Accident (5 page)

He was tall and handsome, and he told her about his college plans. He had just been accepted at UCLA, and he was excited about going in September. He had thought a lot about Yale, but his parents hadn't really wanted him to go East. They were older, he was an only child, and they liked the idea of his being a little closer. He said he had liked UCLA better anyway, and that maybe Allyson could come down and visit him in September. The very idea of it dazzled her. She couldn't even begin to imagine explaining that to her parents. She laughed just thinking of it, and he understood it.

“Maybe that's a little too much of a leap for the first night, hmm? How about some coffee?” He seemed to understand a lot of things, and as they sat drinking cappuccino until almost eleven o'clock, she liked him better and better. He leaned across the table once, and almost brushed her lips with his own, as he bent to tell her something. It was almost as though Chloe and Jamie weren't there by then, they were so engrossed in their own conversation.

There was no wine drunk at the coffeehouse, and they stood up to leave at five to eleven. They ambled slowly back to the car, but they knew that at that hour of night, they would have no trouble getting back to Ross in time for Allyson's curfew.

“I had a great time,” she said softly to Phillip, as she put on her seat belt.

“So did I.” He smiled, and yet he seemed so much older that she really wondered if he would want to take her out again, or if he was just being kind to her this evening. It was hard to say, but she would have liked to get to know him better.

He drove quietly and smoothly up Lombard Street, toward the bridge, and then onto the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a perfect evening. Every star in the sky seemed to be out and sparkling. The water shimmered in the moonlight, the lights around the bay seemed brilliant. The air was gentle and warm in just the way it almost never is in San Francisco, the fog having disappeared entirely for the night. It was the most romantic night Allyson had ever seen, or could remember.

“It's so beautiful,” she whispered almost to herself as they crossed the bridge, and from the backseat there was a burst of giggles.

“Do you two have your seat belts on?” Phillip asked, sounding serious again, and Jamie laughed.

“Mind your own business, Chapman.”

“I'm going to pull over after the bridge, if you don't. Put them on, please.” But there was no sound of buckling-up from the backseat. In fact, there was a noticeable silence, and Allyson didn't want to turn around to look at them. So with an embarrassed smile, she glanced at Phillip.

“What are you doing tomorrow night, Allyson?” he asked her.

“I … I don't know …I'm not allowed to go out on Sunday nights.” It was time to be honest with him. She was no senior. She was fifteen years old, and she had to live by rules, whether or not she liked him. She had enjoyed tonight, but it was too nervous-making sneaking out and doing something she shouldn't. She liked the idea of his meeting her family, but she didn't want to sneak out to meet him again, no matter what Chloe decided to do about Jamie.

But Phillip didn't seem upset by what she'd said. He knew how old she was, but she was mature for her age, and she was a knockout. He had enjoyed her company, and he was willing to play by the rules in order to further their friendship. “I've got practice tomorrow afternoon, I thought maybe I could come by afterwards, if that's okay, and just hang out for a while …meet your parents …how does that sound?”

“Terrific.” She beamed. “You really wouldn't mind doing that?” He shook his head, and glanced over at her with a look that made her heart melt. “I thought maybe … I don't know … I thought you'd think it was a pain in the neck to deal with all that.”

“I knew what to expect when I asked you out tonight. I was surprised I didn't have to meet your parents. And then I figured you probably hadn't told them the truth. We can't go on doing that forever.”

“No.” She shook her head, relieved by his attitude. “We can't … or I guess I couldn't …and if my parents found out, they'd kill me….”

“So will my mother when she finds out I took her car, if she does find out….”He grinned, looking like a kid himself. They both laughed. They'd been outrageous tonight, and they knew it, but they were all good kids. They didn't mean any harm, it was all in good fun, and high spirits.

They were more than halfway across the bridge by then, and Jamie and Chloe were whispering softly in the backseat, their murmurings dotted by an occasional silence. Phillip had pulled Allyson closer to him, as close as he could within the confines of her seat belt. She had loosened it, and started to take it off, but he wouldn't let her. He took his eyes from the road then, for just a single instant, looked at her long and hard, and then as he glanced back at the road, he saw it. But too late. It was only a flash of light, a bolt of lightning hurtling toward them, almost in their faces by then. Allyson was looking at him when it hit, and in the backseat they never saw it. It was an arc of light, a crash of thunder, a mountain of steel, an explosion of glass everywhere as it hit them. It was the end of the world in a single moment, as the two cars met and crashed and twirled furiously around each other like two enraged bulls, as everywhere around them cars swerved not to hit them, horns, shrieks, the sound of an explosion, and then suddenly silence.

There was glass everywhere, iron wrapped around steel, there was a long scream in the night, horns honking in the distance, and at last the long slow wail of a siren. And then, slowly at first, and suddenly faster, people ran from their cars, and rushed toward the two cars, locked together, seemingly in death, frozen together in a rictus of horror, one tangled ball of steel …one mass … as people ran to help them, and the sirens wailed closer. It was impossible to believe that anyone had survived it.

CHAPTER 3

T
wo men were the first to approach what was left of the old gray Mercedes. It was apparent by then that a black Lincoln had hit them head-on. The engine was crushed, and the two cars seemed to have merged into one. Except for the color, it was almost impossible to distinguish between them. A woman was wandering nearby, murmuring to herself and whimpering, but she appeared unharmed, and two other motorists went to her, as the two men peered into the gray Mercedes. One man had brought a flashlight with him and was wearing rough clothes, the other one was a young man in jeans, and had already said he was a doctor.

“Do you see anything?” the man with the flashlight asked, feeling his whole body shake as he looked inside the Mercedes. He had seen a lot of things, but never anything like this. He had almost hit another car as he swerved to avoid them. There was traffic stopped everywhere, in all lanes, and no one was moving across the bridge now.

It was dark in the car at first, in spite of the lights overhead, everything was so crushed and so condensed that it was hard to see who was in it. And then, they saw him. His face was covered with blood, his whole body compressed into an impossible space, the back of his head crushed against the door, his neck at an awful angle. It was obvious instantly that he was dead, although the doctor searched for a pulse, and couldn't find one.

“The driver's dead,” the doctor said quietly to the other man, who shone his flashlight into the backseat, and found himself staring into a young man's eyes. He was conscious and seemed alert, but he said not a word as he stared at the man with the flashlight.

“Are you all right?” he asked as Jamie Apple-gate nodded. There was a cut over one eye, and he had hit his forehead on something, possibly Phillip. He looked dazed, but he seemed otherwise unhurt, which was nothing less than amazing.

The man with the flashlight tried to open the door for him, but everything was so jammed that he couldn't.

“The highway patrol will be here in a minute, son.” He spoke calmly, and Jamie nodded again. He seemed unable to speak, and it was obvious that he was in shock. He just went on staring at the two men, and the man with the flashlight felt sure that at the very least, the boy had a concussion.

The doctor moved back to look at Jamie through the open window, and offer what encouragement he could, when they heard a deep groan from the backseat, next to him, and then a sharp cry that became a scream. It was Chloe. Jamie turned to stare at her as though unable to understand how she had gotten there beside him.

The doctor ran around the car as quickly as he could, and the man with the flashlight tried to shine the light on her from where he stood on Jamie's side, and then all at once they saw her. She had been crushed between the front and back seats, the entire front seat had been shoved back by the force and mass of the Lincoln, and she seemed to have the seat jammed into her lap. They couldn't see her legs, and she began sobbing hysterically, telling them she couldn't move, and screaming that
it
hurt, as they tried to calm her. Jamie continued to stare at her, looking confused, and then he said something vague to Phillip.

“Hang in there,” the man with the flashlight said to both of them. “Help's on the way.” They could all hear the wail of the sirens approaching, but her screams seemed even more piercing.

“I can't move … I can't … I can't breathe …” She was panting and out of breath, hyperventilating in her panic, as the young doctor quietly took charge of her, and talked to her very calmly.

“You're all right …you're fine …we're going to get you out of here in a minute …now, try to breathe slowly … here …hold my hand …”He reached in and took her hand in his own, and he saw that there was blood on her hands where she had touched her legs, but in spite of the flashlight he couldn't see what had happened. The best news was that she was conscious and talking to him. No matter how damaged her legs were, she was alive, and there was every reason to hope she would make it.

The man with the flashlight left them for an instant then. He had just seen that there was an unconscious girl in the front seat. At first she had been almost invisible, she was lying so far down on the seat, and there was so much metal pressed against her. But they had suddenly noticed her face and her hair, as they tried to examine Chloe. The doctor kept busy talking to Chloe as she sobbed, while the man with the flashlight tried to pull open the front passenger door to free the girl lying under the dashboard. But to no avail. The door was bent beyond hope of opening it, and the young girl on the front seat never moved as he reached in through the broken glass of the window and tried to touch her. He said something in an undervoice to the doctor who, glancing at her, said he suspected that she was dead like the driver. But a moment later, he checked, leaving the other man to continue talking to Chloe. He was surprised to find a pulse when he touched her neck, it was thin and thready, and he could detect almost no breath at all. Her entire head and face were covered with blood, her hair matted with it, the sweater she had worn was a deep red, she had cuts everywhere and had clearly sustained a major head injury in the collision. She was barely alive, hanging on by the merest thread, and he thought it unlikely she would live long enough for them to save her. There was nothing he could do for her, and even if her breathing stopped or her pulse, he couldn't have administered CPR. She was positioned too awkwardly, and was obviously much too badly damaged. All he could do was stand there and keep an eye on her, feeling helpless. From what he could see, both of the young people in the front seat were a loss. Only the two in the back had been extremely lucky.

“Christ, they're taking forever, aren't they?” the man with the flashlight said under his breath, looking at the carnage in the car. With the flashlight, they could see more clearly how much blood had been lost. Both of the girls seemed to be bleeding profusely.

“It just feels that way,” the doctor said softly. He had ridden an ambulance as part of his residency in New York ten years before, and he had seen a lot of ugly things, on the highways, in the streets, and in the ghettos. He had delivered his share of babies in back hallways too, but he had seen more scenes like this one, and frequently with no survivors. “They'll be here in a minute.”

The other man was sweating profusely and Chloe's screams were getting to him. And he was afraid to look at Allyson's face, she was in such bad shape. He wasn't even sure she had a face left.

And then, finally, they came. Two fire engines, an ambulance, and three police cars. Several people had called from their car phones and reported how bad the accident was, others had approached the two cars cautiously, and learned that there were four passengers in the smaller car, two of them badly injured. The driver of the other car had been miraculously untouched except for a few scratches and bruises, and she was sobbing hysterically by the side of the road, in the arms of a stranger.

Three of the firemen and two cops approached the car simultaneously, along with both paramedics. The other policemen tried to take charge of the traffic, directing it slowly around the two cars, and getting it moving in one direction. Their own vehicles had added to the confusion and the roadblock, and the single file of cars heading north barely crawled past the two cars and the emergency vehicles, as people stared at the carnage.