* I’m a little late in posting this, but I’m sure you’ll forgive me. As you all know, I started a short story a couple weeks ago that I asked you to finish. I narrowed the field down to two finalists, Jake Chism and Cory Clubb, and you guys voted for the winner, which turned out to be Cory. Below is the complete story, which we put together. Not a lot of editing took place, so it’s still rough, but I wanted you to see how it turned out.
The Gamble
Kevin Kaiser & Cory Clubb
Lauren was in that thin place between waking and dying when her body heaved with a loud gasp. Her eyes snapped wide to a dark world that was cold and silent except for the tick of the engine. Brittle air, ice cold, filled her lungs and and awakened pain that sliced through every part of her body. But pain meant feeling, and feeling meant that she was alive.
She blinked, eyes drifted right then left. Smudges and blurred shadow just beyond reach filled the world, but her mind caught up quickly and forms and lines emerged then forced themselves into place. She was in a car. Her car. She hung from the driver’s seat, her weight held by a taut seatbelt that cut deep across the chest. Gravity beckoned, but the strap kept her from tumbling through the crackled skin that had once been the windshield. To her right, the glass had crumpled and given way to a wide hole on the passenger’s side.
The man.
He lips nudged a brief grin. It had worked. She had nearly killed herself doing it, but it had worked.
The car was pitched nose down, almost vertical. The tang of pine and damp earth filed the car and a single evergreen branch stabbed through the passenger window. The car must have come to rest on a rock or tree on the hillside. Below her, no more than twenty feet away, slate colored water churned through rocks that glistened in faint moonlight.
Her eyes flitted back and forth. Where was the man?
Then she saw him on the hood, a lifeless lump of shadow. She froze and watched for a long beat, holding her breath. No movement. From where she was his face was obscured. Was he watching her? Was he dead? He never moved. All that kept him from sliding completely off the hood was a jagged corner of windshield that had snagged the man’s shoe.
She had taken a gamble and it had paid off. Driving her car over the edge off a mountain road was three kinds of crazy, but doing nothing was suicide. She couldn’t just do nothing. If she was going to die, it would be on her terms.
“C’mon, L,” Lauren whispered to herself. It’s funny how much she sounded like her dad. About the only thing the ever had in common was the Corps, but it was enough, the kind of connection that mattered to them both. He was the only one who ever called her “L”. Mother always thought it was too tomboy-ish, but she thought it had an edge to it. Like her.
Lauren’s eyes focused nearer, to the dashboard just beneath her. Pale green light bled into the car. Her eyes traced the curve of the steering wheel to a silver ring hooked near the bottom. She tugged once with her right hand. A faint metallic clink answered back. She yanked again, this time harder, but the cold steel of the handcuff bit back so hard it nearly took her breath away. She choked back a yell. Broken in the crash, her hand had swelled to nearly twice its normal size. She had to get free, but the only way to get free was a key.
And that was in the man’s pocket.
She knew what she had to do, but she was shredded mentally and physically. The adrenaline had dried up and desperation now rushed in to take its place. Raw hopelessness, because that’s what this was. Hopeless. She had seen soldiers in war who had simply snapped, laid back and let their sanity suffocate under a crushing tide of desperation. Giving in to desperation meant dying and she wouldn’t be the first to flinch even if it meant holding back an entire ocean of hopelessness with a Dixie cup.
She gritted her teeth and said it out loud, “Not tonight, L. Not–”
Suddenly, her ears picked up a faint murmur. Lauren shot open her eyes directly to the monster who dangled from the car’s hold. He hadn’t moved. Then where had she heard the voice? Again a small outcry, stifled but audible, it came from the trunk.
Her beating heart skipped and Lauren gasped as her mind found its footing. JOEL! He was alive.
Turning her head upward toward the back end of the car she spoke her son’s name. “Joel?”
Silence and then, “Mom? Mom, are you there?”
Goose bumps prickled her skin. She thought she would never see him again. That monster, that freak had lied to her and to think the things she had done under his pretense. Joel had been with them the entire time.
She could hear the boy’s whimpers. “Joel. Joel, it’s ok baby, I’m here. You OK?”
“My head hurts,” he replied.
“I know. Mine, too.”
“Mom, I want to go home.”
“We will, baby. I’m going to get us out of here, OK?”
“OK,” he said.
The car’s frame lurched down then caught itself
If she wouldn’t be able to make it out, maybe she could give Joel a chance. She reached down she released the trunk door, giving Joel freedom. That simple little twinge of hope kept her going. Lauren’s swollen eyes searched the car. There, caught in the windshield’s cracked web she spotted the monster’s gun; she knew it all too well. He must have dropped it when they went over the ridge.
She knew what she had to do.
Lauren reached across her body with her trembling left hand and depressed the seatbelt. In an instant, gravity pulled her over the steering wheel, the horn ripping out across the water. She landed on the broken windshield, her right wrist snapping again on the way down. Pain surged through her arm as she screamed out. The car rocked a bit.
She could see the night air in the form of her breath in front of her as she fumbled for the firearm. Ever so gently Lauren positioned herself, the gun in hand. Sliding the clip from the handle it revealed only one bullet. The real question was would her idea work?
Another moan was brought to her attention this time it came from the front of the car. The man had awoken. Lauren heard him cuss loudly as he took in the surroundings of his own predicament and then he spotted her yelling more profanity.
With her heart racing, adrenaline pumping, she accidentally pulled down with her right hand on the wheel. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. The front steering column creaked out a groan as the vehicle shifted. The metal beast twisted to its right and fell clockwise like a giant pendulum. Lauren screamed as the car swung down toward the raging river below. From the rear Joel too let out a voice crackling scream of terror. A hulling force jerked the vehicle to a swinging stop just over the waters.
In that rocketing moment everything changed position. The front steering column held tight to the thick trees it had encountered upon first impact. Somehow Lauren had held on to the steering wheel. But her troubles had just gotten worse. Flailing by his fingertips on the edge of the trunk door, Lauren could see Joel’s figure through the back window gripping on for dear life. Not only did they survive the tumble so did the monster that was now above her. She could see his toothy smile through the cracked glass. What would be her next move? The thought weighed heavy in her mind as did the gun in her grip.
A single bullet.