Waiting by Erin Dennington ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 17 Approaching footsteps crackled on the ice behind Davis as he struggled to break the glass of the window. The cameraman, who had introduced himself as Bill, had run back to his van to try to reach 911 on his cell phone. Davis assumed that the footsteps behind him were Bill's until a quiet voice spoke. "You're not going to break into the car that way," it said. "You're going about it all wrong." Davis gasped as his fist struck the window again. He'd long lost feeling in his right hand, but the pain from the iced over window still reached into his very bone and chilled him. "Oh yeah?" he asked. "And just what do you propose?" "This," said the voice, and an arm snaked out and struck the window with a tire iron. Davis glanced over his shoulder and saw the woman from the van. Clutching the blanket around her like a cape, she wobbled a little on her feet. She wielded the tire iron like she would a pencil, her lack of strength plainly visible. Davis looked down at the tire iron and then met her eyes. "May I?" he asked, indicating the tire iron. She hesitated but then appeared to think better of it. "Maybe you should," she said and, after offering him the tire iron, shuffled over to the curb and sat down again. "Thanks," Davis called out to her, and grabbing the tire iron like a baseball bat, began swinging at the window. He'd made sure to choose a window behind the woman, a seat that appeared empty. He wasn't sure, but to his eyes, it looked like there were children in the car, sitting on the other side. Neither of them had moved in the time he'd stood with Bill, looking in, trying to get the woman to respond. Davis hoped that the noise the tire iron made would bring some kind of response from the kids, but his hope faded when neither stirred. Pausing, breathing heavily, he grabbed the handerchief out of his pocket, and in so doing, caught a glimpse of the time. 9:44. Wiping the sweat that trickled into his eyes, he resumed swinging, counting each thud the tire iron made into the window. Each thud represented another minute that the woman had been trapped in the cold car. Hurry, he told himself, hurry. It'd had already been over an hour. 13:05 - 11.06.02 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||
|
||||||