I hunched down in the back seat. Somehow all of the air seemed to have been sucked out of the car. It felt hot, close and hard to breathe. I could smell traces of pine sap, deer blood, mud, and old vomit. The vomit smell seemed to grow and grow until I couldn't smell any of the other smells.
Arlene's voice was tight. "Just stay down, and quiet. I'm going to just keep going." Arlene couldn't stop talking, she kept trying to convince herself. "They can't know where we are already. How could they know? We just got in the car. Maybe there is a camera that shows who is driving. No that can't be right. I think it only faces forward, but it will be on the video. We need to drop the car somewhere public so he can retrieve it. Just keep quiet and calm. Just face front. Don't draw attention to yourself. Oh..."
I wanted to look. Arlene had stopped mid-sentence. I could hear the sirens approaching. Then they were passing with a whoosh, firetrucks, several of them. The wind buffetted the car.
Arlene exhaled audibly from the front seat. I realized that I'd been holding my breath as well.
"Well that just goes to show you that we need another car. I just got the weirdest looks from those firefighters. I know police cars have tracking and the cameras will show us getting out of the ambulance and into this car. I think we should follow him to the hospital and leave the car in the parking lot. Who's gonna know to look at the footage?"
Arlene looked back at me. I nodded. Seemed like the best way to reduce the chances of them looking at the footage right off the bat. I was hoping that we'd managed to get lost in the din of destruction. Now the only question was would our luck hold all the way to the hospital?
