Kaimoana Tales
by Kiwi
Part 3, Crash!
Late night, Wednesday night - really late. Maurie was used to late nights, but this was over the top. On weeknights he was usually in bed by midnight, not driving down the highway at 3.30am.
He'd caught the late ferry, with his van-load of goods, arrived in Picton at 1.30am, and now he had to get to Christchurch before breakfast. It was normally a 4 or 5 hour trip, but he figured that he'd make good time in the middle of the night. It wasn't a bad time to be driving, the roads were quiet and nearly empty and it was not too hot. If only he wasn't so bloody tired!
He had hoped to catch a bit of sleep on the 3 hour ferry crossing, but that didn't work. It was all far too bright and noisy and it was a rough crossing. The weather was fine, but there was a strong wind blowing and the sea was as rough as only Cook Strait can be. The best he could do was to stretch out on a couple of the padded seats and try to doze a bit - not very successfully, he was not a good sailor.
He'd had no sleep when they arrived in Picton and he was already tired before he started driving. The back of the van was loaded with lots of party-pills and stuff, some legal, some not, but he didn't know of any that would just keep him awake without affecting his driving. He'd probably have too much immunity to their effects anyway, he'd popped hundreds in his time. He should've bought some 'No Doze' pills, or something, but hadn't thought of it. He was so tired it'd take a box-full to be of any help. It'd been a long, hard day.
Anyone with half a brain would pull over and have a rest when he was feeling like this. But, no, he'd probably sleep all night and he didn't have the time to spare. Maurie just wanted to get to Christchurch and off-load all the stuff he was carrying.
The van was loaded to the roof with party-drugs and sex-shop supplies - toys, books, magazines and DVD's. Some of it was 'gay' stuff, but some was 'straight', some was 'soft', some was downright kinky. Most of it was legal, but some was very not. He didn't want to be picked up with all this stuff, he'd go sky-high!
This was not his damm job, but the regular courier driver was AWOL and Mr. Lamont told Maurie to "do the f'ing run." What Mr. Lamont wanted, Mr. Lamont got - if you knew what was good for you. He had to get the van back to Wellington and fly home to Auckland by tonight. He didn't want to think about that.
Murphy's Law works as well in the South Island as it does anywhere else - 'if something can go wrong, it will'. Maurie crashed the bloody van didn't he!
The road was quiet, no other traffic around at all, and he was cruising along the easy, sweeping, highway, more-or-less on auto-pilot. He was just a few minutes north of Kaimoana and the highway was flat there, sandwiched between the hills to his right and the parallel railway lines and the beach, somewhere out there in the dark, to his left. The only noise was coming from the radio which was tuned to the only station he could pick up around there. The late-night music they were playing, all soft and dreamy, wasn't helping either.
It happened on a short, straight, piece of road, his eyes drifted closed and he went to sleep. The van kept going straight until, when the road and railway curved around to the right, it shot off the road and onto the railway-line. The front wheels hit the tracks, they turned, and it carried on, bouncing along the sleepers of the track-bed, still guided by the rails. The back doors flew open and boxes of the load bounced out and burst open, leaving a trail of debris along the line.
When it came to a small, sideless, railway bridge, the van toppled sideways and dived down to land, nose-first, in the muddy creek bed, about 3 meters below.
Maurie woke up with a start, hanging upside-down in the safety-belt and half buried in all the stuff that had fallen from the back of the van which was now lodged upright with the front in the creek and the rear in the air.
"Oh, Bloody Hell! Does it get any worse than this?" he exclaimed.
It did.
He struggled out of the belt and climbed up through the van and onto the railway bridge. Feeling groggy, shocked, dazed and bleeding, he started staggering along the tracks, heading towards Kaimoana, the nearest town.
He'd only gone about 40 meters when he came to a second, identical bridge over another creek. He walked out on to it, stumbled, tripped and fell to land with a 'splat' in the mud below. He dragged himself out of the creek. The bank was only about 3 or 4 meters high, but it was steep.
With his feet still trailing in the water, he lowered his head to the ground for a rest, and went back to sleep.
A farmer came along the road, in a tractor, going out to do the early-morning milking, and found him there, just after dawn. He saw the body lying by the creek, saw the van a few meters away, lodged in the other creek, and he realised what had happened. He stopped and checked the guy in the creek; he was out to it but was alive and didn't seem to be too badly injured, so the farmer rang 111 for the Emergency Services.
They all came roaring out from town, the ambulance, the police and the fire-brigade. Maurie was lifted up to the road, loaded into the ambulance and taken to the cottage-hospital.
The volunteer firemen inspected the scene and decided that there was nothing they could do; it was going to take a crane to get that thing out of there. With great hilarity, they got back into their fire-engine and went back to town. They all had jobs to go to. More than a few bits and pieces of the van's cargo went with them too.
Constable Lawry, chuckling to himself, was left alone there. He took some photos of the scene, secured the area by stringing 'Police Emergency' tape along between the road and the railway line, and then went back to town as well. He wasn't sure whether the firemen had said if they'd arrange for a crane to get the van out, but, knowing them, he'd probably have to do it himself. One or two samples went with him too.
A few cars and trucks went past. Some slowed down to see what the trouble was, but nobody stopped. Nobody got out and crossed over the 'Police' line.
After about an hour, a group of 5 boys, 10, 11 and 12 years old, came along the highway. They were heading out for a day's bike ride and had got an early start. They saw the tape and saw the van in the creek and the debris scattered along the railway line.
Being boys, of course they stopped to have a look and there was great excitement when they realised what all the scattered DVD's and magazines and stuff were about. The Police tape didn't stop them for a minute, they ducked under it and over it and started collecting all the scattered treasures. Choice!
They found all sorts of toys - light whips, fur-lined handcuffs and crotchless panties etc. There were creams and oils, rings which were far too big for anyone's fingers and too small to fit on a hand and condoms of all shapes and sizes. Johnny, the youngest there, found a huge rubber cock. He didn't know what it was for and he'd never seen one that big, but he knew exactly what it was. They all did.
He clapped it to his forehead and ran around saying, "Look at me. I'm a dickhead!" everyone laughed and agreed that he was.
The oldest boy there, Rodney Lawry, the cop's son, soon realised that this stuff wouldn't be left lying there for long. So they collected up all that they could carry and got the hell out of there while the going was good.
In the days that followed, the 5 boys were the richest and most popular kids in Kaimoana and everyone's sex education went ahead in leaps and bounds.
Authors deserve your feedback. It's the only payment they get. If you go to the top of the page you will find the author's name. Click that and you can email the author easily.* Please take a few moments, if you liked the story, to say so.
[For those who use webmail, or whose regular email client opens when they want to use webmail instead: Please right click the author's name. A menu will open in which you can copy the email address (it goes directly to your clipboard without having the courtesy of mentioning that to you) to paste into your webmail system (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo etc). Each browser is subtly different, each Webmail system is different, or we'd give fuller instructions here. We trust you to know how to use your own system. Note: If the email address pastes or arrives with %40 in the middle, replace that weird set of characters with an @ sign.]
* Some browsers may require a right click instead
