chapter 20

Chapter 20 - a friendly face after a ride in the country

The back of the Des Moines Register delivery truck was completely dark. Jack lifted the bicycle off of him and laid it down to one side, where he hoped it wouldn’t cause him more problems. The truck seemed to be moving along quickly now, and the bone-jarring bumps kept coming without warning. Jack couldn’t tell where the truck was headed or how long he would be locked in the back, but he had a sinking feeling that he might be on his way back to the newspaper’s headquarters in Des Moines. It would be a long, bumpy ride on the way to certain doom.
Jack felt his way toward the rear door of the truck as everything rattled and swayed back and forth around him. He reached the door and could see a thin sliver of light coming from underneath, but when Jack tried to lift up on the door, it wouldn’t budge. The door was locked tightly.

Jack made his way through the darkness back toward the other end of the truck. Beyond the boxes and packages, he felt some canvas bags that were a bit lumpy, but which provided some relief from the beating dished out by the rough roads.
As Jack settled in on top of the bags, the truck’s engine began to sound a little different, and Jack felt the truck bed begin to tilt up toward the front. At the same time, the road smoothed out and wasn’t pounding Jack as much. He could hear the shifting of gears as the engine started to labor and slow down under the load. Minute by minute the truck whined and groaned up what Jack figured must be a very steep climb.

All of this puzzled Jack because he remembered that the roads leading into Denver from the east were mostly flat with some rolling hills, but nothing like this long, steep hill.
It was difficult to judge time while sitting in the dark, but it seemed to Jack that after several more minutes the road leveled off and the truck gained speed again. There were some intermittent ups and downs for another unknown stretch of time, and then the truck pitched forward, going faster and faster.

Jack could feel the truck lean first to the right and then to the left like a runaway rollercoaster as the tires hummed louder and louder. Jack began to wonder if the driver had bailed out, sending him down a steep hill to his death. Maybe this was part of the Register’s plan to get rid of him. But the smell of burning brake pads and the sound of downshifting told Jack that a driver must still be in control, or at least attempting to be in control. Then, suddenly, the truck leveled out, and the hum of the tires gradually returned to normal.
This pattern of steep climbs and descents continued over and over again until Jack lost count. He tried to guess how much time he had spent trapped in the truck but could only estimate at least an hour or two. One thing Jack was sure of, this wasn’t the road that he had traveled with Brendan on his way into Denver.

Finally, Jack felt the truck swing to the right and slow to a stop. He could hear other vehicles passing nearby. Then the truck lurched forward and took a sharp turn to the left, traveling more slowly this time. The truck’s tires made a crunching sound, and Jack could tell that they were now on a steep gravel road.
The truck swayed to the left and right uphill until it made one last sharp turn. As it started backing up, the truck’s warning siren caught Jack completely off guard and sent him scrambling for a hiding place. The bicycle he had carefully set aside was still there in the dark somewhere and Jack managed to trip over it. He toppled into several boxes and ended up sprawled across the canvas bags. After just a few more seconds, the truck and the siren both stopped.

The engine was still running, but nothing else happened for quite a while until Jack heard a single set of footsteps approaching and a man’s voice, apparently talking to himself. “It took ‘em long enough and now I have to unload the stupid truck myself,” he muttered under his breath. The latch for the rear door of the truck clicked open, and the door rolled up most of the way to the top.
A blinding amount of light poured in through the open door and as Jack’s eyes adjusted to the light, he could barely make out the silhouette of the man climbing up into the truck. The man looked around at the scattered contents of the truck for a moment and then saw Jack amid the fallen boxes and bags.

They stared at each other and neither one moved until the man’s words broke the silence. “Jack Piper, I presume?” he said smiling, “I’m John Karras.”

to be continued...

[a serial by little orphan dbax]