Drive Through the Rain

The rain pounded against the roof of a blue minivan. The windshield wipers worked desperately, trying to clear the large drops from the glass. Inside, two individuals squinted and shivered. They were shrouded in thick clothing, but the rain still brought in bitter winds that made them shiver just thinking about it. The woman, who drove endlessly along the twisting roads of the old 218 highway, cursed with each mile. Her heart beat desperately.

They were on their way home from the funeral, a grim event that the woman wished to never attend again. She had been numb throughout the whole event, unable to even mourn her husband who died ever so slowly. 

Her husband was a good man, but he was stubborn. He was the type of man who made everyone in the room feel good. He would have given the shirt off his back if that was all he had. Her husband had been down to Earth and fair, but the cancer had been faster. 

The woman shook her head as she tried to keep her focus on the road. The cancer had been too fast and he had been too stubborn. Within months, her husband had been lying in an ICU. Then, he was gone and she lost all ability to feel. She lost the will to live, and it was everything she could do to keep from falling apart. While she grieved her husband, her daughter grieved a loving father. The mother could not show that weakness to Annie. She couldn’t.  

"It's cold mom," her daughter whispered, clutching her arms tight to her chest. She shivered like a frail leaf still clinging to the branch of life. The winds had come and shook that leaf for all it was worth, testing and tearing it free. “I can’t wait to get home to the heat.”  

The woman reached down to adjust the dials. The minivan was old and decrepit. The radio had long gone out and the heat would only turn on half of the time. Despite that, the windshield wipers kept up with the pouring rain. The fog had long since crawled up the windows, cutting her visibility off by half. She should have pulled over instead of trying to make it home during the night. The mother had to go to work, though, by 5 am. She had to get home.  She didn't see the semi coming around the bend.

    The driver of the semi had been hauling one of his heaviest loads yet. His buddies had all stopped back at the rest stop, but the man couldn’t. He had a deadline that hadn’t factored in all the road constructions he had to plow through. He was already late, and his eyes could barely stay open. He jammed loudly to one of the many country stations on his radio. The static fizzled the tunes in an out, but he had no choice but to put up with it. The man yawned once more, eyes slowly closing as he turned around another bend. 

The semi slammed into the woman’s car, pushing it clear across the center line and half-way over the railing. The whole time, it rolled over and over again. Crunch, crackle, the sides and fenders of their car crumpled under the force. Sparks flew up as the car finally came to a stop at the edge of the road. Directly across the metal railing, a 200 foot drop sat like a terrible omen. The woman was knocked unconscious but her daughter stilled beside her. 

When the woman awoke later, the rain had already filled the top of their rolled vehicle. It dripped in through the window as the thunder and lightning crackled through the sky. The sound was haunting, a mess of wind and rain. It pattered the asphalt around their car, cutting the blinking of their lights ever so slightly. She could hear the lights flickering and the turning signal ticking like a mantra in her head. But she couldn’t reach up to turn it off. She fumbled at her seatbelt but it had been jammed in the roll over. The airbags hadn’t even attempted to go off. 

"Annie," the mother groaned, reaching over to the girl. "Annie."

But her daughter was still. She tried to shake her daughter awake, but finally, the seat belt snapped and her daughter fell head first onto the flooded roof of their little minivan. Her daughter didn’t even move a muscle. Blood streamed down from her head, coating her face in scarlet. Something looked to have impaled the girl from the back. A mess of tin had pierced her chest where more scarlet red had started to blossom through the white dress shirt she’d been wearing. 

"Annie? SOMEONE HELP!!!"

    The woman heard shuffling outside of the semi before someone dropped to his knees and looked in. “Help,” she rasped, meeting the man’s eyes. 

    The man looked panicked, like a deer in the headlights. He looked at the unconscious teenaged girl sitting in the seat beside the woman before meeting the woman’s eyes. He shook his head shakily, wiping the rain that trailed into his eyes with a frantic hand. 

    “I’m sorry… I can’t… I can’t go to jail. I can’t,” the man stood up and stepped away from the vehicle.

    “Please… please!” The woman pleaded, reaching her hand out through the hole that had once been her fogged up window. “My daughter.” 

    “I’m so sorry,” The man answered before he hurried back to his vehicle. He stayed in the seat for a few minutes, unable to reach for the gear shift or the gas pedal. He didn’t want to leave them… he should have called the paramedics, but he couldn’t. With that, he drove away down the barren road, descending down from the mountains. 

"Annie, please," the woman sobbed, reaching down for her daughter. Everything hurt, her head, her legs, even her bloodied arms. She kicked at whatever was holding her legs trapped. Her phone was so close to her hand, laying just a few inches away. 

The woman wiggled and pushed, if only she could reach the device that lay ever so close to her grasp. She wiped the blood that dripped into her eyes and finally reached into the soft mud to grasp the slick object. As she was lifting it up, though, it slipped free from her hands and clattered further away from where she hung. 

“No, no, no!” She hissed as she reached desperately for the phone once more. 

She couldn’t keep her eyes open for much longer, the adrenaline that kept her heart pumping rapidly was starting to fade from her limbs. Her arms became like lead and her legs like concrete. She reached out to her daughter once more, grasping the girl’s hand tightly. They would survive this, they had to.

“Stay awake,” the mother whispered as the shivering tore its way through her whole body. “If we stay warm, someone will find us. Focus on keeping yourself warm.” 

“It hurts,” her daughter mumbled, her voice thick with liquid and drowsy. 

The woman’s daughter hadn’t even moved an inch from where she lay. Water was starting to pool around the girl’s face, but she hadn’t even budged. 

“It’s ok, it’s ok. Someone will find us. We’re going to be ok.” 

    The paramedics didn’t arrive till later that morning, long after the car had cooled. The sun had just started to peak up over the edge of the large mounds of earth like a sunny side up egg. It was warm, where the night had been bitter and wet. They pulled her from the car first, reassuring her that she was going to be alright. The cold that seeped into her bones told her otherwise. She’d long since been frozen, she’d gone past that threshold hours ago as the rain had seeped its way through everything. 

    She grabbed one of the paramedics’ arms. “My daughter… get her first, please. She needs more help then I do.” 

    “Ma’am, your daughter is gone,” the man replied, grasping her hand tightly. “I am so sorry.” 

    “No,” the woman shouted, surging up on the gurney. 

    The restraints held her down as she thrashed. She finally was able to turn her stiff neck and peer into the passenger’s side of the car. Her daughter still lay flat against the roof of the car with her legs crumpled in a horrific position. Her skin was almost blue in color with a small layer of frost creeping up her arms. The water she lay in was iced over, undisturbed. The woman had been talking to her, though. Throughout the night. Her daughter had been… she sobbed as she was loaded up into the ambulance. As the doors shut and the loud sirens started to go off on the cube-like vehicle, the paramedics and firefighters were just starting to cut the girl from the vehicle.