Out of the Shadows (24 page)

The world around me froze, as if a crystalline sheet of ice enveloped the ground, seeping up my body, into my mouth and encompassing my lungs, rooting within me so deeply that all time ceased to pass. I stood at the fence, potentially my escape route, and watched as the dead Cole Westfall walked down the side of the Martinez House, away from me. My senses dulled, and great plumes of frosty exhaust expelled from my open, chapped lips. Blood rushed through my veins as my heart contracted far faster than normal. All sound seemed muffled, and my body went numb. I could feel my sanity slowly slipping away.

Was I supposed to follow him
toward
the police cars? I imagined my own body flailing with spasms of torturous agony as I became riddled with the bullets of misplaced fear from the officers. Surely, Cole wasn’t trying to tell me that it was all over, and I should give up! There had to be a greater realization ahead, or the boy would have become satisfied and crossed-over into peacefulness away from this world.

No, this was not over. Nor had Cole yet steered me in the wrong direction.

The cold December air became more frigid as the day waned, and snowflakes began to lightly flutter to the solid earth under my feet. As the courage to follow him nurtured my exhausted body, the sounds of commotion from within the Martinez House snapped me back to the task at hand.

I ran from the fence toward Cole, slowing as I caught up to him, staying crouched against the solid structure of the house. As I neared the corner, I cautiously peeked around to survey the scene. Red and blue lights flooded the front yard in nauseating patterns. I looked and listened, spotting three squad cars and overhearing shouts and footsteps within the house.

In a stroke of incredible luck, only one officer stood crouched by his car, weapon trained on the front door; the other officers were storming the house and no doubt getting ready to question little Daniel.

Using the foliage that lined the driveway, I crept with cautious fastidiousness toward the street. At the end of the line of greenery, I halted and closed my eyes. Now what? Cole stood beside me, having no need to hide from the likes of those who could not see him, and he offered me no assistance.

I knew that any moment now, they would realize I was no longer in the house, whether because Daniel would tell them, or they’d complete their search and see the open window. I would not make it far on foot, not with three cruisers so closely on my tail. I begged for the cover of night to cloak my escape, thinking that it likely would have been a better idea to have gone to work this morning and pursued these answers afterward.

I wasn’t sure what I intended to do, but I continued inching forward, crouched as low to the ground as possible while remaining on my feet. I scurried around the tail end of the first police car, holding my breath from the car’s exhaust, trying to keep as much cover as possible between the house and me.

“There she is! By the police car!” came the frantic cry of a neighbor through his window across the street.

My eyes wide and my heart still, I gasped, my breath hanging in my throat for far too long. I heard the one officer near his car jump into action, calling out to the other officers inside. I panicked, and when one panics, rational thought tends to get tossed out the proverbial window.

I jumped into the squad car and slammed the door, thankful that the officers had left it running in their expedient exit to get into the Martinez House. Not even taking a second to recognize the insanity of my actions, I stomped my foot down onto the gas pedal, speeding off down the street.

As I turned the nearest corner ahead, I heard the
boom
of one gunshot being fired in my direction. Risking a glance into the rear-view mirror, I saw Detective Bailey run out of the house and chastise the officer that had fired. Any minute now, they would all be back in their cars in pursuit of me. Having a more conspicuous stolen car would not be possible if I had swiped a bright red Lamborghini, and the cruiser no doubt had some sort of tracking system in it.

Anything that needed to be done had to happen quickly, because I was running out of time to find answers.

As I sped through the neighborhood, the flashing light bar on the roof of the car giving away my position, I grew even angrier with Cole Westfall. The boy had single-handedly ruined my life in the span of eight hours. He sat in the passenger’s seat, looking like he felt sorry for me.

“What do you want from me?!” I demanded, wishing I had a way of blocking out my visions of the dead.

He pointed at the mini-computer mounted to the dashboard of the car as a flurry of vocal activity rattled from the intercom system, warning nearby patrols of my theft.

I grabbed the mouthpiece and screamed into it, “I didn’t kill anyone! Just leave me alone!” and threw it to the ground.

Many voices tried to communicate with me, but I turned the system off. I took a deep breath and wiped a few tears from my cheeks. My emotional dam teetered precariously on the edge of destruction, and I felt that the only thing that would quell the avalanche would be the one answer that Cole was unable to give.

As the snow began to thicken and fall more steadily, I weaved in and out of traffic, people making little effort to fully pull over to the side of the road for an oncoming police car. (Granted, the siren wasn’t on, nor did I know how to turn it on.) In a moment of light traffic, I quickly typed “Westfall” into the mounted mini-computer. After a few seconds, three entries filled the screen of different Westfall families within a ten-mile area.

“Which one?” I asked the boy, no longer attempting to hide my frustration and anger. Only this morning, I had felt sympathy for this child, and now I just wanted him out of my life – however much of it was left.

He slowly pointed at the second entry, a pained expression on his face, as if my tone had hurt his feelings.

I tapped on the Westfall listing, much harder than I needed to, and the screen changed into a GPS map leading me to the address. In the rear-view mirror, I saw the flurry of crimson and sapphire lights in the distance, reflecting from the cascading snowfall. In a split-second decision, I swerved to the right and onto the highway entrance ramp. As the GPS recalculated my route to the Westfall House, I decided to push random buttons and switches in the cab of the car in attempts to turn off the damning beacons.

Once the lights were extinguished, I sped down the highway, watching as the gray sky grew darker with the coming of twilight. Rush hour was near, and once that time had arrived, it would be impossible to get anywhere via automobile until long after dark.

I drove much too quickly, veering across lanes of traffic. Adrenaline rushed through my body as the end of everything drew closer. Above me, I heard the roar of a helicopter engine swooping into the chaotic fray. It was improbable that I could ditch them now. I continued down the highway, foot pressing ever harder on the accelerator, my speed growing to dangerous maximums.

“Melissa Perdition,” came the amplified command from the helicopter above. “Pull over to the shoulder and turn off the engine.”

I ignored the order, swerving around a semi-truck.

“Pull over, and exit the vehicle with your hands on your head!”

I would not give up until my task was completed! I took a curve in the highway faster than the warning sign recommended, barely maintaining control of the vehicle. By this point, fury flooded my brain, clouding any sort of judgment. I tore open the glove compartment box, removing a small handgun from within. According to the GPS, I would exit from the highway in three miles.

One year ago, I had been happy. I had had a creative passion for writing that I indulged on a weekly basis, if not daily. I had had pleasant phone calls with my family. I had enjoyed my morning walks to work. I had taken part in the occasional night out with a close circle of friends. And then one night, I had lost control of my car, and everything changed. I desperately longed for the return of my passion.

I rolled down the window and stuck my head out, heart filled with burning agony, staring up at the chopper with wild eyes.
“Leave me alone!”
I screamed up at them, waving the gun out the window in an attempt to scare them off.

I saw the air vehicle pull back from my threat of violence, staying a safe distance away from the psychologically unstable Melissa Perdition. My speed persisted as I continued, pounding on the steering wheel, tears streaming down my face. What on earth was I doing? Fleeing from the cops with recklessness and total abandon, waving a gun around!
A gun!
Tossing the weapon into the backseat, I felt an emotional explosion welling within me, seeing no more use in holding back.

I looked at the spirit of Cole Westfall and demanded through hysterical sobs,
“What the hell do you want from me?!”

Frustration blurred my vision as I noticed a sudden oddity about him. Wiping my eyes on my sleeve, I saw that he stared straight ahead, his dull eyes wide with fear, his chest rapidly expanding and contracting, like he was hyperventilating.

When I looked forward, gazing through the thick blanket of snowfall, my own heart stopped and my throat clenched, stealing my breath away. I slammed on the brakes, forcing the car to skid a great distance before coming to rest in the middle of the highway. Surrounding cars blared their horns, swerving around me, many of them coming dangerously close to rear-ending the police car. The helicopter now hovered above me, waiting to see my next move.

But I was no longer thinking of the pursuit. I stared ahead at the road, a sudden paralyzing terror encroaching upon me. This was it. This was where I had swerved and lost control of my car one year ago, colliding with the metal guardrail in the median, sending me crashing into another vehicle and spiraling through the air.

As I stared ahead, my cruel mind forced me to relive it vividly.

I’m listening to classical music. I’m smiling and at peace. The semi in front of me skids. Horns honk as I swerve through the median. I try to maintain control, but I collide with another car. I go airborne, my coupe spinning through the sky, and the world is up then down then up, nausea overtaking me. I land painfully on the highway, upside down, sparks igniting the chilled evening air.

Through blurred vision, I make out the totaled car ahead of me – the one I hit. I see the man in the driver’s seat, unconscious. I see the woman next to him, trying to shake him awake. She turns to the back seat, still frantic, but I cannot see to whom she is talking. She grows hysterical and sobs, her focus fixed on the back. Everything is blurry, yet I know that once I see, I will understand.

I am in the hospital now, barely conscious after many surgeries. I hear the nurses talking.
“It’s so tragic,”
one of them says.
“Someone from the other car didn’t make it. He had massive internal hemorrhaging, and when…”
and I stop listening, because I don’t want to hear anymore.

Except, I
do
hear her. I simply choose to forget what she says because the truth is too awful. But I cannot forget anymore.
“He had massive internal hemorrhaging,”
she says. I fight to remember the rest of her sentence.
“He had massive internal hemorrhaging, and when… and when…”

So close.

I feel the truth at the tip of my mind, but it foolishly tries to protect me.
“…and when you’re dealing with injuries that serious in someone so young, time is of the essence.”
But I know there is more. She says one more thing after that. What is it? I can hear her.

“He was only…”
Only what? I try so hard to remember, but I know my mind does not want me to.
“He was only… He was only… He was only…”
And finally, the final word comes back to me.

“He was only twelve…”

I’m suddenly back in my upside-down car again. Blood begins to obscure my vision, and the smell of charred metal singes my nostrils. I see the woman finally shake the man awake. She is sobbing so hard. She is devastated. She turns once more to the backseat, and finally, I see. I see who is in the backseat, dead.

Cole Westfall
…

Shaking the gruesome memory from my vision, I now stared through the wall of white snow at the median where my life changed one year ago, my mind finally unlocking itself, revealing to me the true horror of my accident. I looked over at the dead boy in the seat next to me, hands covering my mouth. My eyes stung with shame and regret, tears brimming my eyelids. He looked at me with sympathy, as if he felt a deep ache for me in this moment.

“Cole,” my voice cracked. I cried now, saying his name out loud for the first time. I sat in the stolen police cruiser, sobbing hysterically into my hands. My emotional dam had finally shattered.

“I’m...” I bawled, gasping for a breath of air, unable to say what I meant. “Cole,” I said once more, finally understanding everything that had happened this day. “I’m so sorry.”

He lifted his hand tenderly, placing it over my heart, just like I had seen the grandfather do to Daniel. I felt warmth envelop me, and I was once again able to breathe.

I inhaled deeply to calm myself and said, one more time, “I’m so,
so sorry
.”