She instinctively hits the brake and the nose of her car drops closer to the pavement. Now the entire car is in her mirror, and she can see the details of his face. The banshee funereal cry of the siren makes her duck.
“Nooooo. God. Fuuuuck. Pleeease.”
One more parting jab from tonight.
She puts on her turn signal. The voice of the crumbling old man who taught Driver’s Ed: “If you’re angry, for heavensake don’t drive. You’re just as dangerous as a drunk driver. Pull over. Stop. Calm down.”
She braces. Her breath is shallow and panting. She looks for a deeper break in the shoulder.
Then the cop floors it around her into the oncoming lane, and after a glance from him that says “Why didn’t you get out of my way in the first place?”, he’s gone. A swiftly waning red bolt in the night.
She pulls over anyway. The twenty spontaneous knots in her body relax, and she exhales slowly, feeling the cool air on her taut fists.
The wipers scrape across the glass. Screeep. Pause-2-3-4-5. Screeep. They are at the setting where you could almost forget you had them on. Almost, then they move again. Sporadic but sure, like a breath.
She thought for sure he was coming for her. How fast was she going? Where else did he need to be that was so important that he’d ignore a perfect speeder like her?
The fright from her close call has shocked her vengeful thoughts from her head, and she pulls back onto the highway and drives the rest of the way in cognitive silence. The road bends east and fields sprout on her left. Greens. Lettuce, chard. The methane stank of cruciforms before the sight. Sprightly bright cabbages and the blanched brains of cauliflower. Then it bends west again, past the power plant smokestacks puff-puff-puffing like crematoriums, past the boardwalk with its heaving skeletons of roller coasters. Through the gaps of the trellis she can see the land bend at the cove and then stretch out as a peninsula, with the pier extending from that. And even at this distance, even through the gauze of fog, she can see an orgy of red flashing lights at the end of the pier. This must be what drew the cop away from her.
She rounds the cove and the lights get brighter, red pupils searching the night. She cranks down her window as she approaches the guard kiosk.
“I’m here for the Osmond High Formal.”
“Photo ID, please.”
She reaches into her purse on the seat, pulls out her school ID card and hands it to him. “Do you know what’s going on?” she asks.
“Oh, down there?” He looks the card over hastily and hands it back to her. “A whole damn phalanx of emergency vehicles came through here in the last half-hour or so.” He prints out a ticket and hands it to her. “Place this on your dashboard so it’s visible.” She follows his direction. “Other than that I don’t know. People don’t tell me anything. Maybe it’s better I don’t know?”
“Thanks,” she says, rolling up her window.
“Hey,” he says.
She stops.
“Would you do some recon for me? Gather some intel?” He smiles eagerly.
She wonders if this guard used to be a soldier, or if he just fetishizes that life from afar. Its militaryspeak. Had he ever been at war? She nods and rolls up the window.
The barrier gate arm lifts and she drives onto the pier wondering what kind of catastrophe had at last befallen someone other than her.