Old Bones: A Collection of Short Stories by Steven L. Campbell Page A

Melissa had been there he probably wouldn’t have ventured so
close to the edge.
    A whooshing sound caught his attention. It
was far off, but definitely the sound of an automobile’s rubber
tires passing over State Highway 497’s blacktop, or what the locals
had named Russell Road.
    How strange, he thought, that a vehicle was
able to operate this close to Myers Ridge despite the high level of
electronic disturbance he had found. He slowly took out his cell
phone from his buttoned-down shirt pocket and prayed that the slim
black phone would work. It did not. Of course it didn’t. That was
one of the reasons why he, professor of sciences at the nearby Penn
State campus, was here: to find whatever was jamming electronic
devices on and around Myers Ridge.
    He put away his phone, then turned his head
to get his bearings when pain knifed through his lower back and
left hip. His left leg was numb and upon slow inspection, looked
twisted at the knee and ankle. He took his time and used pine
branches to pull himself into a seated position so he could examine
his leg. It didn’t feel broken, but the kneecap was out of place.
He held his breath and yanked the patella back where it belonged.
Pain shot up his leg and a sick heat filled his stomach; he almost
vomited. He hiccupped instead and sent pain stabbing through his
lower back and down his leg. He fell back, cried out like some
wounded animal, and felt ashamed.
    When he could tolerate the pain again, he sat
up again. The valley felt colder. Another bout of rain began to
fall. It was June and the day had been sunny and warm, but now he
wished he would have worn a jacket—or a long-sleeved shirt, at
least. Melissa would have reminded him to bring a jacket.
    A spring-like chill latched onto him and
attacked his leg with mind-reeling pain. He closed his eyes and
waited for the red behind his lids to leave. When the pain subsided
and he opened his eyes, lightning blinked in the distance; thunder
laughed at him from above.
    It was late in the evening, perhaps eight
o’clock. His watch had stopped at the same time his car had stalled
upon his arrival that morning. He pulled his legs up until his
knees were below his chin, and then he gently worked on his twisted
ankle, hoping it wasn’t dislocated. It wasn’t. He straightened his
legs and felt the left kneecap lurch out of place again. He undid
his pants, lowered them past his knees, and saw that the patella
had shifted left again. Once more, he held his breath, forced the
kneecap into place again, and screamed from the pain. What else
could he do?
    Upon examination, he saw that the skin at his
hip had darkened to the brownish-purple color of eggplant. He
babied his hip along with his swelling knee and ankle while he
hitched up his pants and tried to stand, but the pain roared
unbearable in his knee again and brought him down. He searched the
ground for a branch long enough to use as a crutch. He found none,
so he rolled onto his buttocks, and, using his good leg, he crawled
backward toward the highway. Every slide across the ground felt
like his lower leg was being torn from the damaged knee.
    An hour later, or as best he estimated—he had
crawled and rested six times and daylight was almost gone now—he
reached the stream that feeds into Myers Creek north of Ridgewood.
He rolled onto his good side and drank. Much of his strength
returned as soon as the cold water filled his stomach. A noise in
the brush reminded him it was time to move on. He crawled into the
stream’s icy water and urinated for what seemed like several
minutes. Then he crawled onward. The stream’s stone bottom sliced
his elbows, and its chill clawed into his hip and knee and caused
his whole leg to scream out in pain. When he climbed the embankment
on the other side of the stream, enormous lightning flashed. For a
moment, night became day. He saw that he had reached the wooded
edge. A sloping field ran uphill. He was certain that the highway
was on the