Hearing her engine, they turned as one and watched her approach. She slowed when she was within fifty feet of them and grabbed her gun that she’d laid in the seat beside her. Slowly, she rolled up to them and beeped the horn.
The bulk of the crowd moved to the side, but three men stood their ground, one holding his hand up in the air in a ‘stop’ motion, and the other two waving their arms.
Graysie rolled her window all the way up and creeped forward a bit further.
“Get out of the way,” she yelled through the windshield, sure they could hear her or at least get the point, punctuated by her brandishing her gun back at them.
The two guys who were waving dove out of her way without need of a second warning. The third guy ran toward the car, weaving around the front to run toward her door. He was dirty and desperate, and not someone she would have stopped for even in the best of circumstances.
Her heart bounced in fear as she goosed the gas and left him standing there chasing wind.
She breathed a sigh of relief when the road was mostly clear for the next ten miles, other than a few stragglers walking in groups of two or three, who didn’t have the energy to try to stop her. They merely moved aside when they heard her coming, not even bothering to turn around. She slowed when passing them and glanced at their hopeless gait, then sped up a long hill, gaining speed all the way toward a bridge that crossed the river.
The top of the bridge disappeared as the hill grew steeper before it crossed the water and she hoped it was clear on the other side. If she maintained this sort of speed, she’d be home tonight. She could’ve kicked herself for not leaving days ago. She could’ve been home right now.
Her mind drifted to home as the road bent out of sight ahead, arcing into the sky.
She could barely wait to see her dad, and Ozzie. Her entire family would be a welcome sight. Hopefully, her dad knew what was going on; why the phones weren’t working and the power wasn’t back on yet. She swallowed hard as she realized he may have news that she didn’t want to hear.
The road in front of her disappeared into the remains of a blue sky as she zoomed closer to topping the hill. Her visibility was abruptly cut off at the top of the bridge. She held her breath, hoping her luck hadn’t run out.
It had.
The road wasn’t clear.
A wall of stalled and wrecked vehicles blocked it.
She slammed on her brakes, and veered right toward the low concrete wall. She could barely see the river at the bottom of a huge drop-off. She’d never make that fall. She jerked the wheel to the left, all while in a long, screaming slide, and then realized there was nothing to keep her from falling off that side either. She corrected and watched the wall of metal quickly approaching her windshield as she steered right into it, standing on her brakes.
Omigod. Stop Stop Stop
Her prayer went unanswered as metal connected with metal. Everything slowed down. Graysie felt her seatbelt cut into her as her hair flew past her face, long tendrils reaching desperately toward the windshield. Out of the corner of her eye and through the red veil of hair, she saw her gun slide into the floor in slow motion. The sound was deafening; the loudest thing she’d heard in days. It seemed to go on and on as she wondered if that was her… her car, making that sound. She felt as though her heart had stopped, along with time, as she waited an eternity to come full stop, anticipating a head-on collision of her face with the steering wheel. Seconds seemed like minutes…
Her head was thrown forward, but then jerked backward as she finally roared to a noisy stop followed by dead silence—other than a strange hissing noise.
Thank you, seatbelt.
Her vision was a blur of white. The sudden stop was punctuated with a crash of something falling onto the pavement beneath her car, probably something under the hood that was now kissing the back of a very tired and abandoned Volvo, and the loud pop of her airbag. She rested her head against the bag that saved her, breathing hard.
The bag deflated on it’s own, laying limp against the steering wheel. After reassuring herself she was okay, other than probably two black eyes and a few bruises, she put her car in reverse and tried to back up.
It wasn’t going anywhere.
The car door squealed in fury as she pushed it open. She got out and stood still a moment, waiting for the pain to come. When none did, she stretched her arms and legs, and wiggled her fingers. She was okay—but she knew major pain would come later. She walked to the front. The collision had married her Mustang to the Volvo. It would take a tow truck, at least, to separate them. Maybe even the Jaws of Life.
The sun was slipping away. It’d be dark within minutes. A small crowd of figures were making their way up the bridge now. Maybe someone to walk with?
In her head, she heard her father’s voice contradicting her own.
No.
Run.
She reached into the car, and grabbed her gun and her bag, furiously digging around until she found the hat her father had packed her. She twisted her long red hair and pulled it up, shoving the hat on top of it, and started walking at as fast a pace as the heavy backpack would allow. There was no time to unpack it now and leave anything behind. Besides, she wasn’t sure what she might need later.
Much later—Graysie had no concept of time and didn’t have a watch—after miles of walking, she could see the sign for her exit. Feeling a rush of gratitude, she found the energy to run again at a slow pace, with her heavy backpack trying to drag her down with every step. She wore out quicker than she thought she would’ve and within minutes was huffing and puffing, her shoulders screaming in agony from the extra weight. She should have listened to her dad when in his note he said to empty the bag of anything she wouldn’t need.
But again, how was she to know what wasn’t needed? He’d always said better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.
The road off the interstate seemed darker. Everything looked different—unfamiliar—on foot. A cloud of smoke hung in the air. Creepy. The best she could figure, home was at least an hour’s walk through the country. She needed to rest, if only for a little while.
She came around a bend and saw a somewhat familiar barn. Probably familiar because the last two she’d passed looked just like it in the dark. A farmhouse was farther down the dirt road and she couldn’t see or hear anyone. It seemed to be the perfect place to rest up and if she wasn’t mistaken about where she was, she could cut across the fields and through the woods, and she thought it would put her out on her father’s land and trim at least five miles off her journey, but it would be a hike.
And it would be darker and scarier.
Her pulse had been going way too strong for the past hour. She gripped her gun tightly in her hand. She’d let her fear of the dark get to her and build and build until it was nearly unmanageable. This was the closest to a panic attack she’d had since the day her mother drowned years ago in the aftermath of a hurricane, when she’d sacrificed herself for her daughter.
She couldn’t go there. She had to stop her mind from rolling into that.
Pull yourself together, Graysie, she told herself. Again, she jerked on the straps of her backpack, hopping a little to try to re-situate the heavy bag. Her back and shoulders were begging for a rest.
She decided to stop in the shelter of the barn, if it was empty, and rest. Then she’d be ready to walk home. She’d be in her own bed tonight, safe under her dad’s roof.