Under Zenith (2 page)

“I guess I don’t have to drive you everywhere now
, huh?”

“Now I can finally start making it up to you,” I replied as I took a corner, my headlights cutting through the rain and the darkness.

“You can start by running to the store to pick up some cat food,” she suggested. “Ron Swanson won’t shut up. I think he’s hungry.”

“That dang cat is always hungry
. He looks like a school bus with how much we feed him,” I replied with a little giggle. “I’ll run to the store and pick something up.”

“A
ll right. Try not to have too much fun in your fancy new ride.”

“Will do
, Mon. Bye,” I said, my face hurting from the grin that now seemed to be a permanent fixture.

“Bye.”

I hung up the phone and tossed it on the seat next to me, taking another corner a little faster than I probably should have. I could feel the tires skid slightly at the end of the turn, but ignored it, finding that the sensation only made me want to drive faster. I almost never got to drive since I didn’t have my own car and the feeling was exhilarating. Who knew it could be so much fun?

“I think we need some music,” I thought aloud, reaching over for the
Mumford and Sons
CD Tucker had given me.

It was still wrapped in its impossible to open CD plastic
, so I started tearing at it with my teeth, hoping it wouldn’t put up too much of a fight when all I wanted to do was blast “Below My Feet” while driving fast in the best present I had ever gotten.

Beautiful green trees suddenly opened up on either side of me as I crossed over a b
ridge; the raindrops puncturing the water with little bullets of noise before I was quickly over the bridge and surrounded by trees once more.

I loved Greenville. I knew it was a small town an
d probably not worth stopping by to most people, but it was where I’d grown up and all I’d ever known. Monica swore that if I went to New York with her I’d never want to leave, but somehow I didn’t quite believe her. Besides, people were always sentimental about their own hometowns.

Still trying to tear the CD open
, I turned onto another small road, glad that it was so late and no one was out. I didn’t want my little joy ride to be slowed down by some ancient tractor lumbering along the road.

“Come on,” I said to the CD in frustration, accident
ally dropping it under my feet.

Only I was clumsy enough to manage something like that.

“Dang it,” I exclaimed in the darkened truck, reaching down to retrieve it.

All I wanted to do was listen to some new music in my new truck. Was that so wrong?

I took my eyes off of the road for just a second, trying to stretch my fingers those last few inches to where I saw the plastic gleaming under foot.

Apparently a second was all it took.

When I glanced back up at the road I could see a little dog standing a few feet ahead of me, looking like it had no intention of moving out of the road. I knew exactly what my dad would do. He’d say the dog shouldn’t have been stupid enough to wander into the road to begin with, and he’d let nature take its course.

Normally I’d assume that I’d do the same thing
as him. I could be logical and matter-of-fact about death if I needed to be. But apparently my instincts weren’t quite as logical as I thought because before I could even stop to think about it, I was yanking the wheel sharply to the right, trying desperately to avoid the dog that couldn’t be any bigger than a chicken.

I felt my stomach drop as the truck suddenl
y spun around in circles toward one of the big green trees I had found so beautiful only moments before. My hair flew up over my face in slow motion, clouding my vision with long strands of white and I tried to turn the wheel the opposite way to correct my hasty decision.

It was a futile effort as the truck spun out of control,
and right before it slammed into the trunk of the large tree I thought, “I can’t believe a new truck doesn’t have better tires than this.”

Maybe I
could
be logical about death.

Chapter 2

The mind is a funny thing, and just at that moment, I was grateful for that fact. I couldn’t remember actually hitting the tree, just like I couldn’t remember crashing through the windshield and landing a good twenty feet away from the truck.

I was almost positive I had buckled my seatbelt before leaving the restaurant that night
, but lying face down in the mud with the headlights of my new truck cutting through the space just above me I had to admit, it was looking more and more like I had forgotten.

I used my right arm to roll over onto my back, scared to look down and see what condition I was in. Being thrown from a truck didn’t normally bode well for your physical state
, and I was sure seeing my white lace dress covered in blood wouldn’t do much to settle the panic that I was trying to keep at bay right at that moment.

It took me a full five minutes to gather the strength to prop myself up on my elbows and I let out a little groan at the effort. My body didn’t feel broken. It didn’t even feel particularly sore. It was just kind of heavy and sluggish, which I guess was pretty good considering what had just happened.

Maybe I would be one of those miracle stories where my belt unlatched itself right upon impact, and I was mercifully thrown from the truck at the exact right moment, causing me to narrowly escape death.

Ok
ay, that might be asking a bit much, but the longer I sat there, feeling like maybe nothing was actually wrong with me, the more it seemed like that was what had happened.

After a little while of
sitting in the silent woods letting the rain soak me through, I heard sirens wailing in the distance.

“It’s about time,” I said, rubbing my forehead where a small headache was beginning to form.

Maybe I had gotten a concussion and that’s what was keeping me so calm. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

The ambulance pulled up quickly, followed by two police cars
, and I couldn’t help but think that the neighbors would probably be pretty mad at me for the ruckus I was creating so late at night. I’d have to drop off some brownies or something to apologize for my rudeness.

I could hear the paramedics talking to each other as their flashlights illuminated the inside of my truck, although I couldn’t actually make out what they were saying. I knew I should probably get up and walk over to them
, but my body just felt too heavy. Even sitting up had really taken it out of me, and I couldn’t imagine what walking would feel like. So instead I sat there in the mud and the rain, waiting for them to realize no one was in the truck so they could come looking for me.

After a few minutes of them examining the cab of my truck it became obvious that they
were aptly distracted by something else and had forgotten the task at hand, since not a single one of them made any move to come find me in the woods. I wasn’t sure what was so interesting in there, but they were absolutely fascinated by it.

Sighing and tilting my head from side to side to crack my neck
, (something any car accident victim should probably avoid) I slowly and carefully got to my feet, feeling the mud drip off of my dress in thick, heavy clumps. I was just lucky I had worn my brown cowboy boots that night as I slogged through the mud to the sight of the accident.

“Hey Teddy,” I said
wearily to one of the paramedics who I recognized as a friend of my dad’s.

He didn’t turn to acknowledge me and I realized that with the rainfall my words had probably been drowned out. I had been kind of quiet.

“Ted, I’m fine, just feeling stupid,” I tried again, reaching out to tap his shoulder.

Instead of feeling the scratchy cotton against my hands, however, I was met with nothing but air. It was as if my hand had gone right through him.

I pulled away quickly, startled by the lack of contact and trying to make sense of what had just happened.

“Teddy?” I said again.

Instead of answering me or giving any sign that he had heard me at all, he walked away, returning to the ambulance and grabbing his cell phone from a bag.

“I’m gonna have to call her daddy,” he said to another paramedic who nodded at him
somberly as he walked away.

“You don’t have to call him,” I said urgently, thinking about how disappointed he would be when he learned I’d already crashed the amazing new truck he’d gotten me.

Great way to repay your parents, Isla.

Of course Teddy didn’t respond since
apparently I’d entered
The Twilight Zone
all of a sudden.

“She looks pretty bad,” another paramedic said, looking into my empty truck.

“Do you think she’ll make it?” the second asked, looking pale as he glanced at the front seat and quickly looked away again, apparently not liking what he saw.

“Hard to say,” the first
said, frustrating me to no end while other paramedics rushed back and forth between my tuck and the ambulance.

What were they even talking about? I was standing right here, fuming over the fact that they were ignoring me and freaking out because I’
d crashed my new truck after only owning it for thirty minutes.

Letting out a frustrated grunt I glanced inside of my truck to see what all the fuss was ab
out and instantly regretted it.

There were just some things you couldn’t un-see.

The entire cab was covered in blood, the windshield was cracked, and there I sat with my eyes closed, my once white dress now stained red with my mouth hanging open unattractively.

There was no pale skin to be seen. All I could see was a sticky red, covering my entire face
and a disturbingly deep gash running across my hairline.

“That’s not--,” I began
, before letting my words trail off.

I wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence. I had wanted to say that it wasn’t me sitting there
, but the evidence was undeniable. It was my body in the driver’s seat of the truck, looking like I’d been dead for a long time, despite what the paramedics were saying about a ‘faint pulse’.

Maybe I’d wanted to say that it wasn’t possible
, but the fact that I was looking at my contorted, lifeless face made that argument completely pointless. Why argue about what was possible and what wasn’t when the ‘impossible’ thing was happening right before your eyes?

“Teddy
, did you call her daddy?” the first paramedic called.

“Yeah
, I just got off the phone with him,” Teddy answered. “Why?”

“I don’t think she’s going to make it to the hospital,” he said with a sad shake of his head.

“I’m right here,” I yelled, now angry that they couldn’t see me. “You have to hear me, I’m right here.”

I tried shoving one of the men
, but my hands went right through them with a little tingle, like sleeping on your arm wrong and losing the feeling in your fingers.

“She’s fading pretty fast,” the second paramedic said.

“Stop it,” I cried, the panic now beginning to take over where the calm had resided only moments before. “I’m right here.”

It was quickly becoming obvious that no amount of screaming was going to change the fact that these men couldn’t hear me and so, scared and
frustrated, I did the only thing I could think of; I ran.

I ran through the mud and the trees as fast as my
tingling legs would carry me. I didn’t quite know where I was going, but I knew I had to get away from the horrific scene behind me and so I continued to run blindly.

My eyes prickled as if I would cry
, but tears didn’t come. Instead a sense of dread slowly filled me as my body grew colder and colder in the rain and questions raced through my mind at an alarming rate.

Why couldn’t Teddy and the other paramedics hear me? Why couldn’t they see me? If my body was at least somewhat alive then what was happening to me now? Was I dying?

I knew I should have stayed behind with my body. If I really was dying I wanted to see my parents one last time. Who knew, maybe when my ‘faint pulse’ stopped, this other version of me would disappear as well and I would have wasted my last moments running away from the inevitable.

The questions continued to circle my mind, the rain continued to fall, and I continued to run until my body couldn’t take it anymore and I collapsed in a heap on the
forest floor, letting the world around me fade slowly into blackness.

It was the end.

Chapter 3

I couldn’t be sure how long I had been asleep
, but the sun shining in the sky was a good indication that it had been at least a few hours. If I had to guess, I’d say that I had just slept through an entire day and was now starting on the next one, but that probably had something to do with how foggy my mind was.