The Bottom Of The Hill
by dcat
Was this the place?
There was only one way to find out. He put the vehicle into park, letting the engine continue to run. Milt shifted his eyes off to the right, catching Millie out of the corner of his eye. She still grasped the cassette tape, her own eyes nearly closed, her head slightly nodding affirmatively up and down, over and over, her lips whispering that this was it. He was here, close by. She could feel it. She'd been repeating that since the sun went up.
The only thing Hardcastle could feel, was the sweat forming under his collar. He ran his left hand over his face and tried to loosen up his tie or maybe he was just trying to get the knot out of his throat, either way it was too damn uncomfortable for his own good. Why he'd left the blasted noose tied around his neck for the past ten hours, he didn't know, maybe it was just a lack of care about it one way or another. His mind was elsewhere, like whatever might be lying just below the edge of the road.
Millie had been right about way too many things. To him, she was like a gambler on a hot streak. McCormick bought the whole line about being a psychic, but not Hardcastle. He found himself almost lulled into the fact that it was all coincidence, that no one could really have a handle on all of that, sooner or later she was bound to be wrong. It was the law of averages, wasn't it? For every so-called vision she saw, she was bound to be wrong the same amount of times. She had to be.
And if there was a time to be wrong, it was now, right here, this place and this very time.
She wasn't making a move or saying anything anymore. Maybe she was sensing his skepticism.
He opened the truck door and tried to catch his own breath. He glanced back through the windshield and saw Millie staring right at him, probably sending him some sort of positive thoughts or other sort of mumbo jumbo. He didn't have any more time to give her and her psychic abilities any amount of time or concern right at the moment. He just wanted to find McCormick. And he wanted to find him alive.
He quickly stepped around the front of the familiar GMC truck and maneuvered his way to the edge of the quiet, desolate road. Hardcastle knew his heart and blood had been pulsing and palpitating at a higher rate than normal all through the long night and now into the dawn, but now as he came around his truck, his insides felt like they had turned into mush and his internal fluids began to boil underneath his skin. His temperature rose.
His boot tip hit the soil where the highway ended and cold damp earth began. Two more steps and he was able to get a look to the bottom of the hill.
McCormick.
Milt's heart stopped cold. And in that specific instant, everything that had come before and everything here after would change between the two of them. His blood stopped boiling beneath his skin, his heart ached to beat at all. He had to force himself to even move.
The bottom of a hill.
There he was, almost directly below where Hardcastle had parked the truck and where he now stood.
Milt froze. The emotion that normally filled him simply vanished now. There was no doubt that it was Mark, lying down there in the ravine. The unmistakably head of curly hair, the pressed shirt and suit, and worst of all, a crimson stain painted across his lower torso. She saw two men and a gun. She saw his death.
She couldn't be right, not about the bottom of the hill. It was the law of averages.
Hardcastle felt the bile build up in his gut. He unknowingly grabbed at a low hanging branch and snapped it off the tree feeling a bit of rage rise up and choosing to take it out on the stray twig. He tossed it to the ground not giving it another thought. He had to get down there. God how he wished he didn't, not like this, not amidst this vision.
Damn, she was right about everything. This place, the bottom of a hill, with a big boulder by the side of the road, and McCormick lying down there with a bullet in him, she had nailed it all.
She couldn't be right about him being dead though.
He began to descend the steep ravine, at first hearing the loud idle of his truck just above him, but after just a few steps into the damp forest, the hum of the engine faded and the quietness of the morning dew hung in the air all around him. A couple of birds rustled in some nearby tree sapling and off in the distance he heard the call of a crow. He shook off the image of the black bird and its somber meaning, focusing his eyes on where McCormick lay motionless.
Milt skidded through the undergrowth of the trees and shrubs, nearly knee-deep in some spots, buried in mulch, his shoes and trousers already wet from the natural transition from darkness to dawn.
A soft breeze blew through the tops of the trees.
He slowed up just a bit to keep his balance and to prevent himself from falling, still he zeroed in on McCormick's body. He watched for the slightest of movements, a twitch or even a shiver in the cold dampness. Nothing came.
It was just a few more steps now. Milt couldn't find his voice to call out to his friend. His own fear surrounded him. Quickly now, he fell to one knee beside him, looking and hoping for anything, any sign of life, he reached for his hand, placing his own on top of his.
He felt warmth. Honest to goodness warmth. And then the shallow rise and fall of McCormick's chest, first once, then again and again. Hardcastle immediately scanned his gaze from his chest to his face. Just in time too, McCormick's eyes fluttered open and in that unmistakenable cocky voice of his, he asked, "What took you so long?"
It was there at the bottom of the hill that the law of averages finally kicked in.
The End