Part Three

...James was finally parallel with the vile creature. He stopped the car and left it idle. He opened his door and was about to jump out to begin pursuit when something caught the corner of his eye. At the foot of the passenger’s seat were the foam finger and the souvenir bat. He reached over and grabbed the bat. Emma always seemed to find a way to help make any situation better. He was now ready for pursuit.

            He jumped over the railing, surprised at his own agility, and began the hunt on the grassy area that lay next to the highway. The man was fast, but not fast enough. He kept looking over his shoulder and saw James inching closer and closer.

            James’s overwhelming exertion is what those people on the news must feel when they perform miracles. No one can explain how they successfully hurdled over a massive brick wall after being chased by a pack of rabid dogs or how they single-handedly lifted a car to save their loved one from asphyxiation. These things just happen when a hero is needed.

            Unaware of his heroic nature, James managed to get the man directly in his crosshairs within seconds. Inches away, James brought his right shoulder back, bat in hand, and swung with massive force. He hit the man square in the head, making him stumble instantly and roll to the ground.

            In full momentum, James almost tripped over the fumbled body but managed to leap right over him and come to a halt. The man was on the ground grabbing the back of his head. James ran back towards him and released an onslaught of kicks to the man’s gut.

            When it was over, the man groaned in pain holding his stomach. “I’m taking you back,” said James towering over him. He held the bat with both hands, brought it over his head like an ax ready to chop firewood, and pummeled it down striking the man’s head.

            He dragged the comatose man back to his car and threw him in the trunk. As he drove away he began to tremble profusely. He felt his throat close. He gagged a bit as beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. James pulled over to the side of the road to regain his composure. This was quite an ordeal he’d been through tonight. He buried his face in his hands and gave himself a little pep talk. 

I did the right thing.

*        *        *        *

            It wasn’t until Emma hung up with the emergency dispatcher that she noticed a video camera and a gun in the back seat. She knew what was on it. It had to be some sick, vile, twisted video of what the heartless man did to the boy in the trunk.

            She knew because she was there before. She was a victim of child abuse. Had Victor the neighborhood babysitter never been hit by a car on his way to school the day after he videotaped himself with a seven-year-old Emma, who knows how long the twisted teen would’ve continued tormenting her.

            She reached over to the back seat, terrified. She thought twice about viewing the tape. But she just had to be sure that they were doing the right thing. Hesitant, she powered it on and pressed play. After a mere six seconds she dropped the camera as if she were holding a live animal trying to bite her. She jumped out of the car, goose bumps crawling all over from head to toe.

            She looked up the road and saw the first pair of headlights since James left. She recognized the car immediately and saw only one figure in the car. James parked the car on the shoulder. He flung out and caught a running Emma in his arms.

            She was trying to say something, but the wailing and elaborate breathing made it difficult for Emma to say anything.

            “Hey, hey, calm down baby,” said James still holding Emma in his arms, “What’s wrong?”

            “There’s—there’s a camera in there. The…boy…the man…he’s--”

            “Stop Emma. It’s ok, it’s over. He’s in the trunk, out cold.”

            She couldn’t stop crying, but that didn’t mean she was incapable of anything else. As soon as James announced his hostage’s location, she pushed James off, went to the Jetta’s back seat, grabbed the gun and went back to James’s car. The savage and determined look in her eyes made James stay out of her way. She opened the driver’s side door and pulled the lever to pop open the trunk. Her breathing was sharp as she looked at the man lying in the trunk. She dragged him out and threw him on the ground.

            The man was moments away from waking up from the well deserved beating. Emma stood close, assuring she wouldn’t miss her target.

            “Emma! No!” yelled James “Put the gun down!”

            It was too late. Emma gave a tumultuous roar as she pulled the trigger.

 Bull’s-eye.

            Such a terrible way to wake up, but this man deserved everything coming to him. He yelled as he put pressure on his junk. Emma made sure he would not be using that grotesque body part on anyone else.

            As the sirens approached, James grabbed the gun from Emma and threw it on the ground. They would later say the gun was fired in self defense and that their lack of expertise on hand guns made for such an oddly placed shot. After hearing how James chased the man and seeing the video, not a person in the world would condemn them for anything.

- The End -

Part Two

...James swallowed hard as he approached the vehicle. Nothing could have prepared him for what was actually in the trunk. He saw a boy, no older than eight years old, lying on his back in the trunk. His cheek was scraped and he had fresh blood on his temple.

            “What is it James?” asked Emma from the car.

            “It’s a little boy,” said James, “I think…I think he’s dead.” He inspected the trunk for anything or anyone else. He paced toward the trunk holding out his hand as if he were reaching towards a fire waiting to pull away when the heat became unbearable. He nudged the boy, trying to find any signs of life, but there were none. He moved the boy’s collar to check his pulse, using more force than anticipated due to the overalls tightening the collared shirt to the boy’s body. No pulse.

            “He did this,” said James through clenched teeth, “That’s why he ran off.”

            “Let’s get out of here and go get help.”

            “No,” said James as he walked towards Emma. “Listen to me baby, get out of the car and wait out here with him.”

            “What? Why?”

            “This isn’t right. How can he just run off like that? I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing I may have let a psychopath just run free. I’m going to catch him and bring him back here. He can’t get away with this.”

            James always did the right thing. He always seemed to take upon the duty of ethics when no one else would. That’s the James Emma fell in love with, but this time she was terrified that his moral obligation would get him hurt.

            “No baby! Please! Are you crazy? You can’t go after him! You have no idea what he’s capable of!”

            “If he were capable of anything less than cowardice he wouldn’t have killed that boy and he sure as hell wouldn’t have run off.”

            “James, please!”

            “The longer we stay here arguing the farther he gets!” There was a slight pause. He calmed down, then continued, “I’m going to do this. So you either let me go now or we keep giving him a longer head start.”

            Emma kept her eyes set on James’s. She remained silent as James reached in and gave her a soft kiss of reassurance on the lips.

            “Don’t worry. I’ll be back sooner than you think,” said James as he closed the passenger side door and walked Emma towards the driver’s seat of the Jetta. “You’re out of harm’s way. I’m going to lower the trunk but I won’t close it completely. If anything happens, the keys are still in the ignition, just drive along the highway and don’t turn back, got it?”

            Emma said nothing. She kept her eyes fixed on the ground. James gave her one last kiss on her forehead and headed towards his car.

*    *    *    *

            James sped down the highway for a half mile. The manner in which the wretched man took flight gave him at least a mile head start.

            Where are you, you animal? thought James. He slowed the car down and drove at thirty five. If he jumped over the railings of either side of the highway, he didn’t have much to run towards. To the left was the opposing lane and the river, to the right was grass for half a mile and then cliffs. He slowed down to thirty.

            No, there’s no way you escaped, he thought. Maybe it was best he got away. What if he really was some psychopath? What if he had a gun? A knife?

            And what the hell am I going to do if I find him? Uh, excuse me sir, you left a dead child back there. Could you please go back and turn yourself in?

            The adrenaline was wearing off, and James began to think twice about his current situation. What was he doing? What was he going to accomplish? Reality began to set in and James was ready to turn back when he saw something ahead just over the railings by the river.

            The sprinter was wearing track shoes and the reflectors on them caught James’s eye. A paroxysm of fury detonated in his chest. He accelerated trying to catch up, driving over the double solid yellow lines like a madman, reaching the shoulder of opposing traffic (still, not a single car to keep him company).

            James was finally parallel with vile creature. He stopped the car and left it idle. He opened his door and was about to jump out to begin pursuit when something caught the corner of his eye. At the foot of the passenger’s seat were the foam finger and the souvenir bat. Emma always seemed to find a way to make any situation better. He reached over and clutched the bat in a firm fist. He was now ready for pursuit...

End Of Part Two

Part One

The road was hypnotic and sedative, leaving Emma no choice but to entertain her sweetheart to keep him focused. The highway’s vacancy was no surprise to James and Emma, considering they were on the road at one in the morning. Four lanes total, two going north, two going south and not a single car to accompany them.

            They drove home after cheering for the home team in a game-winning home run. The ballgame was over at ten, but the congestion in the stadium parking lot produced an hour worth of traffic. Of course like every young couple, their hormones ran high and they had a little adventure in their car immediately exiting the parking lot.

            On the road, Emma had a big blue foam finger in her left hand and a souvenir miniature blue baseball bat in her right. The radio played their favorite tunes and Emma swayed that big foam finger to the melodies. James, trying as hard as he could to focus on the road, couldn’t help but constantly look over at his gorgeous Emma.

            “Hey!” chuckled James as he swatted the foam finger away from his nose, “I’m driving!”

            “I thought you needed to pick your nose!” Emma laughed. She tried to pick his nose one last time. James playfully evaded and Emma retreated.

            “Ok, ok,” said Emma, “I’ll stop.” She broke into song and dance once again. In between verses, she dropped the bat and foam finger under her seat and reached over towards James’s neck.

            “Ooh,” moaned James, shifting his head to the left to give Emma more room to suck on his neck, “I’m definitely never falling asleep behind the wheel with you as my co-pilot.”

            “Just make sure you focus on the road,” flirted Emma, “If you’re real good, you’ll get a little extra surprise later.”

            Call it lust or call it love but whatever it was, he was drowning in it. He moved his head just a little more, and closed his eyes for what seemed to be a split second. As the young couple was lost in ecstasy, James’s Civic deviated into the right lane.

            Head still tilted, James opened his eyes and saw a white Jetta’s trunk dangerously close to the corner of the right side of his hood. He tried to react but it was too late. He sideswiped the Jetta and sent it crashing into the railing on the right shoulder of the highway.

            James managed to pull left as he slammed on his brakes. Emma was forced towards James then thrown back to her seat as the car came to a screeching halt, positioned horizontally on the highway.

            “Emma!” yelled James in panic, “Are you ok?”

            “Yea I’m fine, I just burned my neck a little with the seatbelt. Oh no!” shrieked Emma pointing to her left towards the Jetta, “Look at the car!”

            After scraping its side against the railing for a few yards, the hood of the car was bent upward and the trunk had flown open. James drove his car from what could possibly be another accident and parked on the shoulder, a few feet away from his victim.

            The driver’s side door of the Jetta swung open and a man in his mid thirties stumbled out. He held his head a little then stood up straight. James’s headlights were pointed in the man’s direction.

            James opened his car door, stepped out halfway and yelled, “Hey man, are you alright?”

            The dazed man brought up a hand to cover the beam of the headlights to see who was talking. Before he could respond he observed the wreck. He glanced over to his trunk and saw that it was forced open. Almost instantly, he broke into a sprint and disappeared into the darkness.

            “What do we do now? Do we just--”

            “Oh my God!” shrieked Emma.

            “What is it?”

            “Inside the trunk!” yelled Emma as she inched towards the crashed car. “Oh my God, I think it’s…it is!”

            James ran towards the trunk then stopped abruptly.

            “It’s a body James…a body!”

            James ran towards Emma and held her tightly. “It’s ok baby, it’s ok. Calm down just breathe a bit,” he said as he caressed Emma’s back.

            “I think it’s a kid,” said Emma, her tears falling furiously.

            “I’ll go check it out, you just wait here,” said James.

            He walked slowly towards the car, trying to prepare himself for the worst. He imagined seeing a body chopped up into pieces being eaten by maggots or a body speaking to him asking for help through a raspy voice as it reached out an arm.

            He swallowed hard as he approached the vehicle. Nothing could have prepared him for what was actually in the trunk. He saw a boy, no older than eight years old, lying on his back in the trunk. His cheek was scraped and there was fresh blood on his temple...

 

-End of Part One-