Loonies "God, what a beautiful morning," Daniel Crane said aloud as he drove along the two-lane highway. "Blue sky, summer heat, trees still a lush green! This is gonna be one hell of a fine day!" He breathed deeply. Daniel looked at his watch and noted with satisfaction that it was exactly 8:05 A.M., which meant that he would be at the office at exactly 8:30. This pleased him because he was a creature not only of habit but perfection. Daniel no longer wasted time trying to control things over which he had no control. Instead, he concentrated all of his formidable energies into leaving as little to chance as possible. Chaos. The unordered life. Those were the days of his angry young manhood. And he had plenty to be angry about. He had adored his parents and they had doted upon Daniel. The sun rose and set upon him. He and his parents had gone everywhere together and were almost inseparable when he was a child. They owned a big old touring car and weekends were spent driving all over the back roads of New England. They would drive on and on and picnic whenever they found a spot that cried out to them. Daniel lived for those weekends. Except one weekend. They were driving through the twisting roads of Vermont. Even though Daniel was not legally old enough, his father let him drive. His mom and dad sat in the back of the huge Oldsmobile and Daniel would pretend that he was their chauffeur. The boy turned to look at a particularly beautiful panorama. He looked back to the road just as the big car crossed over into the oncoming lane. The approaching car, it's horn wailing, swerved off the road, skidded into a ditch and overturned in a tornado of twisted metal and flying debris. Daniel jerked his wheel to the right fighting desperately to regain control of the skidding car. The sedan fishtailed into a guardrail and tore through the barrier, plunging over the side. Daniel was luckier than the rest. He was catapulted out of the car and survived by landing miraculously in a bed of fallen pine needles and dried leaves. Both of his arms were broken and he fractured his left hip. But his parents were not so lucky. They were pinned inside the car which skidded off the road and disappeared down the ravine. The gas tank exploded. They were killed in the fiery aftermath. The police assumed that Daniel's father had been driving and the investigation was closed. Daniel said nothing to the contrary. He was only 15 and five people were dead. It was a long time before his wounds healed; both physically and emotionally. His physical injuries healed in a few months but he spent almost a full year in a mental hospital. When he was finally released, he threw himself into his studies with an angry fervor, finished high school and, with the same fury, graduated from college with a degree in business. But though he tried to run, he could never escape. As the car sped along, Daniel reached for a CD and popped it into the deck. In a moment the sound of classical music filled the car and he hummed along. Music always relaxed him and he knew that today was going to be a stressful day. He had to preside over a meeting that would lead to the streamlining of the sales force as the company peaked and the economy slackened. He would have to lay off almost fifty employees, which translated into real human suffering for them and their families, many of whom had been with him from the beginning. But business was business. He had no choice. Though he had deliberately cultivated the image of the cool as ice manager, these parts of the job bothered him very much and he had difficulty sleeping. Daniel turned down the stereo. Quickly glancing down, he reached for this cell phone. "Might as well call in to start the ball rolling," he said to himself. He punched in the numbers but the phone was dead. "Damn! Pay a fortune for this stuff and it doesn't work when you need it!" He tossed the phone onto the seat and fumbled for the volume control on the CD deck. His fingers located it and he turned up the volume, trying to lose himself a little while longer in the world of Mr. Bach. Daniel traveled this road daily since he founded the company almost five years ago. He knew every bend and twist, every dip and rise. It was a beautiful piece of road and he enjoyed the 35-minute trip. The road had two lanes going in each direction. They were separated by a grassy median strip almost fifty yards wide with occasional shrubs and plantings that gave interest to the infield. Routinely, he looked into his rear view mirror and then into his side view mirror. A car slowly gained on him. Soon it was even with Daniel's. He looked casually to his left at the car. It was a black sports model, low slung and powerful looking with black tinted glass and black sidewall tires. "Looks like something Darth Vader would drive if he ever needed to own a car," he chuckled to himself. He looked over at the black car again just as the tinted window slowly descended revealing two men in the car. The passenger wore a pair of mirrored sunglasses. He turned to look at Daniel. Daniel was about to look away when he noticed that the passenger was holding something in his hand. As the passenger moved it, the sun glinted off the polished metal surface. At that instant the object came clearly into view and an intense chill ran through Daniel. It was a gun! A very large gun! And it was pointed directly at him! "Jesus Christ!" Daniel shouted. The passenger held the gun, smugly grinning at him. Instinctively, Daniel jammed on the brakes and the black car shot past. He whipped the wheel hard to the left and the car fishtailed into the grassy infield, its rear wheels spinning wildly, throwing chunks of sod and dirt into the air. He whipped the wheel hard left again and his car found the hard surface of the highway and raced away in the opposite direction away from the madmen in the black car. "Holy shit! Holy goddamn shit! W-What the hell is going on?" Daniel stammered. "W-What the hell is all this about?" His breathing was ragged as he fought his sudden panic. "Who are you guys?" he screamed. He looked in the rear view mirror and saw nothing. He looked into his side view mirror. Again nothing. Still not satisfied, he craned his neck from side to side looking for and dreading the sight of the black car. Nothing. Like a aerial dogfight, you were fully engaged in fighting for your life one minute and the next, there was emptiness. He slowed the car down to a more normal speed and hoped that he wouldn't shake so hard that he might lose control of the car. "What the hell did those loonies want with me?" Daniel asked, aloud. He continued to search the rear and side view mirrors for any signs of those madmen in the black car, but they were gone. That's what they must have been, thought Daniel. Loonies. Joy riders. Escapees from some mental asylum. I'll probably hear about them on the news tonight. Lunatics shoot up highway! CD at eleven, he told himself. It was about time to find an exit and head back towards the company. He was already late. Enough was enough. He would report this to the police as soon as he arrived. He looked into his mirror again. A car was gaining on him, growing larger by the second. Fighting momentary panic, he noted that it was not a black sports car but a run of the mill sedan, the kind that senior citizens would drive. He relaxed as the car overtook him. Daniel looked over at the passing car, pleased to see that it was indeed a car that looked normal and harmless-- the way cars were supposed to look. He looked over again and smiled at the passing car. Suddenly the front passenger's tinted window slowly rolled down. The smile on Daniel's face froze. The window continued its deliberate decent revealing not some harmless senior citizens out for a morning's drive but two men wearing mirrored sunglasses. And the passenger was holding a gun just like the one in the black car! And once again, it was aimed at him! This time Daniel floored the accelerator and his car shot ahead of the sedan. He heard three sharp cracks. He knew it was the sound of gunfire coming from the other car. "Oh, my God! Oh...my...God! They're shooting at me!" he shrieked. "Jesus Christ! Get the hell away from me! Leave me alone! You've got the wrong guy!" Daniel went faster but the sedan matched him. It was alongside him now. Looking at those guys with the sunglasses, his heart pounding in his chest, he hit the brakes before the gunman could line him up and shoot. "Come on! Come on!" He yelled at his car, willing it to stop on a dime. It did but the sedan's driver matched him. He floored the accelerator again and his car shot ahead, but the sedan accelerated at the same moment, glued to his side. If he couldn't think of something fast Crane knew he was about to become a dead man. He stomped on the brakes again but the sedan's driver was not fooled. He hit his brakes at almost the same instant. "Come on, come on!" Daniel screamed as sweat broke out in pools all over his body, cold rivulets dripping down his back. Bile rose up in his throat. Daniel was about to give up when he saw his chance. Up ahead was a curve in the road and at the end of the curve was an exit, as yet unseen by the sedan's driver. If only he could make it to that exit he might stand a chance of surviving this madness. But he couldn't let them know that he was aiming for that spot. His life depended on it. He stomped on the gas pedal one more time and the car shot forward. "I'm gonna make it this time, you assholes!" he shrieked. He laughed hysterically as the fear and panic swept over him again. He felt himself getting light headed. Daniel held a slight lead while heading into the curve but the sedan raced doggedly behind and to his left, its driver closing the distance, setting up for the kill. The exit was about to appear as they passed the middle of the turn and Daniel let the sedan close a bit more, letting the terrible car pull alongside him. He mustn't tip his hand. "That's it! That's it, asshole! Just a little bit more," Daniel shouted. "That's right! That's right!" At the last possible moment, Daniel gave the car one last push of throttle. The sedan did the same. Daniel stomped down on the brakes and turned the wheel to the right. The car slued off the highway and onto the grass at the front of the exit. Regaining control, the car found the exit ramp, leaving a cloud of dust and grass behind, momentarily obscuring his vision. And then he saw the sedan. It was too far over in the left lane to follow him onto the exit. It worked! " Y-eee-aah! Y-eee-aah," Daniel screeched as he pumped his fist up and down in his moment of triumph. "Beat you, you assholes!" Daniel slowed the car to a stop at the end of the exit. He looked right and left. Nothing. He looked in both mirrors. Empty. Carefully he pulled out into the country road and drove for almost a mile, constantly checking his mirrors. At last, satisfied that he was no longer being pursued he pulled over onto the shoulder alongside a barbed wire fence that separated the road from some cows munching peacefully on grass in a field. He shut off the car's engine, put his hands in his lap and let out a long breath. His entire body suddenly broke out into spasms. Painfully, he grasped the door handle, opened up the car door and staggered to his feet. He wobbled unsteadily around the front of the car, stopped by the right front fender and threw up. Daniel Crane stood in the doorway of the store, watching his customers moving about the store browsing through the stock. It all seemed so normal; the way things should be; the way things always had been-- until earlier today. "Where the hell have you been, Daniel?" It was Ritchie Stevens, Daniel's partner. "What's happened to you? You look like you've just seen a ghost or something. Where you been? Everybody's here for the meeting. I was really starting to get worried about..." "Shut up, Ritchie!" Daniel said softly, his voice cracking. "Let's get into the office." He hurried across the store, dragging Ritchie behind him. Quickly they went into the room and Daniel shut the door. Ritchie started to speak but Daniel held up a hand to silence him. "What's going on, Daniel?" Ritchie asked softly, concern etched on his face. Ritchie examined Crane�s face carefully. His partner was never late. You could set your watch by him. And behind his back Daniel was known as "The Ice Man". Ritchie had never seen him so shaken in the twenty years that they had been friends. "I've got a story to tell you and you're not going to believe it. I'm not sure I do, either." Daniel told him about his encounter on the road on his way to work that morning. He told it slowly, methodically, and deliberately, refusing to be rushed, as much to sort it out for himself, to make sense of it, as to find some logical explanation for an illogical situation. "Jesus, Dan. Let's the police." "I don't know, Ritchie. What would I say? 'I was just driving along, officer. Going to work. Minding my own business, when two loonies in a car pull up alongside me for no reason I can think of and try to blow my brains out? And after I ditched these guys, they found me again and tried it a second time? In a different car?' Happens every day, I'm sure, Ritchie." "Well, Dan. You've gotta do something. What if those loonies are still out there?" "Yeah, what if they are? But what if they're not?" The two men sat quietly. "Ritchie, run the meeting," Daniel said, leaning forward. "Postpone it. Cancel it if you want. Tell them that I got sick. Make up anything you want." Suddenly he froze as a thought crystallized in his mind. "Ritchie. What if it wasn't some loony? What if I was the one they wanted? I don't know why, but just suppose I'm the one?" "Christ, that's crazy, Dan. What have you done? And.to whom?" "I don't know the answer to either question, but just what if I'm it? And, what about Kathy? Is my wife in danger, too?" Daniel mopped at the fine beads of sweat that had broken out on his forehead. "I've got to get home and make sure she's okay." "Why don't you just call her, Dan? She doesn't need to know why. Just a love call. Or tell her that you forgot something and you were just checking for it." "Good idea!" Daniel picked up the phone and dialed his home number. The phone rang. With each unanswered ring Crane's pulse pounded in his head. By the fifteenth ring his head was ready to explode and his legs were shaking. She wasn't home. At least he hoped that she wasn't. "Ritchie, I'm going home. I've got to know where Kathy is. Maybe the loonies are at the house and she can't answer? Or what if they�ve grabbed her? I've got to find out but I'll go home a different way. I'll take the main highway!" "Dan, wait. Why don't you just call the police? Have them check the house for you? That�s their job." "And what'll I tell �em? Somebody I�ve never seen shot at me twice and no one seems to be home at my house? Jesus, Ritchie. They'll think I'm some nut case or something. I've got no proof, no evidence. No bullets or bullet holes. No, I'm going home. Now." Daniel left the office and headed out the door to his car. The engine started on the first turn of the key. He yanked his seat belt over his shoulder and into its slot. He looked into his rear view mirror, found it clear of traffic and backed his car out of the space. Pausing, he put on his sunglasses. Crane shifted gears and stepped on the accelerator. Daniel turned into the entrance ramp and easily matched his speed to that of the oncoming traffic. He saw a place to merge and picked up the pace, fighting the urge to speed. He was in no condition to hassle with highway cops. He forced himself to relax. He needed the time to think. Be home in about 40 minutes, he thought. Please, Kathy, be there. Why weren't you there when I called? Where are you? Crazy thoughts, confused thoughts raced through his mind. His head was pounding again. "Some Iceman," he mumbled, mocking himself. Daniel reached for another CD. He popped out the old one and inserted the new one into the machine. The music played. He turned up the sound, willing it to clear out his head and allow him a chance to reorganize his brain. The second melody had finished. The highway was clear ahead of him. Checking the rear view mirror, he noted only one car behind him but it was only a few car lengths behind. Where had it come from? The road was clear a moment ago, wasn�t it? Sweat rolled down his spine soaking his shirt. A surge of panic gripped him once more. He looked into the mirror but the car was still the same distance behind him. He relaxed a bit. "Can't be too careful," Daniel said aloud. Daniel increased his speed, expecting the car behind him to grow smaller. But instead, the car seemed glued to his, like some giant unseen magnet pulling both cars along. It pulled quickly into the passing lane, growing larger in his mirror. The car pulled even with Daniel and he forced himself to look over at it. Crane swallowed once, then swallowed again. His breathing was growing ragged. It was a large car, heavy and solid but powerful. Everything seemed normal. Just another car, right, he told himself. "No big deal," he said to himself, his voice trembling. "Relax." Shaking his head he casually looked at the car again and smiled. Slowly the passenger's window rolled down. The passenger returned Daniel's smile. He wore mirrored sunglasses. Daniel froze. "No, no, no!" he yelled. "Not again! This can't be happening!" The window continued to descend. The passenger calmly and deliberately aimed a gun at Crane's head. Crane slammed on the brakes and the large car shot past. Daniel swerved his car into the left lane to get behind it but the car ahead pulled instantly into the right lane and hit its own brakes. This time it was Daniel whose car shot into the lead. Crane tugged the wheel to the right and pulled in front of the car. But the big car closed the gap between the two cars and nudged Daniel's rear bumper. "Oh,no! Oh no no no!" Daniel roared. "Bad move! Bad move!" He was shaking like a leaf and his stomach ached. "Where are all the cars when you need �em?" he thundered. They were alone on the highway. No other cars. Just the two of them. The big car pulled into the left lane and accelerated. It pulled alongside once again and Daniel saw the passenger reach for something inside the car. Quickly, Daniel scanned the road looking for a way to escape. He turned back to the passenger who was now looking at Daniel and holding something different in his hand. The passenger pointed to the object and then to Crane. Daniel was confused. And then his cell phone buzzed. The sudden buzzing of the phone jolted him so that, involuntarily, he hit the brakes and the large car shot past him again. Daniel didn't try to evade the car this time. He could barely contain his shock. The phone was broken. Dead. He knew it was, so how could it be buzzing? Daniel stared at the phone, not really sure what to do. This phone had a mind of its own. He looked back up at the road and realized that the car was again abreast of him and the passenger was pointing to the phone. Flashes of sunlight reflected off his mirrored sunglasses. Crane reached for the phone and gingerly lifted it from its cradle as if it was a dangerous animal poised to bite him. "H-Hello?" he croaked, his voice barely audible. It was a question, not a statement. "Hello, Mr. Crane," said the passenger with the mirrored sunglasses. "H-How do you know my name?" he managed to squeak out. "Oh, come now, Mr. Crane. You and I are old friends." "F-friends. Friends? I don�t know who the hell you are. I�ve never seen you before in my life. What do you want!? Why are you doing this to me? Why are you after me?" "Oh, come on, Mr. Crane," the man said softly. "You know why. Don't you remember me? We have unfinished business." "Business? Business? What unfin...Who are...?" Daniel looked away from the passenger to the highway just in time to see that he was heading for the edge of the pavement. Dropping the phone, he quickly yanked the steering wheel to the left to keep his car's tires on the road. The car's wheels bit into the roadway and slued wildly from side to side. Crane wrestled with the wheel, as images from the past merged with the present. The car began to respond and slowly it settled back under control. Crane's right hand groped along the seat and found the discarded phone. He picked it up, looked out his window and said, "What the hell do you guys..." He stopped talking. There was no one there anymore. He looked into his rear view mirror. Empty. He looked to his left. Nothing. Ahead, the road was empty there too. Daniel noticed a roadside rest area up ahead and pulled in. He drove along the service road, pulled into a small parking lot, and parked in the last space before the area returned travelers to the highway. Sweat poured off his face and dripped into his eyes. They stung. He reached for a handkerchief but he trembled so much that he couldn't get his hand into his pocket. "Breathe, breathe," he gasped. "Get some control, for Chrisssakes," he said through clinched teeth. He gripped the steering wheel with both hands and held on tight until his breathing became more regular and his heart stopped pounding so loudly in his chest. The knuckles on his hands were white from the exertion. After what seemed like ages, he began to regain some semblance of control. He realized that he was staring at the car phone; the phone that he knew was supposed to be broken. He picked up the phone and brought it to his ear. He punched in Ritchie�s number and pressed the talk button but nothing happened. Dead again. He punched in some numbers but there was still no response. He called Kathy's number but no connection was made. Slowly he lowered the useless instrument from his ear. He shivered. "What's happening to me?" he wailed. "What's happening to me?" He was very frightened because deep inside, he realized that he knew the answer. Daniel turned the key in his ignition and the car purred into life. He accelerated along the access road of the rest stop and reentered the highway. Within seconds he was at cruising speed. He still wanted to get home to Kathy and make sure she was safe. He needed to talk to her and tell her about all the terrible and unbelievable things that had occurred to him in the past few hours. He might be the Iceman to the business world but Kathy was the one he counted on when things got crazy. She'd believe him. She'd help him make sense of this. He had to get home. He increased his speed and checked his mirrors. No one in front. No one in back. He breathed a massive sigh of relief. For the briefest second his body shuddered but then it passed. He took a deep breath. It helped. "Music," thought Daniel." That always works." He reached into his box of CDs and pulled one out. He glanced at it quickly and shifted his gaze back to the road. He looked at the CD in his hand more closely. He always bought prerecorded CDs but here was one that didn't belong. It was home made. It was one he had never seen before. It had no writing on it, no identification of any kind. Just a gold disk with a small hole in the center. Sweat returned to his brow and his stomach tightened into that sinking feeling he was beginning to know too well. He inserted the CD. "Hello, Mr. Crane," said the voice on the CD, resounding from the expensive sound system. "I hope you're feeling better, now." It was the voice of the man with the mirrored sunglasses. In spite of himself, Crane wailed, "No! No! No!" His voice cracked and sounded like the cry of a caged animal. "What do you want from me? Why won't you leave me alone?" Daniel slammed the controls of the CD deck and grabbed the CD as it was ejected from the deck. He hurled it into the back seat as if it was a poisonous snake ready to strike. Suddenly the cell phone buzzed into life. It sounded like a swarm of angry bees. It buzzed and buzzed and seemed to grow so loud that Daniel's head felt like it would explode. He grabbed the phone. "What! What! What the hell do you want?!" "You know what I want, Daniel," said the calm, controlled voice on the other end of the connection. "We have unfinished business. It's time you joined us." Daniel's whole body trembled now and he could barely see. He was breathing so hard, he was sure he'd faint. He looked to his left. The big passenger car was back. And again, the window was beginning to descend. "Oh, please! For Christ's sake, please!" Daniel screeched. He looked again to the passenger with the mirrored sunglasses who held a phone in his hand. Daniel couldn't take his eyes off him. The man's face had changed. Something was very familiar about him now. He was no longer young but rather a middle-aged man. Calmly and deliberately, the passenger reached up and removed his sunglasses. He looked straight at Daniel. Slowly, a ghost of a smile appeared. It was a sad smile, one that emanated from the saddest eyes he had ever seen. A tired smile. Daniel's eyes bulged. That face was so familiar. In an instant his mind flashed back to that awful moment on a winding road in the Vermont of his youth. He saw himself talking to his parents as they sat in the back of their touring car looking at the beautiful autumn scenery. He heard the sound of the horn blaring from the car speeding toward him. Crane felt the car swerve as the oncoming car skidded into the ditch and overturned. "Oh, my God!" Daniel screamed. "I know you! I know you!" Daniel felt a sharp jolt and the car shuddered as it left the road. It skidded along the shoulder of the roadside and crashed into the right guardrail. It bounced along the rail as Daniel fought to regain control of the car. He yanked the wheel hard left to get away from the guardrail but the rear of the car smacked the rail forcing the front end back into it. The steering wheel flew out of Daniel�s hands and the car careened off the shoulder, becoming airborne as it tumbled end over end down the side of a steep embankment alongside the highway. It kicked up dust and debris for close to a hundred yards before it finally came to rest wedged in the crook of a large tree almost eight feet above the ground. And then it exploded. "What the ..." shouted the partner of the highway patrolman as the out of control car hurtled past the cruiser which was parked in an indenture alongside the road. "My God, will you look at that!" He grabbed for the car's radio and called the dispatcher. Both officers got out of the car and ran over to the battered guardrail. There was nothing they could do except wait for the emergency vehicles to arrive. Officer Wilkerson stood at the side of the road and stared down at the burning car. He turned to his partner and said, "What do you think happened, Charlie?" "Beats me. Musta been drunk or somethin'. Never seen nuthin' like it. That guy was really airborne. Musta been really haulin' ass before he lost it." "I know what you mean," Wilkerson said as he took off his hat and scratched the back of his head. "I've never seen anythin' like that, either. There wasn't anyone near him. No other cars on the road. Wasn't like anyone was chasin' him or nothin'." "Guess we'll never know about this one. Maybe he fell asleep." He shrugged. Wilkerson walked back to the patrol car. He shook his head. "No one else on the road but him," he muttered. "Yeah," said his partner. "The guy musta been a lunatic or somethin'." "Yeah," agreed Wilkerson. "Just another one of them loonies".
Copyright © 2001 Steven R Kravsow |