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There’s a sickening sense of vertigo as the metal girder splits at the weight and impact of the Ford. The truck starts to slide to the right and catches on something. There’s another pause before I hear another metallic moan and the truck slides again, and the back window implodes in on us as the truck begins to tip at a precarious angle.
Then it’s almost quiet aside from the ticking of the engine. A tinkling of glass.
I’m confused. I don’t know what has happened. I think of angels and wings and rivers. There’s a cross too, a cross I hate because it’s always covered in feathers and I can’t make it stop. I want to sleep. It would be so easy to just sleep. Maybe I should. This is probably just a dream. I dream big. I dream in color. Like my father. Big Eddie is my father. He sleeps under a stone angel in a place with no hills. Sleep, the stone angel whispers. It’s okay just to sleep. You’ll feel so much better if you do. I’ll hold your hand and protect you from everything while you sleep. It is what I was made for. It won’t just be for fifteen words that mean nothing. Those fifteen words don’t mean a thing. Just sleep.
I do. I want to. I do. I will. I am falling—
My face feels wet but the moisture is dripping up my face. The sensation makes my skin crawl. I open my eyes. I’m upside down, my back resting against the bench seat, held in place by the lap belt. The view out the front of the truck doesn’t make sense. It’s all broken glass and crumbled cement. The sky where it shouldn’t be. Everything opposite. There’s a roaring noise in my head and my left eye begins to burn as a bit of blood drips into it. I open my mouth to say, “Hello?” but no sound comes out, just a weak rush of air. Nothing hurts yet, and I wonder at it. I’m bleeding, but there’s no pain. Maybe I’m not hurt that bad. Maybe it’s not my blood.
My hands are pressed against the roof of the cab. I try to ease myself down, but the seat belt is still latched and it holds me at the waist. I lift my hands from the roof and swing gently in the truck, upside down. The effect is instant. The truck begins to groan and starts rocking slowly, seesawing up and down. Up and down. I quickly reach up and press my hands against the roof again and hold my breath for as long as I can. Eventually the truck stops moving, but not before I feel the truck slide just a little bit farther down.
I lick my lips, trying to get them wet. I taste copper. I work my salivary glands, trying to get enough spit in my mouth to swallow. My throat is too dry. It burns. I’m parched. I would do anything for a drink of water. Anything.
There’s movement to my left. Or maybe it’s my right. I don’t know which way is up, so I am pretty sure left and right don’t matter anymore. There’s a man lying against the roof of the truck, almost against the back, where the window used to be. Two black bands hang down around him. Seat belt. Seat belt is broken. There’s cement where the back windshield used to be, jutting into the cab. Maybe it’s…
“Abe?” I croak out. Is that Abe? He was in the Ford with me. Before….
He groans and shifts. The truck shifts with him, beginning to rock again.
I don’t—
Oh Jesus.
It makes sense. It all makes sense, and it’s enough to cause bile to rise. The back of my throat tastes acidic, and I have to fight to keep from vomiting as my stomach clenches and spasms against the clinch of the lap belt. It’s so crystal clear, and I wish it wasn’t because now all I can hear is the shift of the truck and the distant call of the river below.
The truck has flipped. We’re upside down. The bed of the truck has fallen off the side of the bridge and hangs over the river. The rear of the cab has caught on the edge of the bridge, stuck against the cement. It’s the only reason we haven’t slid off and plummeted to the river below.
Abe groans again and starts to push himself up. He collapses with a gasp of pain, and it’s only then can I see a shiny knob of bone sticking out of his arm.
The truck rocks further. Up and down. Up and down.
“Abe,” I whisper. “You gotta stay still. Don’t move. Please. Just stay there.” “Benji?” He stares at me with bleary eyes. “What… where? My arm hurts, boy.” “I know,” I say, my voice cracking. “Just don’t move.”
CAL! THREAD! SEE MY FUCKING THREAD!
“Where are we? What happened?”
“Truck flipped,” I grind out. “I’m stuck.”
“Oh. God, it hurts. Let me help you—”
“No!” I shout as he sits up. There’s a groan of metal against stone and the truck moves a couple of inches, the back of the cab sliding along the pavement. “Stay there! Bridge! We’re on the bridge!”
He freezes, his eyes wide. His vision seems to clear and he looks at our surroundings, and I can see the moment it hits him how precarious our situation is. His face goes even whiter. “Shit,” he breathes. “Boy, we’ve got to get you down from there.”
“No. No, the whole thing is going to go over. You gotta climb out, Abe. Get help. I can’t… I can’t move.”
He’s incredulous. “I’m not going to leave you in here!”
“Go,” I snap at him hoarsely. “Don’t you be fucking stupid. Don’t you dare!”
He looks up at me miserably. “Phone,” he groans. “Where’s your phone?”
“I dunno. It was on the seat before we got hit.” My hands are starting to hurt, pressing up against the ceiling. My strength is slowly ebbing. I don’t know how much longer I can hold myself here.
The wind begins to howl. The truck slips farther.
It won’t be much longer now.
