HAVEN BLACK - complete

(GHOSTS) UNDER THE CLOAK OF RELENTLESS RAIN

CHAPTER 27 – (GHOSTS) UNDER THE CLOAK OF RELENTLESS RAIN

I awoke again sometime later and it was now dark. My head pounded painfully, like I'd been hit over the head with a sledge hammer, and a screeching high pitch ring in my left ear persisted over the light pattering of snow falling around the car. But beneath the painful ringing, I could hear Jill groaning and gasping violently for breath. My neck felt stiff as I forced my head to the left to see her; my blurry vision strained to focus on Jill, and instead was focusing beyond her, at the tree that the car had slide into, and the sight left me stunned with a begotten dread: the moonlight glared through the car windows and beamed a ray onto the tree trunk, seemingly directly on the carving Jill and I had done last winter; a small splatter of blood had partially filled some of the carved-out crevasses. The carving appeared to be fading away in the distance, but after a gentle scrapping noise became more apparent, I realized that the car was sliding slowly down the river bank.

My mind panicked, but my body felt too weak, too injured to act.

I strained my eyes and focused on Jill who continued to make sickening, wheezing sounds. Her head was bowed onto her chest and her hair covered her face. My neck protested with short sharp pains as I slowly managed to twist my body towards her. Reaching my hand up to her head, I tucked her soft hair behind her ear.

"Jill, Jill! Jill, wake up! Please!" I pleaded breathlessly to her, but she didn't respond.

Jerkily, I moved my hand around to her chest and lifted her chin up. Her chin was wet with a thin layer of blood – she was bleeding on the other side of her head.

"Jill, please Jill! You have to wake up!" I weakly cried out lowering her chin back down to her chest gently, but she remained unresponsive, her violent gasps had changed to quick short breaths.

"Jill! Please! Please, I beg you! WAKE UP!"

Jill's short breaths reduced, and her chest stopped rising up and down. My focus kept wavering from her peaceful face to the carving on the fading tree and I realized that Jill, the love of my life, was slipping away.

"...Jake..."

The sound of wailing sirens started echoing through the valley, and it was the sound of angels, the sound of hope to save Jill, and it couldn't have come quickly enough, but the minute before help arrived at the scene ticked by as though it was an eternity.

My vision blurred in and out of a black static, I struggled to remain conscious.

"Quick, we don't have much time. We need to get her out now!" a male voice said from somewhere outside my fading vision as I felt the front of the car slip slowly into the river's freezing water.

"Jake..." Jill gasped out weakly.

"Jill! ...it's okay, helps on the way..." I slurred out, feeling my head spin violently.

I blacked out again.

The next moments flashed by in a haze. Ambulance staff pulled me out of the wreckage and they kept yelling at me to "let go", then as two other emergency staff ripped me away from the distorted car, more personnel descended on the crash site carrying heavy ropes.

The pain in my head and neck faded and now seemed insignificant as I fought to break free from the ambulance staff. A couple of firefighters had been called in to reinforce the tightly held grip on my arms while I thrashed out in desperation, screaming out for Jill. Then, as I was forcibly made to approach one of the ambulances, I felt a fresh stinging pain in the side of my neck.

"Thanks Jerry, that'd knock him out."

Someone must've injected me with a sedative; suddenly my eye lids felt like lead and my legs started to wobble. My vision blurred again and I felt an overwhelming sense of defeat as I was lifted helplessly into the back of the ambulance. The rear door slammed shut and the crash scene disappeared from view and just as the black spots grew, obscuring my vision completely, the sedative kicked in fully knocking me unconscious...