Now & Again (2 page)

Kendall struck his head hard against the door frame and bounced back, trailing bright blood. A sudden impact wrenched the truck. Josh smacked into his side window and it exploded around his face in a thick halo of glass shards. Still sliding helplessly, their pickup clipped a bumper. Air bags erupted as they blindly climbed up the back of another car.

Around them, the freeway descended into a chain reaction chaos. Horns blared. Vehicles swerved and crashed. In a deadly mathematical progression, response times kept decreasing as the collisions kept piling up.

A pricey convertible slammed the center divider and its air bags deployed with sharp bangs. Behind it, a late model jeep with a trailer rolled up the hapless convertible and spun its knobby off-road tires on top of the screaming driver. Finally catching some traction, the jeep tossed itself and its trailer over the divider barricade and onto the opposite lanes. Horns, brakes and heavy collisions erupted from the other side of the freeway.

Blood streamed into Kendall’s eyes as he tried to focus. He felt disconnected from what he was seeing. Everything was slowed and he experienced an unexpected calmness; he was an observer in the carnage, no longer a participant. Sounds echoed hollow and strangely remote. His truck shook violently, but to Kendall it seemed gentle, like a boat riding a heavy sea of oil.

On the passenger side, Josh swatted at the deflating air bag and brushed safety glass out of his hair. He smelled the sharp stink of scorched rubber and the heavy sweetness of gas. The truck shuddered from late collisions. Josh watched his father shake his head and was momentarily distracted by the blood flying from his hair.

Looking forward, both men stared through the web of cracks in their windshield, attracted by large falling shadows. They realized that airborne vehicles were tumbling from the other side of the freeway and smashing down upon trapped cars on this side. Awareness flickered into tardy action as they struggled with their seatbelts. A huge flipping Chevy 4x4 suddenly swallowed their windshield view. They screamed as it struck down with an overwhelming crunch.

Kendall and Josh were back in their truck speeding down the busy freeway. They jerked their hands up in defense but there was no accident. They gasped and stared up but no overbuilt Chevy tumbled through their windshield. They were okay.
How was that possible?
There was no transition, no warning. They went from death to life in less than the blink of an eye. A lot less. No blink. It was nothing. They had passed in a seamless move from being crushed, to driving freely down the expressway again.

“What the hell!” Kendall grabbed the steering wheel in a residual panic and accidentally swerved. Horns honked. He swerved quickly back and shot a strangled look at Josh.

Josh’s eyes frantically darted around. “I don’t get it!”

“Didn’t you hit the window?”

“Yeah…” Josh stared at his unblemished side window and touched his hair. “I thought we were killed.” He looked back at Kendall. “You were bleeding.”

Kendall rubbed at his forehead and checked his clean fingers. “Yeah…”

Brake lights suddenly flared red just in front of them. “Look out! It’s starting again!”

“What?” Kendall swerved and hit the breaks. “Shit!”

The small white van ahead of him struck a car and spun. Kendall fought the wheel. “Behind! Josh, we’re gonna get hit from behind! Remember?”

Josh caught a flash of gold in his side mirror and braced himself just as their pickup was rear-ended.

Forewarned, Kendall kept better control. His head still struck the door frame, but not as hard. “Ouch! Air bags, Josh! Watch out!”

“What’s goin’ on?” Their truck hit something. Kendall’s face was propelled toward the steering column as an air bag flashed open to meet it. Josh slapped the side window, but this time it didn’t break. Air bags belatedly exploded around him as their pickup tore off another car’s bumper and climbed the center divider.

Outside, the freeway descended into chaos. Horns blared. Vehicles spun and crashed. Mayhem ruled.

A Mercedes sideswiped a van and slammed into the center divider. Behind it, a Suburban, towing a boat, rode up the Mercedes and flipped itself over the barricade and onto traffic speeding the other way. Horns blared from beyond the divider. Collisions started. The mathematical progression of chaos spread on the other side of the freeway.

Kendall slumped in his seat. Blood welled from a cut above his eye. His face was coated in the pale dust from the deployed air bag. The steering wheel throbbed to the vibration of their laboring engine. Kendall shook his head and tried to make sense of things. He slowly realized that they were wedged against the center divider with their nose in the air.

“Back it up!” Josh shouted in panic. “You know it ain’t over yet!”

Fumbling into action, Kendall struggled clumsily with the clutch. He pumped the pedal and jerked at the shift lever, but it wouldn’t drop in. His words came out thick. “Whaddya talkin’ about?” Then he looked up in horror at the windshield, and it all came back to him. “Oh, yeah!”

“Get us outta here!” Josh fought to free his tangled seatbelt.

From outside, they heard trapped people start screaming. Both men caught the deadly shadows of airborne vehicles tumbling their way.

“Oh, my God!” Kendall got it into reverse and tromped the gas. The pickup shuddered in protest and scraped hard against the concrete as it jerked backwards.

That was when the deep throated call of a semi’s air horn cut through the noise. On the other side of the freeway, a massive, gleaming gas truck jack-knifed and started its slide toward the divider.

Josh screamed. Kendall looked up just as a flipping Lexus SUV swallowed their view. He threw a useless arm up as it hit with an overwhelming crunch.

Kendall and Josh were speeding down a wet freeway. They were okay again: no accident, no cuts, no air bags, nothing. A light rain pattered the windshield as wipers slapped methodically back and forth to clear it.

Kendall gripped the wheel with white knuckles and glared. “Dammit! What is this?”

“You have to do somethin’ sooner!”

“What’re you talkin’ about?”

“Something different. Right now!”

“How is this happening?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hey, wait…” He looked up, confused. “It’s raining?” He touched the windshield with a hesitant finger. “Josh, it’s raining!”

“Huh?”

Josh looked strangely at the streaming windshield. He listened to the wet drops drumming against the cab.
How can it be raining? What in the world? No time for this!
“Forget the rain! Change lanes! Now! Hurry up!”

Kendall slashed left and clipped a black Taurus. The raging driver honked his horn over and over again. Kendall cranked right. A panel truck swerved and laid on his horn.

“Make ‘em move!” Josh desperately looked around. “I don’t care what you have to do! Get us off this freeway!”

Ahead, a sea of brake lights suddenly flared red. Josh screamed, “Too late!”

“The hell with it!” Kendall spun the wheel and floored the engine. Tires smoked on the slick road. Other drivers dodged around him, or bounced off. The pickup did a 180 and narrowly evaded a sliding black Camry that would have rear-ended them.

A sudden passenger side impact whipped Kendall into the dashboard. Caught off guard, Josh slapped his head against the side window and glass exploded in a halo of shards.

The soaked freeway was filled with sliding and crashing cars. A van towing a trailer catapulted over the center barricade and vanished onto the opposite freeway. A furious blare of horns and a flurry of heavy crashes ensued from the other side.

Inside the pickup, Kendall rubbed his bleeding forehead. Josh brushed at the pieces of safety glass stuck in his wet hair. Rain streamed across his face through the shattered window. In the distance, falling vehicles began to crush trapped ones. From somewhere, a semi’s air-horn blared. Josh stuck his face out into the downpour and squinted to see more clearly. Without warning, a black dump truck careened out of the rain heading straight for him. Josh fought his seatbelt. The massive truck swiftly filled the window. Josh yelled in terror as it ripped through the door with a sickening crunch.

Instantly, Kendall and Josh sped down a sun-filled freeway in heavy traffic. The sun visors were down and the radio was playing country music. No death. No rain.

Josh gasped for air and looked at his chest, surprised to be whole. “We gotta try something else!”

Kendall grimly swerved back and forth, looking for a way out of his lane. “I am, I am.”

Josh’s body shook as he looked around, clearly in shock. His voice stuttered. “Where’s the rain?”

Kendall was angry. “I don’t care!”

Behind them a blue van braked and honked. Kendall glanced in the mirror and did a double-take. “What the hell? Wasn’t it…red behind us last time?”

“No, black or…” Josh was losing it. “Screw that! Just cut across the lanes!”

Kendall swerved right but got a horn. Josh stabbed a look back. “Wait! Wait for the taxi…”

“Taxi? Where’s that panel truck?”

“Panel truck?” Josh did a quick check. “Now! It’s clear! Go! Go!”

Kendall brutally veered right and swooped behind an airport taxi. Determined to continue right, he bulled his pickup through the traffic and brushed the nose of a shocked Ford in the slow lane. Ahead, a sudden sea of brake lights surfaced; all glowing red.

“Dad!”

“I see it.”

Kendall madly snaked the truck through braking vehicles trying to escape the roadway. “Almost there. Hold on!”

He jerked the wheel to get onto the shoulder, but he’d cut it too close. His truck’s tail caught the merest edge of the back bumper of a braking Honda, but the effect was cataclysmic. Their truck abruptly twisted left, went out of control, and flipped.

Kendall was thrown up and down against his seatbelt as his world rotated: wheel, window, wheel, window. Josh’s head shattered the glass next to him and then struck it again and again, on each roll. Loose debris in the cab rotated with them as they tumbled over and over.

Behind them, the freeway was chaos. Horns blared. Vehicles spun and crashed.

A Cadillac glanced off a shuttle bus and then slammed into the divider. Behind it, an RV, towing a trailer with dirt bikes, rode up the Caddy and then ponderously tipped over the center barricade and fell onto the on-coming traffic. Horns blared from beyond the barricade as the havoc spread.

Kendall opened his eyes to an upside down world. He was hanging in his seatbelt. His forehead was bleeding but gravity kept his eyes clear. Josh’s face was crisscrossed in lacerations. He grimly fought a twisted belt with one hand. His other arm hung limp and he was suspended above a caved-in roof and piles of safety glass.

From outside, they heard the distant sounds of trapped people and falling cars. Kendall released his seatbelt and dropped in a painful heap onto the roof. He rolled to all fours and began to awkwardly crawl towards Josh when he heard the loud blast of an air horn.

On the other side of the freeway, a massive gas tanker truck jack-knifed to avoid the growing pile-up. As the cab rolled over, the doomed driver pulled his air-horn, and the gleaming trailer slapped onto the roadway in a cascade of sparks. Broken cars were tossed aside or flattened as the trailer slid toward the center divider. Embedded steel supports inside the barricade sliced open the skin of the tanker when it slammed home. Gas spilled over the sparks and erupted into an immense concussion of vaporized fuel and fire.

Kendall and Josh ducked, throwing their arms over their heads. A flashing avalanche of flame and truck parts swallowed their view.

And now they were back in the quiet pickup, humming down the freeway in traffic. They screamed! They thrashed at their clothes! They were on fire!
But they weren’t. They were fine.
The truck was untouched.

Josh cried and huddled in his seat, arms around himself, rocking against his seatbelt. “Please stop it! Please God! Stop it! Please!”

“I was on fire!” Kendall looked wildly at his clothes and his hands. “I was – Josh? You okay?”

“Make it stop! Please make it stop!”

“How can I make…? Listen to me!” Kendall reached out and grabbed at him.

His son pulled away. “No more. I can’t do it.”

“We gotta beat this somehow.”

“We can’t. We’re in hell.”

“This is not hell. It’s somethin’ else.”

“We’ll never beat it.”

“If we don’t, it’s gonna keep happening.” Josh’s eyes grew wider. Kendall tapped the brakes and swerved looking for openings. “Josh? Answer me!””

“What?”

“Don’t freak out on me. At least now we know.”

“Know what?”

“How it all ends!”

A yellow Jetta Sportwagen braked behind them and honked. Kendall whipped a look in the mirror. “Now it’s yellow? Weird!”

“What?”

“Guy behind us. Stop saying ‘what.’ Tell me if I’m clear.”

“I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can! Can I go yet? C’mon!”

“This is crazy. It’s not happening!” Josh was frantic and weepy.

“Get in the game!” Kendall shouted harshly. “Either you help me, or this’ll never stop! We can beat this.”

“You don’t know that!”

“It’s better than crying!”

Josh flinched, as if rocked by a blow. Shame and anger leaped across his face.

Kendall was stone cold. “Now? Can I go? Check for me!”

Josh clenched his teeth and flashed a look back and to the right. “A-Almost! Wait for…where’s that taxi?”

“Can I go? C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!”

“Yeah! Now! Go!”

Kendall muscled the truck to the right. He ducked momentarily behind an orange Toyota and then, heedless of the dangers, slashed right again, clipping the nose of an older pickup. The surprised driver cramped his wheel to avoid a collision and rolled, tossing used furniture across the lanes. Cars behind him swerved and hit each other.

Kendall glanced in his mirror. “Sorry.”

Josh looked ahead and saw the brake lights flaring red. “Dad!”

“I know. I know!”

Kendall recklessly swerved around a braking car, barely missing his bumper. “Brace yourself.”