Fools Of Us All - Chapter 2 (see June 11, 2006)

Driving in the rain is always hard, especially at night. The worst, though, is when there is a group in the car and the windows start to fog up because it is just too humid. I hate that. That is why I was so unhappy on this day.
There were three of us in the car - myself, my cousin Gerry and his girlfriend Cindy. Who am I you wonder? Well, my name is Spin. Obviously that is not my real name, but that is the only thing I have been called since the second grade. Heck, even my parents started using it. No one is quite sure where it came from, but it stuck. I blame my uncle, really. It seems like the sort of thing that he would start.
Anyway, the night in question, we were driving on the highway, heading back home to Calgary after visiting some friends out in Manitoba. We had just left Regina when I noticed the rain clouds moving in. I figured it would be a mild rain, givin how it had been rather dry the entire summer, but I was in for a surprise. Living in Calgary, I thought I had seen some impressive rainstorms, but mother nature was about to outdo herself.
I don't know what it is about the prairies, but they can have some of the most impressive thunderstorms you have ever seen. The clouds built up very quickly, appearing much quicker than I thought possible. Within minutes we had gone from a clear moonlit sky to absolute darkness. A few drops of rain landed on the windsheild, just a smattering of rain. Gerry and Cindy didn't even notice at this point because they had both fallen asleep the second we left Regina after filling up with gas. Suddenly a peal of thunder rolled across the field. It was so loud that my rearview mirror shook hard enough to make it difficult to use. Not that it mattered because that sound signalled the start of the deluge. The rain hit so hard that I couldn't see through the windsheild within seconds. I flipped on my wipers, but they weren't much help. I was starting to get nervous.
Cindy and Gerry woke up with the sound. Cindy actually screamed a little, causing me to swerve out of surprise. I managed to get the car under control, but my heart was beating rather hard for a bit. I glanced over at Cindy and I could see that she was feeling rather nervous. "Shouldn't you pull over or something?" she asked, showing more wisdom than I realised at that moment.
Gerry smiled and teased his girlfriend. "What's the matter, Cin, scared of a little rain?"
I had known Gerry all of his life (he was two years younger than me), so I could tell that his heart wasn't into it. He was obviously a little nervous as well.
It was right then that the windows fogged up. It was like watching a curtain rise over the glass, completely blocking out my vision. I turned up the fan to blow on the windshield, reaching forward to wipe off the glass so that I could at least see a little bit. Lightning and thunder started going off regularly, the sound combining with the flashes to set a rather eerie mood.
"C'mon Spin, just pull over at the next road and we'll wait it out."
I shook my head. "I don't want to be stopped on the side of the road during this downpour. What happens if a semi comes by and doesn't notice us until it is too late?" I was determined not to stop. I figured that the rain couldn't last much longer.
But Cindy was just as determined. "And what happens if you don't see a car until it is too late? Then we are just as dead."
"Look, the rain will let up soon. This is just a small cloudburst. It can't last."
Now Gerry entered into the mix. "Spin, I hate to argue with you, you know that, but this time I think Cindy is right. We have to stop."
"It's not dangerous," pleaded Cindy. "You turn off the road onto a smaller road and wait at the side of that one. Leave your lights on so that people can see you if they are coming, and since you're near an intersection no one will be driving with much speed anyway."
I don't know why I argued with them like I did. Maybe I was just too tired. We had been driving for six or seven hours by that point and still had another seven to go, and we had left much later than originally planned. "Don't be such pansies," I said, running a hand through my short blond hair. "We'll be fine."
"Spin, please!" I could see that a couple of tears had worked their way down Cindy's cheeks. A glance back at Gerry showed that he was extremely uncomfortable as well.
I sighed, but I could see their point. The windows were still fogged up, giving me only a small circle out of the windshield to see while I was driving. And the storm really didn't seem to be abating at all. So I made a concession. "Look, Moose Jaw is not too far from here. We should be there in ten minutes, tops. We'll pull in there, maybe find a place to eat or get some rest. Okay? I'm not stopping before that."
Grudgingly the other two agreed. They knew how stubborn I could get, so they accepted my concession. In my mind, the rain was going to have let up by the time we reached Moose Jaw anyway, so I was feeling pretty good.
We rode on in silence for a few minutes as the windshield slowly cleared. The lightning continued to flash between peals of rolling thunder. Cindy fidgeted with her long brown hair like she did every time she was nervous. At least she wasn't chewing on it. I hate when people do that. Gerry drummed his fingers against the window, humming tunelessly to himself. His long braided goatee vibrated with every beat of thunder.
I finally decided that I needed something more to distract me from the unhappy vibes I was getting from my friends. I glanced down at the radio as I turned it on. I don't know if I could have changed anything had I not looked away from the road. But I do know that when I looked up as bolt of lightning hit, illuminating a small figure standing in the road, holding a small glowing orb. That image was burned into my eyes as the bumper of my car slammed into the person.
It all plays in slow motion when I think about it. The person had leapt at the very last second, as though trying to jump over the car. I could see that it was a girl, and as she jumped my car hit her legs, cutting them out from under her, causing her head to slam into the back edge of my hood before she bounced into the windshield on Cindy's side. Because of the rain the car started to fishtail wildly. The body of the girl bounced over the car and I lost sight of it. Cindy and Gerry both screamed. Cindy was pressed back against her seat, her feet pushing against the dashboard. Gerry, who hadn't been seated in, was tossed around the back seat, screaming and swearing the whole time.
Amazingly I managed to keep the car from flipping over or doing more than spinning in a few circles. I was glad that the ditch at that point was very shallow because that's where we ended up, sitting far from the side of the road, steam coming up from the hot engine. We all sat for some time, breathing hard, unable to speak. I could feel my hands wanting to shake, so I kept them firmly gripped onto the steering wheel. I noticed water starting to drip in where the windshield had been hit. It had held together somehow, but it was in bad shape. Part of me was momentarily mad that someone had wrecked my car, but that was mostly a product of shock. It hit me then that I had just killed someone, and that's when I had to open the door so I could throw up. At the same moment Cindy had the same reaction. Gerry was passed out in the back seat.
I wonder what that would have looked like to an outside observer. A car sitting in the ditch, lights shining in the rain, when suddenly two doors fly open and one person leans out from each door, wretching up the remnants of every meal eaten since high school. In the right circumstances, it may have been comical.
As far as I knew, the dead body was laying back quite some distance. I figured that I should probably call for help. I started to pull my head back into the car when I felt something brush my head, moving the opposite direction of the rain. Just then Cindy let out the most bloodcurdling scream I have ever heard. I jerked my head to see what her problem was and two things happened right then.
First, I heard a weak voice say "It's not too late."
Second, the body of the woman slowly slid its way down from the roof of the car onto the hood. I realised what I had felt then - it had been the woman's hand hanging over the door. Cindy had noticed it and screamed just as gravity finally did its work, causing the body to slide down. It was only much later that I decided the voice had been the woman's. I had no idea how the woman had managed to hold on as long as she did.
As quickly as I could get my seatbelt off I was out of the car, not caring that I was getting soaked. I reached the woman and checked her pulse, a futile move, or so I thought. To my surprise, there was a pulse, though it was rather weak. Blood ran down her face, mixing with the mud on the ground and the rain from the sky. Her breathing was very shallow and sounded laboured. In her hand was the glowing orb I had noticed earlier. Taking it from her hand, I examined it before placing it in my pocket.
I was trying to decide what to do when the woman's eyes flew open. I couldn't believe how much pain I could see in them. She reached up with one hand and grabbed the collar of my shirt, pulling herself up until her face was almost touching mine. "Help me," she whispered before she collapsed. Her heart was still beating, but I wasn't sure how long that would last.
Making a decision, I put my arms underneath her and lifted her, shocked at how little she weighs. She really isn't all that large of a woman. Her clothes somehow seemed to be odd, but I didn't think about it at the time. Carefully I placed her in the back seat, moving Gerry as best I could to give them both room.
Cindy looked over at me as I got back into the driver's seat. "What are you doing?"
I threw the car into gear, thankful again for the shallow ditch as I pulled onto the highway. "She's still alive. We're heading to Moose Jaw to get her to a hospital." I fingered the orb, feeling some warmth coming from it. "Call ahead and let the hospital know we are coming."
As Cindy tried to figure out how to contact the hospital in Moose Jaw, I clenched my jaw in concentration, trying to get there as fast as I could. Everything about the night had been awful, and for some reason all I could think about was the colour of the mystery woman's eyes.