Hubble swung a vicious backhand intended for her face. “You bitch, when I get my hands on you.”
Just out of reach, Crystal struck out at Hubble’s hand with a tape smacking him on the knuckles. “Pull over. Now!”
“OK, I’m pulling over, calm down.”
Chapter Seventeen
Brad myers sped up to within two feet of the rear bumper of a shiny silver SUV then tapped the brake of his BMW for the tenth time, creating another few feet between them. He was desperate to get around the SUV or get him to speed up. His way was totally blocked, an ageing VW bus, an SUV and a line of 18-wheelers bogged the slow lane.
Brad eyed the silver SUV. “Sport Utility Vehicle. I bet they don’t even take that thing off-road,” he said, speaking to no one in particular. He accelerated even closer. “Come on, goddamn it, take a hint.”
Dan Roman was also in a hurry as he drove north up I-5. The four 18-wheelers in the right lane made it impossible to pass, and there was no excuse for the BMW ahead of him to be dragging its heels as it kept surging forward then slowing, then blasting forward again.
“I’m just going to follow that BMW next time it speeds up, maybe he’ll take the hint,” Dan whispered to his two sleeping passengers.
Dan was taking his girlfriend, Kim, and her younger sister, Judy, up the coast to a popular bed and breakfast; he’d been driving for hours.
Two of the big rigs were loaded to capacity, two were empty and heading home but stuck behind a Dodge Caravan trapped behind a ‘68 VW bus driving wide open at fifty-eight miles an hour. The driver of the silver SUV glanced in his rear view mirror as the BMW rode up to within a couple of feet of his rear bumper.
“Would you look at that, Marge?” George Shepherd turned to his wife. “We’re being tailgated.”
Marge kept crocheting as she turned in her seat to have a look at the BMW. “Just tap your brakes, then when he backs off, slow down, that’ll teach him.” Marge turned her huge bulk around, unbuckling her seat belt in order to reach the skein of yarn that had tangled at her feet.
As the VW neared the crest of the hill, the driver had to down shift, dropping his speed to forty-five.
At first, it seemed that Marge’s advice had worked; as soon as George tapped his brakes, the BMW dropped back several car lengths.
When Brad Meyers, the driver of the BMW, glanced into his rear view mirror, he was shocked. There was a Chevy Nova so close that he couldn’t see the hood.
The Dodge Caravan in the right lane saw George slow his SUV and took the opportunity to cut in front just as the big rig immediately behind him spotted the same opening. Unfortunately, he did not notice the Caravan’s lane change and accelerated toward the space. The Dodge swerved back into the slow lane leaving the space for the semi.
Brad stomped on the gas just as George hit the brakes of his SUV, slowing from seventy down to fifty-five.
When Brad shifted his vision from the rear view mirror to the windshield, he hit the brakes, simultaneously cranking the wheel of the BMW hard to the left to avoid colliding with the SUV.
“Oh shit!” Brad shouted
The angle Brad intended to put him just left of the huge SUV was drastically altered when the Chevy Nova, following Brad’s deceleration, was too close to avoid slamming into the rear end of the BMW, pushing it to right angles with the SUV and into a roll.
George instinctively hit the gas of his SUV when he saw the BMW roll, sending the big vehicle surging forward, filling the space it had just created, that was about to be filled by the eighteen-wheeler.
The truck driver saw the space vanish. With his forward momentum working against him, he braced for collision, sounding his air horn seconds before he rammed the SUV just forward of the rear wheel, tossing the sport utility vehicle onto its side.
The black BMW and the silver SUV looked like a pair of dice as they rolled, one in front of the other, at nearly fifty mph.
Just as the Chevy Nova slowed, the big rig’s trailer began to slide around until it shimmied and skidded into the Nova’s rear with such force that the Chevy was launched into the tumbling BMW. Dan’s girlfriend and sister lay curled up on the back seat of the Chevy Nova, spooning, nestled against the padded back, seat belts long forgotten and pushed out of the way, sound asleep.
When the careening big rig’s trailer slammed the Chevy, the two girls were pressed into the deeply padded backrest from the acceleration. As their forward motion slammed the vehicle into the tumbling BMW, the Nova’s forward speed instantly dropped from eighty-five to less than twenty. The girls flew over the passenger backrest at sixty miles per hour where they pierced the windshield, shot across the hood and hit the BMW with flailing motions, falling listlessly to the ground.
For nearly a mile, the thousands of pounds of steel that made up the SUV, BMW, Chevy Nova and big rig skidded and rolled until the grade of the hill they were climbing brought the macabre parade of vehicles to a stand still.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” Crystal whispered, viewing the carnage through the huge windshield of the Dodge Caravan. Hubble had pulled onto the shoulder of the highway having forgotten Crystal’s defiance at the sight of the accident.
“Goddamn.”
Crystal found a bundle of flares in the back, leaned forward and dropped them into Hubble’s lap. “Here, make yourself useful.”
He glared at her for an instant then got out of the van, flares in hand, without a word.
Chapter Eighteen
“Unit 88, multiple vehicle accident, respond.”
Claire unclipped the handheld mic and got the location from dispatch. “Medford Ambulance must be out of the area,” she said, looking across at Rye with a sly smile. “I think we just moved up the ladder.”
Once on the interstate, it was another eight miles to the scene of the accident, but within a mile, traffic was at a stand still and Rye had to take the last seven miles on the shoulder of the road.
“Look,” Rye said, pointing.
Claire looked up from her clipboard and counted three separate swirls of black smoke. “Think I should alert the hospital to possible burn victims?” Claire said.
“Let’s wait and see what we’ve got.”
It was a good call; when they rounded the final curve on the interstate, it was evident that the fire trucks had the vehicle fires under control.
“Pull up there,” Claire said pointing at a fireman who was flagging them down. The ambulance had barley stopped before they jumped out.
“Got two real bad ones, through the windshield,” Fireman Jake Bradshaw said, pointing toward a crumpled pile of steel that had once been the Chevy Nova.
Running to the rear of the ambulance, Rye popped the massive double doors and grabbed his jump kit. “Where again?”
“Far shoulder, crumpled but not rolled, no fire,” Jake said.
“Thanks!”
While Rye zigzagged his way around the wrecks en route to the Chevy, Claire stayed back, getting an overall evaluation from Jake.
“One trapped, jaws-of-life are on the way, couple in the SUV look pretty bad, she wasn’t belted.”
“What about the driver of the big rig?” Claire asked.
“Harnessed in, rode out the accident and is…” Jake looked at the big fire truck and at the reclining figure, “…there, being treated for shock,” he said, pointing. “Driver of the Chevy is pinned behind the wheel, conscious, but not lucid, fire chief is with him now, figured we’d let you guys deal with extraction.”
Rye took one look at the two women lying at the base of the BMW and spun around.
“Claire,” Rye yelled back across the interstate. “Through the windshield, facial, head and neck.”
“Thanks Jake, got to dash,” Claire said, as she turned to run back to the ambulance for the backboard.