Charles Williams - Hell Hath No Fury

I sat there for a minute slumped over the wheel listening to the mournful sound of the rain and feeling the sick emptiness of fear inside me. It was the thing which had been goading me down there in the clearing and while I was beating my brains out trying to get up the hill in the darkness. There was no way to get the car started, and I was at least twenty miles from town. Daybreak would catch me long before I could walk it. And if I left the car down here I might as well leave my card, with a note to the Sheriff.

I could see him getting his teeth into it—a man down there who’d accidentally shot himself through the head while I was parked here in the timber in my car because I thought it was a drive-in movie. Now wasn’t that a strange coincidence— I cursed, and tried to shut it off. There must be some way out.

How long would it take me to walk it? But I knew the answer to that. It’d take at least five hours. It’d be after eight o’clock before I got to town. A dozen people, or twenty, or even more, would see me, and they’d remember it. I knew how I must look, drowned and water-soaked, covered with mud, and my clothes torn where I’d fallen. Maybe I could push the car back on the road, and get it started downhill to crank it. I got out and felt around in the blackness to locate the trees behind it, cramped the wheels around, and went around in front. I put my shoulder against the grill, and heaved. My feet slid out from under me and I fell against the front of the car. I braced them and tried again, putting all my weight and the desperation and fear into it, and the car rolled back three or four inches, poised there, and then came back towards me. It was impossible. Four men couldn’t do it. It was slightly upgrade to the road, and I couldn’t do it if I tried for a week.

I’d been so near to winning. Right up to the time I’d leaned over to blow out that light I’d had the game in my hand, and now it was gone. I was done.

No, I wasn’t. The idea hit me with the suddenness of light, and I straightened up, feeling the hope surge through me. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? There was Sutton’s car. I could drive to town in it— No. That wouldn’t do.

That would still leave this one here. And how could they swallow an accidental death if his car had disappeared and turned up in town? But I was on the trail of it, and then I had it. Sutton’s car was the same make. I could change batteries with him.

But how about tools? Was there anything in the car I could use to disconnect the terminals? I grabbed the keys and ran around and opened the trunk enough to get my head and shoulders under it, and began pawing wildly around inside it with my hands. There was no use even reaching for a match. They were drowned long ago. I wondered if there was any light left in the world. Maybe I had gone blind and didn’t even know it. My hands bumped into something and I felt it over. It was a jack handle. And then I found the jack itself. Oh, God, I thought, there must be a pair of pliers, at least. There has to be.

Then I bumped into something and heard it rattle against the side. I groped for it and got it under my hand. My heart leaped. It was a pair of pliers. I let the door of the trunk down and went around to the battery. That terrible urgency had hold of me again, now that I could see a way out. How much longer did I have before daylight? There was no way to tell what time it was— Sure there was.

There’d be enough power in the battery to operate the lights for a few minutes. I pulled out the switch and the headlights came on very yellow and dim, and growing fainter as I looked at them. I ran around in front and looked at the watch. It was three-ten. I had to get this battery loose, walk back to the shack, get that one disconnected, and carry it back up the hill. Was there enough time?

I located the terminals. They were so covered with corrosion I couldn’t even tell where the bolt nuts were. I banged savagely on them with the pliers to break it loose and twisted at them with my hands. Oh, hell, I thought in agony, if I could only see! I opened the pliers and ground them harshly around the side of the connector. And then I could feel the nut. I put the pliers on it, tightened up, and turned. Nothing gave except the pliers slipped a little, chewing up the nut. I bore down again. It came that time. The bolt broke.

It’s all right, I thought crazily. It’s all right. They’re a press fit, and it’ll work without the bolt. All I have to do is drive it on. I started gouging frenziedly at the other one. The nut turned on it, and in a few minutes I had it off. I started to lift the battery out. No, I thought. Why carry it down there? When I get the other battery I can drive down with it.

I was ready to go. I put the pliers in my pocket and groped my way through the trees to the road. I hit it and started to run when the same thought occurred to me again. I wouldn’t be able to find the car when I came back. I wouldn’t have the horn to guide me, and I couldn’t see the handkerchief. It had probably washed away. I had to mark the place somehow. But how? Geez, I thought, I can’t stand here all night. I’ve got to do something. I leaped to the side of the road and started sweeping my arms around. I found a small pine and broke off a limb six or seven feet long, and threw it across the ruts. I’d run into it with my feet when I came back.

I turned then and started running downhill through the downpour, feeling the water slosh in my shoes. I lost track of the number of times I fell and how many times I blundered off the road. When I got down in the clearing and groped and stumbled my way into the yard in front of the shack, breathing was an agony, I wanted to lie down and rest. I felt my way to the car and when I got the door open I turned on the lights and held my watch under the dash. It said twelve minutes until four. I wanted to scream at it. It was lying. It hadn’t taken that long.

I ground savagely at the bolts through the battery connectors, trying to work too fast and fumbling. I dropped the pliers and had to grope around for them in the darkness. Suddenly I was conscious that I was whispering to myself. I was saying, “Hurry, hurry, hurry—” in a kind of chant that had been going on forever like the rain. I got both connectors loose at last and lifted the battery out. I had to be careful about falling now. If I dropped the battery on anything solid it would break open like an over-ripe squash.

It was nothing now but sheer nightmare. I wasn’t going forward any more. I was just moving my feet up and down in the same place with the same weight on my shoulders and the same rain coming down while time ran past me like a river around a snag. I couldn’t remember the turns in the road. I didn’t know how far I’d come, or how far I had to go. I must have passed the car. It couldn’t have been this far. Maybe I’d brushed past that limb and hadn’t noticed it. I’d never make it now.

And then I felt the limb against my leg. It was there. I swung off the road and started pushing my way through the trees in a frenzy to get it done, to be able to see again, and to get out of here before it was too late. And then it happened. My shoulder brushed hard against a tree trunk and it threw me off balance. The battery slipped out of my grasp and fell somewhere into the darkness ahead of me as I crashed to the ground. I heard it slam into a tree.

This was the end. It had just been teasing me all the time, and now I was really done. The battery was broken. I couldn’t even find it. I lay on my stomach in the water and wet pine needles and swept my arms around, trying to locate it and still afraid of what I’d find. My fingertips brushed it and I slid forward and got my hands on it. It was lying on its side. I rolled it upright and ran my hands around it to find out if the case was broken. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it seemed to be all right. There was a hole broken in the top of the middle cell, but both of the terminals felt solid. Maybe it was still all right.