Read Online The Helper by David Jackson - Free Book Online

parking spot on this block. She’s not so sure she would
bother to drive all the way here if she had to leave the car a couple of blocks away and come traipsing along these streets at the unearthly hours she often arrives.
    Actually, she’s not so sure how much longer she will continue this anyway. Alex is fun, he’s got a great body, the sex is terrific. But there’s a staleness to it now. The
novelty has gone. What’s worse, the guilt hasn’t gone. She thought it might after a while. She thought she would become so accustomed to doing this that she would eventually become deaf
to the admonishments of that little angel on her shoulder. But it hasn’t worked out that way. If anything, the angel has taken to using a loudhailer. Tonight’s little episode has just
made things worse. Gary’s a mess. He needs her help. Maybe she should try harder.
    She steps out onto the dark street, glancing both ways before closing the door behind her. Directly opposite is a Jehovah’s Witness building – another reminder of her sinful ways.
She sometimes expects that she will step out of Alex’s apartment building one night and the young men in dark suits will all be grouped there, pushing the Watchtower into her hands as they
castigate her for her adulterous behavior.
    She hurries along the sidewalk to where her Toyota is parked next to a school soccer field. Hearing a noise coming from beyond the graffiti-adorned wall across the street, she hurriedly unlocks
the car door, throws her bag onto the passenger seat, and climbs in.
    Only then does she see the note tucked under her windshield wiper.
    She opens the door again and reaches round to retrieve the note. She unfolds it and reads the hastily scribbled words.
    Sorry about the damage to the rear of your car. I accidentally clipped it when I drove off. Sorry!
    What the . . . ?
    She reads it again, to make sure she fully comprehends it. He smashed into my car? And he didn’t even have the decency to leave a name or contact number? What a bastard! And what’s
the fucking point of leaving a fucking note just to say how fucking sorry you are?
    She clambers out again, thinking what a shitty night this is turning out to be. Thinking that maybe she’s getting what she deserves, that her shoulder-borne angel has really gone hardcore
now.
    She steps around to the rear of her car, her fear replaced by indignation. Wondering how much this is going to cost her.
    The car looks fine.
    I mean, it’s really dark here, but even so . . .
    She squats. Stands up again. Runs her hand over the bodywork. What the hell is the writer of this note talking about?
    She unfolds the sheet of paper again, starts to read it through.
    A few yards behind her, a car engine roars into life. She jumps, startled, and glances around. She catches a glimpse of a dark hulking shape – some kind of SUV – before its
headlights flare on, blinding her.
    Ignore it, she tells herself. Let them go on their way.
    She turns back to her own car. The bright light from the SUV gives her an opportunity to get a good look. There’s nothing here she can see. Not a dent, a scratch, nothing.
    She is mystified. But now she is also a little afraid again. Something isn’t right. Something about this whole setup . . .
    The SUV is on her in an instant. She hears a squeal of tires, a blast of engine noise, and she barely has time to turn toward it before those intense lights fill her vision and their leviathan
owner rams into her, crushing her against her own car.
    At first she screams. It’s automatic, driven by the pain and the shock. And then confusion takes over. She loses the ability to make sense of the world. She cannot understand what has just
happened to her. Why can’t she move? Why won’t her legs obey her orders to take her away from here?
    She looks down, sees only bent, twisted metal from her hips downwards. And still her brain cannot fully grasp its significance. She opens her mouth to cry out again, stops