CHAPTER 18
11:20 AM Tuesday, Jim's RX7 in Meshoppen Creek.
What had happened to Holly was still confusing as hell. When Shit-heel had rammed them, Jim had jerked her back into the car by the waistband of her shorts, incidentally pulling them halfway down her ass. Then he'd covered her with her body as brown water poured into the little Mazda. As he held her, Jim covered her mouth and pinched her nose shut. Then there was a big scrunching noise like planets colliding and the world flipped upside down. They were swallowed by darkness. She couldn't see, she couldn't breath and her head was filled with howling-scraping-grinding noise as the car was pushed under the bridge. Holly was vaguely aware she peed herself.
Throughout it all Jim held her tight. It was her one connection with the ordinary world of light and hope, not this horrible place of darkness and despair. The ordeal could not have lasted more than a minute but it went on forever.
Finally, some light came back but not a lot. The car made what felt like a soft landing on its roof.
Jim let Holly go but then grasped her hair. He started to pull her out his side of the car but her ankle caught on something. She jerked it free.
They came to the surface in a calm area of the flood, some sort of eddy. Holly pulled in ragged gasps of air. She looked around.
Debris floated all around them. A blue plastic barrel bumped into Holly and she wrapped her arms around it—or tried to. It slipped and bobbed up to smack her in the chin. She let go and sank. The bottom wasn't that deep and she was able to spring off that back to the surface. She came up again to see Jim wild eyed with fear until he saw her. "Holly! You okay?"
"For certain values of—"
Jim grabbed her and kissed her. "You scared the shit out of me when you went under again."
"I'll try not to do that again." She looked around, anywhere but at Jim's face. If she looked at him again she'd probably drown them both by doing what she wanted to do to him right now. "How do we get out of here."
The banks of the stream in one direction were a tangle of weeds and briers. In the opposite direction was the raging current of the stream. The concrete bridge loomed over them upstream and downstream was the mile wide expanse of the flooded Susquehanna.
Jim swam toward the nearest shore then headed upstream toward the bridge. When he got to the abutment he stood up on something, raising his shoulders slightly above the water. "Climb onto my shoulders."
Jim squatted and Holly got astride his shoulders like a couple going into a chicken fight in a pool.
"Can you reach?" He asked.
"No."
Jim's hands grabbed the bottom of her feet and started to lift. "Stand up."
Holly almost tumbled off backwards but grabbed Jim's face to stop herself. Then she leaned forward and walked her hands up the concrete of the bridge abutment. Soon she was standing on Jim's palms with her feet about level with his shoulders.
"Can you reach now?"
"Still no."
"Get ready."
"For what?"
"This!"
Holly shot up into the air and tumbled sideways along the concrete of the bridge until her leg smacked into something hard and sharp. She found herself tumbling into nettles behind the guardrail leading to the bridge. The thing that had gashed her knee was the top of the last post of the railing before the bridge. Holly climbed over the steel cables and got to her feet on the shoulder of the road. She looked down into the water at Jim who was grinning up at her. "Give a girl some warning next time!"
"I did."
"Fuck you did."
"Get help."
Holly looked around. The only houses in sight were dark. "I think people have all evacuated."
"Shit," Jim said. "Can you find a rope or something?"
Holly looked around. "Nothing up here."
"Go look a little further, by the houses? Maybe a garden hose or something?"
"I don't want to leave you there."
"I'll be okay. No gators in the Susquehanna."
"But Shit-heel—my ex, the bastard who rammed us, is around up here somewhere."
"Fuck, when you're right you're right. Hold on..."
A wet sloppy mass came sailing up at Holly. She caught it reflexively. Her hands recognized the feel of the material before her eyes saw that it was Jim's Temple sweatshirt.
"Tie a sleeve to something."
Holly wrapped one sleeve around the guardrail cable and made a crude knot. "This won't be near long enough."
"Story of my life," Jim said.
"Jokes? Is this the right time to make jokes?"
"You want me to start screaming and crying instead?" Jim's sneakers arced up and over onto the roadbed.
"Point. What are you doing?"
Jim's belt came sailing up next, followed a moment later by his jeans. Holly at first tried to tie the belt to the free sleeve of the sweatshirt but the knots consumed practically more length than the belt extended the jury rigged lifeline.
She closed her eyes. She remembered being on a boat with her Dad when the outboard quit. A passing boater had come along and her Dad tied the painter of their boat to the helper's line. She remembered the simple but effective fisherman's knot her Daddy had used. With that she tied the leg of the jeans to the sweatshirt sleeve.
"Love you Daddy." Holly lowered the crude rope to Jim who jumped up to grab it. He started to pull himself upwards.
The crotch of the jeans split and Jim almost fell backwards into the water.
But the bluejeans held together at the waistband and Jim recovered. He struggled up and onto the road in nothing but socks and a pair of soaked tighty-whities. Holly could not help but note that his self deprecation had been unjustified. She considered pulling out his cock and kissing it right then and there. But no... On second look, not all of that was cock. Some of it was a snub nosed pistol in it's holster. And a badge too! She wondered if he turned around she would see a pair of handcuffs nestled in the crack of his ass. She resisted for a moment paraphrasing the famous Mae West question. Fuck. Why not? "That a gun in your shorts deputy or are you just glad to see me?"
Jim pulled the gun and badge out and set them carefully on the ground. He grinned shyly at her. "Uh... both?"
