3

Liz Farrell positioned her hefty body on the living-room sofa of her parents’ Selton home and peeked excitedly through the blinds at the heavy rain. Not a car was in sight. Occasionally the house lights flickered, threatening a power failure from high winds and lightning.

Disappointed again, she slumped to the sofa and contemplated the arrival of Nancy. The two had been inseparable throughout childhood until Nancy’s family moved to Georgia in 1957. It had been years since the two exchanged month-long summer visits. Liz remembered their confidential conversations—from the time Nancy first admitted an attraction to the opposite sex, to her own confession at age sixteen of having allowed a boy to touch her breasts. They had each been unusually pretty and were quite popular at the local hangouts.

For years Liz had entertained a number of boyfriends, most of whom wanted nothing more from life than to get inside her pants. But Liz’s Southern virtue had prevailed in most cases. Only twice before she met John had she allowed boys to go “all the way,” and she had grown tired of both lovers soon afterward. But John had been special. With him she had looked forward to marriage and she had given herself freely to him on several occasions.

Then came the uncontrollable weight problem.

Attributable to a glandular malfunction, the condition was unaffected by various diets prescribed by her doctor. And slowly she watched John’s attention drawn away by more slender girls. Only two weeks ago he had formally ended their relationship while simultaneously announcing his engagement to Charlotte Cummings. And when Nancy had heard the news only two days ago, she had vowed to return to Selton for a weekend visit to comfort her dear friend and cousin.

Martha Farrell, Liz’s mother, entered the room and noted the anxiety on her daughter’s face.

“Settle down now,” she said. “Nancy’ll be here before you know it.”

Liz groaned and glanced at the clock on the mantle as she flipped through a copy of Progressive Farmer on the coffee table.

“I know,” she said. “You just don’t realize how happy I’ll be to see that girl.”

His heart racing, his face frozen with fear, Wayne watched the headlight beams bounce along the rugged terrain, the car’s speed never slowing. And through the driving rain, as the car reached the vast abyss of missing bridge, he watched it plummet forward, continuing ahead in mid-air and then slowly arcing downward. It dropped to midstream as if in slow motion, a horrifying sight Wayne couldn’t believe he was actually witnessing. A gigantic splash sent mud and grime in every direction, as concentric waves of water rolled from the point of impact and sloshed to both sides of the stream. The automobile floated briefly, then slowly took on water and began to sink as it drifted downstream in his direction.

The eerie glow of headlights shining through the water remained faintly visible, and clouds of steam hissed from beneath the car’s partially submerged hood. Then, quietly, the headlights shorted out, and the car was now visible only during recurring flashes of lightning.

For a moment Wayne stood motionless, a sick feeling welling inside his stomach. Never had he witnessed a potentially fatal accident. But then a crash of thunder revived his senses and he raced upstream to meet the sinking vehicle. Twenty feet or so from shore, only the windows and roof of the automobile could now be seen.

Amid the continuing downpour Wayne aimed his flashlight at the car and strained his eyes to see. The passenger side of the automobile now faced him and he could see that the front window was either rolled down or missing entirely. Was there movement inside? He focused his eyes and saw it again. Then, aided by a blinding bolt of lightning, he saw her clearly—a woman, dazed, and struggling to get out.

“Hurry, lady—Get out fast!” he yelled.

She extended a weakened arm outside, past torrents of water that gushed through the open window and forced her back inside. Her fingers curled around the roof of the car and held tightly as she attempted to pull herself out. Wayne kept his flashlight fixed on her obscure image, watching helplessly from the shore as the events unfolded. The current was far too strong for him to swim to her. She would have to escape on her own, and then perhaps he could help her ashore.

Finally, her head and shoulders were outside the car, but the roof was now almost underwater. Suddenly she released her grip and sank back inside. Panic stricken, Wayne waved his arms in exasperation. What could he possibly do? Slowly the automobile dipped below the surface and disappeared. Oblivious to the rain and frigid weather, he shed his jacket and kicked off his shoes. And just as he was about to dive in, the woman’s head appeared above the raging current.

“All right!” he whooped, a ring of excitement in his voice as he danced along the shore.

But now the helpless woman was being swept downstream. Obviously injured, she could barely keep her head above water.

“Oh, God, don’t let her drown,” Wayne mumbled as he frantically kept pace with her along the shoreline.

The current was incredibly strong, and her feeble attempts to stay afloat were growing weaker. Within minutes she would be gone.

Mentally gauging the force of the water, Wayne stumbled downstream. It would be foolish to dive in now. He could never get her back to shore, if indeed he ever reached her in the first place. Frantically, he swept the flashlight beam downstream. A large oak tree had toppled into the water only minutes before, the current rushing over and past its partially submerged limbs. The woman was heading directly toward it. If he could somehow make his way along the tree trunk toward midstream, perhaps he could snag her and pull her back to shore.

Wayne raced to the tree and tossed his flashlight to the ground. Blindly, using both hands to feel his way, he groped among the tree’s branches, planting his feet firmly step by step along the massive trunk. Occasional spurts of water poured over his feet, tugging coldly at his legs, but he managed to maintain his balance and inch forward. A distant flash of lightning illuminated her approach, her face barely breaking the surface.

Wayne crouched and awaited her arrival, the cold spray of rain and rushing water drenching him. She was almost within reach, only a few feet away. He held tightly to a protruding limb with his right hand and stretched his left arm to its limit in her direction. Then, without warning, she sank.

Wayne’s blood froze. How could he come this far and still let her drown? Quickly he lay flat on his stomach and thrust his left arm deep into the frigid water, hoping to somehow snare her as she passed beneath the tree. He could feel and hear his own pulse as the endless seconds passed, the surroundings blotted from his field of perception as he waited. Had he been a fraction of a second too late? Was she already ten or fifteen feet past him?

His arm grew numb from the cold, his fingers stiff and barely able to grasp. But finally he felt something—a tangle of hair perhaps? He swept his arm in circles through the water, gathering more. Yes! Yes, it was her! Gripping the tresses of hair tightly, he pulled until her face appeared above the water. She coughed and gasped for air. Thank God, she was conscious. Steadily, he reached for her shoulders and held her against the tree trunk. His body ached, and his arm was numb, almost immovable from the cold.

Abruptly Wayne felt himself weakening.

His legs felt as if they might break off at the knees as he raised himself to an erect position, with the woman now spread securely over a convenient tree limb. But as he stood too quickly, blood rushed to his head and dizziness washed before his eyes. A shrill whistle sang inside his ears and helplessly he collapsed into the water beside her.

The power went off just as Johnny Carson was warming the audience with a few choice quips about The Sound of Music. Tom Farrell was still grumbling when his wife made her way blindly into the kitchen in search of a flashlight.

“You shouldn’t complain,” she nagged as she passed. “You should’ve unplugged the set anyway when the lightning first started.”

“Humph!” he blurted. “I’m going to bed!”

Liz joined her mother and rummaged through a drawer for candles while her mom looked for the flashlight. When it was finally found, its beam was weak—too dim to be of much help.

“I found a candle,” said Liz, reaching across the countertop for matches.

“Here’s Tom’s lighter,” Martha interrupted. She flipped it open and thumbed its ridged wheel, sparking a flame to life. Liz touched the candle wick to the fire and salvaged a lid from an empty mayonnaise jar to serve as a mount. Liz’s weak shadow curled across the kitchen curtains as she affixed the candlestick to its temporary perch.

“They should have been here by now,” said Liz, walking slowly back to the living room.

“Now, don’t you worry about Nancy,” Martha said, tagging along behind. “That gal’s full of spunk. The weather has been so bad, she probably had to stop over somewhere. I’m sure she’s fine.”

“I hope so,” said Liz.

But a feeling deep inside told her that something could have gone wrong.

The chill of the water stunned Wayne as he plunged into its icy depths. Gathering his senses, he groped for the tree, his fingers digging into a thick section of bark. The woman shifted toward him and grabbed his shoulder, then clung to his neck with one arm, freeing both of Wayne’s hands to feel their way along the tree trunk. The growing numbness hardened Wayne’s skin as he inched his way toward safety. At times he could barely keep his own head above water as the relentless current tried to wrench his grasp from the tree. The aching cold all but took his breath away, but slowly, determinedly, he continued. Twigs and branches tore at his flesh until at last his feet sank into the mushy floor of the creek.

Silently Wayne summoned a last surge of energy to drag the woman from the water, only to collapse beside her in the mud. The two gasped for air, as stinging rain and sleet pelted their unprotected faces. Wayne reached for her, to determine if she was still conscious, but noticed his fingers were too numb to straighten. He dropped his head back to the soggy ground, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. Exposure would kill them both if he couldn’t get them to shelter.

Suddenly the woman began to cry, a moaning, wailing sound as if she were half out of her mind. But at least she was conscious.

The lightning finally moved farther east, leaving in its wake a thick, inky darkness. Wayne rolled over and reached for the woman again. She shivered beneath his touch, and at that same instant Wayne felt a stiffening of his wet clothes. A thin sheet of ice glazed his jacket.

The car. We’ve got to get to the car.

Even after his eyes had adjusted to darkness, Wayne could barely make out her features beside him. Fighting against the wind which was pinning him to the ground, Wayne clumsily rose to his feet.

When he extended a hand to the woman, to help her to her feet, she, at first returned a vacant stare, then instinctively shifted and raised her right hand to his. Finally, overcoming a lack of traction in the mud, he pulled her erect. She promptly fell against his shoulder and leaned her weight against him.

“We’ll b-b-b-be all right,” he assured her, though not entirely convinced himself. He was growing weaker by the minute, and their movement was incredibly slow. Each blast of wind sent icy waves of pins and needles through his clothing and into his skin.

Slowly the two trudged down the shore, silently bracing themselves against each other, their steps growing more erratic as they stumbled along a narrow path to the parked vehicle.

A second onslaught of freezing rain began to fall. Wayne leaned the dazed woman against the passenger door as he fished for his keys inside his pocket, the simple task made difficult by stiff fingers that refused to cooperate. Tiny plumes of frozen breath rolled from her lips and dissolved in the wind as Wayne jerked the door open. After positioning her on the front seat, he ran to the driver’s side and slid behind the steering wheel.

Shelter from the wind and rain brought instant relief, but the interior of the car was still frigid. Cranking the engine, Wayne held the accelerator at a fast idle to speed its warm-up time. The windshield wipers were slow to start, but finally scraped across a thin layer of ice that covered the windshield. His hand shaking, Wayne reached for the dashboard heater control, but as he forced it toward the WARM position, the thin metal lever broke off in his grasp. Cool air continued to pour from the heater vents, the frozen breaths of himself and the lady frosting the interior of the windshield.

“N-n-no!” he moaned, his teeth clicking wildly.

The woman leaned against him, stunned and unaware of the threat they faced. Wayne pushed her aside and forced the column-mounted gearshift to “reverse”. Without heat, and with the windshield obstructed inside and out, it would be impossible to get her to the nearest hospital which was over forty miles away. Wayne’s only hope was to get her to his trailer and call an ambulance.

He cranked his window down, leaning his head out to see as he turned the car around. Rolling clouds of smoke boiled from the exhaust pipe as the wind whistled through his hair which had become almost brittle from the ice frozen in it. Carefully he backed the car into an open area, then guided it away from the creek.

The crude side road leading back to the paved road was now a crooked stretch of standing water and icy mud. The wheels of the Impala slid and spun aimlessly, then slowly picked up speed. Though he’d driven on country roads all his life, Wayne still found forging through muddy backroads extremely difficult. Sheets of muddy water sprayed from the wheels as they churned through slush and grime. With his head projected uncomfortably out of the window, Wayne’s face became dotted with speckles of ice and mud. Soon the paved road was in sight and the car careened out, throwing loose gravel behind it.

“Ch-Ch-Charlie?” the woman moaned beside him.

“I-I-It’s all … right …” Wayne said, leaning back inside to touch her shoulder.

The windshield visibility was nil, and though his ears felt as if they’d break off at any moment, Wayne was forced to keep his head outside in order to see. The blast of arctic air was almost paralyzing, as flecks of frozen rain and snow stung his cheeks. Ahead, through the glare of the headlights, he noticed icicles forming along the telephone lines.

Just a short distance to go. I think we’ll make it.

“Ch-Ch-Charlie—I’m c-c-cold,” the woman mumbled incoherently at his side.

She appeared delirious. Wayne forced himself to remain calm, choosing not to respond and, instead, keeping a keen eye on the road ahead. He pressed the accelerator harder, spinning the tires over thin patches of ice, and soon turned off on the narrow chert-topped drive that led to his trailer.