Crash

You and your family are driving home from the movies one night along the windy back roads leading home. It’s dark and wet from the storm that has just passed. Leaves and branches litter the county road. A mist rises up from the road into the path of the headlights. It was a fun movie, the latest Disney film, and you are all in high spirits. Everybody is singing along to Sweet Home Alabama by Lynard Skynyrd.

“Sweet home Alabama

Where the skies are so blue,” your three old daughter screams more than sings.

“Sweet home Alabama

Lord, I’m coming home to you.”

Your wife looks over her shoulder at the little blonde in pigtails bobbing along to the music, belting out the lyrics with all her heart. She’s small and dainty, her legs barely sticking out of the car seat. She has with her a doll that has matching clothes and hair. Something her and her mom do at the mall together. Your wife turns to you with a look in her eyes as if to silently say, “She’s the cutest thing ever.”

You return your wife’s glance with a smile that lets her know you agree. That’s when you see the large steel grill of a semi two inches away from where your wife is sitting.

You hear the metal crumple and the glass shatter. Your wife yelps as her head whips to the right and she goes silent. Your daughter is scared and crying. You smell rubber burning. You’re being pushed sideways to the edge of the road where it drops downhill into a ravine. You are driving the ’67 Chevelle you restored so there are no airbags or other safety features. The truck spins you around and you roll off the side of the road. Loud crashes and booms reverberate through your head as the roof inches towards you. You are slammed around hard, hitting your head on the steering wheel. You can feel the warmth of blood beginning to flow down your forehead. A searing pain hisses through your arm like water on a hot iron. You’re pretty sure it’s broken. Your wife flops limply next to you. Your daughter has gone silent. The tail end of the car hits a tree that spins you around as you roll. Mail falls out of the visor. The glove box pops open, and its contents get thrown around. Your daughter’s toys look like pinballs being knocked around the machine. Your car comes to the bottom of the hill and rests in the ravine. You are in pain, but you are conscious.

Your car lands upside down with the back seat in the ravine which is rushing with water due to the recent storm. It is a deep, fast flood of water covering your daughter’s head. You can hear her struggling to come up for air, but she’s tied down to her car seat. You rush to get your seatbelt off, but it’s locked. You pull and tug on it, even trying to use your broken arm to get free. You try leaning back your seat and scooting out, but the steering wheel has your legs pinned. You call out to your wife for help, but she is unresponsive. The longer your daughter is under the water the more frantic you become. You push and pull and contort your body trying to get to her. You keep crying out her name, saying daddy’s coming. Then you realize that her little legs have gone limp, and she is no longer fighting. You feel the pain of loss. You feel the pain of failure. You were supposed to be her protector and all you could do was watch her die.

You lose control of your emotions, crying out in tears, screaming as you grasp the wheel and shake it as hard as you can. In your grief you turn to your wife for comfort, trying to wake her so the two of you can mourn together, but still no response. You notice her lips look a little blue. She doesn’t have the rosy tint she usually does, nor do you see her chest moving. Your heart hits your stomach once again. You take her pulse and don’t feel anything. Your momentary sadness turns to anger as you start to wonder where the driver who hit you is at. Is he going to help? Is he calling for help? “He’s going to need help if you get ahold of him,” you think to yourself.

With one arm, you push on the steering wheel, hoping to free yourself; hoping to budge it enough to slide out. Then it dawns on you. You cannot feel your legs. You cannot feel the steering wheel digging into your lap and start to wonder if you are paralyzed from the waist down. You start to cry at the thought that just yesterday you were running around the backyard with your wife and child to have it all taken away in the blink of an eye.

Your thoughts are interrupted when you hear a howl over the rushing water. It’s close. You frantically look around and then you see them, a pair of green eyes staring at you from the darkness of the forest. Then you see another set of eyes on the passenger side. You begin to wonder how many sets of eyes there are that you cannot see. You hear splashing behind you and the legs of a wolf appear just inches from your face. It bows down and looks in, snarling at you. You are eye-to-eye with the beast and terror seizes you. You reach across your body with your good arm trying to swing at it, screaming, trying to scare it away. You hear a rustling on the other side and another wolf has your wife by the arm, trying to pull her out of the car. You grab her other arm as she’s starting to slide out of her seatbelt and out the window. That is when you feel a nip on the cheek. Instinctively, you let go of your wife to defend yourself. There are two wolves at your window now, nipping at you, growling, barking. You manage a solid hit to one’s snout, but they are relentless. You hear a loud pop behind you. The other wolves just about have your wife out the window except one foot is caught on the seatbelt. They begin eating her right in front of you, starting with the neck and arms. The other wolves leave you for the moment to get their share of your wife.

You look on as your wife’s corpse is being eaten. Through your peripherals you can see your daughter’s dead body hanging from the seat. You close your eyes and wonder when the nightmare will end. You wonder how it will end. You try humming to drown out the sound of tearing flesh and crunching bone, the wolves loudly smacking meat in their mouths and licking their jowls, tussling with one another for the best portions of the woman you love. As they eat you try to hug yourself to preserve heat. Water is seeping in through the seat and the cool night air leaves you feeling frigid.

You’re cold, thirsty, and your head hurts. Your entire body hurts. You feel dizzy, lightheaded, and nauseous. You are about to fall asleep when you hear gunfire and a wolf yipe as they all scurry off. You don’t know when or how you lost all of your strength, but when the officer asks your name, you can barely give it to him. You sit patiently as they cut you out of the car. You’re in a daze, almost catatonic as you watch them bag up your wife and pull your little girl from the water.

They move you from the car to a stretcher and carry you back to the ambulance where an officer explains to you that you ran a stop sign, that the other driver had the right of way, when you vehemently demand to press charges against the other driver. You begin screaming in denial as they load you into the ambulance and close the doors. As the ambulance rushes you to the hospital, you accept reality, and your mind descends into a dark place and locks itself away. After watching your wife and daughter die, knowing it was your fault, your mind shut down, drowning out the blaring sirens.