YOU SAVED ME
CHAPT. 1- THE BEGINNING OF THE END
He knew he was bleeding out. He had tried for a while to reach the wound in his leg but his injured left shoulder and the steering wheel prevented him from applying even simple pressure. Only the pain had kept him conscious and even that was beginning to fade…a sure sign of shock. The Porche had all kinds of safety features but was never engineered to roll down an embankment, bounce off boulders and keep its driver un-injured. Miraculously it had landed on its wheels. At least he wasn't hanging up-side down. Perhaps the GPS locater was still operational but he doubted anyone could reach him in time. Trenton's lights could be seen in the distance and he smiled to himself. His last view of earth wasn't what he expected. The rain made the whole scene surreal. The expressway below looked like a river of twinkling stars. The sky above looked dark and cold. Just about the same way that he was feeling.
The day was all on the road. He had planned to be back home by nightfall. Traffic was so backed up on Rte. 31 his patience ran thin. A spur-of-the-moment decision to use a little known shortcut at Baldwin's Corner made sense. A light mist was still in the air. Wetter than fog, dryer than out and out rain; it made driving interesting. He liked 'interesting'. Besides the Turbo hugged the road like a cat. He had used this route often and knew all the blind turns. Too bad the deer didn't know about the turns. He first saw the movement to his left and started to slow. The doe had stopped waiting for her two fawns to follow. Spinning the wheel hard to the right caused the car to hydroplane just enough to take him to the shoulder. That should have been it: a close call, an adrenaline rush and move on. The laws of physics however, are much stronger than any manmade machine. Two days of rain had saturated the ground and weakened the hillside. The weight of the car was just enough to force part of the roadside to break away. Here he was, literally between a rock and a hard place; in the dark, alone and running out of options.
Consciousness had returned with a gasp. He'd been there before and hated the first moments of sensory shock…Where am I? What happened? Am I in danger? Can I fight? With those questions asked, he began to evaluate the answers one at a time. I'm in the Turbo, but it's not right. What's this shit in my face. Oh, the air bags deployed. Jeeze, the roof is practically on top of me. And what is all this pain! Damn my shoulder must have taken the force of the seatbelt. I can't raise my left arm even through the pain. You're doing yourself no good here, man. Get out of the car. Come on move! Get out! Shit, now what's wrong?
The Turbo was wedged nose down against a large outcrop of rock. The boulders had kept him from becoming a splat on the expressway below. But one exceptionally large one was now nuzzling partially inside the driver's door preventing any hope of exiting that way. The roof had pan-caked on the passenger's side thankfully at an angle that did not involve crushing his head. He could move he feet but the angle of the bent steering wheel and dash pinned his legs and prevented him from sliding out. Even if he could pop the windshield out, he was still trapped in the seat. Something else was wrong. Thinking was getting way to hard and took to long. Take a couple of deep breaths and go over this situation again. Ah, the deep breaths…there's the problem. Breathing hurts. This is just getting better and better.
That's when he felt the blood running down his leg. A piece of door metal had embedded itself squarely in his left thigh. Still attached to the door proper he had the bizarre image of an insect pinned to a specimen tray pop into his mind. He laughed at himself and the impossible mess he was in. Not a funny laugh; a resigned laugh. The reality of impending death had not settled in yet. It would.