Absolution

By Marcus Ward

Josh Peel survives a vicious car wreck only to go back and rescue a woman and her child in a selfless act of heroism.

But his achievement is overshadowed by his own secret misgivings about the crash and his part in it. He struggles to keep his secret hidden as his wife hires a man to kill him, a ruthless insurance company puts him in their crosshairs and the one man who knows the truth tries to extort him.

Against all these odds he finds himself hopelessly in love with the woman he saves and is willing to risk it all for a second chance to be happy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marcus Ward
• Release date: Jan 8, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310114434

Marcus Ward

If the story is compelling, then it works. I try to write what I like to read.I like distinct voices and marginally crazy characters who bounce off the world around them. There is a good story in there somewhere.

Book preview

Absolution

by

Marcus Ward

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 by Marcus Ward

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Part One

1.

Josh stops his car to get out. In front of him the northbound lanes of the bridge are clear and growing quiet as the cars ahead continue on either indifferent or unaware of the tragedy unfolding behind them. The carnage is heaped in a hissing mess of ground metal, shattered glass and splintered plastic. He runs across the empty lanes of the bridge deck and looks over the edge. He peers down into the grey waters 200 hundred feet below. He sees no splash, no struggle and no sign of the sedan that went over.

A hundred feet across is the southbound bridge deck. The cars are beginning to slow as drivers glimpse the wreckage. The guilt swells. What has he done? All he had to do was pull over and stay out of it, leave it alone. But the driver of the hybrid wouldn’t let him pass and the blue truck had sent him into a rage. So he pushed it to get back at them both. In some small way he wanted this. He wanted misfortune visited on the other drivers. Wanted the universe to meter out punishment that was neither his to give or demand. But he didn’t want it like this. Not this.

His thoughts turn to his wife Marcia. All of the sudden he wants to be home. Safe in the mediocrity of their marriage, alone in the routine that he hates so much. If only he could turn back time and undo this mess.

And it is a huge mess. Cars are twisted and smoldering. Wreckage is strewn all over the bridge deck. He thinks of the sedan that went over the edge. The driver didn’t have a chance. He feels sick thinking of the innocent lives inside of it. It appeared out of nowhere and then in an instant it was gone. How many were there? Were they children? A parent or brother? A sister or mother? He wonders who is waiting for them at home, never to see them again.

Josh hears screaming. He looks back and sees the wreck as if for the first time. People are milling around lost in their confusion. There are sobs and wails and people shouting directions. There is the cha-thunk, cha-thunk of a damaged car making way for a lane of traffic to trickle by. Metal scrapes and a front wheel turns impossibly on a bent axle.

Then he glances over at another scene beginning to build. People are gathering where the sedan went over the barrier. They are shouting and pointing, their excitement is building. Josh returns to the edge and looks in their direction. He beholds the impossible.

In the space between the north and south bridge decks a dozen wires and cables are strung parallel with the interstate. There in the middle hanging from a single wire is the sedan.

Josh runs the 150 yards to join the others, a feeling of hope coursing with each stride. He prays they are okay as he comes up on the group and pushes to the front. People give way. They’re too pre-occupied filming the scene with cameras and cell phones to care. Josh takes it all in and a large gruff man named Bob fills in the details as if he had been expecting him.

Looks like there are two in there. One in front won’t answer. The other is in the back seat. A young girl. Maybe six or seven. Seems unhurt.

Josh looks for himself and sees a woman slumped in the driver’s seat. The car is badly damaged and airbags hang from the steering wheel and dashboard like empty balloons. In the back a small girl is standing on the seatback. The view beneath her is 200 feet straight down. The car hangs in mid-air and any movement threatens to send it plunging.

The scene takes on an eerie silence and Josh realizes that they are helpless to act. The cable that holds the car is one of several supported at even intervals by steel catwalks that come out from the underbelly of the bridge decks. They are only accessible by a ladder or crane. Even then the car is hanging in the middle, inaccessible from either side. Josh’s memory tugs at him for a moment like it has an answer to the problem. But then he is overcome by the impossibility of what he sees and his thoughts of redemption turn again to desperation. Then he hears the sirens.

Fire trucks are responding from the southbound bridge deck. They have just entered the freeway and Josh can see the massive ladder truck out front jockeying through traffic. They are trying to reach the scene from the other side where there is no messy accident to complicate things. It will only take a few minutes then they will be able to reach down to rescue the woman and child. His sense of relief grows but ebbs again when he realizes they are barely moving.

Josh looks over at the traffic on the other side and sees the problem. People on the opposite bridge deck have stopped and gotten out to look. They are oblivious to the traffic jam they have created. The Jersey barrier is a swarm of bodies and cell phones. Traffic continues to back up as more and more people abandon their cars to see what has happened. The catastrophe is compounding. The fire trucks are stuck.

Josh yells at them to get back in their cars. He pleads with them to get moving. Bob joins in screaming and yelling until the veins are pushing out from his head and neck like garden hoses. But their voices are lost to the open air between the two spans and it doesn’t matter anyhow. The scene has become a media mob. The thrill of the wreck has captured their attention and the onlookers are helpless to turn away. The instant gratification of being the first to tweet and text is intoxicating.

There is a loud snap and the sedan lurches as a metal stay on one of the catwalks pulls loose. The sudden tug causes it to