Майкл Корита - If She Wakes

The kid said, “Abby,” in a warning voice, but it barely penetrated the fog.

Going to crash. I am going to crash and I’m going to take one of these poor people out with me, because there is nowhere to go, when I black out I am going to hit them or they are going to hit me and then we’ll be skidding together through the night on the wet road, glass breaking and blood flowing and screams, someone will be screaming, but there is nothing I can do to stop it, because there is no...

She saw the gap in the guardrail of the median just ahead. It looked freshly cut, probably the result of an accident, some other night when they’d pulled dead bodies out of mangled cars. It was small, a narrow opening, not meant for access, but...

“He left the road at ninety, that’s all there is to say,” her father sang.

Faster, Luke said.

Abby pounded the accelerator; the Hellcat roared and the Pirellis spun, hunting for traction, then caught and hammered the car forward. As she shifted in front of the car on her left side, a horn blew, piercingly loud, but by then Abby was out in front and angling farther left, the guardrail looming, the gap in it no more than fifteen feet long, maybe just ten, an almost impossibly narrow target to slip through at this speed and in this rain...

She made it without creasing either side of the car. Shot the gap and pounded the brakes and brought the car to a fishtailing stop in the grassy median between northbound and southbound lanes, plowing a furrow of damp sod beneath the tires.

She fell back against the seat, gasping and half smiling, almost oblivious to the horns and the rain, aware of nothing but the victory of having gotten off the road without harming anyone.

Safe, she thought, and only then did she realize the muzzle of the gun was pressed against the side of her head.

“What are you doing?” Dax said.

“I need to breathe.”

“What?”

“I just need to—”

“If you get the cops called, a lot of people are dying tonight. You’ll be the first but not the last. You better back this thing up and get moving right now or I promise, Abby, you’re going to—”

“I just need to breathe!” Abby screamed.

The kid pulled the gun away and stared at her. Abby shoved the gearshift into park and leaned her head back against the seat and sucked in air as sweat trickled down her face in cool rivulets. The sweat was good; the cooling was good; everything needed to cool down, it had gotten too hot in here, it had gotten dangerously hot and—

Faster. Faster! Slow down. Slow down!

It had almost gone very badly.

“You’re freaking out,” Dax said. “What’s going on? Scared of the gun, Abby? You’ve done so well with it. I can’t put it away. I don’t think we have the necessary trust for that.”

Abby didn’t answer. Just closed her eyes and concentrated on that slow, sweet cooling. Tried to listen to the rain, hoping it would drown out Luke’s voice. Faster, Luke said, then Slow down! he screamed.

Shut up, Abby thought. Please, baby, just shut up for one night so I can do this thing. So I can see morning. Then come back and talk all you want and I’ll listen forever, no matter how miserable it is, but for this one night, just please... be quiet. Let me drive.

“So this is why Abby Kaplan came back to Maine,” Dax said. “You’re not hiding from media. You really can’t do it anymore, can you? You lost the nerve.”

Abby still didn’t speak.

“What a sorry shame,” Dax said. “End of a good run for you, wasn’t it? But that’s of no interest to me. And the longer we sit here, the more likely it is that a cop joins us.” He shifted around in the darkness and leaned forward and suddenly Abby’s hands, which were still on the steering wheel, were bound tight and zipped together by a plastic cord that bit into her skin.

“Get out and trade seats with me. Do it quick and do it calm, or I will shoot. There is no more patience.”

Abby fumbled with the door handle, struggling with her bound wrists, then stepped out into the pouring rain. She didn’t mind it. The rain was cold, and the rain was clean.

The kid pushed open the passenger door, then slid across into the driver’s seat, and he lifted the gun and pointed it at Abby’s face as she stood there in the downpour.

“Your choice,” he said. “Die there and leave the sweet Beckley sisters to me, or get back in and ride. Good news — you don’t have to drive anymore, Anxious Abby.”

I got one thousand dollars, Hank Bauer had said on a humid July night at a New Hampshire speedway, that says that little girl kicks all their asses and wins this thing.

Abby was fifteen years old and couldn’t drive legally on a highway, but she won that night on the track. Hank gave her half the money, and they’d piled into his truck with her father and driven into the night with the windows down and Green Day loud on the radio, and Abby’s future was firm.

The world was hers that night, and she understood that all she needed was four good tires to take it.

She looked up the highway now, through the rain and into the blur of oncoming headlights, and then she walked around the car, past those beautiful Pirellis, and toward the passenger seat. The door was open, waiting, rain streaming down the interior panel. Lightning strobed, illuminating the car, and Abby saw the kid’s cell phone. It was on the floor mat on the passenger side. He’d dropped it, maybe when he’d slid into the driver’s seat or maybe when Abby had shot the gap into the median.

And I made the gap too. Not all bad. It was reaction, not strategy, but I still made it.

“Get in,” Dax said, and he cocked the revolver.

Chill rain streamed down Abby’s spine in ribbons. She stood there for just a second longer, just enough to make sure that the kid’s focus was on her face. Then she made a show of tumbling awkwardly into the passenger seat and fell forward, almost across the gearshift, as she landed.

Dax’s attention stayed on her. He did not follow the motion of Abby’s right foot, did not see her lower her shoe onto the phone and slide it backward, did not hear it clatter up and over the door frame and out into the rain.

“Get off me!” he snapped.

Abby leaned back, said, “Sorry,” then turned her bound wrists toward the door, grasped the handle, and slammed it shut. She moved quickly, but she got a last glimpse of the phone sitting there in the rain.

Did it matter? Probably not. For a moment, though, Abby had taken one thing from him. He wouldn’t be able to play Shannon Beckley’s voice for a little while. It wasn’t much — wasn’t anything, maybe — but it felt like a victory. She’d taken something from him.

And I made the gap. Thought I couldn’t do it, thought we were going to die in the rain, maybe die with other people too, innocent strangers, all of us burning in the rain because I couldn’t hold myself together. But that didn’t happen. I saw the gap, and I took it.

I fucking took it.

The kid leaned toward her, shoved the muzzle of the revolver under her chin, and forced her head up. His face was shadowed by the black baseball cap, but you could still see the smile.

“Pretty-boy Luke London did a real number on you, didn’t he?”

Abby went for him then. She lunged forward, trying to snap her forehead off the kid’s nose, not fearing the gun any longer, scarcely aware of it.

When he hit her behind the ear with the barrel, Abby sagged and her vision went black, but she could still hear the rain.

Then he hit her again, and this time the sound of the rain went away too.