The Shadow in the Dark (Part Two)

 

I searched the glove compartment again, turning it inside out, and then searched around the front seats in the foolish notion that my gun and badge could possibly have fallen out of a locked compartment during the crash. 

 

As if.

 

This was clearly impossible. The glove compartment is locked at all times. How could my gun and badge be missing? I had put them both there at the beginning of my drive.

 

I slipped back out onto the mud slope and felt the rain ease up a little in its intensity. How was I going to explain this? A Fed does not lose these things. This was about as bad as it could get. I was going to be in a serious mountain of trouble when I reported the theft. 

 

Once I accepted the reality of the situation, I made my way round the side of my Toyota Camry, sinking into the mud with each heel step and tried to pop the boot. Try as I might, it wouldn’t open. The crash must have jammed the locking mechanism, which meant my luggage was now completely out of reach. All I had were the clothes I was wearing and my handbag that I had managed to find from inside the car where it had been thrown onto one of the back seats during the crash. That was something, at least. 

 

Bit by bit, seizing tree roots as handholds, I pulled myself up the wet slope until I reached the road. A section of briar bush had clearly been obliterated where my Toyota had ploughed through it when I’d tried desperately to avoid hitting the naked girl. Talking of which, I searched the length and breadth of the country road but found no sign of her, or, rather, no sign of her injured/dead body. For a brief moment I wondered whether I might have imagined her. A naked woman running onto a road in the middle of a rain storm? Really?

 

Well I’d seen something. It might only have been a brief second or two, but I had certainly reacted to a flash of movement that looked like a naked girl.

 

“Hello?” I called out, turning to my left and right as the rain continued to soak me to my skin. “Where are you? Are you all right?”

 

There was no response, just the steady sound of rain drumming against the tarmac. 

 

I felt stiff and sore and all I really wanted was to lie down in a bed, but that was hardly an option out here in the middle of nowhere. How far was I going to have to walk until the road led me to a house somewhere? And could I even walk that far, bruised and battered as I was? 

 

All journeys begin with the first step, as the saying goes. I took that first step and then the second, but then from some distance behind me I heard the approaching sound of a car engine. I stopped, turned, and stepped back to the side of the road in anticipation of flagging down whatever vehicle was coming towards me. I saw the bright headlights first of all, and raised as they were above the usual level of a car, I guessed it was some sort of truck bearing down on me.

 

Frantically I began waving down the vehicle, stepping out just far enough that I might be seen, but not so far that I couldn’t jump back to the safety of the brambles and briar thorns if the truck wasn’t intending to stop. 

 

“Help!” I shouted. “Please help me!”

 

The flatbed truck came to rest twenty feet from where I stood on the road, close enough that I was now illuminated by the bright cones cast from its headlights. I could hear the engine softly ticking over as the driver must have considered what to do next. 

 

“Hello!” I called out as I shielded my eyes from the bright light. “I need help! My car crashed close to the river. Please can you help me?”

 

There was no reply, just the steady thrum of the truck’s engine. 

 

“I don’t know where I am. Is there a town nearby?” I held my bare hands out in the open to show I wasn’t holding a weapon of some kind. “Please, Sir, I could really use a lift to a nearby station.”

 

I heard the truck door open and through the bright illumination of the headlights I could just about make out a broad shouldered figure stepping down onto the road.

 

“You alone, Miss?” He seemed to be holding what looked like a pump action shotgun. Obviously the driver wasn’t taking any chances, and I could hardly blame him. “If you have anyone hiding out in them bushes, now would be a good time to show yourselves.”

 

“It’s just me.” The light was blinding, but I didn’t think it would be a good idea for me to step away from the light. The truck driver might be the nervous type. 

 

“Turn round, Miss,” he said. “A full circle, if you please.” I did as he instructed and turned lightly on the balls of my feet a full three hundred and sixty degrees.

 

“Not a good night for you to be walking the road,” he said.

 

“My car is down the slope, banged up against a tree stump. Please can you help me, Sir?”

 

“Walk slowly towards the truck and keep your hands where I can see them,” said the driver. “I ain’t taking no chances, if you know what I mean.”

 

“I understand, but it’s not a trick. If you look down the slope you’ll see my car.”

 

“Not going to do that, Miss. Not taking my eyes off you just yet.”

 

He told me to stop when I was six feet or so from the truck cab. 

 

“I’m FBI,” I said, hoping that might reassure him. “My name is Ashlee Ellis.”

 

“You’re a Fed?”

 

“That’s right.”

 

“Got some kind of fancy badge you want to show me?”

 

“Not to hand, no, Sir.”

 

“Doesn’t matter. Don’t much like Feds, anyway.”

 

I’d heard that one before. “Well, I’m sorry about that, but I’m a woman who needs your help. I’m not sure I’ll be able to walk very far before I fall down.”

 

“Guess I can’t just leave you out here then.” He raised the shotgun so that it pointed upwards, the barrel resting against his shoulder. “The name’s Henry Bryant.”

 

“Thank you, Henry. Can I possibly get out of the rain? I’m soaked to the skin.”

 

“Guess you are, and all that.” He motioned for me to walk round to the passenger side of the cab. As I did so I caught sight of a number of large packing crates stacked on the flatbed. There were eight in total, each one measuring approximately three feet square. The crates were secured in place with cables attached to either side of the truck. There were also a couple of sacks resembling feed sacks for farm animals. 

 

“If you can just drive me to the nearest town,” I began to say as I climbed up and settled down beside the driver’s seat.

 

“Not heading to no town, Miss Ellis. I’ll drop you off at the service station. It’s an all-nighter so there’s people there who can help. Orchard Pines, it’s called.”

 

“That will be fine. Thank you.” As he climbed up into the cab, I got my first clear sight of Henry Bryant. He looked to be in his forties, deeply tanned, with sharply receding hair, mostly covered by a woollen hat, and about three weeks’ worth of beard growth. He seemed solidly built, significantly taller than me, with powerful shoulders. His hands were calloused and hard, suggesting a life of manual labour, and he wore a pair of cheap blue jeans, of the kind you’d buy in Walmart, and a checked, red lumberjack shirt with a white t-shirt underneath. 

 

The inside of the cab was something of a mess, with discarded beer cans by my feet and fast food wrappers stuffed behind the seats. Displayed prominently on the dashboard was an old Make America Great Again - Trump ’24 election sticker. I watched as Henry placed the shotgun into a rack space where he could quickly retrieve it, should he need to.

 

“Never had a Fed in my cab before now,” he said. He regarded me with a sideways glance and his eyes told me that my sopping wet blouse was probably sticking a little too closely to my skin right now. It was an uncomfortable moment until I closed my jacket about my bosom and then heard him make a grunt as he slammed his door shut. 

 

“I like music while I’m driving,” said Henry as he switched the radio back on. 

 

“Music’s fine.”

 

His second grunt suggested I didn’t actually have any say in the matter. 

 

An old ‘70s folk song of some kind was playing as Henry revved the engine up and took us back out onto the country road, on though the rain. .

 

… beneath the moon's unclouded light

I held awhile to Annie

The time went by with careless heed

'Till 'tween the late and early

 

With small persuasion she agreed

To see me through the barley

 

Corn rigs and barley rigs and

Corn rigs are bonnie

I'll not forget that happy night

Among the rigs with Annie

 

 

“I saw a woman,” I said, after a while, as we drove through the narrow country trails to who knows where. “It’s how I crashed my car. She ran right out in front of me on the road.”

 

“Guess you were playing with your phone?” said Henry. “You got distracted? Dangerous when you’re driving.”

 

“No. I just took my eyes off the road for a moment, and then there she was. And I think she was naked.”

 

Henry snorted a half laugh. “Ain’t no naked fillies out here in this weather. Your eyes were playing tricks on you.”

 

“I know what I saw. I’m just worried for her, that’s all. Are there any houses close to where you found me?”

 

“Nope. No houses, None to speak of, leastways. People keep to themselves round these parts.” 

 

“Well, she had to come from somewhere.”

 

“Might have been a white-tailed deer you saw. Lots of them round these parts.”

 

“I think I know the difference between a woman and a deer.”

 

“Do you, now? They teach you that at Fed school, do they?”

 

Fine. I settled back in my seat and gazed out of my side window, watching rain drops striking the pane of glass and then sliding down its surface. 

 

The sky was blue, the wind was still

The moon was shining clearly

I set her down with right goodwill

Among the rigs of barley

 

I knew her heart was my own

I loved her most sincerely

I kissed her over and over again

Among the rigs of barley

 

“Never understood why the FBI take on women,” said Henry after we’d driven a few miles in the dark. “What good are you if there’s gonna be some trouble? You reckon you can take down a man if needs be?”

“Well, Sir, I get the same training as the men in the Bureau do.”

 

Henry snorted another laugh. “Training?” he made the word sound like a joke. “Is that what you call it? They teach you some fancy kung fu, do they?”

 

“I’ve completed a couple of unarmed combat courses, yes.”

 

“I bet you did. How tall are you, Miss Ellis?”

 

I bridled a bit by that question, but I was a guest in his cab and he was helping me out, so I answered truthfully. “Five three.”

 

“Five three, and you look like you couldn’t tear a wet paper bag apart. No offence, Mis Ellis. Just speaking it the way I see it. I don’t mince my words. Seen too much to go through that shit, beggin’ your pardon.”

 

“Fine.” I hoped the ride wouldn’t be a long one. 

 

“Bit reckless of you driving all alone on the Dunwich roads. Not all folks round these parts are as decent as me. Not a good place to break down late at night in a rain storm. Not a good place at all. Could have run into just about anybody.”

 

“I was driving to meet my boyfriend. He lives in Springfield. I’m spending the weekend with him.”

 

“Is that so? He one of those modern men? The type that waxes his chest and pays ten bucks for a fancy coffee?”

 

“Martin?” I smiled to myself. “Hardly. He’s not that type.”

 

“You like real men then, Miss Ellis?” Henry regarded me, or rather what he could see of my sopping wet white blouse that wasn’t covered by my jacket. “Strong men? Men who know what they want from a girl?”

 

“Like I said, I have a boyfriend, so that’s as far as it goes.” I gave him my best back off, buddy stare. 

 

Henry laughed as he watched the road. “Hell, I’m not coming on to you, Miss Ellis. Hell, no. Got no shortage of girls back at the ranch, as the saying goes. Don’t need your skinny ass. No offence meant.”

 

“Just so we’re clear,” I said. I bit my tongue and didn’t respond to the skinny ass remark. 

 

“We’re just making conversation until I drop you off at the service station, at Orchard Pines. Henry Bryant wouldn’t leave a young girl standing on a road at nightfall. It wouldn’t be right, that’s all.”

 

“And I appreciate the lift, Sir.”

 

And then on cue, the music gave way to an ad break.

 

“Helen, just what IS your secret?” said a respectable sounding woman’s voice. “We’re all dying to know how your hair is always so glossy, vibrant, and full of life?”

 

“It’s not just my hair, Susan,” came the confident sounding reply. “Stronger nails, clearer skin, and boundless energy each morning. And I owe it all to the range of Nutri-girl Blended Wet Meal pouches.”

 

“Nutri-girl! Say, I’ve heard of that.”

 

“And so you should have, Susan. Why, the Surgeon General himself recommends Nutri-girl as the perfect combination of nutrients and protein that a healthy woman needs to juggle a demanding career, housekeeping, and raising children in the modern age! And it’s now available in five exciting flavours!”

 

“But what about treats, Helen? I’d miss my treats?”

 

“Of course you would, which is why those clever men at Nutri-girl have just launched Nutri-girl Candy treats! All the goodness of basic Nutri-girl, but as scrumptious as a box of French chocolates. Why, I have to practically beg my husband to let me have one from the treat box. Behaving myself has never been so much fun!”

 

A male voiceover closed the advert: Nutrigirl Blended Wet Meal Pouches and Nutrigirl Candy Treats, now available in five regular flavours and original Basic Blend. And speak to your husband about the revolutionary new Prescription Plus range of Nutrigirl. Become the woman he’s always dreamed you could be. 

 

I closed my eyes and sighed. I just couldn’t escape Nutri-girl ads, it seems.

 

We drove on, forever following the interminable s-bends of this hidden land, passing vague trees silhouetted now in the moonlight with branches that seemed to hang pendulously over the road – mere glimpses through the side window. I saw grey toned fields flanking the landscape, quickly disappearing in a thicket of woods. In the distance I caught a brief glimpse of some streak of a road that climbed and vanished suddenly as more trees blocked the view. Then there was a low stone bridge that caused the suspension of the flatbed truck to shake and groan as we crossed it. 

 

Without warning I suddenly sneezed, once, twice, three times.

 

“Sorry,” I said.

 

“You need to get out of those wet things, Miss Ellis.”

 

“I will. But my luggage is trapped in the boot of my car.”

 

“We’ll sort you out at Orchard Pines, Miss Ellis. Nearly there now. Just a few more miles. Yep, we’ll find you something suitable to wear. You just wait and see.”