No Way To Escape | Novel

CHAPTER 31: HOPE AND FEAR

'Hey hey hey... !!', a manly voice was squealing from my back, approaching me with great pace. I was too much immersed in my anguish to look back up. A haze had spread over my eyes. I was sweating ferociously and was completely desolated and dumbfounded. I was just hoping I wasn't loonified by what had just happened some freaking seconds ago. The man shrieking behind came running and crouched beside me. It was that man only who had thrown the rope to me.

That was the first time I could have a closer look at his face. Though he didn't look that handsome but his face had something in it – something which could allure people around him. He looked scraggy, had thin hair over his head and was fairer than me – so fair that his purely thin, blonde eyebrows immersed in it. There were freckles over his face – not much though – around his thin nose. His cheeks had flushed with the tension and as he crouched beside me, resting his arms over my shoulder. I could feel how fast his heart was beating.

He was smiling as if he had seen some old, but a very close acquaintance of his after ages. There was a bright smile of joy and satisfaction. Watching his smile infuriated me.

You fucking dullard! I was just going to punch him hard on that nose when –

'Look. Look there', he pointed his finger in the direction of the place which was supposed to be the site of a terrible wreckage. Holding my nerve and mustering up my spirit, I slowly tried to move my head up, filled with hesitation and fear. And what I saw at the crossing surprised me – not a saddening one but the one which pinned a new ray of hope in my heart and bedazzled the inner me with surprise.

It was my car which, I thought, would have already been destroyed to pieces, with my little nephew Rick in it, being dead or fatally injured. But the car was there – intact and motionless as the cavalier who would have lied down dead on the field during the Civil War. It was harmless. The train had passed. The gate of the crossing had somehow withstood the force of the car, which was already slowed down by the rope. The banging sound had come because of the impact of the car with the gate.

Without wasting a single moment, I ran towards the car. My heart was beating terribly fast. On reaching the door by the passenger seat, I swayed it open. Rick was sitting there, unconscious because of the shock, with his face soaked with tears. I wiped off his tears, removed the seat belt and carried him in my arms in delight. I was crying inconsolably.

'Oh Rick! Oh my dear baby Rick! Your uncle loves you so much... So so much!'

So many horrific thoughts had passed through my mind during that horrific time while I was down on my knees. Holding Rick in my hands I was going on kissing him all over his face in ecstasy. There was a big dent on the trunk of the car but that didn't matter. Not at all. What mattered was in my arms, insentient.

....

'Hm... Take this', the man held out a cup of black tea to me and had one in his hand as we decided to have a seat in his house for a while. I had parked my car outside and had laid down a sleeping Rick on the couch – where his itsy-bitsy body fit perfectly. The man who helped me save my nephew and I were seated at the dining table.

'What's your name?', I asked him.

'Edmund'. He took a sip. 'Edmund Doherty'

'Thank you very much Edmund for helping me. I don't know... I –'

'Ah! No problem Mr.—'

'Liam Hall it is'

'—Mr. Hall'

'Hm'

We started having sips of tea and then some conversation between us followed. After a while it came back to the incident.