Peter Clement: The Inquisitor

I felt a stab of panic. What if I couldn't think of something in time? Garnet could be here any second.

Once started, doubts nattered through me with the speed of a computer virus, and I knew for certain that all my plans, my subterfuge would end in disaster here at this last step.

The cries from the direction of the wrecked car below grew weaker. Or had the sound of the rain swelled? Its drumming disoriented me, the sameness of the noise as ubiquitous and confusing as the lack of visual markers in the darkness. My sense of up and down came only from the hard ground beneath my feet, and I widened my stance to better keep my balance.

Time played tricks as well. As I stood there, desperate for a way to deal with Garnet, the minutes oozed by so slowly they seemed to stand still. I nearly wore out the light on my watch checking it. Maybe I'd misjudged and Earl wouldn't show.

Eventually a white glow appeared beyond a line of bushes up beside the highway as a slowly moving vehicle drove into view. The lights, front and back, defined the shape of a van. It slowed and parked at an angle, the high beams on full. To my relief, the heavy rain made it impossible to see beyond a few hundred feet into the ravine.

The interior of the cab blazed white as the driver opened his door, and I saw Garnet slide out from behind the wheel. His tall figure became a silhouette as he started down the grade, flashlight in hand.

The sight of the man who had been my teacher, who would soon die, set my heart pounding, and I began to shake.

Yet borne on that same surge of adrenaline, the scenario I needed to explain his death crept to mind.

Rain stung Earl's face.

Wet clothes clung to his skin.

But he felt only the gut-shredding, ice-water terror that he'd find Janet dead.

If he found her body at all.

Either way, the answer lay in the field ahead. If she wasn't down there, he'd no idea where else to look.

The sodden ground had already soaked his shoes up to the laces in black paste. He watched for downed wires as best he could, yet with everything so slippery, he might just as likely slide into a live one as step on it. And he'd treated enough accidental electrocutions to know that circuit breakers didn't always trip the way they were supposed to.

But his desperation to reach Janet overrode everything. Despite poor footing, he walked briskly, his flashlight providing a ghostly pale orb that wobbled over the uneven ground. Beyond this little sphere, land and sky fused into a dizzying void, and the hissing patter of rain shredded by ragged, quick strokes of his own breathing were all he could hear.

His beam caught a solitary large tree surrounded by an apron of glitter.

What the hell?

He ran toward it.

Soon his shoes crunched on fragments of broken glass. The ground was too messy to show him any tracks, but the surface of the trunk seemed abraded, and the rough bark had picked up a smear of dark green paint.

His heart leapt as he played his light in a circle. No car, but off to the left lay what looked like an elongated twist of muddy cloth.

Oh, God, he thought.

As he ran closer, he couldn't tell if its color was the beige of Janet's raincoat. A few seconds later he made out the dark hair.

Thomas!

His body lay on its side, arms above his head as if he'd been dragged there, legs akimbo. Earl knelt by the young man and felt for a pulse at his neck.

The carotid artery rose firmly, a bit fast, but strong and regular.

He leaned down and put his ear to Thomas's open mouth.

Normal breathing.

He forced one eyelid open, saw a reactive pupil, then did the same on the other side with an identical result.

A quick check of the trunk and extremities verified no external bleeding to speak of.

Just a nasty looking bruise on the side of his temple.

He must have been thrown out of the car. Whether his neck had escaped injury and the cervical spine remained intact, he couldn't tell without a proper examination. Bottom line, nobody moved him until he had a support collar.

But where was Janet?

And the car?

He desperately played the light around him.

Nothing but the flash of wet grass, leaves, and bushes glimmered back at him.

The vehicle must have continued down the slope.

"Janet!" He sprinted in the direction it would have rolled, the rain smothering his cry.

Another hundred feet, off to the right, the red wink of a brake light caught the edge of his beam. He spun toward it and saw her car on its side in the middle of the creek, the undercarriage of rods, pipes, and cylinders glinting at him like the tightly packed innards of an open abdomen.

"Janet!"

His stomach clenched down so hard that its juices surged to the back of his throat. The burning fluid made him gag. He rounded the back of the car and probed the interior with his light, clamoring up the leather roof to reach the door on the driver's side. He saw her slumped and motionless, crumpled in the passenger compartment, her legs half submerged in water red with blood.

The fear he'd contained until now exploded in his chest. He heard himself screaming her name, but his voice sounded as if from someone else far off in the darkness as he yanked at the handle.

He couldn't open it.

He scrambled up to stand astride the door and heaved on the grip with both hands.

Nothing moved.

He stomped the window.

It crisscrossed into a webbing of cracks.

He whipped off his jacket, wrapped it around his fist, and punched a small hole. Wanting to prevent pieces from falling on Janet, he reached in and slammed the pane from inside, sending showers of small, round fragments flying outward. It took several blows to clear it entirely.

But when he reached for the internal handle, he found it snapped off.

Frustration soared.

Using his flashlight, he knocked away the remnants of glass stuck around the edge of the frame and thrust himself through the opening, straining to grasp Janet.

Her head lay slumped forward on her chest so he couldn't see her eyes. But with her pallor in the light, she looked already dead.

His free hand grabbed her left arm, draped as if she were gesturing up at him, and the cold clammy surface of the skin terrified him.

"Oh, please, God, no!" He fumbled to find a pulse in her wrist.

It felt cold and lifeless.

He struggled to get closer, but wedged himself at the waist in the window frame. He propped the flashlight between the seats, and gently pulled her toward him.

"Oh, please, please, please," he whispered, sliding his fingertips into the depression where her carotid artery lay.

It fluttered like a frightened bird, the pulse weak, twice as fast as normal, but there. Definitely there.

"Janet! Janet! Janet, it's me!" He clasped her head between his hands and raised it so he could see her face. Her eyes remained closed, but she moaned, and her arms stirred, weakly shoving at his. The beam from the light cast her features in grotesque shadows, exaggerating a growing look of fear.

"It's all right, Janet. It's me, Earl," he reassured, frantic over what injuries she and the baby might have, at the same time desperate not to show it. "Everything's all right-"

Her lids shot up, her pupils flared wide, and she screamed, flailing at him with her fists.

"Janet! It's me, Earl! Earl!"

She froze. Her shimmering eyes darted in all directions, and he wondered if she could see him. "Earl?" The word floated from the depths of her chest on a long held breath.

"Yes! And now I'm going to get you out of here-"

"But the baby…"

"We'll take care of everything and he'll be fine."

"You don't understand." Her frail voice wafted between them, no stronger than a whisper.