected, the sub rising as fast as it could to avoid the depth charges floating down like lazy death. A distant boom rocked the sub, and motion that was once a fright was now a relief. Mardsden, his girl a beautiful blonde named Cindy that he was sure was too good for him, checked the seal and the engines, his mates doing the same over and over again in the tense thrum of expectation.
Crackle: "Destroyer, repeat destroyer. Load torpedoes, direct impact. Repeat, load torpedoes for direct impact." Mardsden clenched his fist. The Japs were in trouble. Sea Hound was deadly because Captain Higgins was deadly. The sub would arrow up beneath the Japs, fire its torpedoes and angle away. Eleven kills so far in this mission and this destroyer would make it an even dozen. Mardsden checked the engines again and waited for the "Full power!" order to come.
The Sea Hound rose as two more charges exploded below it, one pushing it to starboard enough for a correction to port. Crackle: "Torpedoes ready, Captain. Four for the Japs, sir."
Crackle: "Roger. Standby." Mardsden reached up to his shirt pocket and took out the picture that made him the envy of his mates: Cindy in a summer dress beside the lake, her long hair flowing in the breeze, brilliant smile, her figure on display and legs Grable would envy pirouetting gracefully. Crackle. He tucked it back. "Engine room. Standby."
Mardsden grasped the lever that would open up the engines for full power, his mates shifting position to leap into action in case the machinery needed adjusting after the explosions. Sweat flowed into his eyes and he blinked hard and fast, refusing to use his hands for anything else other than the engines.
Crackle: "Fire! Fire! Fi--"
The whoosh of a torpedo was engulfed by an explosion so massive it ripped open the bulkheads around Mardsden, the frigid Pacific sea roaring in. Mardsden was ripped from his post, his thoughts cascading as his body slammed into pieces.
His last thought was a hopeful "...a good man for Cindy..."
###
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About Gil C. Schmidt: I live in Puerto Rico. Recently-married, I now spend more time writing and coaching youth basketball than ever before. (Although what that has to with marriage is a mystery...) A long-time blogger, I can be found at Gil The Jenius, followed on Twitter and on my writer website, all listed below.
My other books include Thirty Stories, Tales of the Hotel Central and Enter The Phenomenologists, all available on SmashWords. I welcome contact from readers, critics, editors, groupies and fortune hunters, though each will be treated differently. Thank you for reading these stories and I look forward to sharing time with you again soon.
Blog: Gil The Jenius: https://gilthejenius.blogspot.com
Writer website: Gil C. Schmidt: https://gilcschmidt.blogspot.com
Twitter: @GilTheJenius
E-mail: mailto:gil.schmidt@gmail
.com
Thirty More Stories Page 7