Near Miss

by Lundy Burge

almost upon the kids. The bigger one had his hat back, and they were standing around talking about whatever the hell adolescent boys talked about. Girls, school, jerks, how they got the scar on their knee. All was well.

  “Stop stop stop stop,” Bob yelled and kept yelling as he prepared for the kind of impact that would happen when the boy in a plaid shirt and a green windbreaker was thrown under the front and back wheels of a thousand-pound Jeep Cherokee.

  He wanted to close his eyes. He wanted desperately to avoid watching the unfortunate boy get killed, but he just couldn’t close his eyes. It was like he was hypnotized into watching every little detail of what was to come.

  Suddenly, the boy in the plaid shirt grabbed the tallest one’s trucker hat, and he chased both of the shorter boys to the other side of the road.

  The car missed the plaid boy by inches. Bob thought he saw the very end of his jacket slap against the car as he bolted for the other’s hat.

  Bob realized he wasn’t breathing. He exhaled, inhaled, and exclaimed, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “I told you—“

  “They were there, damn it! And you almost hit one of them!”

  “You—“

  “You could have kill a kid, Todd!” Bob’s throat was starting to hurt, but he didn’t care. He just kept screaming, “You almost killed a child! Someone’s baby boy! You want a boy’s blood on your hands?”

  “Listen to me!” Todd screamed in defense, “There were no boys! The road was completely empty as it is now!”

  Bob shut his ears. He didn’t want to hear this from Todd. He didn’t need to hear it at all. He saw those boys. And that girl. He knew it. Then he remembered how oblivious they had seemed. The kids didn’t even know the car was coming...

  Bob looked out his window, at the trees that repeated themselves over and over. It was like the entire woods was set on a rotating screen, spinning around and around and around to make it seem like he and Todd were moving when they were actually still in the same place. It seemed at this point that they would be kept in that same spot forever...

  The screen slowed. Bob looked over to the windshield to try to see why.

  There was a man at the side of the road, a hitchhiker. He was old, about in his eighties. He wore a thick navy jacket and a fedora with tufts of snow white hair curling up from the bottom. He seemed apathetic. He didn’t need this ride. He didn’t need any ride. He was just bored and decided to give it a shot. Bob thought his whole life must have been boring, since his wrinkles were so light that they were hardly there.

  The car stopped right besides him. Bob rolled down his window and asked the man, as politely as he could, “Need a ride?”

  “Actually,” the man put his raisin hand on what was left of the window. It seemed older than the rest of him. “I was going to ask if you needed directions.”

  “What makes you think we’re lost?” Bob asked.

  “Son,” his whole forearm was on the window now, and he was smiling, “You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t lost.”

  He was speaking to Bob and Bob only. The man kept looking at him with those smooth, strange gray eyes the whole time he spoke.

  “We’re looking for a gas station,” Bob explained, “Hopefully someplace with cell phone reception.”

  The old man’s grin widened as he said, “Keep driving. It’s not too far now.”

  Bob was going to thank him, really, but Todd stomped on the accelerator, and the car was jerked forward at breakneck speeds.

  “What was that for, you—“ he stopped as soon as he saw Todd’s face.

  His eyes were wider than if he was looking into the headlights of the car that killed him. His face was even paler now, a new model of the moon. Sweat dribbled lazily down his face and he was breathing deep and short breathes. He didn’t looked like he’d seen a ghost. He looked like as if, for a few terrifying minutes, he had been a ghost.

  “What’s wrong?” Bob asked.

  “That guy back there—“ Todd’s head jerked a little, cutting himself off, “You saw him!”

  “Yeah,” Bob said, “He was very nice.”

  “Nice!” Todd said, aghast, “He was Death!”

  “He was not dead.”

  “Not dead, Death! Personified! The Angel of Death! The Grim Reaper! Death.”

  “What?” Bob wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or scared out of his mind. The old man that Bob had spoken with couldn’t have been Death Personified. A thing like that doesn’t just appear by the side of the road to give you directions. That meant that Todd, the driver, was definitely crazy.

  Or maybe they were both crazy.

  “He’s not the Grim Reaper!” Bob said in his sanity’s defense, “He didn’t look anything like a skeleton!”

  “He didn’t have to!” Todd said, “You could just tell. It’s like this message he sent.... Oh God.”

  “What?” said Bob, making up for Todd’s sudden drop in volume with those last two words.

  “You’re dead,” he said.

  “Dead?!”

  “One of us has to be,” Todd said calmly and chaste, “and you’re the one who’s been seeing all of those people that weren’t there...” his voice went quiet again, “They must be dead, too.”

  “I’m not dead,” Bob protested, “I certainly don’t feel dead.”

  “So?” Todd asked, “It doesn’t matter if you feel anything. Dead is dead, and you’re dead.”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “You’re the one who jumped out in front of the car, not me. You’re the one who looks so pale, not me. You’re the one who truly saw Death, not me.”

  “But I’m not the one who hit a tree. You are. I’m not the one who’s been seeing other dead people. You are. And I’m not the one who was so chummy with the Reaper. You are.”

  “Well, Mr. Smart-Ass,” Bob said, “What are you going to do now?”

  “Kick you out,” Todd said. And then he pulled over to the shoulder, and stopped.

  “I’m not getting out,” Bob said defiantly. He saw nothing to be afraid of.

  “Get out,” Todd said, “or I’ll make you.”

  For some reason, Bob was less confident as he said, “How do you plan on doing that if I’m dead?”

  “Get out,” Todd said, “Now.”

  “No,” Bob said.

  In response, Todd got out, walked to Bob’s side (Bob could just feel his feet sinking into the hard ground as he stomped on it like a row of ants), opened his door (Bob was surprised that he didn’t rip it out of its frame), and pulled Bob half way out by his upper arm. Bob grunted in sudden pain. It wasn’t his arm that hurt, but his pelvis, which was forced to stay in his seat, held in by the lap belt, while his upper half was being hurled out by Hurricane Todd.

  “Wait,” Bob cried, “At least let me get my seat belt off, damn it!”

  Todd stopped pulling him, but his hand still clutched his arm. It was only then Bob realized the pain that gripped caused him. It was crushing his flesh against his bone like a compactor, and the pressure of the blood pooling against the human tourniquet threatened to turn his forearm into a water balloon.

  As soon as the click of the seat belt being released was made, Bob flew from the car and landed on the ground. He landed on top of the arm Todd was strangling, and he thought for a minute that his lungs had either blown up or been crushed to a bloody pulp. It took a minute for him to take a decent breath again. He gasped like a fish, and then the rest of his body got a chance to shoot pain through his synapses like an angry, anarchist mob.

  “You’re fine,” Todd said, “You’re dead.”

  Bob’s eyes were closed, so he didn’t see what happened next. But he heard Todd’s door slam shut. The engine roared awake, and leaves and bits of gravel whimpered as they were crushed beneath the tires. One last, long howl, and then the Jeep faded from existence.

  Still Bob stayed on the ground. He wasn’t sure why. Most of the pain had faded
away, but he just lay there, unmoving. He didn’t really want to move, though. He just wanted to stay there, face in the mud. It felt better than getting up, anyway.

  Then he heard the woman call, “My God! Are you alright?”

  Slowly, and with some labor, he raised his head. She was standing above him. Velvet brown curls dangled from and around her head. She had eyes a shade darker than her hair, and with tiny sparkles in them, like glitter on a doll. He thought she was very pretty, and then he realized...

  She was glowing.

  Warm, yellow light, a little brighter than a candle, shown from her skin, her hair, the dress she was wearing. Coming from any other source, it would have been soothing. From her, it was horrifying.

  He quickly got to his feet, and stood there. Everything told him to run, but to his horror, he couldn’t. Worse, he felt drawn to her. He never wondered, but he now knew what a bug zapper looked like to a fly.

  “Are you okay?” she said, genuinely concerned.

  “What are you?”

  She didn’t say anything. She stared blankly at him, as if he’d asked her the one question she didn’t know.

  “You need to come with me,” she said at last.

  “Oh no,” Bob said. Tears lay just beyond his eyes, making his eyes sweat but not close enough to spill. “He was right.”

  “Sir,” she gently took hold of his arm and began guiding him, both gently and chaste like a snooty flight attendant, “Come this way.”

  “I’m dead,” he rambled on, “It’s true. I didn’t believe him, but he was right. I’m dead. I’m really dead.”

  “Oh dear,” the woman said, oddly apologetically, like it was on behalf of a rude uncle.

  “Was