Only it didn’t pass us, it suddenly rammed into the side of our car. “Sunovabitch!” Henry yelled and yanked the wheel to the right, but the other vehicle came right with us and slammed into us again. As our tires went off the pavement, Henry fought the wheel, and for a second I thought he was going to regain control. Then the world turned topsy-turvy as our car flipped and rolled.
When the view through the windshield finally stabilized, we were on our back like a stranded turtle and I was groggily hanging upside down, held in place by my seatbelt. Movement in front of us caught my eye, and I struggled to make sense of the upside-down view. After a moment I saw the SUV that had sideswiped us pull into the entrance of a jeep trail up ahead, then back up and turn around. “He’s coming back to finish us off,” I yelled. Henry was still cursing and struggling to free the big automatic he carried.
Then as the SUV began to gather momentum towards us, a second car flashed passed us like some crazed moonshiner and barreled straight for the SUV. Instinctively I closed my eyes, waiting for the terrible crash, but at the last minute the SUV driver must have chickened out and wrenched the wheel away from the impending collision. I guess he lost control because the SUV flipped and rolled over the edge and down a ravine. I couldn’t see what happened, but I could hear the noise as the car grated against the rocks and then smashed into the huge old-growth trees below.
The second car had skidded to a halt beside the point where the SUV had gone over. Then a figure came running towards us, and to my surprise I realized it was a woman. She was wearing jeans, a leather jacket and tall boots, and her dark hair was cut short and combed straight back on her head. But I stopped admiring her when I noticed the vicious-looking combat knife in her hand. “Now she’s coming after us!” I thought and resumed struggling to free myself.
The woman ran up to Henry’s side of the car, knelt down and reached through the shattered window to cut the straps to his seat belt. As Henry wriggled his way out through the window, she came around to my side and prepared to cut me free as well. “Better grab onto something,” she said in a voice with just a hint of an accent, “otherwise you’re going to fall on your head.”
I reached down (up?) and grabbed the car seat, but I still landed awkwardly when she sawed through my seatbelt. She started to pull me out of the car, but suddenly jerked away as she spotted something. I looked up to see Henry’s head disappear as he clambered down the bank where the SUV had crashed.
“No, come back!” the woman yelled, and started after Henry. “Get away from there,” she cried out, trying desperately to attract Henry’s attention. Just as she neared the ravine, I heard a strange voice yell something that sounded like “Los Angeles!” Then there was a deafening explosion, and the mystery woman was knocked down by the blast.
I managed to scramble out of the car and ran to her side. While I helped her to her feet, I asked, “What the hell was that?”
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