The Rescuer Ch. 03

"Not oncoming cars! We are almost to our alternate route! But the county has totally given up maintaining this last stretch of road! They always do! Just hang on tight! To whatever you can! It's really going to get rough!"

Instead of slowing down, their driver gave the cab even more gas, and the sliding sideways around grew even worse as the road began to climb steeply upwards again. Keeley turned away from them all, so she could look out the window and down into the deep ditch on her side. Finally the cab regained enough speed, and although the bumps were worse, the wild swings across the muddy surface stopped. The redhead desperately grabbed her headrest and the door support, to keep her head from being slammed into the window frame.

The soft skin of her back almost glowed in the increasing light. The famous red curls slide all over the smooth freckled shoulders, even as Keeley laughed at the out of control sensations they were all feeling in the back seat.

Before Shelly could copy her roommate's strategy, rough hands slid over her body. One arm went behind her neck, to grab the back of her own headrest. A leg was quickly thrown over her right knee, trapping her tightly in place. That left one male hand free to grab at her bouncing breasts.

The dark brown eyes she knew from far too many recent but consensual encounters like this... on their apartment's couch while Keeley worked her extra shifts at the strip club... seemed to sparkle at this unexpected opportunity.

When a thumb and finger captured her left nipple, Shelly gasped as it got pinched far too tightly to be enjoyable.

At least for her.

The right leg thrown over her knee, gave her the perfect hidden access to physically show her feelings about such risky attention from him. At least at this precise moment. Her fingers easily dug in deep where the soft material of his pants covered his cock and balls. Getting a firm grip, she squeezed hard enough to make him let go of her nipple.

But when his hand lowered down her belly to begin searching between her legs... Shelly had no problem really hurting him... and truly enjoyed each second his desperately silent face winced in pain.

Every jolt that the cab had to endure was instantly translated to the semi hard cock and the low hanging balls. Still the grasping fingers kept trying to find her clit, until one particularly nasty bump made him gasp out loud in pain. To steady himself in the back seat, Keeley's boyfriend finally had to stop pawing at her and grab the door handle.

"We're almost at the top! Hang on!"

The front wheels of the cab suddenly dug in deep into the fresh soft dirt of the ramp-like rise, and Shelly felt her stomach fill with butterflies as they almost seemed to fly thru the air. Keeley laughed again at the roller coaster like sensation. Then she ducked her head down to protect it from the low roof above the back seat, well before they landed down hard. Another gasp of pain filled the air of the cab, from both her fingers cruelly getting one last hard squeeze in, and Seth's head hitting the only lightly padded ceiling.

After so long in the dark, they all blinked in the too bright light, frantically trying to take in what they saw.

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Keeley was glad of the chance to laugh. The physical tossing around and jolts had reminded her of better times as a kid, bouncing on the bench seat of her paternal grandfather's farm truck.

The abrupt change from the dark creepy bog trail... to the perfectly smooth brightly lit dirt road they now enjoyed... was like waking up from a bad dream.

The horrible nightmare, whose confusing sexual details of fear and enjoyment had tortured her for years, was just barely averted from the conscious recall she feared so much.

As long as the swirling emotions of lust and pain kept themselves to her troubled sleep, she had learned to painfully coexist with them. Keeley knew that her now tenuous hold on her day to day life's sanity was fragile enough to shatter, if she was ever forced to face the reality behind any of her many night terrors.

Especially that one.

"If you would look at your watches, you might be really surprised how little time that drive just took us! We have basically been continuously heading in the right direction, too. We didn't have to spend half an hour heading away from the Opera House, to link up with the main highways. If we had? Right now we'd be sitting in motionless traffic, and not even close to the first loop where all the main roads and toll ways split off from!"

It was true.

By bending down again, Keeley could look thru the tall trees on the left side of the newly constructed elevated road, and see an occasional glimpse of the familiar city skyline. But as they continued on, the branches got thicker, and their brief comforting contact with civilization vanished again.

Their well built much higher path was now arrow straight, perfectly smooth and level. Instead of narrow deep ditches overgrown with bramble and filled with dead tree limbs, there were two wide carefully manicured curving expanses of thick prairie grass. The road itself was more than wide enough for two huge dump trucks to pass each other, without even getting anywhere near the securely firm edge.

Although no power lines could be seen, tall metal light poles regularly alternated on either side of the smoothly graded sand, clay and gravel surface. The concrete footings of each light looked only a few weeks old, but there were no signs of the buried electric lines that powered them.

The still wild looking land lots showed evidence of having their boundaries recently getting reworked. Identical lines of brand new fencing stretched out parallel to the road. The four foot tall individual stock panels were made of thick heavy steel wire, and were sunk deep into the ground. Exactly the kind of thing her dad's grandfather would have loved to been able to afford to secure his land. A dozen feet behind the new fencing, the ground had been carefully leveled, to allow the property owners a way to drive around and check their newly redefined possessions.

Sometimes the straightening of the old jogging road added as much as hundred feet to one section, and the old bushes and trees that had lined the old completely removed fence were still clearly visible. Some acreages had lost almost as much, and the undergrowth visible next to the private access trail had clearly recently been in the middle of the thick forest.

Knowing how bad the fights were, over just a few feet of disputed farmland back home, it amazed her that such conformity could have been achieved without lengthy court battles. Looking up ahead, the long line of lights seemed endless, as if the new construction went on forever.

Shelly and her boyfriend were just now finally untangling themselves, leaving her to be the one to ask the questions of their almost too patient driver for tonight.

"... I can't believe this road... especially how much this would have cost... with all these wonderfully bright lights I can even see underground drainage tunnels going from side to side... this place will never flood again... will it... and how did they get permission to straighten up every single one of the property lines... "

The dark face seemed sweaty, as if he had really had been working hard behind the wheel, and worrying about keeping them out of the ditches during that last wild climb up to sanity.

"Some new company is modernizing all the old property deeds for the surrounding counties, and creating a private digital database for the tax records at the same time. Most of the property owners loved the idea of getting reliable power run all the way out here, and not having to pay for it! The people that lost a little frontage land got well compensated for it, and others on the opposite side had to buy it back at set prices. Where there was a dispute, or the heirs of the original owners couldn't be found, the county legally seized the necessary strips, and is holding them in separate individual trusts. If the main section of adjoining land ever changes hands? The new owners will have to buy it, cheap, to clean up any future issues of ownership."

Keeley looked at the often jaggedly rolling hills, even as the laser leveled road stretched on unchanged by the swells. Not a single cross road interrupted their path. At least not yet. Wherever they were headed on this bizarre shortcut though, soon they would have to turn left to cross even wilder lands.

Shelly took a moment to look into her window, at her reflection, and straightened out her mussed up hair. Her amazingly sexy dress got smoothed out next, as if she was desperately longing to get back to the crowds she loved to tease. The famous blonde dancer, that she had met so long ago, was the exact antithesis of a country girl. Keeley herself never minded where she went, and just tried to fit in as best she could.

Seth seemed to be uncomfortable too, as he painfully squirmed in his center seat, and carefully rubbed his head where it must have bumped into the cab's ceiling. His voice was surprisingly polite, as he asked the next question of their cabbie.

"I can see now where we should be headed, I think, but I'm not sure there is way to cross over to downtown for miles and miles. In a few minutes we'll actually be driving away from our next spot. How are we going to get there, even close to our original schedule?"

The driver just as politely pointed to a small but rapidly growing bright red spot on the road ahead. The cab was now flying much faster than the crowded Saturday night highways would have allowed them to speed.

"Right up ahead! That's where the extra cabs, limos and town cars of my company will all be staging. I'm sure that's where the little bus that drove before us on our route will come back out, too. See the two spare airport transit shuttles already waiting on the side of the road? They are filled with all of our extra drivers trapped by the storm on this side of town."

The cab was going so fast, that in just another minute, they could clearly see the tall modern shuttles parked on the right hand edge of the road. Two other large construction-type vehicles were down in the bottoms of the deeply curved ravines, and were obscuring her view of the first side road in miles.

The bright lights on the poles above helped her see some other details, as their cab slowed down to a complete stop, still a good hundred yards away from the shuttles. It felt so odd to be perfectly still again, and Keeley felt her body still trembling and swaying, as if they were still getting tossed around by the previous long stretch of rough road. The clearly temporary bridge across the ditch had two huge steel drainage pipes running underneath. They were more than enough to handle any sudden down burst flowing thru them. Especially given the fact the even larger tunnels under the county road would allow water to flow back and forth between which ever properties had the heaviest rainfall.

Seeing where she was looking at, their driver pointed out a few things and explained them for her.

"They put in one of these temporary bridges wherever the construction company has work to do for the land owners. Then they take them back out, and carefully redo all the landscaping. A few months after they are gone? You'd never find this exact place again. Those custom articulated arm mowers down below? I have a cousin working his way thru college running one of them. His company has a long term contract, with all of the rural counties, for road maintenance. That's why everything has been made so uniform. Three or four times a year they clean out all the debris and then mow the prairie grass down low. He's never understood why some of the new special road construction gets stopped, restarted, and then stopped again. It might be a year or two before they extend this end of the project towards the Opera House. Or another mile or two of it could be under construction next week."

The driver's phone beeped, and he took a moment to look at the text message before he pointed up at the light pole above the two shuttles.

"They put in cell towers on top of some of those. And if you believe the rumors, there are three traffic cameras on top of every single one, too. The county saves a fortune in patrol costs out here. Most of that sort of thing is done by private security now anyway. But the property crime and vandalism, anywhere the new roads have been put in, has simply vanished! If you see any of those security guys? Don't mess with them! Just be polite and get on with your business! Don't believe me? You soon will! My supervisor just told me that our extra and stranded vehicles are almost thru the route. We have to wait, right here, until they all clear the bridge before we can get on our way again. You'll see!"

Keeley looked at her roommates and saw that they were just as puzzled as she was. All this rushing about, and now they just had to sit and wait? Seth was about to make a rude comment, when Shelly beat her to nudging him in the ribs. Suddenly the bright white glow of oncoming headlights began to light up the surface of the temporary bridge.

The first car to come thru was a cab that exactly matched the one they were in. It's driver waved at their vehicle enthusiastically, and their own cabbie flashed his headlights back at him. The other special driver made the left hand turn onto the brand new main county road, and simply vanished in a tremendous burst of speed. A few seconds behind it were dozens and dozens of regular cabs, limos, town cars and transit shuttles. Maybe fifty in all?

But after they made their own turns, they hugged the left hand side of the newly constructed road, carefully leaving a few feet between them and the softly sloping deep ditch. They had plenty of room to exit their driver side doors, and walk safely back along the road towards the bridge. As soon as the construction workers who had ferried the vehicles were all outside, a flurry of activity erupted all along the short stretch.

The company drivers, that had been waiting for their rides, began pouring out of the shuttles.

One last extremely shabby looking antique resort bus came over the bridge, and did a three point turn to get pointed back the way it had just come from. As the fleet of vehicles got filled with the new drivers, the construction workers actually jogged back to the rusty looking bus. The chaos quickly resolved itself, and all the vehicles began driving away. In just a few more minutes, the entire road before them emptied out. Only the long line of red tail lights, vanishing into the distance, was proof that anything so unusual had just happened.

The rusty old bus sitting on the temporary bridge had shiny new rims and tall tires, and when the last of the construction workers who had acted as relay drivers were crammed aboard, it quickly vanished back into the trees.

Their cabbie already had his phone out, and was looking at the bright screen. He let their cab continue to idle smoothly, and stubbornly refused to cheat a little bit further up the road. Another few seconds passed, before a text message came thru with a loud special beep.

"Just keep calm and quiet. Don't piss them off. There is not a shred of humor between the whole security crew! Don't any of you dare make them mad! Or I promise you, we will all regret it!"

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Shelly was more than a bit worried about their driver's very anxious tone, and even Seth eventually nodded his agreement to lessen the sudden tension.

Only then did the text get answered, and their cab began moving forward. After it turned left, it proceeded at a very deliberate and constant pace. The temporary bridge was just as smooth as the road, and was clearly built to accommodate the weight and width of just a single line of huge construction vehicles. Once they had gone a few hundred feet into the scrubby old trees, it felt as if they were just going to be totally swallowed up by the unkempt wilderness.

Keeley stayed silent, as a little bit of her strange nervousness began to return. The surroundings seemed to make her boyfriend also reluctant to talk or joke around, too. Trying his best to alter the mood their cab driver knew he had just made too serious, their driver continued to explain.

"They punch a hole deep thru whatever property line they have work to do on, then when they can't possibly be seen from the road, they set up shop. They could be here for a few weeks or a few months. Just no telling. But people just driving around, and that ignore these no trespassing signs? They only do it once!"

True enough, some very large and official billboards suddenly appeared above the bushes. Shelly had been on plenty of military bases growing up, and felt a twinge of nervousness herself. The legal article reference numbers allowing for armed security personnel, at the bottom of the signs, she remembered from her own high school days without much trouble.

Whatever was past the divided lane up ahead, it certainly wasn't something to kid around about.

As their cab swung to the right hand side of a fork, Shelly could see that the scrub in the boulevard division was thick and untouched. It made the perfect camouflage to prevent anyone trying to look down the road for a free peek. A simple automated military lift gate, unmanned, opened up for them long before they got close to it. A cluster of cameras kept silent unmoving guard on the road in both directions, while two other lenses swiveled mechanically to keep each side of their vehicle in frame at all times.

Keeley kept looking sideways out into the brush and scrub choking the ground underneath the trees, but her boyfriend was hunched down in his middle seat to look at what was coming ahead. His intense stare was almost the most interest he had taken in anything all night. He gulped loudly, for some reason, and his worried mumblings finally made her lean over to see what had startled him so badly.

While the spindly little gate they had passed thru would have hardly stopped a college student's broke down old moped, what was in front of them now looked more like a hardened military sentry point. Six vehicles were parked in front, in mirrored matching pairs, on either side of a concrete and steel barrier. Immediately on either side of the gate were two armored up jeeps. Further out were two desert capable four wheelers, with a series of huge floodlights attached to the heavy duty roll bars. Lastly, on the outer edges, were two very narrow dirt bikes all covered in mud.

But high above and beyond the solid steel gate, were two converted old water-well mobile drilling rigs. Up top were two custom built huts with wide railed platforms, and the guards staring down at them were even more armed to the teeth than the ones on the ground. Keeley's boyfriend whispered quietly as he pointed at the distinctive long barreled scoped rifles.

"... those aren't something you can just go out an buy at the local gun store... I've been playing my new video game for weeks... and still haven't managed to earn one of those special covert mission sniper rifles... from up there... they could kill anything they could get in their cross hairs... same thing for those drivers waiting at the jeeps... those shotguns aren't for show... they could put a slug right thru one cab door and out the other... or shatter an engine block with just one shot... "

Their cab driver hissed at them to sit back in their seats as he rolled down his window, but Keeley had to be numbly pulled into place. Bright lights swung at them from the desert vehicles, while the jeep guards with their shotguns circled their now motionless cab continuously. The youngest looking man in the camouflaged uniforms smoothly stepped up to their driver and handed him a clipboard. Without even looking at what he was signing, the cabbie just carefully and legibly filled out a single line, then autographed it.