Read Online Relics by Shaun Hutson - Free Book Online Page B

wipers had difficulty keeping it clear.
    Kim shivered as she drove, telling herself it was the inclement weather that was making her feel so cold. The heater was turned up high and still the chill persisted. She slowed down, reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled on a pair of woollen gloves.
    In the back of the Land Rover the wooden crates were securely tied down. Each one held a precious cargo of relics. She glanced into the rear-view mirror and looked at the two on top of the pile, one carrying some of the bones they’d found in the tunnel, the other filled with the stone tablets. Perry had indeed found twelve of them and each had been carefully packed in the box so that Kim could get them back to the museum in Longfield undamaged.
    She drove past a sign which told her that the town was now less than a mile away.
    Kim swung the Land Rover around a corner, stepping on the brake when she saw a tractor lumbering towards her, towing a seed distributor. The Massey-Ferguson was about a hundred yards from her, but on such a slippery road, Kim was taking no chances. She pressed down harder on the brake.
    Nothing happened.
    The Land Rover continued speeding along in top gear, the needle on the speedometer nudging forty-five.
    Kim pumped the brake pedal repeatedly, the breath catching in her throat.
    Still the vehicle did not slow down.
    She was less than seventy yards away from the tractor now.
    Kim looked frantically through the misted windscreen, trying to catch a glimpse of the tractor driver, trying to warn him that she was unable to stop. He was just a blur in the rain.
    She drove her foot down as hard as she could, feeling the pedal touch the floor.
    The Land Rover sped on.
    Fifty yards away.
    She banged her hooter, trying to warn the farmer to pull off the road, at the same time motioning madly with one hand.
    The tractor kept coming.
    Forty yards.
    She reached for the gear-stick, trying to change down into first, to stop the vehicle that way, but it was useless.
    Twenty yards.
    If only she could guide the runaway vehicle into one of the banks on either side of the road, she thought, perhaps she could bring it to a halt. But she was travelling too fast and the banks were steep. If she didn’t plough straight into one, then the momentum might well send the Land Rover flying into the air, or overturn it. Or . . .
    Ten yards, and now the tractor driver was turning his own bulky vehicle, finally aware that a collision was inevitable.
    Kim grabbed the handbrake and wrenched it up. Even that did nothing to halt the breakneck progress of the Land Rover. She thought about jumping, but travelling at over forty-five she stood a pretty fair chance of killing herself.
    She heard the tractor’s hooter blaring out a warning and she crossed her arms on the wheel, waiting for the impact, thrusting her foot one last time down on the brake.
    The Land Rover skidded to a halt, its rear end spinning round and coming to rest gently against the radiator grille of the tractor.
    For long seconds Kim remained hunched over the wheel, her head bowed. Slowly she straightened up, her heart thudding in her chest.
    The driver of the tractor was already out of his cab, scuttling across the rain-lashed road towards her.
    She opened her door and stumbled out, her face drained of colour.
    ‘What the hell happened?’ he said to her. His anger and fear largely dissipated, when he saw how haggard Kim looked.
    ‘My brakes . . .’ she murmured, leaning against the bonnet of the Land Rover. A wave of nausea swept over her and her legs almost buckled under her. The tractor driver watched as she gulped down several deep lungfuls of air. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, quietly.
    ‘We’d both have been sorry if you hadn’t stopped in time,’ the driver said.
    Kim nodded slowly and wiped some rain from her face.
    ‘How much further have you got to go?’ the driver asked. She told him.
    ‘Will you be all right?’
    She was already climbing back into the