I’m Fixin’ To Play Dead (Part 49)
Right now it was a game of cat-and-mouse between Red and myself, with me being the mouse at the present, but I intended to change that with a kick to the cat’s head at just the right moment. I was pretending to read the map which would take Red to the cabin where Louise and Sissy had run to when we had discovered Red was bearing down on us, while Red was pretending he was going to let me go when we got in sight of it.
After he had taken the next left I told him to take, the road was so narrow that we had to slow down for an oncoming vehicle in the opposite lane. My heart soared when I saw a cream colored Lexus with two occupants race by. It was the girls headed out of harm’s way! I quickly looked at Red to see if he had paid any attention to them. I knew he hadn’t when he asked, “You sure this is the right way?”
I was sure it wasn’t, but I lied and said, “Yep, this is the way all right.”
We drove for a mile before I thankfully spotted an unpaved road to the right. “Hang a right on that dirt road,” I said, hoping that it led to somewhere.
Red let his window down, inhaled deeply and declared, “Doggone, I think we’re getting close. I can smell the lake.”
I took the map into my hands and laid my bound wrists on top of the passenger seat and continued lying, “Yeah, according to the map it shouldn’t be more than a quarter of a mile further.”
Slowly, but surely, I gripped my fingers onto the seat back. I planned to pull with them at the same time I pushed off with my back in order to add as much power as possible to my kick. I also knew that speed and timing were essential to the success of it. I pictured it all in my mind and was ready to do it when we rounded a curve. There, right in front of us, only 50 feet away, was a complete dead end with no structures in sight.
“What the heck!” Red exclaimed.
I coiled like a snake, pushed, pulled and lashed out with my feet concentrating on my target. He was in the process of turning toward me when he spoke, which caused the kick to land even more perfectly. I heard the sharp crack as the heel of my left shoe landed squarely on his jawbone. His head snapped back, bounced off the seat, and he slumped forward and he came to rest unconsciously across the steering wheel.
I knew it was too early to celebrate because the vehicle was still in motion and the weight of Red’s limp body had caused the wheel to turn sharply to the left.
Frantically, I attempted to scramble over and grasp the steering wheel, but it was too late. Just before I reached it the vehicle hit the ditch and I was jarred up against the roof and fell backwards onto the carpet. I recovered in time to see the steep incline beyond the ditch, down which the Dodge was gathering speed. Through the windshield, I was horrified to see the drop off was getting even steeper and a forest of small trees, none of which were large enough to stop us, racing up toward me. I lay down behind the seats searching for anything to hold on to.
The Dodge was gathering speed and I could hear it mowing down saplings. All I could do was try to hold on and hope, but the holding on part wasn’t to be and I began to be thrown about like a rag doll. Then we hit something that stopped us. It wasn’t like hitting a concrete wall or a large tree, but rather like a soft landing on a cushion.
The nose of the SUV turned up and once again the vehicle was level, but like it was moving on invisible wheels. Suddenly everything got ghostly quiet. Grasping the back of the driver’s seat, I pulled myself up into a sitting position. The first thing I saw was Red, limp and motionless, still draped over the steering wheel. The next thing I saw scared the heck out of me!
It was water, and it was pouring in through Red’s open window like a flooding river. I twisted and whirled, looking in all directions and observed that I was surrounded by water on all sides. The Dodge was in the lake!
When I looked back at the window I almost panicked. In a split second there was only a few inches of light above the water pouring through the window. We were sinking, Red’s body was blocking the only exit, and my wrists and ankles were bound with duct tape!
“Time to move,” I told myself, speaking out loud. That’s when I remembered the old over-and-under maneuver that Red had taught me when the state trooper was behind us during our trip between Mobile and Biloxi.
It was time to use it again, except this time I would go over the top. With only a few precious seconds left before the entire interior was filled with water, I pressed my nose against the headliner, sucked as much air into my lungs as I possibly could, knowing the SUV was fixin’ to disappear into the cold, murky lake water.