The Passenger by Jacqueline Druga (the giving tree read aloud TXT) 📗

cried out, his voice barely making a dent in the dead of the night, he released a single sob and called out again. “Help.”

He looked around, hoping to see the man that was in his car, but he couldn’t see him.

Jonas cycled quickly through panic, fear and sadness, then just a fast as it hit him, it was gone.

He didn’t know why he felt sad, where it came from. In fact, everything he had just felt was fuzzy. He was fading in and out of awareness. It was coming in waves, lucid moments that made the minutes before hazy and dreamlike.

Breathing heavily, and really unaware fully of what he was doing, he crawled the rest of the way up that embankment.

He made it to the guardrail and used the metal barrier to stand. The moon was bright. Bright enough to give some illumination to the highway so he didn’t have to wade in a sea of dark.

Jonas tried to climb over it, but barely had the strength.

He rolled over the guardrail and onto the berm of the road with a grunt.

Stand up, he thought. Stand up.You need help.

Using the guardrail again, he lifted to a stand. He was discombobulated, looking around.

Not a car in sight.

As he turned to his left, there it was, a good distance, barely seen, a mere speck in the road, but he knew it was a deer that lay there. It was by a bent up guard rail. Was that his accident? How did he get so far away?

Jonas started to stagger, going back and forth between the side of the road and the blacktop of the highway.

He didn’t have direction. Jonas knew he just had to keep moving, but his body felt otherwise.

It gave out on him.

His legs wouldn’t move. He tried with everything he had to keep walking, keep standing, but he stumbled out into the road. He knew it wasn’t a good place to be. Actually, it was the worst place his failing body could be.

But Jonas didn’t have a choice. He felt like he just folded. Collapsing down, dropping to his knees on to the highway.

He wasn’t able to move. He tried, but he couldn’t, even when he saw the headlights of the car speeding his way.

He knew it was the end and braced for that split second when it would all be over.

SIX

Russ McKibben was a good man, everyone knew it. Hard when he had to be, soft when he needed to be. He had been the chief of police in the small town of Williams Peak for sixteen years. Before that he patrolled the streets. Born and raised there, Russ was three years from retiring and nothing surprised him anymore. Certainly not an accident on the highway at the notorious Broke Man’s Curve. What did surprise him about the four in the morning phone call was after hearing about the wreckage not only was the victim alive, but he was also relatively fine.

That was the information Russ was given.

He’d see for himself when he went to the site. But first he wanted to stop by the hospital.

Williams Peak had a good little rural hospital. It was rated in the top twenty. Forty beds, an ER, a four bed ICU. It had it all, and a lot of folks from close small towns came there instead of the bigger cities.

Russ had brewed some coffee and put it in that obnoxious looking travel mug his daughter had gotten him for Christmas. It looked horrendous with a cheese curl design, but it kept a large amount of coffee piping hot for a while.

He left the mug in his car when he went inside the Emergency Room to enquire about the John Doe.

As soon as Russ stepped inside the hospital Old Joe Baker jumped from the waiting room chair and rushed to him.

Not that Joe was old, maybe some would consider him that, he was about the same age as Russ. He got the name ‘old Joe’ because he constantly talked about the way things had been.

A humble man who fixed cars in a garage he built on his own property. He and his wife Margorie owned the local market and café. And despite the ups and downs and the hard times, Baker’s Market was still going. Just like the town.

“Hey, Chief,” Joe approached him. “I can tell—”

“Not right now, Joe.” Russ held up his hand, speaking politely. “I’ll be with you in a minute. I’m here on business.”

“I know.”

“Good.” With a nod Russ walked away.

“You’ll be wanting to talk to me.’

“I’m sure.” Russ glanced at the reception nurse who gave him a ‘go ahead’ to continue into the back. The second he stepped through the thick double doors he could hear the yelling. It came from the back. A male voice, kind of raspy, but with that loud, angry, gurgling sound.

“Let me go! Now! Now!” Pause. “I don’t care! Let … me … go!”

Russ shifted his eyes about, wondering how he didn’t hear that yelling when he walked in.

What was going on?

Doc Jenner was behind the nurse’s station. When he first came to the hospital, he was young and wet behind the ears. He had just finished his residency in some Chicago hospital. He thought he knew it all, but he didn’t know people.

It was like some old movie watching the change in the doc.

That was twenty some years earlier.

“Russ,” Doc said with an exhausted voice. “Glad you finally got here.”

Russ readied to reply but instead lifted his head to the yelling.

“No! I don’t care. No.” the man shouted.

“Is he yelling at himself?” Russ asked.

“Just reacting to Janey, but you know her, it doesn’t faze her,” Doc replied.

“You need him arrested?”

“Sedated. But I figured you might want to ask him questions first.”

“The patient yelling is our accident victim?” Russ asked.

“Our only patient right now, yes.”

“How long has he been like that?”

“Not long. He’s combative. You’ll see. At least he’s speaking words now.”

“What do you mean?”

“He wasn’t making any words when he