do in a pinch.
I have to slow my pace to steady my finger on the 2; I hold it in place for a full second before the speed dial kicks in.
“Is it ringing?” Bethany asks, staring back at me expectantly. Her voice is a breathy mix of anxiety and fatigue; her cheeks are red from tears and the wind in her face.
I don’t respond, I am already having a hard enough time hearing as it is. I press the receiver harder against my ear.
“We’re sorry, all circuits are busy now; please try your call again later.”
No, no, come on!
“What is it, what happened?”
“Nothing, just keep running, I pressed something wrong.” I dig my thumb into the 2 again. Ring for me, ring!
“We’re sorry, all circuits are-”
I currently do not possess the lungs required to vocalize my frustration. I simply hang up and clumsily stuff the phone back in my pocket instead.
“What happened?”
“You just run for now, we’ll find mom, but right now , you just gotta run.”
We live ten miles from the school, but at this rate, it may as well be a hundred. It's a small Southern town, but it doesn’t seem so small when you’re hoofing it against your will, the sun beating the back of your neck red like some cancerous taskmaster. Those rides to school every morning that seemed to fly by like the final evening of spring break, well, I would welcome them with open arms at this point.
Behind us, the schoolhouse has become a black dot on the horizon. As I crane my neck to get a better view, I swear I can see those things convening in the street, preparing to give chase. They’ve probably finished off our panic stricken classmates and are now picking our scent from the air. In front of us, beyond the stretch of highway and the pockets of forest in between, black pillars of smoke are rising across the skyline of Athens, our neighboring city.
The world really is falling apart.
We make it a mile down to where Hog Mountain veers right and turns into Experiment Station amidst a pocket of fast food restaurants and strip malls. The traffic signal at the intersection blinks dutifully from red to green, but the vehicles don’t respond, they sit idle, bumper to bumper. They are lined up in all four directions, stretching back for at least a mile.
Tin soldiers, standing at attention.
I squint east and can just make out where the jam ends and folks are trying to back up and turn around. The others that had come before weren’t given that luxury.
Seats are torn and glass is shattered, paint jobs are mixed with blood and fresh dings and dents, but there isn’t a body in sight.
What had happened here?
Had it been as bad as what I’d seen?
Worse?
We pass a restaurant to our right with its plate glass window spread across the sparkling blacktop. Where value menu advertisements had once been displayed , there now hangs the body of some faceless stranger impaled on a stubborn shard of glass. Another unfortunate soul is twisted up in the parking lot with tire marks dotting the front of his tee shirt, his tongue distending from purple lips.
A siren approaches from our rear.
Fast!
The husky bark of the large engine is tapping at our shoulders.
I turn and see a ladder truck, its course set right for us. It bursts through the intersection of abandoned autos; twisting, turning, and tossing the fiberglass (and metal) contraptions as if they are nothing more than tinker toys. Two of those pale-eyed monsters hang off either side of the cherry red fire engine, clinging to the extra-large mirrors as chaos erupts around them. There is another one in the cab with its mouth around the drivers arm, shaking its head back and forth like a pit bull with a butcher's bone. The driver jerks the wheel wildly as he tries to fight them off.
Our reflections appear dazed and confused in the massive grill.
I can smell the diesel.
There is nowhere to go.
Stuck!
A wall of vehicles to our left, and death by fire truck to our right, with no middle ground in
I have to slow my pace to steady my finger on the 2; I hold it in place for a full second before the speed dial kicks in.
“Is it ringing?” Bethany asks, staring back at me expectantly. Her voice is a breathy mix of anxiety and fatigue; her cheeks are red from tears and the wind in her face.
I don’t respond, I am already having a hard enough time hearing as it is. I press the receiver harder against my ear.
“We’re sorry, all circuits are busy now; please try your call again later.”
No, no, come on!
“What is it, what happened?”
“Nothing, just keep running, I pressed something wrong.” I dig my thumb into the 2 again. Ring for me, ring!
“We’re sorry, all circuits are-”
I currently do not possess the lungs required to vocalize my frustration. I simply hang up and clumsily stuff the phone back in my pocket instead.
“What happened?”
“You just run for now, we’ll find mom, but right now , you just gotta run.”
We live ten miles from the school, but at this rate, it may as well be a hundred. It's a small Southern town, but it doesn’t seem so small when you’re hoofing it against your will, the sun beating the back of your neck red like some cancerous taskmaster. Those rides to school every morning that seemed to fly by like the final evening of spring break, well, I would welcome them with open arms at this point.
Behind us, the schoolhouse has become a black dot on the horizon. As I crane my neck to get a better view, I swear I can see those things convening in the street, preparing to give chase. They’ve probably finished off our panic stricken classmates and are now picking our scent from the air. In front of us, beyond the stretch of highway and the pockets of forest in between, black pillars of smoke are rising across the skyline of Athens, our neighboring city.
The world really is falling apart.
We make it a mile down to where Hog Mountain veers right and turns into Experiment Station amidst a pocket of fast food restaurants and strip malls. The traffic signal at the intersection blinks dutifully from red to green, but the vehicles don’t respond, they sit idle, bumper to bumper. They are lined up in all four directions, stretching back for at least a mile.
Tin soldiers, standing at attention.
I squint east and can just make out where the jam ends and folks are trying to back up and turn around. The others that had come before weren’t given that luxury.
Seats are torn and glass is shattered, paint jobs are mixed with blood and fresh dings and dents, but there isn’t a body in sight.
What had happened here?
Had it been as bad as what I’d seen?
Worse?
We pass a restaurant to our right with its plate glass window spread across the sparkling blacktop. Where value menu advertisements had once been displayed , there now hangs the body of some faceless stranger impaled on a stubborn shard of glass. Another unfortunate soul is twisted up in the parking lot with tire marks dotting the front of his tee shirt, his tongue distending from purple lips.
A siren approaches from our rear.
Fast!
The husky bark of the large engine is tapping at our shoulders.
I turn and see a ladder truck, its course set right for us. It bursts through the intersection of abandoned autos; twisting, turning, and tossing the fiberglass (and metal) contraptions as if they are nothing more than tinker toys. Two of those pale-eyed monsters hang off either side of the cherry red fire engine, clinging to the extra-large mirrors as chaos erupts around them. There is another one in the cab with its mouth around the drivers arm, shaking its head back and forth like a pit bull with a butcher's bone. The driver jerks the wheel wildly as he tries to fight them off.
Our reflections appear dazed and confused in the massive grill.
I can smell the diesel.
There is nowhere to go.
Stuck!
A wall of vehicles to our left, and death by fire truck to our right, with no middle ground in
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