Ken Douglas - Scorpion

He took her hand again and gave it a gentle squeeze, then he turned away and went back down on all fours. She followed and again she was in the dark and again she felt the chili whillies shoot through her, but this time she wasn’t alone, because she grabbed onto one of Broxton’s feet as he crawled ahead and not God or the devil himself could have made her let go.

Then they were through it and on the other side. She let go of his foot and he took her hand again and led her up the embankment, onto the far side of the highway. Then she saw why she’d heard no traffic sounds. The car that hit them had itself been rear ended and the result was an accident on the bridge, causing traffic to be backed up in both directions. People were out of their cars, some were helping the victims on the bridge, others were in the park assisting the taxi driver and still others were watching, talking, laughing, having a good time, enjoying the excuse to take a few minutes off toward the end of the day. Most of the drivers were apparently viewing the accident more as entertainment than aggravation.

The BMW was sitting four cars back from the bridge. It was unoccupied.

“ Come on,” Broxton said, leading Maria over to the car. He peeked in the open window. “Keys are in it. Let’s go.”

“ You’re not going to take the car?”

He turned and faced her, smiled, and without a word, opened the door and tossed the bags onto the back seat.

“ But that’s stealing.”

“ Better hurry, before they come back,” he said, getting in. She hurried around to the passenger side. Broxton had the engine started before she had the door closed.

Broxton threw the car in reverse and backed up till he tapped the car behind, then he shifted into drive, cranking the wheel all the way to the right, moving forward till he bumped the car in front. The accident on the bridge had traffic backed up for miles and the cars were packed in tight. There was only inches between bumpers.

The driver behind saw what he was trying to do and backed up a few inches, giving him that much more room to maneuver. Broxton stuck a hand out the window and flashed him the peace sign and the driver responded with a short honk.

“ Friendly people,” he said.

“ Seems so,” she answered. He liked the sound of her voice. It had a smile in it despite everything she’d been through.

“ Stop them,” a voice rang out.

“ You better hurry,” she said and Broxton backed up till he tapped the bumper again, cranked the wheel and moved forward, but he still didn’t have enough room to make the turn and get out of the squeeze.

“ Two of them and they’re running,” Maria said. Broxton didn’t see them but he heard the urgency in her voice and he jammed the BMW back into reverse, this time tapping the car harder then he’d done the last two times and this time the honk wasn’t as short and didn’t sound as friendly.

“ They’re getting closer,” she said, as he again cranked the wheel and bumped the car in front, this time pushing it a few inches forward before throwing it back into reverse and hitting the car in the rear. Hard. The driver behind responded with a loud, steady honk, not friendly at all anymore.

“ They’ve got guns,” she said and Broxton cranked the wheel and stepped on the gas. He hit the front car’s bumper with a hard glancing blow, but he was able to squeeze out and he turned onto the right shoulder.

“ They’re getting ready to shoot,” she said. Broxton put his foot to the floor and the BMW responded like the thoroughbred that it was, tires spinning, sending dirt and grass flying from behind as they flew along the stalled cars going in the opposite direction.

“ Cross there,” she said, and Broxton followed her pointed finger, spinning the wheel to the left. They charged across the wide center strip. Then they had the two lanes all to themselves as they sped toward the city and away from the danger behind.

“ Lookout!” she screamed. Broxton stomped on the brakes and swerved to avoid an old four wheel drive Toyota Land Cruiser that turned onto the highway going the wrong direction. They started to slide toward the car and all Broxton could see was the flashing blue light on top of the Toyota.

The policeman’s reaction was faster than his and the Land Cruiser swerved and jerked out of the way as Broxton clung to the wheel. They slid sideways past the police cruiser and Maria screamed, jerking Broxton’s gaze off of the whites of the policeman’s eyes and back onto the road. He pulled himself back together and pulled the wheel into the direction of the slide as he pulled his foot off the brakes, attempting to bring the car back under control.

But the car resisted and Broxton panicked and jammed his foot back on the brakes, sending the car into a three hundred and sixty degree spin. The outside circled by and he saw lightning glimpses of houses, highway and hills as Maria’s scream mingled with the sound of the squealing tires.

Most cars would have rolled, but the stable BMW came to a jerky stop in the center of the road and Broxton quickly shifted into neutral.

“ Son of a bitch, you sure know how to scare the shit out of someone,” Maria said, as Broxton leaned back and sighed.

“ I lost it for a second,” he said, ashamed. Then he added, “It’s been a few years since I’ve done any driving on the left.”

“ But we made it,” she said.

He turned to look at her and laughed.

“ What’s so funny?” she asked.

“ You should see yourself.” Her blouse and slacks were torn and covered with the drying mud and muck from the river. The stuff was already turning hard on her skin. Her shoes looked like she’d been walking through a cow pasture. She raised a hand to her face, then her hair, and she laughed, too.

“ We’re a mess,” she said.

The police car, small in the distance, turned around, blue light still flashing.

Broxton glanced into the rearview mirror. “He’s coming back.”

Maria turned around. “But the accident is back there.”

“ I thing it’s time to make ourselves scarce.”

“ Why? We haven’t done anything wrong.”

Broxton put the car back into gear. “I don’t think they know that,” he said. Then he shoved in the clutch and for a few seconds he was a kid again, reliving his high school nights on Cherry Avenue, drag racing all comers, in his souped up ’56 Chevy Nomad, on the mile stretch of road that lay straight between the two cemeteries. The never ending everybody cemetery on the right and the perfectly manicured Catholic cemetery on the left.

He felt Maria next to him as she was pushed back into the seat, but he kept his eyes on the road and reveled in the sound of the squealing tires. Then the tires dug into the pavement. Broxton popped the clutch and shoved it into second, grinning as the tires chirped, then he was in third and sneaking a glance in the rearview. The police cruiser was turning into a speck in the distance.

“ Another one,” she said, her voice calm, like a copilot’s, but tense like the plane was going down.

“ I see it,” he said. The second cruiser was coming head on, driving on the wrong side of the street as the two lanes leaving Port of Spain were backed up because of the accident.

“ What are you going to do?” she said, voice still calm, tense.

“ See who’s chicken,” he said, shifting into fourth. He stole a look at the speedometer and he wondered how fast two hundred kilometers an hour was. He didn’t have time to do the math, but he knew he was flying. And he was still acting the teenager on Cherry Avenue. Playing chicken with a fast car was no new game to him, but he was gambling that it was to the driver of the blue Land Cruiser that was looming larger in his windscreen with each heartbeat.