Рон Гуларт - Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 39, No. 13, Mid-December 1994

Now, old Joe Senior has a driveway that runs from his house on down to the bottom of the hill, where it connects up to the highway just a little beyond where the pickup had slammed into that pole. And as luck would have it, that dumpster rolled all the way down that hill and out onto the highway. And of all things, it crossed over the center line and into the far lane just as Miss Petula was coming up the highway in that brand new Lincoln she’d gone all the way up to Kansas City to buy for herself on her seventy-third birthday.

Of course Miss Petula did her best to try to avoid that dumpster, and even though she is going on seventy-four, same as the sheriff, she’s not a bad driver. But it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d been Joie Chitwood. There just wasn’t time or room. And before the sheriff could move or even yell a warning, she slammed right into the side of that dumpster, which, being filled with waterlogged carpet and lumber and being a pretty fair-sized object to begin with, probably weighed more than that Lincoln did. And it was definitely moving faster. And that Lincoln just sort of lost out in the shoving match that ensued and went careening right off the far side of the road.

Now, curious thing about it is that, while old Joe Walker lives on the bluff off on the south side of the road, Joe Walker Junior lives right across the road on the north side, down in the valley where old Stimson’s Creek used to run before it dried up back when they started diverting the water for agricultural use upstream a few miles. And between the highway and Joe Junior’s place there’s not a thing that would stop a car. Not a ditch or a tree or anything. Just a long clear slope that leads right on down into Joe Junior’s back yard.

So naturally that Lincoln not only went off the road, but plunged right on down that hillside, picking up speed every step of the way. And by the time it got to the bottom of the hill, it was going so fast that it crashed right through that giant privet hedge that forms a fifteen foot high border all around Joe Junior’s yard. In fact, it was going so fast that after it passed through the hedge it plowed right on through the yard and crashed right into the back of Joe Junior’s house.

Joe Junior’s house, unfortunately, was built right on the shaved-off top of a little hillock that overlooks the creekbed. And when that Lincoln crashed into it, the force of the impact just sort of broke that house in two, and the front piece slid off the far side of that hillock and into the creekbed. The back end of the house, once it was no longer anchored in place by the front end, was free to slide right off the back side of the hillock and more or less just sort of swallow up that Lincoln, Miss Petula and all. At the same time, what remained of the roof just sort of collapsed down real gently on to the top of the car, kind of like the top of a souffle falling as ft cools, penning Miss Petula inside.

Well, it shouldn’t come as any big surprise that right about now Sheriff Duncan was starting to feel like he was in a Twilight Zone episode or something, what with such an innocent act as taking a nap leading to such a bizarre and unlikely chain of events. And just to complete the picture, as if things weren’t crazy enough, from out of nowhere appeared both old Joe Senior, who’s been an insurance agent in these parts for probably twenty years, and his son Joe Junior, who for two years now has been working as a photographer for the Crenshaw Weekly while moonlighting taking pictures for his father’s agency. And they began scurrying all around the place, like a pair of mice in a cheese factory, taking measurements and shooting pictures for all the world like they were planning to file an insurance claim right at that very moment, with neither one of them even noticing that Miss Petula was still in the car trapped under that collapsed roof.

Needless to say, when it finally dawned on him what the two of them were doing, the sheriff pretty much just exploded into a fit of apoplexy. After all, there he was worrying about whether Miss Petula was even alive, and maybe wondering a little what he would do if she wasn’t, what with her pretty much being a permanent fixture in his life, not to mention his one and only dominoes partner, throughout these past sixty-odd years, and those two bone-heads were down there taking pictures for an insurance claim for all the world like she wasn’t even there!

Well, after several futile attempts to draw the attention of the Walkers to the plight of Miss Petula by shouting at them, the sheriff abandoned the attempt and began searching for some alternative course of action. And to his everlasting embarrassment and regret, what caught his attention at that very moment was the winch that was attached to the front end of the pickup truck, which was still sitting there next to the bottom of that fallen utility pole.

With the line from the winch securely fastened to the portion of Joe Junior’s roof that was resting on top of Miss Petula’s Lincoln, Sheriff Duncan threw the switch and started reeling it in. And once the change in the whine of the winch told him that it was pulling a load, he crossed the highway and sat down on the shoulder to catch his breath and watch what was happening down below.

And of course, as if old Rod Serling himself was behind the scenes manipulating events, things just proceeded to get stranger and stranger. Because the piece of roof that was sitting on top of that Lincoln lurched forward no more than a couple of feet before it caught on something and stopped. But the winch kept winding away, the pitch of its whine getting higher and higher all the while, until there was a loud, wrenching sound and that truck started to roll forward. And wouldn’t you know it, that old winch just pulled that truck right back across the ditch, up onto and across the highway, and down the hill on the other side, barely missing taking the sheriff with it.

Right on down the hill it went, jostling and bouncing and picking up speed all the way. By the time the sheriff had climbed to his feet and started racing down the hillside, it’d passed right through the opening in Joe Junior’s hedge opened by Miss Petula’s Lincoln and crashed into the Walkers, who didn’t see it coming on account of being so totally engrossed in assessing the damage to what appeared to be the remains of a lawn jockey, scattering them across the yard like they were bowling pins.

Without even slowing down, it raced on across the yard and crashed right into the back of the Lincoln, and the force of the impact was so great that it pushed the Lincoln the rest of the way into what was left of Joe Junior’s house, and the pickup just sort of slipped right into the opening that was left when the Lincoln moved on. Only the pickup was taller than the Lincoln, and when it slipped into that opening, it sort of just popped that section of roof right up into the air. Which lifted more or less straight up for several feet, then came crashing down with considerable force right on top of the pickup, crushing the truck’s roof and popping the windows right out of their frames and the hubcaps right off the wheels.

It was an awful sight to see, the way the bodies and all the bits and pieces of debris were strewn all over Joe Junior’s yard, and the way the house had pretty much been reduced to just a pile of rubble. And when Sheriff Duncan finally came running into the yard, huffing and puffing so hard his face was beet red, and saw what he’d done, he figured that for him the game was pretty much over. If Miss Petula hadn’t been killed by the original crash, she was surely dead by now. And even though he’d never in a million years let on to anybody how he felt about her, the thought that she might be dead was too horrifying to even entertain.