World War S 1-2

Chapter 5

“Let’s hope so.”

“But starting last week, something strange was happening with him. He was always different from kids his age, but he started to flood us with this strange wisdom recently.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was almost … prophetic. He warned us before his fifth heart-birthday, a week ago, that he had to tell us how much he loved us. He did it in spite of the fact—and these were his words—that he knew Linda almost divorced me because of my behaviour. So he rapped my knuckles for not being a good father.”

“Uhum … I see.” John couldn’t say much about this, as he lived the boring but fairly comfortable life of a bachelor. He loved his brother’s children as his own, but he had never thought to take up the burden of raising a child. “So he hadn’t done that before? Did anything happen that might have triggered this behaviour?”

“I have no idea. He must have felt the accident was coming … And one more important thing!” Benet’s face brightened. “He actually told us the brand of the car that crashed into us.”

“What?”

“He was always playing this guessing game with my wife, using car brands. I remember clearly that he said a few seconds before the accident—you were thinking about a white Toyota.”

“This is really a strange coincidence,” nodded John. He didn’t like the spiritists, they were on every channel and corner nowadays. But this boy wouldn’t do this for a few minutes of fame on the news, would he? thought John. He probably does it for a little attention. Although, he had all his needs met; his parents took extra care of him because of his sickness.

“I can’t believe this is only a strange coincidence. We’ve had a lot of strange coincidences connected to him in the past.”

“Sure. You’ve aroused my curiosity about him. I hope I can speak with him as soon as possible,” said John, smiling encouragingly.

“Yes, we’ll make it happen,” nodded Benet. “I don’t need any more signs or warnings to put my life back in order; it‘s enough. My family is more important than me. I just want them back.”

John couldn’t say anything; he just nodded in agreement. If he had a family, he would put them first too.

“How did you stop that truck?”

Benet’s question struck John even more than the strange coincidences.

“Which truck?”

“The one that ran right for us. I shielded Josh with my body. It was so close I thought it knocked me unconscious.”

“Which direction did the truck come from?”

“From the city.”

“So it came opposite me, but I didn’t see him,” stated John, opening his arms, uncomprehending.

“But it was there. Its full beams were on, even those high-performance ones on the top. The guy pulled the horn like a madman in the driver’s seat, as he sped towards us.”

“You just keep surprising me,” said the lieutenant, raising his eyebrows. First there’s a missing mystical hitchhiker, now there’s an eighteen-wheeler vanishing into the mist …

“The driver of the Toyota might have seen it, if he didn’t lose consciousness. His car spun and faced towards the junction.”

“You’re right,” said John, standing up. “I’ll see you again later. I really do hope the best for your family.”

At the other end of the corridor, there were two policemen standing in front of the room.

“Hi guys, Lieutenant Levi from Homicide. Why is there a guard on him? Have we already charged him with something?” he asked his colleagues.

“The traffic department is conducting the official inquiry, and according to the traffic cameras, the driver of the Toyota, Mr. Jack Kaminsky, drove through the red light.”

John had his newest surprise.

“The man in the other car said the opposite …” John stopped, raising his forefinger. His brain stopped, on overload; the pictures of the accident and the unclaimed arm had mixed in his mind. He should go to sleep. “OK, I also need those camera recordings.”

When John entered the room, he saw the lanky, old man in the bed. John immediately recognized his face; he could not forget those troubled eyes, when he’d asked, “Where is the hitchhiker?

“Mr. Kaminsky, I’m Lieutenant John Levi. We met at the scene of the accident. I called the ambulance, and I was the one who helped you out of the car.”

“I’m very sorry, but I don’t remember much about what happened after the crash,” the man said quietly. His eyes were looking at John from a deep, black ditch. His pointy noise punched a hole into the air, and his greyish, thin hair hung around in a confused tangle.

“And do you have any memories from before the accident?”

The furrows on the man’s forehead deepened. It looked like it took real effort to bring back images from the past, blocked by the shock.

“I stopped at the gas station on South Street. I popped in for a pack of cigarettes and wanted to continue towards the country club on the 124,” he said finally, brushing his head.

“Is this the station next to that empty plot?”

“Exactly, that one. Do you know it?” he asked back.

John nodded. Damn, he knew it. The flat, where they’d found the remains of the burnt man, faced that station.

It is too much for today, John thought. I have to slow down, otherwise my mind is gonna spin out of control, throw out half of the important information.

“And then that man came,” the driver continued. “He said he needed to go to New York. I offered to take him to the highway entry, because I was only going to the country club. I work there as a night warden.”

“I understand. And where did your passenger get off?” asked John. He anticipated the answer, which was totally a match for this mad case.

“He didn’t get off.”

“I remember, you were looking for him after the accident.”

“I was looking for him …” whispered the old man, staring at the ceiling, “because I need him. He is the only one who can prove I didn’t cause this accident.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because he was the one who caused it. I saw the red light and started to slow down, but he suddenly put his leg on my side of the car and pressed the pedal down. And I couldn’t stop him.”

John couldn’t say a word, because he felt this story somehow had some significance beyond the border of reality.

“So you are saying, sir, that a stranger deliberately forced you to go through the red light, causing a fatal accident?”

“Exactly,” nodded Kaminsky. He looked more relaxed, having told someone the truth.

John tried to imagine the situation, thinking about what the motive could be. But he could not see anything sensible, only a huge screw-up. It was a mighty screwed-up case with many threads, which would give him a constant headache to solve.

The Revenge of the Unclaimed Arm—what a perfect title for a crime story, he thought. This could have been the last stroke of the pen for that arm. He might have written on that paper, Unravel this!

The security camera of the gas station, he brightened as the solution flashed through his mind. “Sir, would you recognize that person if I bring a picture or a video of him?”

“I’ll never forget that last bizarre smile on his face before the crash. I don’t want to see him again, if it’s not necessary. But I can only clear myself if you find him.”

“I’ll try, but I’m not in charge of this investigation,” said John, shaking the man’s hand. “I wish you a good recovery, I’ll contact you later on.”

John was almost out of the room, when he turned back for one last, important question.

“Mr. Kaminsky, did you see a truck coming from the city? Big one, eighteen-wheeler …”

The old man didn’t bother to answer. He closed his eyes, signalling to John that he’d had enough interrogation for tonight.

John called headquarters when he was in the corridor.

“Who did get the Heartley crash case? I see … Is he still on duty? Would you connect me with him?”

He went out to his car, got in, and started the engine. Only minutes ago he’d been totally exhausted, wishing for sleep, but the new information stirred him up.

“Hi Pete … I’m John. Want to hand this case over to me?...Why? Because I have nothing to do … No—no. It’s just I have some information that will surprise you too. Can we discuss this over coffee somewhere?”

*

Julie arrived home from the nightshift, feeling as if she herself were a casualty of the same accident. Her arms fell beside her body like bricks, sinking into the couch’s soft cushions. The cool leather surrounded her and relaxed her tired muscles. She sank so deeply that she thought she would never be able to stand up from it. She and the couch melted together like one organic piece of furniture.

But she had to fight her way to the shower, and then to the bedroom, because her first afternoon patient would be waiting for her in a mere six hours. Mr. and Mrs. Wens had been visiting her for nearly a year already, and she felt she didn’t get on with them very well. After that exhausted nightshift, one hour with those people would be madness. Julie rearranged her plan quickly; she would skip the running and would miss the meeting in the Hospice Centre with her patients. She was done for.

It had been a long time since she last suffered so much from the sight of an injured patient. They hadn’t even stabilized the mother’s condition by the time the shift changed to the next team. Sarah was able to stop the bleeding and pump out the hematoma inside the fractured skull, she also restarted her heart, but the woman had never regained consciousness. According to the EEG results, there was brain activity, but it seemed that she had slowly sunk into a coma.

The little boy’s twisted limbs were not as shocking as the long scar on his chest; the reminder of his heart operation. Benet Heartley had affirmed to Julie that Josh had been through a heart transplant. Five years ago to the date of this accident. What cruelty this is! she thought. It was like fate had chosen the same place to strike again with all its brutality, where it had already harvested its toll before. God must not exist, she thought, or if he does, he must have turned his face away yesterday. Or somebody must have committed an awful crime in that family if God let this happened.

On the other hand, his heart had restarted. Josh was a strong little guy. He’d survived the second biggest trauma in his life.

And if he survived, he must have had good protectors in the heavens, he didn’t strike his foot against a stone—she remembered the words her grandmother quoted from the Bible; He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone [1].

I might lose it if I start thinking about Bible verses, she thought. She had never gone to Sunday school, had never read the Bible, she only remembered what her grandmother taught her as bedtime stories. She was indifferent to the rest. She didn’t spend her time on unprovable things.

It was bizarre that she’d settled down to conduct this spiritual experiment. And now surely there would be no result, because they had put the mother in for the experiment. She would be able to tell something about her experiences if she came out of the coma. Till then she was only a casualty, a clinical death.