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Little Toy Bikers and a Woman on the Run
Chapter 254 Swept Away
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Clay was picking Bucky up from the hospital. He couldn't believe Bucky had cheated death again. He thought for sure that he was going to finally be rid of him.
"There's this hot Swedish nurse who was giving me a sponge bath when I woke up. That girl could wake the dead," Bucky said, snickering.
"Better than Viagra," Clay said.
"Yeah, I got to get me some of that stuff for partying in the clubhouse."
Clay needed to make sure that didn't happen. He couldn't afford for Bucky to get drunk and start to run his mouth. Bucky needed to die, but it couldn't get traced to him.
An elderly hospital volunteer gave Bucky a wheelchair ride out of the hospital. It was standard policy. It didn't matter if you could walk on your own or not, you got wheeled out either on a gurney because you were dead or a wheelchair because by some miracle St. Thomas didn't kill you and you were still alive.
Clay followed along carrying the crutches Bucky would need. He broke his leg and his arm, but he'd been lucky. The break in his leg wasn't bad and he was in a walking cast already. The break to his left arm was also minor and wouldn't interfere with his use of crutches. He'd faced down injuries that would have killed most people.
Clay left Bucky standing at the curb with crutches while he got Gemma's car. He'd noticed a street sweeper driving erratically down the street. If only that street sweeper could drive erratically down the street when Bucky was walking to the car and hit him. A hit from a street sweeper in Bucky's current condition would have to be fatal.
The street sweeper turned down the street and continued to move erratically lurching from side to side that was a strange movement for such a big piece of machinery. Clay watched Bucky begin to step off the curb. That was the moment when Clay realized that in addition to not being very smart, Bucky also appeared to be hard of hearing or he would have kept his eye on the street sweeper when he stepped off the curb.
Clay decided that he was going to help Bucky with his crutches. If he timed it just right, maybe he could shove Bucky into the path of the street sweeper. He parked the car and signaled to Bucky to stay.
Clay crossed the street and went to Bucky.
"Don't want you to have another accident," Clay said with a toothy smile.
"What?"
"Be careful," Clay said loudly.
"Thanks, brother."
Bucky began to cross the street, his back to the street sweeper. The huge machine lurched away from Bucky. He took a few steps and the street sweeper took a wild swing close to Bucky. The sweeper operator wrestled with the steering wheel and the brakes.
Clay opened his mouth and warned Bucky of the danger only Bucky didn't hear the warning because Clay only mouthed the words. He would later swear that he yelled a warning to Bucky.
The street sweeper's driver made one last heroic effort to divert the street sweeper away from Bucky before diving from the machine. The machine knocked Bucky down, its huge rotary brushes moving over Bucky.
David Hale had been at the hospital visiting an injured officer. He leapt into action climbing up into the driver's seat of the still moving street sweeper. He braked hard, but the brakes weren't working. The vehicle wouldn't steer. Finally, he turned the vehicle off ending the vehicle's rampage.
He quickly called in a report to dispatch.
"I'll do first aid," Hale said to Clay. "Go get ER staff to take care of these two."
Bucky was lying in the gutter where the machine had swept him. The street sweeper driver was sitting in the grass, a dazed look on his face.
"That machine was possessed. I don't know what the hell got into it," the sweeper's driver mumbled.
Clay set off for the hospital at a trot. There was no way Bucky could have survived being run over by the huge street sweeper's brushes, but, for luck, he chanted inside his head "Die Bucky Die."
Hale quickly assessed Bucky. He was breathing and didn't have any major bleeding visible. He could have internal injuries, so he kept him immobile and waited for hospital staff to take him away and police staff to block off the street so they could begin the long tedious job of investigating the accident.
Just as Bucky was being loaded on the gurney for a return trip to the ER, he looked up at Clay.
"Johanna. Sponge bath," he whispered. His face was bloody from the street sweeper's brushes.
His eyes fluttered closed. Clay was sure that he must be dead this time.