Disclaimer: I own nothing. Names and places mentioned here belong to their respective owners but not me.
A/N: Hello everybody! This is my first wrestling fic. I've been a wrestling my entire life and I also have my favorite wrestlers. So I decided to write one (and maybe the first of many) with two of my favorites. At first this was intended to be a one-shot, but it came out to be longer that I previously expected, so I decided to make it a multi-chapter fic, buy not too many. As you read, you may notice some language/grammatical/ orthographic errors. I reviewed it over and over again to minimize the number of errors as much as possible. Nonetheless I hope you enjoy it and understand it just fine.
Another quick note: The only images I have from the real Lake Michigan are from web search; I've never been there in person. So I may describe some things that may not exist in the real site, they are all for the sake of the story.
And one last note, this fic is not a slash; if you see any, it's only in your minds and not here.
Lake Michigan
Chapter 1: The Road
"There you have it, folks. The majestic view of Lake Michigan right before our eyes. Scuba diving paradise, home to a wide diversity of wildlife, and also the tomb to some unfortunate mobsters who didn't make it in time to pay their monetary debts to their superiors. Please, let's give them a minute of silence and show them our respect."
"Damn, Alex. What kind of babbling is coming out of your mouth this time?" Chris Sabin said to his friend while driving his black Ford Explorer through the high road that surrounded the Lake Michigan. It was the middle of Autumn, and the mountains whitened by the snow could be seen from the distance ahead.
Alex Shelley turned away from the camcorder in his hand and stared at his best friend/colleague over his shoulder. Half his body was sticking out from the window on his passenger's seat. "What? Can't I be inspired sometimes? Chris, I also have my needs to free my muses sometimes."
"Well, next time be sure to free them far away from me. Sometimes your muses got me annoyed. Anyway, what's up with the recording thing?"
"This beauty? I found it in the bottom of my duffel bag. I had it all alone and forgotten. Guess I could find a new use to it since my spying days are way over." He said while holding the piece of technology in his hand.
"By taping the lake? Alex, we've drove by this road hundreds of times and we've seen the lake in every angle possible. Haven't you found anything else interesting enough to waste 700 MB on it yet?" He said. Sometimes, his friend's behavior makes his patience to drain slowly out of his system. This time was no exception.
Alex sighed, somehow defeated. "You're right." He repositioned himself in his seat. "I think I need a shot from above. Can you open the sunroof?"
"What?" Chris asked, confused.
"Okay. No problem, I'll open it." He reached the button that opens the sunroof. The sunroof slid open swiftly.
"What are you doing?" Chris asked.
Ignoring him, Alex began to push himself through the sunroof, robbing some room to the driver's side. "Hey pal, gimme some space…"
While Alex kept struggling his way through the sunroof, Chris didn't know if to keep his eyes on Alex or on the road. He struggled a second to keep the drive steady on the humid road.
"Hey. Watch out! You'll make me crash off the road!" He shouted to Alex.
"Just… Aw yes." Alex said triumphantly. Now his torso was completely out in the open air through the sunroof. He placed one foot on the dashboard and the other on the driver seat's back. Half of that foot found support inconsiderately on Chris' shoulder.
"Watch my shoulder!" He turned his head slightly to see the other man's shoe almost in his face. His face contorted. "Oh man, your shoes stink!"
Chris knew that his complaints would not be heard, it would be fruitless to discuss with his colleague. On the other side, discussions like this between friends, made things look normal and entertaining. After months of touring and wrestling throughout the states, a little space to free their minds was always more that welcome. And now that they finally got some time to rest and relax, they were going to enjoy it to the maximum. He also knew that the definition of "relaxation" for him could be slightly different from Alex's. Actually, they were letting each other be. This time, Chris took his passive side. Alex was just being him.
"Hey Chris, you should see the lake from up here. It looks bigger. It's even hard to see the other side." Alex shouted from outside. He held the camcorder once more in his hand and resumed his recording.
There was a light, cool breeze outside that entered his nose as Chris kept the car's speed constant, though not that fast. His heavy jacket protected him from any coldness it brought. The sun was setting down, and with it, dark grey clouds began to cover the orange sky, announcing that rain was coming soon. Alex saw the effect of the mixing sun rays and clouds were beautiful, and smiled at the view as an excited kid on an interstate trip.
"Oh gosh, look how high we're driving from the lake level, man. How high could it be? Maybe a hundred feet?"
His feet were digging deeper into the dashboard and into Chris' shoulder. He began to feel uncomfortable. It made his driving a little difficult.
"Oh, those are pretty big rocks down there. Why I haven't noticed them before…"
I don't believe it…
Chris decided that Alex's fun was turning into his actual discomfort and insecurity in the road. He then raised his right elbow and hit Alex in the back of his knee with it. The hit was strong enough to blend his leg. Alex lost his balance and leaned forward to avoid falling. Fun was over. For now.
"Oww! Man, what was that for?" Alex protested.
"Get your ass back inside." Chris ordered seriously.
He slowly lowered until he reached his place in the passenger's seat. "Hell Chris, are you so used to kill the moment that way?"
"You keep poking your nose out of the car and I'm getting a chill from it. Isn't the air cold enough outside?"
"Ugh, you sound like my mom." He turned the camcorder off and threw it to the back seat.
"Well, it seems that she's the only one that possesses total control of you. You see, you obeyed me immediately." Chris chuckled.
"Man, you hurt my feelings."
"Yeah, yeah. Go drown your sorrows in a barrel of whiskey somewhere else. But not in my car, and certainly not around me."
"Hey, what kind of man do you think I am?"
"The kind of man who would pour whiskey all over him just to make some girls to take a lick out of you."
Alex gave a look to his friend. "And you wouldn't do it, shy guy?"
"Nope." Chris said. A pause in the conversation was follow. Until Chris added with a grin. "'Cause I already did it."
"What?! You are a dirty little bastard!" Alex exclaimed, laughing. "And you didn't share it to your best friend?"
"Sorry Alex. Up till today I'm still digesting that memorable night. Oh man…" Chris said dreamily. He was grinning from ear to ear while he kept his eyes on the road.
"When was that? And where the hell I was that night?"
"Remember the house show at Tampa Bay last Summer?" Chris asked.
"Yeah…"
"And you remember this beach bar with the wooden gazebos in the sand and the white curtains all over there?"
"I was there."
"No. You stayed at the bar stool scoring at the bartender there. By the way, pretty brunette you got right then. So while you were engaged in conversation, this stunning blonde invited me over one of those gazebos… with a bottle of Jack Daniels in her hand. Dude, it turned out to be quite romantic. And, well…" He cocked an eyebrow and turned to Alex.
"And?" He waited for the rest of his story, but Chris said nothing more and only kept smiling to himself. "Oh come on, pal. Don't hold the suspense." He pressed. His curiosity was going to killed him one day.
"Sorry Alex. I'll leave it to your –"
The next statement was cut short when something hit the side of the Explorer, shattering and flattening the driver's door at impact. It happened so fast that none of them saw what got them hit. The vehicle screeched against the asphalt as it turned on its wheels with incredible speed. The hit was so violent that it sent the SUV off the road and directly through the thick metal verandas that marked the road limit and protected the drivers to fall to the lake waters beyond.
Chris grunted as he felt a dull pain on his side when the unseen thing crashed with his car. The impact made him released the grip from the steering wheel while the forceful hit pushed him to the opposite side. His body blended painfully to one side and the safety belt dug into his collar bone. For those painful seconds, he couldn't breathe, and panic ran through his spine.
Alex didn't suspect that something was wrong until some invisible force stole his balance and pushed him hard against the passenger's door. He first felt his arm collided against the window. A millisecond later, his head collided against the glass. The blow stunned him, making him dizzy and nauseous instantly. The pressure of the hit was suffocating and made it hard to breathe.
Once the initial shock subdued enough to move, Chris straightened himself back into his sit. He blinked several times to dissipate the fog inside his head. He looked to the front and saw the windshield glass crack. The spidery cracks zigzagged from left to right. Then he slowly looked at his side to find the driver's door twisted and broken. The window, as well as the windshield glass was still in place but as shattered as the first one.
When he tried to moved, pain exploded through his left arm and shoulder. He hissed in pain as he held it close to his body with his right, unhurt hand. He tried to fix his blurry sight through the glass cracks. All he could see was the cloudy dusk beyond and the water joined by the horizon line. No earth in sight. He leaned as much as his injured side allowed him to watch down over the door's window. All he could see was the vast waters of Lake Michigan under the car.
"Wha-What the…" He couldn't find his voice to finish.
Bewildered, he moved his head to look though the side mirror to see outside of the car. He shivered when he noticed that the car was barely holding on the edge of the rocky cliff by its two rear tires. Luckily, some of the bodywork underneath the car might got stuck with some of the big rocks that protuberated from the edge. Dismayed, Chris realized that the front tires, along with most of the front part of the car, was suspended in the middle of the air and at the mercy of gravity.
He looked down once more. The vertical distance between the car and the water looked pretty high. Maybe Alex was right before; they must be at least a hundred feet away from the abyss. If the car's precarious anchorage to the rocks gave up, they were going to hit the water, hard.
Chris glanced at his friend. Alex leaned to the door window. His eyes were closed shut and his face contorted in a pain grimace. "Alex?" Chris called, his own discomfort on his side made his voice shook.
He didn't respond. He hissed through his teeth trying to get rid of the sharp pain in his brain.
"Alex, come on buddy. Wake up." Chris called again. He shook Alex's shoulder with his unhurt hand.
Slowly, Alex opened his eyes and straightened back into the seat. He winced as he pressed one hand against his temple. Still a little disoriented, he appeared to be in control of his breathing.
"You okay bro?" Chris asked.
Alex looked at his friend and then at his surrounding. "Wh-what the hell… happened?" Alex finally said in a gasp.
Chris was staring at him intently and he didn't understand why. Wasn't he supposed to be driving and staring straight ahead to the road? And why did he suddenly stop talking to him? He looked through the cracked window glass. Clarity and shock invaded his mind when he saw water down below instead of the gray asphalt road.
"Holy shit…"
In the wake of realization, he began to agitate in his seat but the belt was constricting his movement. When he brought his hand to unbuckle it, the car balanced forward, threatening to slide over and to finally meet the frigid water. The car's twisted metal creaked loudly.
"No, no, no! Don't move! Keep still, stay right where you are!" Chris shouted at him when he though the car was finally going down the cliff. He instinctively stuck his back into the seat and grabbed the steering wheel in hopes that the senseless action would hold the car in balance for a little longer. "Don't' even blink…"
"Okay, okay. Not blinkin', no movin'…" Alex repeated, almost out of air. The vehicle swung softly forward, then backward, until it came back to its "original" position.
Both men waited until the car remained static again. Once still, the crumbling anchorage ceased creaking. The only noises that filled the closed space inside car were those of their agitated breath intakes.
"Okay, I guess something on the road hit us, right?" Alex asked.
"Yeah," Chris nodded.
He looked to the driver's side for a moment, and noted the odd shape and chipped metal if the door. The door was partly popped in into the car. Whatever hit them, it made direct impact to Chris' side.
"It hit you by your side, Chris! Are you hurt?"
Chris blinked before answering gathering himself together. "I'm okay. It's not that bad." He replied with an almost inaudible mumble. His entire left side of his body throbbed. He winced and shook away a small wave of dizziness.
"I'm not buying it. You're as pale as snow."
He frowned at him. "Well I'm not the only one playing ghost here. You look terrible." Chris paused. "Oh hell, I'm not entirely okay. You're right, the SOB crashed by my door."
"What about you?" He pressed. He wanted to know more about his condition; he didn't give a damn about how the car looked.
Chris sighed. "I think my shoulder got part of the impact, it hurt like hell. And my ribs on the left side feel a bit sore, too. The rest, I'll manage."
He looked at the passenger's window and frowned at some red smears that dripped down the glass.
"Alex, you're bleeding." He asked, concerned.
"What?"
Chris pointed at the window. Alex followed with his eyes and found blood stains in the glass, right where his head collided against it. He took his hand to his head again, and felt something wet and sticky in his right temple. He frowned in disgust when his fingers came out red with blood.
"No wonder why my head hurt so much," he said exasperated. "But don't worry, it's only my head. Nothing else hurt, I swear."
"Okay…" The dirty blond man relied on his answer.
Silence filled the car once more, the shock still looming the men heads. He looked through his window once more.
"The car that hit us…"
Alex looked at his partner when he broke the silence. He still had a hand in the wheel, and he stared outside the car.
"…It was red. Another SUV. And had a state plate." He said not parting his eyes from the spot outside.
Alex frowned. It all happened so fast, and yet he could focus on such details. Was he hallucinating?
"And the plate ends with the number 8."
"You managed to notice all that? Why are you so sure?"
"'Cause it's down there."
Alex leaned forward a little to take a look outside. The lights were turned on and helped to see the water a hundred feet below. What he saw made his gut inside him jump. The only visible part of the red SUV car was the rear part, the rest was already sinking deep into the water. It clearly hit the water front first. The air escaped to the surface as the car sunk slowly and disappeared into the deep. They watched the car finally sunk completely. As far as they could see, there were no signs of anyone moving inside the car. If the driver survived, it was unknown to them. The mystery red vehicle kept sinking slowly until it disappeared underwater.
"We have to get out of here," Chris said.
"Maybe some other driver on the road will notice us."
"We've been driving for about half an hour through the route and the only car on the road beside us is down there. Alex, I didn't see any other car passing by."
The car moved again, this time farther forward. They held their breath. The car swung for some seconds, then remained still but more inclined to the water abyss below. Either the rock cliff or the anchorage was giving up with each minute passing. They must act now and fast before they end up in the bottom of Lake Michigan.
"Then we call 911," Chris said.
"Is there any signal in this area?"
"There must be. I don't pay eighty bucks a month for a crappy coverage." He carefully slid his hand into his pocket searching his cellphone. But his hand came empty.
"Can I use you cellphone?" He asked Alex.
"Where's yours?"
"In my backback… in the trunk."
He rolled his eyes, annoyed. Action that he regretted doing because his headache ignited once more, worst that before. "Genius."
"The battery was dead anyway." Chris added.
Alex closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He was feeling cold and was getting desperate to come out of this situation. He knew that the place they were stuck was pretty isolated and there was no way they could wait for some good Samaritan to show up, and the nearest form of civilization was still miles away from there.
So much for a little getaway…
Resolved to be the one to take both of them out of their messy situation, he unbuckled his seat belt and bent over to the side.
"What are you doing?" Chris asked when Alex roughly moved inside the car. "Where-?"
"Don't worry, I'm just trying to reach on my cellphone." He explained. "It's in my backpack too, but I put it on backseat floor instead."
"Okay," Chris said. He shivered slightly. Despite the fact that he was protected, it was getting cold inside, and he could not imagine how low the temperature was outside. "Just… try not to move too much, would ya?"
"Like I said, I'll try." Alex muttered.
Not moving from his seat, Alex stretched his arm to the backseat floor. He searched blindly with his right for a minute until he reached his backpack. He then searched for one of its pockets and worked the zipper open. He then slipped his hand into the pocket and into the mess it was inside. He tried to surveillance his task looking over his shoulder, but the pack was out of his sight.
Chris watched as Alex blindly maneuvered over his backpack. As much as he wanted to accelerate the task, he was afraid that the simple actions of turning his head or moving his hand away from the steering wheel would break the poor balance that was holding the car into safety.
Lighting filled the sky above and the horizon far away, followed by the loud sound of thunder. Both men were distracted by it and looked through the cracked front glass. Night finally fell in, and the weather was so cloudy that no stars were visible. Only the pale light of the moon shone through them.
It was going to rain.
"Great, can't things just get any worst?" Chris muttered. The car swung again. Things were getting worst. "Alex, hurry up with that cellphone."
"Just a second, I'm almost there…"
After digging through his MP3 player and some of his camcorder's recording discs, he finally recognized his cellphone with his hand. "Woo, I got it!"
He took it out quickly and checked it for a signal. Two bars out of five. Not a very strong signal though, but he hoped it would do. He dialed the emergency number and took the cellphone on his ear.
A few rain drops began to fall against the glass and the Explorer's blended hood. The vehicle creaked again. The rain was not going to help them.
"Alex…"
"Damn it! No one's answering!"
A mellow female voice finally answered the emergency call.
"9-1-1. What is your emergency?"
"Yeah, my friend and I had a car crash and the hit sent us off the road and we are still inside and…" He stopped his rant to breathe and to control his nervousness. "…and now we are 'bout to fall down to the lake… We can't get out of here…"
Another thunder made both men almost jump out of their sits. The car began to slide forward again. The rain was now intensifying and was moistening the earth and rocks that held half of the car in solid ground.
"Shit we're falling down…" Alex said under his breath, his phone in his ear.
"Please tell them to hurry!" Chris pressed. Time was running out.
"Send somebody now, we're falling!"
"Sir I need your exact location."
The car continued to swing forward. No coming back now. The heavy rain saturated the ground and it was adding unwanted pressure to the car hood.
Alex spat the approximate location to the operator.
"I'm sending a rescue unit right away…"
"Oh God, hold on Chris!"
"We are goin' down!!!"
"…Sir, I need you to remain ca-"
The metal bodywork creak and the rocks under it rumbled loudly one last time as the anchorage finally gave up. The operator never had a chance to complete her statement. In slow motion, the two wrestlers saw helplessly how the car slid down the cliff to meet with the now dark waters of the lake. The car turned over during the gravity fall, hitting the waters roof first and the four tires upside down. The car bounce a little over the water, then began to sink with to people inside.
TBC...
A/N: Love it? Hate it? Dare to share your comments with me, they are greatly appreciated.
