The Undertaker

The crash had pinned Ernie upright in the front seat behind the steering wheel and I found myself lying on the floor, wedged between the dashboard and the seat, covered with broken glass. Every inch of me ached. As my head cleared, I smelled raw gasoline and I knew I had to get out of the cab quickly. Straining, I pushed and crawled my way along the floor of the cab and out the side door until I fell out on the ground.

I rose to my feet and stumbled away, but my ribs and my lower back were screaming in pain. I hoped nothing was broken, but I didn't care. My mind focused on getting the hell out of there and back to Boston. These people were crazy. I had no further interest in Columbus or whole State of Ohio for that matter. I didn't care about Greene, Dannmeyer, or Tinkerton. All I wanted was to forget today, forget yesterday, and forget everything that happened after Gino Parini climbed into the front seat of my Bronco.

I turned my head and looked back at the funeral home. A fifteen-foot section of the sidewall had collapsed on top of the ambulance, bringing part of the roof down with it. I could even see into one of the chapels. It had been laid out for a funeral in the morning, complete with chairs, flowers, and a casket at the far end. Some wake. If it all wasn't so damned real, I'd have fallen down laughing.

Good thing I didn't. It was the smell of gasoline that brought me back to reality. The ambulance's gas tank must have ruptured and a dull, orange glow spread beneath the ambulance. In seconds, the flames raced along the length of the vehicle. That was when I forgot the pain and began to run.

There was a Mercedes parked at the rear of the lot. Probably Tinkerton's. I ran around it trying all the doors, but they were locked. On the other side of the lot, Dannmeyer's police cruiser was still sitting across the entrance, its headlights on and engine running. The driver's side door was hanging open, just as the sheriff left it, and it didn't require a whole lot of thought to realize it was my only way out. I jumped inside and slammed the door. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man in a bloody white smock stumble out through the rear service door and fall on the loading dock. He got to his knees and wobbled back and forth. It was Tinkerton. Like Rasputin, somehow that big bastard was alive and still coming after me.

I wasn't about to wait. I dropped the sheriff's car into drive and pushed the pedal to the floor. The big cruiser did a donut in the funeral home's front lawn, kicking up grass and dirt until I got it pointed in the general direction of the highway. Behind me, the dark night erupted in a ball of bright orange flames as the ambulance's gas tank exploded. I spun the steering wheel to the right. The car bounced over the curb, through a ditch, and shot out onto the highway.

Forget today? Forget yesterday? Forget the whole thing? Not very damned likely, not anymore.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Big boys need lots ‘a toys…

My mind was exploding. I kept hearing the words of that song, “I would walk five-hundred miles, and walk five-hundred more.” Walk? I'd run that far to get away from that funeral home, I thought, as the lyrics kept ringing in my ears. Two days before, I had been a software engineer and rock music aficionado minding my own business in my new job in Boston. Now I was a soon-to-be-very-much-wanted cop killer racing down the dark, country roads of central Ohio in a stolen sheriff's cruiser. I drove on into the night, heading west and south through the cornfields. My back ached, my ribs ached, and my head ached in two places. I took several deep breaths to relax and clear my head, trying to turn my mind loose on the problem, knowing I needed to come up with a plan. I had to get rid of Dannmeyer's car and I had to get away from Columbus as fast as I could. It no longer mattered whether I was guilty or innocent, or that I had barged into the Varner Clinic with the very best of intentions. I left three bodies back there in the flames and rubble and I was the one they would be after.

The digital clock on the dashboard read 10:15, which meant I had eight, maybe nine hours of darkness left. Even at night, the big, brown cop car would stick out like a sore thumb. After the sun came up? Forget it. The Bronco was probably toast. When Dannmeyer drove back into Greene's parking lot a few minutes ago, I had a sneaking suspicion he was coming back from dumping it off on the East Side. It was already in some chop shop or on its way to Cleveland, and I needed to find a new set of wheels.