Helpless

Chapter 49

Tom could feel the ground beneath him. His fingers dug at the dirt. Grass tickled his face. Jagged rocks pressed uncomfortably against his legs and arms. Tom thought he’d opened his eyes, but still couldn’t see. That was when he knew he’d been blindfolded. He listened for any recognizable sounds. But the only noise was a steady buzz that could have been insects or just his own drugged mind.

The ground beneath him seemed to be spinning. Each revolution came faster, turned tighter. He tried to swallow but gagged instead. His mouth had gone completely dry, beyond anything he imagined possible, as if every drop of moisture was being sucked up by an invisible sponge.

Someone pulled on his shirt. He felt himself dragged across the rocky ground and slammed up against the side of a car. He sat slumped on the ground, the car keeping him upright.

“Where are my drugs?”

Tom recognized the voice. His monotonous speech and raspy tenor were unmistakable.

Lange.

Tom labored to work his jaw, mouth, and swollen tongue to form his words. “What… drugs?” he managed to say.

“Not the ones I gave you, dumb ass,” Lange said to him. “You know what drugs I’m talking about. Look, Tom, you’re helpless out here. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

Tom heard a car approach and could tell by the sound of its tires that it had pulled to a stop close by.

Someone else is here.

Tom heard a car door open, then slam shut. He heard heavy footsteps crunching across the ground. He struggled to stand, but rough hands pushed him back down.

“Is he talking yet?” Tom heard a man say. He thought he knew that voice. Deeper than Lange’s. Gruff. But from where?

“Not yet,” Lange said.

“Tie his hands,” said the other man.

“Why? This guy is drugged out of his gourd.”

“No unnecessary chances. Remember?”

“Well, I can’t really see out here.”

“I’ll turn on his headlights.”

Moments later, Tom felt himself being thrown to the ground. He was again facedown in the dirt. Somebody wrenched his arms behind his back. The drugs made it impossible to resist. The rope wrapped around his wrists several times. Tom could tell it was made from nylon. He pushed against the rope as it was being secured, enough to hold his wrists slightly apart. It wasn’t a conscious act, so much as a reflex, his training kicking in, even though his thoughts were far from lucid. The spacing Tom created was slight, hardly enough for his captors to have noticed. They pushed him back up against the car.

“I’m going to ask you again,” Lange said. “And then we’re going to hurt you. Where. Are. My. Drugs?”

“What drugs?”

Tom couldn’t see the punch coming. He made no move to avoid it. A nanosecond passed between the moment Tom knew he’d been hit in the face and the first eye-stabbing jolt of pain. He felt his skin tear and knew the wetness dripping down his cheek was blood.

“Douche bag, I asked you a question. Where are my drugs? Where did you hide them?”

“Destroyed them… burned them up.”

“Bad answer,” Lange said.

The second blow struck Tom on the face, in the exact same spot as before. The pain doubled in intensity. Oddly enough, it gave Tom a little spark of awareness. He felt a tick or two stronger. He worked discreetly to loosen the rope binding his wrists and tried to conceal his panic when it seemed the space he had created might not be large enough. Tom knew he needed to buy himself more time. Lange and Mr. Mighty Punch had no intention of letting Tom live, even if he gave up the drugs’ hidden location.

“Can’t talk,” Tom croaked out. “Need water. Mouth too dry.”

“That’s a normal side effect of the drug,” Tom heard Lange say. “Get him something to drink.”

“He’s got water in his car.”

Tom heard footsteps crunching over dirt. Tom kept twisting his wrists, trying to work the rope free. He had more mobility than before.

“I can’t kill you,” Lange said to him. “I don’t want to hurt you to the point where you can’t talk, either. No use putting you in the hospital. So let me tell you what’s about to happen. Are you listening?”

Tom turned his head in Lange’s direction. “I’m sorry…. Were you talking to me?”

Lange laughed.

“Cute. Keep up the humor. You’re going to need it when I tell you that I’m about to leave you with my friend here and go get your daughter. She’s over at Lindsey’s house. Right? Studying for a chem test in the morning.”

Tom struggled again to free himself. He felt the rope starting to give. The buzzing in his head grew louder, like static from the radio blasting in both his ears.

“I’ll tell you…. I’ll tell you….”

“Good.”

“Just need water.”

Tom heard footsteps returning. Strong fingers pressed against his skull and pulled his head backward. Tom could smell the sour breath of whoever bent down to give him a drink. A plastic bottle touched against his mouth. Tom’s tongue slid out from between his cracked lips. Tom pushed his head away.

“What is it?” asked Tom.

“Water. Drink up,” the gruff-sounding man said.

Tom had wanted him to speak. Unable to see his target, Tom needed a sound cue to pinpoint his strike area. The man’s displeasing breath helped him lock on a target even more. With his wrists now free from the restraints, Tom swung his arms out from behind his back, hoping that he guessed the right level to grab hold of the man’s head.

Tom felt his hands grip a thick, round head.

Pay dirt.

Tom didn’t hesitate. The first rule of an attack is to keep on attacking.

Tom squeezed the man’s ears hard, as if they were a horse’s reins. He snapped his head forward, using the hairline area of his forehead as the striking surface. He aimed where he envisioned the man’s nose to be, heard a satisfying crunch, and felt the cartilage give way. The man didn’t scream, but Tom heard him fall.

Next, Tom ripped the blindfold from his eyes. His vision blurred by drugs and not yet adjusted to the light, he could see only Lange’s silhouette closing in fast. Maybe he was reaching for a gun, but Tom couldn’t tell. Falling to the ground, Tom slithered his body underneath the car and emerged on the other side. He used the car’s door handle for leverage to stand but still stumbled getting back to his feet. Tom noticed bright headlights to his right. They were shining on him.

He remembered they had used a car’s headlamp to illuminate his wrists when they bound them. The driver-side door looked open. Tom staggered toward the car. A gunshot rang out, but Tom didn’t turn to see what direction it came from. Instead, he jumped into the car, fumbled for the ignition, found the key, and fired up the engine.

Tom pressed down on the gas, and the car lunged forward, wheels bouncing into potholes and over rocks. He made four quick observations. First, they’d brought him to a clearing in the woods. He could see trees all around him. Second, there didn’t appear to be any other roads around, so the way in must also be the way out. Third, he’d actually taken his own car in the escape. He was driving the Taurus. Lange must have brought him to the clearing in the Impala, and the other guy had driven his car to the rendezvous spot. Maybe they were going to ditch the Taurus after Tom told them what they wanted to know.

The fourth observation was the only one that really mattered.

Lange was driving right behind him.

Glaring white lights from Lange’s Impala made it difficult for Tom to see the road ahead. A powerful jolt jarred his whole body. Lange had slammed Tom’s car from behind.

Here we go. Ford versus Chevy, thought Tom.

His heart raced and sputtered. His skin felt afire, but scratching didn’t abate the sensation. He wondered how long the drug would stay in his system. Lange bumped his car again. Tom kept driving, decelerating when he thought he saw traffic moving up ahead. He glanced down at the speedometer. Couldn’t read a single number.

The dirt road seemed to be ending. Tom jerked the steering wheel hard right and skidded onto a paved road. He heard Lange’s tires screech against the same asphalt not more than a hundred feet behind him.

The red taillights from the cars up ahead blurred together to form a single long and wavy neon light that danced before Tom’s eyes. Tom found his way into the center lane of a wide three-lane road. Cars were on every side of him. He could no longer see the road’s white-painted dividing lines. He didn’t know Lange was behind him until he felt another bump, this one hard enough to snap his head forward. The Taurus fishtailed several times, but Tom managed to straighten it out.

Tom pulled his car hard to the right. Glass broke and metal crunched as he plowed into the side of a car he didn’t see traveling beside him at the same rate of speed. The Taurus’s side mirror snapped free with a loud crack. Tom’s body shook violently from side to side, and he heard tires screeching and car horns blasting at him from all directions. He looked left and saw that Lange had pulled parallel to him in the adjacent lane. Tom jerked the steering wheel hard to the left and applied just enough brake to keep the Taurus from spinning 180 degrees around.

Sweat poured out his body and soaked his loose-fitting T-shirt. It stung at his eyes, making his already impaired vision even worse.

“Are you buckled?” Tom said aloud. He kept the pressure on the accelerator at a constant, while his hands held the steering wheel on a straight-ahead course. What little vision he had left went completely dark. Tom felt his eyelids begin to descend, as if lead weights were pulling them closed. His mouth had gone even drier, if that were possible. He didn’t know if he could hold his head up any longer. He just needed to sleep… to close his eyes… for just a moment.

Wake up! Wake up!

Tom came to. His internal voice had been screaming at him. His vision returned slightly, just enough for him to see a ball of red light coming toward him. As it neared, the ball grew from a barely visible speck to a blinding red glow. He could see other balls of red. Cars, Tom managed to think. Stopped at a traffic light. No time to brake.

Tom turned the wheel and punched the gas pedal to the floor. The car lurched forward with a force that made his stomach drop and his body go tense. He felt a violent jolt, and his whole body shook when Lange’s car slammed into the side of the Taurus. Their cars locked together.

Tom bit his tongue until blood began to seep into his mouth. The shock was just enough to counter the drugs. His vision cleared slightly. He was in the center lane, with Lange’s car pressed up against his door.

Tom saw the opening he needed.

He saw a light post, too.

His escape.

He jerked the wheel and broke away from Lange’s car. He pushed against the gas pedal as far as it would go. He kept the car on a diagonal trajectory as it rocketed forward. Lange pursued Tom from behind.

Tom threaded the Taurus between two cars and, having seen the light post through the gap, spun the wheel to avoid a direct hit. He counted on Lange not having seen what he maneuvered to avoid. The side of Tom’s car scraped against a light post cemented into the sidewalk. He glanced over his left shoulder, just in time to see Lange’s vehicle slam into that very same post without slowing. Lange’s car folded in on itself as the stone post crushed metal and glass.

Tom’s car hadn’t stopped moving, as he hoped it would. Instead, it listed hard to its side, two wheels lifting off the ground. Then it flipped over onto its roof. The car began to slide down an embankment. Tom was knocked unconscious. Otherwise, he would have been screaming.