M Sellars - Never Burn A Witch

Which one of us impacted the other first was a point of contention I wasn’t particularly interested in arguing at the moment. The simple fact was that he had every intention of running me off the road and down the embankment. At this juncture he was succeeding beyond any shadow of a doubt.

The sound of creasing metal joined with his screaming gearbox and protesting engine to form a madman’s symphony of anger. Inertia was on his side, and with the van being much larger than my truck, I was being forced at an angle onto the gravelly shoulder.

A stiletto of pain twisted behind my eyes as the earlier throb in my temples imploded. Blinking back tears I forced myself to remain focused. I fought to crank the steering wheel to the left and then floored the accelerator with no effect.

Reaching down, I locked the shift lever into low four and gunned the engine once again. Loose gravel slung from beneath my tires as all four wheels engaged in a high-torque distribution of the power, but the measure was too little, too late and met with only limited success. For every inch I would gain, it seemed his mass would push me back three.

The passenger side door let out a dull scrape as the truck bounced against the metal post of a traffic sign and dragged slowly along. I could hear the hateful cry of the van’s gears as he shifted to apply more force against my vehicle. If things continued at the current pace, I was going to be rolling down a hill in less than half a minute.

In desperation I let off the gas and jammed on the brakes. As my truck continued scraping along the signpost, I rammed the shift lever on the column into reverse while straightening out the wheels then jumped on the gas pedal.

In the mixing din of the two battling engines, my truck bucked against the van, and with the scream of ripping sheet metal, it lurched backward. I immediately pulled the steering wheel hard to the left to keep from propelling myself down the embankment or into the overpass abutment. There was a loud thud and the sound of shattering glass as the passenger side mirror was ripped from the door by the signpost. The front quarter panel dragged roughly against the metal stanchion, and the corner of my bumper caught it hard, causing the truck to shudder, but I continued moving. The driver’s side was still scraping against the side of the killer’s vehicle as he continued his angle of attack.

Another loud crack issued as the driver’s side mirror disintegrated against the black van, and my truck made a sudden lurch rearward. The moment my headlights cleared his bumper, I slammed on the brakes and jerked to a halt.

The panel van itself leaped forward with equal force once the resistance of my truck had been removed. Without a moment’s hesitation, he serpentined back into the lane and sped off.

A brief moment of calm ebbed through the cab as I sat watching the taillights of the van disappear into the thick fog. The fleeting instant of quiet was quickly replaced by the ambient noises around me.

A thick rush filled my ears, and I realized that I was panting hard just to get air past the goiter of fear that was currently setting up house in my throat. The intense pain that had been ricocheting around inside my skull was now settling in for an extended stay and hadn’t even begun to show signs of dulling. But worst of all, a violent itch had burst forth on my forearm, and I knew it would soon be a festering wound. My best guess was that he had already kidnapped someone else before he ever came looking for me.

Through it all a dulcet-toned singer was melodiously relaying a story about a highwayman and his one true love as the in-dash changer continued to randomly shuffle between the loaded CD’s.

I pressed the stick into high four and cranked the shift on the column into drive. I had come this far, and I wasn’t about to lose him now, especially if he had someone in the van with him.

This had to end, and stealth was suddenly no longer an issue.

It didn’t take long for me to catch up to him. For all I know he wanted me to, but it didn’t really matter. All that was important to me at this point was that he was not going to get away. I was charged by an absolute resolve to see to it no one else was made to suffer.

Everything I had seen in the past weeks was flashing before me in billowing Technicolor with an emotional soundtrack comprised of self-imposed guilt. I hadn’t been able to pick out the clues we needed and people had died. I had been so off-center that a young woman had been tortured for an entire week, and even though I knew it was happening, I couldn’t find a way to make it stop. Now, it was entirely possible that this killer had yet another victim in hand, and I knew I would never be able to live with another Amanda Stark on my conscience.

We were now at the opposite end of the Innerbelt and making the wide arc onto the eastbound leg of Highway 270. There were still no other vehicles to be seen on the road, and I fell in immediately behind him as we made the left hand merge into the empty fast lane.

My truck being lighter, I was now the one with the advantage. The speedometer needle climbed rapidly past 80 and had its sights set on 90 and beyond as I leaned on the accelerator and shot to the right to whip my vehicle up alongside his. Looking to my left I saw the side of the large delivery truck looming ever closer as it angled into me once again. I jerked the steering wheel hard and shunted right while urging my truck to go faster.

The density of the fog still obscured everything save for the occasional cluster of lights to one side or the other of the highway. Every now and then an illuminated highway sign would appear overhead in a flash of green and white then disappear behind us as if it had only been imagined.

The orange stylus of my speedometer was hovering just below the 100 mile per hour hash mark and the steering wheel was beginning to vibrate. I locked my arms to hold the truck on course, and the reverberations climbed up my arms to make my entire body shudder.

As we continued our weaving race, an old cliche passed through my head- There’s never a cop around when you need one.

We had been trading positions for several miles now as we weaved back and forth across the eastbound traffic lanes in a high-speed game of tag. The corridor we traveled had narrowed quickly as Highway 270 funneled down into two lanes in each direction. What seemed like a solid half hour had in reality been less than ten minutes. I was now positioned just off his right rear side and gaining fast. As I inched the nose of my truck up alongside, I caught a subtle leftward lean of the van and anticipated his next move.

As he quickly jerked to the right, I let off the gas and threw my own wheel to the left, crossing behind him, then punching down on the accelerator as my front bumper narrowly missed his rear. In a flash, not only had I gained but was now ahead of him by a half car length. With a yank I tilted my wheel back to the right and brought my truck directly in front of the van.

As I took my foot off the gas, I stiffened my arms to brace myself against the coming impact.

Even with my body stiff in preparation, my head snapped back hard as my rear bumper took the blow. The truck lurched forward, and I started pumping the brakes just before the van slammed into me once again.

The speedometer needle was dropping, and I watched in my rearview mirror as the large delivery truck tried to veer around me. Even through the stabs of pain in my skull, I anticipated his moves and canted my steering wheel with a frenzied motion to keep in front of him. Right now the only thing on my mind was stopping his vehicle. What I would do once I had accomplished that I still didn’t know.