Dangerous Cargo

by ArSommers

Summary:

The Warrens are involved in a near-fatal car accident after they retrieve an item for the artifact room.

Notes:

• For Kitsune511.

This story is partially inspired by the fanfic "Honey, We Can Run Forever, If Forever's What's in Store" by Kitsune511.

Chapter 1

After a full day of grey clouds, snowflakes finally began to fall from the sky.
“It’s beautiful,” Lorraine commented as Ed turned on the wipers.
“It is,” her husband agreed, “Though not nearly as fun to drive in,”
“If this is hitting Monroe, I’m sure Judy has already asked Mary Ellen if she can go outside and catch snowflakes on her tongue,”
Ed smiled at the thought. “We’re lucky Mary Ellen lives so close and was able to come over on such short notice,”
“We are,” Lorraine said, turning to look at the framed painting of a pond in a forest placed on the backseat. The item looked harmless enough, but they had reason to believe there was evil attached to it, hence why they’d driven about an hour to retrieve the item and bring it to their artifact room.
Checking her watch, Lorraine suggested “Maybe we should invite Mary Ellen to stay for dinner. With weather like this I think grilled cheese and warm tomato bisque is in order,”
“Mmm,” Ed replied, “That sounds absolutely perfect,”
The car made a sudden groan, then began to speed up. “What the…” Ed looked at the pedals on the floor, a look of confusion on his face.
“Ed?” Lorraine asked, a bit nervous at the sudden increase in speed, “What’s going on?”
“The gas pedal…the brakes…they’re not working,” Lorraine watched in horror as her husband pressed his foot harder on the brake, but to no avail. Then, without warning, the steering wheel began to move on its own, shifting the entire car to the right. Ed struggled to turn the wheel to the left, but it wouldn’t budge.
“The painting,” Lorraine said. “Whatever has hold of the painting, it’s doing this to the car,” In a preemptive attempt to stop whatever was happening, Lorraine unlocked the car doors, but as soon as she did the wheel pulled sharply to the right, driving them off the road and plunging the car into a lake.

Chapter 2

The windshield smashed open as the car hit the bottom of the lake nose-first, then came to rest on the driver’s side. One minute later, the vehicle was filled with water, but not before Lorraine had time to unbuckle her seatbelt.
Ed, on the other hand, had not been as fortunate. The buckle securing his seatbelt had been dented in the crash, rendering the button to release the belt unusable.
The temperature of the water was freezing in the winter weather, though Lorraine hardly noticed, as her attention was focused on Ed. While they’d landed in a part of a lake that wasn’t very deep, every second they spent submerged mattered.
After about five seconds of the two trying to pry Ed free, Ed looked up at Lorraine. Her vision in the murky water was blurred, but even then, she could see fear in his eyes. Then, without breaking eye contact, Ed waved his hand through the water, motioning for her to swim through the broken windshield and leave without him.
Lorraine felt her heart sink as she imaged Ed saying something like “Forget about me, swim out of the car and save yourself. Judy needs you,” But she couldn’t imagine leaving Ed to this fate, a death brought about because of an item they didn’t even have a full backstory of.
Shaking her head, Lorraine looked from side to side. There had to be SOMETHING to break Ed free.
Then, she saw it.
In addition to being murky, the water was also dark. Nonetheless, just beyond the windshield Lorraine could make out a glowing human-like figure by the hood of the car. Her mind raced, wondering what it could be. Was it something associated with the painting? Was it a vision? No, she could feel this was something else, something…pure.
The figure extended a glowing arm, indicating towards a round object on the hood of the car. Swimming forward, Lorraine forced her way through the broken windshield to see what the being was pointing at. The mysterious object, she realized, was a piece of concrete no larger than the palm of her hand, smooth on one end yet jagged on the other.
Guided by the light from the being, Lorraine picked up the object and swam back to Ed. She could somewhat make out the worried look on his face- he thought she’d finally made up her mind to leave. But instead, Lorraine used the jagged piece to smash the other end of the buckle that had been dented, hoping that whatever indentation had been created on the front would be undone with what she was doing to the other side.
After multiple tries, the belt snapped free.
Pushing himself out of the seat, the two swam through the windshield and upward until they broke the surface. They gasped as they breathed in the chilled air, paddling with whatever strength they had left to stay afloat. They weren’t even aware of a man shouting in the distance until he’d waded into the water and brought them to land.
*
Laying next to his wife, Ed pulled the drenched cardigan sweater from Lorraine’s shoulders with shaking hands. She seemed barely able to move, as if the adrenaline rush that saved his life had taken all the extra energy she had.
“St…stay with me,” Ed managed to sputter as her eyes fluttered between consciousness and sleep. He inched himself closer so that his face was next to hers, allowing him to breathe warm air onto her.
The man who’d pulled them to shore came back from his car, carrying a single blanket. “Her!” Ed gasped, nodding at his wife. Their rescuer looked unsure, but in the end followed Ed’s direction.
“I have a car phone,” the man explained once he’d wrapped the blanket around Lorraine, “And I’ve already called 911. The paramedics are on their way,”
All Ed could do was nod gratefully. He wanted to thank the man properly with a handshake…maybe even a hug. But this slight movement was all he could manage for now.
Ed turned back to Lorraine, locking eyes with her as he did when they were in the water. This time, however, he wasn’t trying to indicate that she should leave; he was trying to indicate that she should stay.

Chapter 3

The Warrens were taken to the nearest hospital and treated for hypothermia, with Lorraine’s condition being slightly more severe than Ed’s. Ed conveyed to the staff to call their home number so that Mary Ellen could contact Georgiana. Since the two of them would be staying overnight at the hospital, it would be better that Lorraine’s mother watched over their daughter (Ed also made sure to tell the staff to inform their Judy that “Mom and Dad would be home very, very soon”).
A few hours later after he’d been given the go-ahead to make phone calls himself, Ed contacted Father Gordon and updated him about what happened. The following morning when he and Lorraine were able to receive visitors, the priest stopped by.
“I spoke with both the towing company and the authorities,” Father Gordon said, “And asked if they found a painting in the back seat. I was told nothing of the sort had been discovered,”
Ed sighed in frustration. From what he’d been told, all their other belongings were found in the wreckage, right down to his Bible. How in the world did the painting disappear?
“So there’s no trace of it at the scene?” Lorraine asked from her hospital bed.
“Correct. I even went there myself and didn’t see it on land,” Father Gordon’s shoulders sagged a little. “I hate to say it, but at this point retrieving the item may be a lost cause. We simply cannot scour a lake over and over, and that’s if it wasn’t destroyed. By this point, the painting may no longer even be there. I said a blessing by the lake, but I’m afraid there’s not much more we can do,”
Ed involuntarily clenched his jaw. So they totaled their car, almost died in the process, and would be paying large sums of medical bills for essentially nothing?
Lorraine must have seen the frustration on his face, as she reached out and placed her hand on top of Ed’s. “Well, if the item was destroyed and the evil broke out, then we may receive another call and be able to stop it next time,” she offered. “Or if the item is far enough away from mankind, the evil won’t be able to harm anyone else,”
The tenseness in Ed began to ease as he grasped his wife’s hand in his. Leave it to Lorraine to see the bright side of things.

Chapter 4

After Father Gordon made his departure, Ed was left alone in the room with Lorraine. “How are you feeling?” he asked, gently stroking the side of her face.
“Tired,” Lorraine admitted. Noticing worry starting to grow in Ed’s eyes, she quickly added “But also ready to go home and get some proper rest in our bed,”
“I know what you mean,” Ed tapped the handrails on the side of Lorraine’s cot. “These things weren’t exactly made for long-term comfort,”
“Or two people,”
Ed smiled at the comment, but after a moment his eyebrows creased. “Lorraine,” he said as he took her hand once again, “About what happened at the lake, under the water…”
Lorraine squeezed Ed’s hand in response. “We’re okay,” she said, “That’s what matters,”
Ed cast his eyes downwards, unable to meet her gaze. “If you drowned or froze to death because of me, I don’t know what I would have done,” he said. “When I saw you swim through the windshield the first time, I felt relief knowing you’d be okay. But when you came back…I thought you were going to drown because of me,”
Lorraine pushed herself to an upright sitting position. “I would never leave you,” she said, “Especially if there was a chance you would survive,”
“It was a very small chance,”
“It was bigger than you’d think,” Lorraine tilted his chin so their eyes locked. “Ed…I saw something when we were underwater,”
A curious expression broke through the worry on Ed’s face. “What was that?”
Tearing up of the memory, Lorraine replied “An angel,”
A look of surprise overtook Ed, though he was silent, unsure how to respond. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but in the end no words came out.
“It wasn’t a hallucination from the temperature, and it wasn’t a vision,” Lorraine said. “I saw the angel just as clearly as I’m seeing you now. The angel pointed to the concrete, that perfectly jagged manmade item that set you free,” A tear ran down her cheek. “I alone wouldn’t have been able to find it and save you, which must have been why God sent help,”
Overcome with emotions and unable to remain merely standing next to her any longer, Ed took a seat on the side of the bed and gently guided Lorraine into his embrace. In response she wrapped her arms securely around him, taking in his love and warmth, not wanting to let go after she almost lost him less than twenty-four hours prior.
“I knew when I saw the outline of the bright being that there was still a chance,” Lorraine cried into Ed’s shoulder. “I knew you didn’t have to die, and you didn’t my love, you didn’t,”
They sat like this for a while, the two of them holding onto each other as they processed all that had happened. How everything was fine one minute, then almost ripped away the next. Lorraine thought of Ed trapped under the seatbelt as he nearly drowned, while Ed thought of Lorraine shaking violently in the snow, her lips blue and eyes barely open as they waited for an ambulance. But God had spared them; they were here, they were alive, and they were going home that evening.
Saying a quick prayer of thanksgiving, Ed pulled back and cupped Lorraine’s face in his hands. “I won’t put you in a situation like that ever again,” he said as he wiped away her tears. “I promised I’d take care of you every day of my life, and I won’t falter on that,”
Lorraine kissed his hand. “You always have,” she said. “Some things are just beyond our control,”
Ed smiled. “How about I start with something I can control and make dinner this evening? Does grilled cheese and tomato bisque still sound okay? Georgiana will be picking us up later, so with Mary Ellen watching Judy I can make a meal for the five of us,”
Lorraine smiled at the thought. Family and friends sharing a meal: in a world as inexplicable and unpredictable as theirs, it seemed like a welcome relief and a semblance of something normal. “Yes,” Lorraine said, “That sounds wonderfully perfect,”