Day 172 - Upside Down- Chapter 20 - (2635 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

UPSIDE DOWN, BACK TO FRONT

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 20

Before

“Look out!” Manisha’s voice cut in shrill and piercing in the cab of ivan’s truck.
Ivan had already seen the child out of the corner of his eye as he frolicked dangerously close to the intersection he was approaching. Instinctively he had raised his foot from the gas pedal, slowing slightly and allowing the car behind, already tailgating to edge closer.
The thinkable had happened and the child, half balanced on the wheeled board shot randomly ahead and the look of terror and excitement on his face was amplified by the situation. Ivan had already slammed on the brakes before Manisha had opened her mouth to scream.
A squealing burning of road and tyre later and the truck was halted, hard bouncing to still a few metres from the child. The releif lasted less than a second as the truck jolted forward a few meters as the tailgating car behind slammed into the rear and pushed them forward.
The child, a few feet from the front of the truck was struck by the second collisions movement and thrown off the board, which flicked up and out from under him. The child’s father was on the way to get him and had felt that same relief as he saw Ivan stopping in time, and the same polar switch when the truck shunts forward again. He cannot stop his son from being jolted off the board, or from landing roughly on the sealed road. The child is on his feet before the father grabs him and picks him up, even though he had not done so in years since he had grown so much.
The impact, the grazed elbows and hands, the sudden violent snatching up from a frightened father and the location of all this sent tears to his eyes and he started crying out of fear and shock more than pain.
Manisha was out of the truck and around the front trying to see the damage to the child, her phone already in her hand calling for an ambulance. The child would probably just walk it off eventually but she was in full protection mode and she inserted her self into the parents embrace, simultaneously checking for wounds and dealing with the emergency operator.
Ivan was staring into the rear view mirror at the car that had rear ended him.
He wondered briefly if he could get some work out of this accident. The child looked ok, and that car behind looked like a last year new, luxury saloon car. The parts and labour could make this Sunday drive profitable.
Then the driver of the car behind exited and Ivan could see his face. He knew that look straight away. This was not going to go well. There were telltale signs in his face, the stride he took to come forward and that he was focussing ahead on the parent, the child and his wife. The driver had not even looked sideways as he passed the trucks cab to see the driver.
Ivan waited and as the man started screaming and abusing the people in the intersection he opened the driver door and stood down to the tarmac.
Taking position behind him the driver of the car that had rear ended him was about Ivan’s size and shape, even match apart from the vicious anger that seemed to be frothing out of him. Manisha looked frightened and angry at the same time and inctinctively put herself in front of the child anf the father who were still trying to make sense of the childs state of mind and health when this holy angel of rage descended on them.
The man was gesticulating wildly while screaming about the stupidity, the thoughtlessness and the damage to his car, his brand new car that cost more than anyone here made in a year. Or so he said more than once. He raised his arm quite some way when Ivan casually, to any observer, fastened to it and held it firm.
The sudden change in velocity of this arm over balanced the man and he stumbled forwards towards Manisha. Ivan yanked him back towards him, and given the mans weight and position, this was not comfortable or easy to manage.
He still moved, pivoting clumsily on his heels and seeing Ivan eye to eye calm and clear of purpose. His anger still peaking, but a cold reality seeping into it the man decided that fight was a better option that flight.
He swore and cursed as he tried to strike blindly. His centre of gravity was off, his arm trapped in a grip he had not accounted for and the fist glanced off of a shoulder and Ivan never took his eyes off the man.
He saw it coming.
The police arrived minutes later and took control.
Ivan was a picture of control and self assurance. Manisha was gushing about her husband and how his reflexes and level headed ness had saved lives and prevented further hurt. The father of the child was apologetic to everyone.
The police understood what was going on.
The man that Ivan had punched had figured out the lay of the land already and was silently lead away, guilt and reason were for other days and better legal minds than his.
Ivan and Manisha got home much later and inspected the damage to the back of his truck. It was built strong and durable. It was a dent or three that Ivan would probably give to an apprentice to deal with if he had one this year. He did not, he could not afford even the cheap labour that a government scheme would bring. He could not afford an extra pair of eyes that would see what else fueled his business.
His father came in from his room above the garage, Ivan had finished it the year before so that his Dad would always be around to be watched when he was at work. Years in the wasteland had taken their toll.
A look from the old man asked many questions about the dents.
Manisha told the whole story breathlessly, the villain of the piece becoming more dastardly and maniacal in the retelling.
“He was just an asshole who thought too much of his car and himself than made good sense, Dad. That’s all.”
“Did you give him your card? Business is busines boy.”
Ivan shook his head and nodded towards Manisha, if she had not been there then it could have been different, but lines were crossed. Men understand these things, husbands and fathers. He got a nod in return and a proud pat on the arm, swelling pride flooding in from all sides.
“What an interesting day. What time is your brother coming over babe?”
“Oh shit, yes. I mean, oh yes, yeah. Sorry, must mind my language. It’s been a weird day. He’ll be at ours in – an hour or so, and he’s bringing James.”
“Ah, it’ll be good to meet him.”

After

A cold spinning, sinking depth fell on the cab of the truck.
There was no way out. It was now obvious, death was coming in this space.
The doors would not budge, the windows not even a crack, and bulletproof.
Bullet resistant, how many times had he been corrected on that fact?
So the windows, again no purchase and no escape. The truck was on fire, he could see the flames but not yet feel them. How yellow they were, real beyond real and the heat. Could he feel the heat, yes of course he could.
Sweat was dripping off him in rivers. A crazy second and the though occurs that it could dampen the flames or slow it’s progress, like burning a damp cloth.
There’s no smoke.
There’s no smoke in here only flames. Flames getting closer and closer.
He can see people outside, banging on the window and they can see him shouting at him to get out, get out.
He can’t get out.
His leg catches fire, the flames licking up the trousers and burning into him, he can barely fell it – is this shock, is this the inevitability of death? The world is spinning and all of his clothes are on fire, he is breathing in and out flame.
Death must come soon, it will be all over.
I don’t want to die.
I don’t want to die.
He starts crying and the tears are liquid flame, lava running down his cheeks.
The van explodes and he is thrown, forcefully, gracefully outwards and upwards. Trying to catch on to anything, trying to avoid the thump of gravity as the ground will surely crush him
How high is he goig, how far is it up? So far he knows the fall will kill him, break bones and snap his burning body in half.
The elation of flight is replaced by a leaking fear as the apogee of his flight is reached and his full weight is returned to him via a single moment of perfect weightlessness.
Suspended in time and space, floating waiting to fall.
But he doesn’t.
This is a dream.
There is no comfort in this thought, he can know it’s a dream and fear the outcome as much as the reality. In a dream you can repeat this again and again. In reality you get it once.
But in reality this has already happened, and not to him.
How many times has he had this dream.
Knowing it is he is returned to earth with a gentle kiss to the ground.
There is a body, a charred body shape outlined in crackling roasted meat.
This is not his fate, because it was someone elses already. The nausea tips him aside, as air rushes around him, a wind of no source that shivers the corpse and the dreamer.
The corpses shudders after the wind has stopped and opens his eyes.
The whites are perfect and the pupils are blue. They stare accusingly at the dreamer.
Of course they do, he thinks. This is a dream and this is guilt.
But is his death really on my hands? Was this the plan? No. Was this man even supposed to be here? No.
“You brought this on yourself.” The dreamer states and feels the assurance of control in his own dream state.
With alarming speed the corpse closes the gap and grasps the dreamers throat and squuezes until the blackened and charred hands snap and crackle under their own force.
The dreamer can do nothing but cave to the pressure, unable to resist and out of control again.
I can’t breathe!
And then he awakes.
Sweaty and heart racing and gulping in air, feeling about his throat even though he knows what he was thinking and that not a second of it is real. That split second between dream and reality can be a massive divide that the body takes a long time to recover from.
“Are you ok?”
“Yes I … bad dream. I’m ok.”
But he’s not okay and he’s lying to his wife.
Ivan stands up and mumbles about getting water and he moves through the living room to the kitchen. This was going to unsettle him unless he settled with James.
That little punk was the reason for the bad dreams, he knew it. This had only happened after he had freaked out about Nixon buying it, after the police questions stopped and his questions started.
James. James had the upper hand, that bastard had his money and his manhood. He had Ivan doubting his own certainty. Him and his fucking moral high ground. This whole thing has James’s dirty hands on it the whole way through and one accidental death is the thing that tips him over?
Is it? Is it really? That fucker.
Where’s my money James? You may have my brother-in-law wrapped about your finger but you won’t have me.
I will get my powert back. I am in control.
You want nightmares son? I’ll give you fucking nightmares.
Ivan strode to the garage through the internal access door, lights never going on. He had memorised the route in the dark, just in case it was ever necessary. No fumbling, no stumbling everything in it’s proper place the drawer, third from the bottom on the metal tool chest was first to his touch, it felt natural to find this place now. He had practiced and practiced it with blindfolds and in the dark. The semi glow of the pale moon assisted of course, but his eyes were on things in his mind and his body, his sense memory operated automatically.
The gun. The power in his hands. It felt heavy, it felt hard.
It was loaded, kept that way. Safety on.
The power cam back to him. This was the stuff of nightmares, not the pansy imaginings of weak willed fools who didn’t know when to shut the fuck up about their pathetic consciences.
Conscience, he didn’t even do anything. Ivan, Ivan was responsible. Ivan made this happen, Ivan had the plan, the device, the skill, the know how, the drive and the guts. Ivan was the man, the man with the plan and the will power to make it happen.
Fucking right.
You want nightmares? Ivan closed his eyes and caressed his cheek with the gun a broad grim grin splitting his face into cruel halves. While Ican knew no one could see him, he wished that someone could. It was evil, powerful and it had presence, satisfyingly so.
I’ll give you nightmares James Hansen. Then back in your fucking box and you can take your money and fuck off.
Maybe not a full third. You don’t call the shots Mr Hansen, I call the shots.
Ivan chuckled at the apt pun.
You’ll pay for the trouble you’ve caused. You could have ruined this whole fucking thing.
I have nothing to feel guilty about. I’m good. I’m definitely good.
Ivan put the gun away, in the dark, in the third drawer and locked it away again.
He came back into the kicthen, pouring himself water from the jug in the fridge. Cold and clear and the pounding flood of blood in him subsided and his natural sense of the world returned.
Whats that smell? Leftover smell from dinner? Steak?
Steak. He had smelt it earlier that night, had connected the dots.
Burnt meat, burnt flesh.
It had killed his appetite. He had eaten, but not much.
The corpses crusted hands dropping flakes of ash onto his neck and squeezing came unbidden into his mind and what dinner he had came up along with it.
Retching into the Kitchen sink and his knees buckling below him, his elbow slammed into the sinks edge and the pain drove a wedge to him once more. A body blow to the stomach and all the water and food emptied out of him noisily.
“Ivan? Are you…” Manisha had heard the vomiting splash and the heaving of his chest, sent her out of her light sleep to come and find him.
He was huddled over the sink pale and terrified.
“Oh babe, you’re sick, here let me.” She fussed about with towels and clothes, cleaning him and the sink, settling him on the couch and sorting him out.
He knew how it looked, how bad he felt and how it made him weak and vulnerable. He was ok with Manisha thinking he was ill. Better than the truth.
Another thing that bastard will pay for.
Who does he think he is? Does he think he’ll deserve any of the money after all this? Has he got a death wish? Doesn’t he know who he’s dealing with?

Fucking Hansen.