Warning: This chapter contains the horrific car crash that should have killed Jordan. This is gory, but I've tried to make it not too gratuitous. There are elements have been taken out of my own personal experiences with car crashes, and also elements out of my nightmares. There is a point in a crash when you are no longer the driver, and you are just along for the ride. And that point can be crossed with blinding speed. …Enjoy? It gets better in the next chapter, I promise!
Disclaimer: While this fic will not contain explicit sex scenes, it will contain graphic displays of violence, headgames, triggers for claustrophobia, and some nightmarish scenes. Jordan narrowly avoids death; 'nuff said? Also, I am writing the 'real world' side from a Christian worldview POV; some of you may find that offensive or in the case of the first chapter, ironically humorous.
September 5, 1985, 6:57PM
A few miles from Flynn's Arcade, in a speeding ambulance with sirens wailing a warning song, lay Jordan Canas on a stretcher, fighting for her life.
As Jordan wandered in and out of consciousness, she became aware of was the sound of labored breathing, muffled sirens sounding off continually, and a child crying. Distantly, she was aware that the breathing was hers.
Breathing. Still breathing, good. Fuzzy mud-dled thinking notstraight why...? Baby crying – Sam? Yeah that's my Sammy! Good, Sam crying good. 'M Warm. Comfy. Sooo Slleeeppyy… Sleepy is wrong. Why is that wrong? Hurt. Brightness, why is that so bright? Hurts…
Jordan groaned and her eyelids briefly fluttered open.
Jordan's last sight she would see in the ambulance, before surrendering to the black hole of sleep that had pulled on her so hard for the last grueling 45 minutes, was the blessed image of a whole, moving, bandaged Sam, crying, squalling in the arms of a black paramedic, and that of another paramedic, his face whited out by the bright lights in the ambulance, telling her, urging her, to stay awake.
I don't think I care, Jordan dreamily thought as she closed her eyes, vaguely aware of the bumps the ambulance experienced as they sped down the street. Sam is okay.
As clawing blackness fought to pull her under, she became vaguely aware of the long shrieking beep of a heart monitor warning of flatline. The paramedic nearest her swore and bumped her stretcher.
Just then, a voice spoke as if from the inside of Jordan:
Fight, Jordan. You aren't finished here.
The voice was soundless; nevertheless it was so authoritative that it shook her to her core. It startled her.
Then Jordan's body shook with an artificial jolt. Jordan knew that the jolt should have been painful, but it wasn't. It was… as if she were not in her body. Everything seemed lighter.
The flatline sound continued.
Fight, Jordan, the Voice reverberated again. This isn't your time.
Another jolt. The flatline warning continued.
Who are you? Jordan tried to ask. Her lips didn't seem to want to move. It was like they were… disconnected.
The King of kings and The Lord of lords, the Voice replied with force. Now be strong, and FIGHT!
Jordan almost didn't want to. The thought of returning to that damaged, confining body was a bit much. But then, in a split second, Jordan knew, just knew, why she wanted to fight, and she made her decision.
Jordan forced herself into as much consciousness as she could muster, and screamed inside with everything she had:
SAM!
and Jordan had the sensation of rushing back into her body.
A third jolt, this time excruciatingly painful. Jordan groaned from the pain, and noticed that it was still hard to think, but different, somehow. She felt a little trapped in her body, but there was a small sense of victory. Jordan didn't think about it; she was exhausted.
The long electronic beep had ceased, replaced by regularly spaced tones. Jordan somehow overheard, over Sam's wailing, one of the paramedics saying "Damn, that was close," and while the other quietly replied, "She's not out of the woods yet." Then, to her, "Keep fighting, Ms. Canas."
Jordan, now set on fighting to live, was unaware of the exact moment when everything finally went fitfully dark.
Earlier…
It was supposed to be a shortcut. Jordan wanted to shave fifteen minutes off the drive home, and the only way to do that during the afternoon rush hour was to cut a path through a declining neighborhood, a few miles from Kevin's arcade. A ghetto. It was Kevin's birthday; Jordan wanted to get home from work early to surprise him. Jordan snorted a laugh at how like a mother hen Alan Bradley had been about her driving through this less-than-ideal neighborhood – it had taken a sharp turn for the worse shortly after a local factory had closed its doors – it wasn't like she was his wife. Jordan frowned at that last thought – the relationship between Alan and Lora had been strained lately. Kevin, as usual, was oblivious.
Jordan's thoughts were diverted when she pulled into the daycare parking lot. Sam was all smiles when Jordan picked him up, especially when he found out that they were going to celebrate Daddy's birthday. Little Sam, all of 2-1/2 years old, had figured out that birthdays of any kind meant ICE CREAM. As Jordan prepared to pull back out of the parking lot, she spared a glance at her son buckled into the child seat in the back and smiled. She never wanted to forget that image of Sam, innocent and reflecting sunshine in his blue eyes.
Jordan had a sense of foreboding as she pulled into the street, headed for the shortcut, but she pushed past it. The neighborhood isn't that bad, Alan, Jordan said to herself, not noticing how the sunlight was fading in the late afternoon.
She was driving in the heart of that neighborhood when it happened; Jordan never saw what hit her. A driver high on drugs blew past a red stoplight at full speed and slammed into the driver's side of Jordan's tiny import sedan, forcing the little car up against the nearest light pole at the other end of the intersection.
From that very moment, Jordan's world was turned upside down.
"Flynn, you really ought to consider - "
The beeper went off in Kevin's pocket. Were he in any other place, he would have gone to the nearest telephone to call the number on the pager. But he what he was carrying wasn't a 'pager', per se. And there were no telephones where he was at –
"Jordan?" Kevin looked confused. One of Kevin's companions sighed, and the other one, who had been speaking to Kevin, folded his arms in disgust.
"Sorry guys, gotta go!" And with a flick of his wrist, Kevin was speeding off towards the Portal.
Fire. Pain. Searing pain. Flames. Smoke. Can't see can't breathe –
That Jordan awoke at all from the concussion caused by a collision with a full-sized 1980s Ford sedan could be called a miracle in itself.
What Jordan awoke to was a world of pain, trapped in the car that was now twisted and broken around her. Sam was screaming. Screaming.
Sammy – my SAMMY!
Jordan fought panic as she forced herself awake, knowing that the danger was far from over. Had she been alone, she might have given in to panic; however, someone was depending on her –
"HELP!" Jordan cried through the broken glass, or rather, tried to. For her efforts, she inhaled a lungful of smoke coming back from the engine. She coughed instead, and tried again, with the same results.
Someone help me! Help my baby! Jordan tried to say, and felt the panic rise in her chest when she could only cough.
PANIC IS NOT AN OPTION, Jordan told herself over the flames. THINK!
…thinking was swiftly becoming harder to do, between the nasty headache and the smoke that was trying to choke her to death.
Little Sam was no longer screaming; he was coughing between cries. His cry of "Mommy!" was too much for Jordan –
Jordan summoned what strength she had and tried to move to reach Sam; that only served to make clear how trapped she was, and pain shot through her body with renewed intensity. Everything was painful except… her legs. She couldn't feel her legs. With quickly growing alarm, Jordan tried to move them.
Nothing.
Jordan tried to cry in despair and terror but was stopped by that damned smoke!
God – If you're really out there – HELP! Please help me! Jordan screamed silently, fighting waves of pain and nausea.
TURN OFF THE CAR, Jordan heard.
Jordan didn't hear a voice but she knew that thought didn't come from her –
TURN OFF THE CAR NOW, Jordan heard again, a rock solid awareness rather than an audible sound.
Jordan didn't waste any more time, and fought to quickly bring her arm to the steering column. Her hand fumbled through the blinding smoke, and she felt her way to the key. Her fingers registered a small pain as she forced the key to turn off. Almost immediately, the level of smoke dropped, as the noise of the running engine, which Jordan hadn't noticed until then, clattered to a stop.
All was not well, however. The car was still intolerably hot, and as the smoke cleared through broken glass, Jordan could see that the engine was on fire. In addition, Jordan noticed that her left arm felt strangely warm and sticky – and Jordan felt nauseous and lightheaded and sleepy all at the same time. But still –
Sam – where's my Sammy?!
Before Jordan could speak, little Sam, still in his car seat in the back, let out a long wail. Jordan never thought she'd be so happy to hear such a terrified cry.
"It's OK, Sam, everything's going to be alright, honey," Jordan said over her shoulder, even as she knew things weren't alright, and had to work to make the words come out of her mouth correctly.
Jordan tried to move again; she was still stuck, and now that most of the smoke had cleared, she had a better view of how bad the situation was – which was horrifying. Blood was everywhere – her own blood – her legs were trapped in the footwell, her hips looked crushed, she still had no feeling in her legs, and her left arm, although she could move it, was trapped. Only her right arm seemed free; she tried to use it to reach back for Sam, only to have searing pain in her back as the reward. She cried out in spite of herself. Her only comfort and, at the same time, goad, was that Sam kept crying out "Mommy!"
Jordan had never felt this helpless.
If that really was You, God, please help! Save my baby if you don't save me!
Despair was an open pit, threatening to swallow Jordan whole.
Again, an awareness came to her – but this time, her life flashed before her, and she saw all the wrong things she had said and done in her life: the 'innocent' gossip she had spread, her troubled relationship with her mother, her continued frustration with her frequently absent husband, her desire to see her ex-boss burn in hell; her childhood friend that she had abandoned in the name of being popular at school; it all came back with a vengeance –
It had the effect of making Jordan all the more desperate.
God, forgive me! I'm so sorry! Please help! I know I don't deserve it! Help my Sammy!
Jordan felt the tears flow down her face, uncertain that her prayer had been heard.
The car crash was so close to the 'garage' that it sounded like it came from the inside of the place.
One of the mechanics, Cal, swore a blue streak as the vibration in the floor knocked a wrench off his toolbox and onto his knee – not too painful in itself but it startled him into lifting his head into the oilpan of the car he working on from beneath –
"What the &^%$ was that?!" Cal exclaimed as he saw his boss, Al, running towards the entrance.
"Don't know. Put the tools away. Lock the place down," said Al as he reached the front.
"But we just got started - " Cal protested.
"Police could be here any minute. Just do it!" Al barked. At the mention of the police, Cal and the other two 'mechanics' with him quickly and quietly began to clean up the place while Al went outside to investigate the spectacle in front of the garage.
One of the mechanics noticed Al opening the front door and leaving –
"What the $%^$ is Al doing?!" he exclaimed to Cal in a whisper. "He'll be seen!"
"He's covering your ass, that's what! Keep moving!" ordered Cal.
The sight that greeted Al outside the 'shop' was straight out of a news video: a compact sedan pinned against a light pole by a full sized one. The compact sedan's engine was on fire, whereas the full sized sedan, while not on fire, seemed to be leaking radiator fluid. As Al was trying to figure out if he should do something, the full sized sedan tried to back up. Al watched, incredulous, as the sedan successfully backed up, dragging the smaller car with it a short distance before breaking free. Then the larger vehicle, with the front end damaged, slowly limped away, making scraping noises and leaking coolant as it went.
Al snorted. He's not going to get too far.
Al turned his attention back to the other car. He didn't want to get involved, but…
Then he heard the child screaming. Now he had a real dilemma – save a child or risk getting caught -
It was when he heard a woman crying his name, a nickname he hadn't heard in years, that he took action.
Al ran back into the shop.
Cal looked up from the tools he was packing; the rest of the team had made quick work of cleaning up valuables they didn't want to abandon, and were halfway done when Al ran back in.
"What's going on?" Cal asked.
"There's a car crash outside. It's bad. Hit and run," Al said while running around, frantically looking for something.
"What are you looking for?" Cal asked.
"Fire extinguisher," Al replied, checking the walls. Finding no extinguisher, he started rummaging through his tools.
"Since when are you a do-gooder?" Cal asked, as Al found a crowbar. Al frowned at him. "Al, we've got to get OUT of here, not mess around with no car crash!"
Al looked up from his tools which he had picked out.
"There's a mother and a baby in that car, and they are getting burned to death as we speak," Al said. "Now you can help me, or you can leave those people to die."
Al looked at the other two mechanics, which had stopped packing and were looking at him.
"That goes for you guys too," Al said.
When no one made a move, Al sighed, and quickly picked up his tools.
"Suit yourselves," Al muttered, and made his way out the door.
A moment after looking at the closed door, Cal sighed.
"Dammit Al, you're gonna get me killed," Cal said softly, getting up.
Cal looked back at the two mechanics, who returned his look with a blank stare.
"I'm helping. Dice? Fox? What about you two?" Cal asked.
"I want nothin' to do with it," the one called Dice replied, and quietly made his way toward the back door.
"Fox?"
"I guess I'll help," Fox replied.
"Good," Cal said. "I'll grab some tools, you get that moving blanket in the corner."
The two of them quickly got what they needed and made their way out the front door.
The sight that greeted Cal when he walked out the door made him pause. The crumpled little car was in the middle of the street, with pieces of vehicle strewn about it. Al had busted out what was left of the windshield, and was working on prying the driver's door open. The bent hood had flames licking out from under it, and a child could be heard screaming from inside the car.
Cal and Fox ran to the car.
"Fox, get the kid out," Cal ordered as he ran towards Al, grabbing the blanket from Fox and giving him a crowbar.
Fox made short work of the rear window, which had been the only thing that seemed to be intact on the car. A short while later, he had a screaming toddler in his arms. Fox saw something else in there, though, so he grabbed at it before he came back out of the crushed vehicle. After he got it, he almost dropped it and the toddler in the middle of getting out.
Meanwhile, Cal took Fox's moving blanket and forcefully stuffed it under the hood as best as he could over the engine; it seemed to be just enough to put out the fire.
Then Cal joined Al in fighting with bent and twisted metal. The door didn't want to come open, bent as it was; then Al noticed the exposed hinge.
"Cal, the door hinge," Al pointed out.
Cal looked at it, nodded, and ran back into the shop. Al went around the car, looking to see if there was another way to get the woman out, when he looked over at Fox, who, in addition to having a toddler clinging to his leg, had something in his hands.
Fox saw Al looking at him.
"I think this lady is rich," Fox said. "She's got a car phone."
"A what?" Al asked.
"A car phone, you know, a telephone, but like a walkie talkie," Fox explained, holding out the brick-sized telephone. "They're real expensive. Only rich folk have them."
Judging from the look Fox gave the phone, Al knew Fox wanted to fence it –
"Can you call for help on it?" Al asked.
Al's question seemed to shake Fox out of his thoughts.
"Uh, I think so, yeah," Fox said, dialing on the keypad.
Just then, Cal ran back out of the building with some more tools, one of which was a long cheater bar. As Al glanced at Cal, he noticed the sunlight – it was getting close to sunset. It would get hard to see what they were doing in just a little while.
Al went to work with Cal, and the two of them fought with the hinge, and much swearing and prying and wrenching later, the hinge gave. With a screech of metal, Al and Cal peeled back the door, only to have the woman cry out – her arm was stuck. Fortunately, the two noticed in time and were able to free her arm. Once they got the door off, they saw it – the blood. Al was immediately queasy but held it; Cal turned an unhealthy grey.
"Let's get the seat belt off her," Al said. Cal nodded. When the buckle didn't want to come undone, Cal whipped a knife out of his pocket and cut through the blood stained webbing.
Just when Al was wondering how they were going to lift the barely conscious woman out of the car, they heard sirens. An ambulance.
Al looked back at the woman, and said to her, "You're gonna be okay, honey, the ambulance is here."
"My baby," Jordan whispered. "My Sammy."
"Your Sammy is fine," Al said, looking back to the toddler and back. "What's your name, honey?"
"Jordan…Canas." Jordan breathed.
Just then, the ambulance arrived.
Al looked back at Fox, who still had the car phone in his hands.
"Thanks, Fox," Al said.
"But I didn't – " Fox began to protest, but was cut off by the paramedics, who immediately started questioning the three of them.
Cal was able to pull a purse out of the car, which he handed to the paramedics. As soon as the paramedics were able to get Jordan out of the car and onto a stretcher, the paramedics grabbed Sam and left at top speed for the nearest hospital.
The three mechanics stood near the smoldering wreckage for a minute, watching the ambulance disappear.
In the distance, another set of sirens could be heard.
"Cops," Fox said, and they all turned to run.
After Al reached the safety of a nearby alley, he turned back for just a moment, to look at the place where the ambulance went.
"Keep fighting, Ms. Canas," Al said softly, and he quietly disappeared with the other two.