Into This River I Drown

by T. J. Klune

  I jerk the wheel to the right at the last possible second. It’s almost a good plan. It almost works. Everything tells me it should work. But physics is an impossible thing.

  The Ford whines as we swerve to the right, the tires squealing along the roadway. The front corners of the vehicles miss colliding by inches. There’s a brief moment when everything around me slows down and I look into the driver’s window of the black truck and see the vague outline of a person. They seem to be looking at me as we flash by each other, and then they are gone.

  Even as I look ahead to correct our path, there’s a jarring impact on the driver’s side truck bed. The steering wheel jerks in my hands, causing my palms to burn as I struggle to hold on. The bed of the Ford begins to fishtail to the right, toward the cement divider that separates the road from the walkway. This all only takes a second or two, but it goes on forever in my head. The black truck, I think. Must have hit the back. Won’t be able to buff that ou—

  The right side of the Ford smashes against the divider, and Abe cries out as he is slammed into the door. There’s a moment when all motion seems to stop, but then the world tilts as the truck flips up and over the divider with a metallic shriek. The windshield shatters. I’m upside down in a haze of sparkling glass before I even know what’s happening. The world tries to right itself as the truck barrel-rolls into the metal girder. The seat belt snaps harshly against my hips, but all I can see is stars and all I can feel is heat and all I can see is blue because sparks have showered in through the broken windshield, pouring onto my face, like a—

  cross your heart hope to die stick a

  —thousand needles in my eye.

  There’s a sickening sense of vertigo as the metal girder splits at the weight and impact of the Ford. The truck starts to slide to the right and catches on something. There’s another pause before I hear another metallic moan and the truck slides again, and the back window implodes in on us as the truck begins to tip at a precarious angle.

  Then it’s almost quiet aside from the ticking of the engine. A tinkling of glass.

  I’m confused. I don’t know what has happened. I think of angels and wings and rivers. There’s a cross too, a cross I hate because it’s always covered in feathers and I can’t make it stop. I want to sleep. It would be so easy to just sleep. Maybe I should. This is probably just a dream. I dream big. I dream in color. Like my father. Big Eddie is my father. He sleeps under a stone angel in a place with no hills. Sleep, the stone angel whispers. It’s okay just to sleep. You’ll feel so much better if you do. I’ll hold your hand and protect you from everything while you sleep. It is what I was made for. It won’t just be for fifteen words that mean nothing. Those fifteen words don’t mean a thing. Just sleep.

  I do. I want to. I do. I will. I am falling—

  My face feels wet but the moisture is dripping up my face. The sensation makes my skin crawl. I open my eyes. I’m upside down, my back resting against the bench seat, held in place by the lap belt. The view out the front of the truck doesn’t make sense. It’s all broken glass and crumbled cement. The sky where it shouldn’t be. Everything opposite. There’s a roaring noise in my head and my left eye begins to burn as a bit of blood drips into it. I open my mouth to say, “Hello?” but no sound comes out, just a weak rush of air. Nothing hurts yet, and I wonder at it. I’m bleeding, but there’s no pain. Maybe I’m not hurt that bad. Maybe it’s not my blood.

  My hands are pressed against the roof of the cab. I try to ease myself down, but the seat belt is still latched and it holds me at the waist. I lift my hands from the roof and swing gently in the truck, upside down. The effect is instant. The truck begins to groan and starts rocking slowly, seesawing up and down. Up and down. I quickly reach up and press my hands against the roof again and hold my breath for as long as I can. Eventually the truck stops moving, but not before I feel the truck slide just a little bit farther down.

  I lick my lips, trying to get them wet. I taste copper. I work my salivary glands, trying to get enough spit in my mouth to swallow. My throat is too dry. It burns. I’m parched. I would do anything for a drink of water. Anything.

  There’s movement to my left. Or maybe it’s my right. I don’t know which way is up, so I am pretty sure left and right don’t matter anymore. There’s a man lying against the roof of the truck, almost against the back, where the window used to be. Two black bands hang down around him. Seat belt. Seat belt is broken. There’s cement where the back windshield used to be, jutting into the cab. Maybe it’s…

  “Abe?” I croak out. Is that Abe? He was in the Ford with me. Before….

  He groans and shifts. The truck shifts with him, beginning to rock again.

  I don’t—

  Oh Jesus.

  It makes sense. It all makes sense, and it’s enough to cause bile to rise. The back of my throat tastes acidic, and I have to fight to keep from vomiting as my stomach clenches and spasms against the clinch of the lap belt. It’s so crystal clear, and I wish it wasn’t because now all I can hear is the shift of the truck and the distant call of the river below.

  The truck has flipped. We’re upside down. The bed of the truck has fallen off the side of the bridge and hangs over the river. The rear of the cab has caught on the edge of the bridge, stuck against the cement. It’s the only reason we haven’t slid off and plummeted to the river below.

  Abe groans again and starts to push himself up. He collapses with a gasp of pain, and it’s only then can I see a shiny knob of bone sticking out of his arm.

  The truck rocks further. Up and down. Up and down.

  “Abe,” I whisper. “You gotta stay still. Don’t move. Please. Just stay there.” “Benji?” He stares at me with bleary eyes. “What… where? My arm hurts, boy.” “I know,” I say, my voice cracking. “Just don’t move.”

  CAL! THREAD! SEE MY FUCKING THREAD!

  “Where are we? What happened?”

  “Truck flipped,” I grind out. “I’m stuck.”

  “Oh. God, it hurts. Let me help you—”

  “No!” I shout as he sits up. There’s a groan of metal against stone and the truck moves a couple of inches, the back of the cab sliding along the pavement. “Stay there! Bridge! We’re on the bridge!”

  He freezes, his eyes wide. His vision seems to clear and he looks at our surroundings, and I can see the moment it hits him how precarious our situation is. His face goes even whiter. “Shit,” he breathes. “Boy, we’ve got to get you down from there.”

  “No. No, the whole thing is going to go over. You gotta climb out, Abe. Get help. I can’t… I can’t move.”

  He’s incredulous. “I’m not going to leave you in here!”

  “Go,” I snap at him hoarsely. “Don’t you be fucking stupid. Don’t you dare!”

  He looks up at me miserably. “Phone,” he groans. “Where’s your phone?”

  “I dunno. It was on the seat before we got hit.” My hands are starting to hurt, pressing up against the ceiling. My strength is slowly ebbing. I don’t know how much longer I can hold myself here.

  The wind begins to howl. The truck slips farther.

  It won’t be much longer now.

  He raises his head carefully, looking around. “Don’t see it.”

  Oh God, hear me now. Please. Please send him. I’m sorry for everything I’ve done. I’m sorry I’ve kept secrets from him. I need him. If not for me, then at least for my friend. Abe needs your help. He needs it more than I do. Please, oh please, help him.

  There’s no response, but isn’t that the way of things? The decision gnaws at my insides, but I don’t care. I can’t. This man is my friend. He is my family. I won’t let him fall.

  “Fuck it!” I snarl at him. “You listen to me. You listening, old man?” He nods, not meeting my eyes. “When you move, you gotta move fast, okay? It’s going to hurt like hell, but you gotta roll out. Roll over until you feel the cement on your back. Once you do, you keep fucking rolling, you hear me?”

  “B
ut the truck,” he whispers. “You….”

  Blood drips from my face to the roof. I know where it’s coming from now. It feels like my shoulder has been sliced open. The blood is steady, not gushing.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I tell him. “It’s either one or both of us, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you go down with me. You listen to me, okay? You have to go get help. You can’t let them get away with this. It’s Griggs. It’s Walken. It’s Traynor. And whoever their boss is. They have killed, Abe. They’ve killed so many people, and you have to stop them. I can’t. Not anymore. You have to—”

  Footsteps, crunching glass.

  “Hello in the truck!” a voice calls out. Not Cal, but familiar.

  “Oh, thank God!” Abe cries out. “Help! Benji’s stuck! The whole damn thing’s about to go over!”

  “Is that so?” a voice drawls, the footsteps getting closer.

  “No,” I whisper. “No. Not like this.”

  Jack Traynor crouches under the hood of the Ford, cocking his head to peer in at us. The smile he gives is one of such terrible beauty that I want to scream and fight and rip him to shreds. He reaches up and presses against the truck, and it rocks even further, and he laughs quietly. “You bastard,” I whisper. “Oh, you fucking bastard. You did it, didn’t you?”

  He misunderstands me. “Yeah, thought you guys would go over a lot more quickly. Still a pretty crazy flip you did. Kind of exciting to watch.”

  “My father,” I snarl at him. “You did it!”

  He’s taken aback a moment, the surprise on his face almost comical. He glances down at Abe, who is glaring up at him. “Ah, son,” he says, as he rocks the truck again. “That was before my time, though I do admit to copying the move a little bit. Works better than you’d think. By the time this old beater falls, there won’t be many people left for anyone to figure out a single thing. I wonder if it’ll explode? Like in the movies.” He looks wistful. “But no. No, it wasn’t me who done in your dad. Had I been around, I would have done it gladly, but I can’t take credit. Seems to me that you just couldn’t keep to your own business, could you? Like father, so much like son.”

  “I’ll fucking kill you!”

  He smiles again. “No. No, I don’t think you will. Should have just left the grown-ups alone, Benji. This whole thing could have been avoided had you just minded your own business. If it’s any consolation, it will be quick. I’m sure of it.” He says this last as if he’s being kind, and a shudder tears through me.

  Abe moves then, quicker than I could ever imagine, given his age and injuries. I see a flash of silver in Abe’s hand before the gunfire erupts inside the cab, the noise deafening in the enclosed space. A spray of blood erupts from Traynor’s right side and he howls as he falls backward, out of sight. Abe’s hand is shaking as he raises the gun again, but it’s too much for him and it falls to the floor, bouncing out of his reach. He tries to move, but the truck has started to sway again alarmingly.

  Traynor curses loudly, and there’s a reverberating bang that shakes the truck. “You assholes!” he shouts, and the bang happens again. “You faggots! Oh, fuck, I’m going to kill you!” His foot flashes up in my vision, and he gives a vicious kick to the hood of the truck. It rocks up… up… up… and then I’m sure it’s going to fall with one more kick that doesn’t come.

  “What the fuck is that?” I hear Traynor say hoarsely over the groan of metal. Then, above all else, I hear it—the beating of wings.

  Cal.

  An answering roar comes from above. It is filled with such extraordinary fury that it shreds my heart. I try to call out to him, but I can’t find any words, less and less making sense in the garbled mess in my mind. Instead, I scream out to him and let all my anger and fear pour out of me. Only one thought repeats over and over: He came. He came.

  He came.

  He answers my cry with another furious shout and the beat of wings grows louder even as the truck creaks and tips dangerously. The blood continues to drip down my side and face and another wave of nausea rolls over me. My vision narrows and shadows start to dance across my eyes, unconsciousness trying to pull me under, clawing at me, dragging me down. Not thinking, I snap my head back and forth, trying to keep myself awake. Blood sprays in tiny droplets over the ceiling of the cab, which rocks even further. Traynor cries out again, but there is terror in his voice now, not just pain. Abe clutches his arm and gasps as the truck tips up again, causing him to roll further into the cab. The truck tips up again, and it reaches an apex, so much farther up than it was before. I know this is it, this is the moment when the truck will slip off the edge and I will fall into the river, and I will drown just like my father did.

  Some part of me recognizes that your life is supposed to flash before your eyes at the moment of your death. Time is supposed to be slow so you remember every little detail about your life in a series of memories—still photos that burst across your mind like a comet in the dark. You see the good. You see the bad. You see the people you’ve hurt, the people you’ve loved. Memory explodes like a star and it rushes over you in an overwhelming wave that blocks out all other senses.

  This does not happen to me. I do not see my past.

  I see my future.

  The wings beat again, and a whistling sound cracks through the air, signifying a heavy descent. Traynor screams and kicks his leg up into the air again, but whether a reflex of fear or to kick the truck again, I don’t know. Before his foot can make contact with the truck, there’s a flash of brilliant blue and the cab shakes as the ground rolls beneath it when the angel Calliel lands on the bridge. He snaps his hand out and grabs Traynor by the ankle before he can connect with the truck again. Traynor’s scream is choked off. Cal snarls at him and pulls on his leg, whipping him around and hurtling him in the other direction. I can see Traynor’s face for a split second, and his eyes are blown out, his mouth twisted open so wide that he reminds me of the Strange Men. He makes no sound as he flies out of my line of sight, only leaving a brief arc of blood from the wound on his side. I hear him crash down on the other side of the bridge, and I feel a brief moment of remorse that he didn’t go over the edge.

  But the thought disappears as the truck starts to slide off the edge of the bridge. The grating of metal against the cement behind me is so loud I have no choice but to bring my hands to my ears in an attempt to block it out. The seat belt pulls against my hips as I swing back and forth. I close my eyes. This is it. So close. This is it.

  But it’s not.

  The truck shakes as something slams into the top of it. It’s jarring, the shockwaves cause my teeth to chatter, and then the truck stops moving. I open my eyes and see Cal standing at the front of the truck, his lower body straining, his wings starting to flicker in and out around him like the bald Strange Man.

  “You have to get out!” he yells. “I can’t hold it.”

  “Abe, go!”

  He looks scared. “What about—”

  “Go!”

  He does, with one last glance at me. Even though he must be in astonishing pain, his face hardens and he pulls his broken arm up to his chest and moves carefully but quickly through the broken glass, banging his head on the dash and muttering to himself. He makes a play for the gun and snags it around the barrel before he gets clear and rolls out onto the pavement. He turns and holds out his hand.

  Fuck, this is going to hurt. But I hear Cal grunting, see him getting pulled closer to the edge as the truck slides. I look back behind me and enough of the rear of the cab has cleared the cement that I can see the river below, rushing so far underneath me it seems a frightening distance. I turn back to Cal in time to see his wings disappear completely.

  “Benji!” Abe cries as the truck slides further over the edge.

  Knowing there’s not much time left, I curl myself up toward the floor of the cab so when the seat belt comes undone, I’ll land on my back instead of my neck. The muscles in my stomach howl and burn, and my fingers fumble with the l
atch. More blood gets in my eye. I can’t see. My fingers feel numb as they skitter off on the belt. I’m going to die here. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. Please just let me—

  I find the latch. I pull the metal tab up and the seat belt releases instantly. Before I can even brace myself, I crash down onto the roof of the cab, the air knocked out of me, slamming my head against the roof. There are stars everywhere for a moment, and they are so fucking blue that I just want to follow them into the dark. I almost do, but then I hear him say, “Benji, don’t go,” and I can’t. I can’t leave him here alone. Not after all he’s done for me. Not after all he’s done to get to me. I can’t. I won’t.

  Forcing the stars away, I roll over, glass cutting into my arms as I crawl forward. The truck shifts again, and Cal and Abe both cry out. Abe leans in closer, reaching out his hand for mine. I raise my hand toward his and his fingers graze against mine and—

  The truck slips even farther. I glance back and see the cab is caught on the very lip of the bridge. Only another few inches and it will fall. It starts to slide again. “Benji!” Cal shouts, the terror in his voice rocking me to my core. I turn back to Abe and push up with my hands and feet, launching myself toward his outstretched hand. We snap wrist to wrist, our skin slick with blood, but his grip is strong and he pulls as my feet scrabble for purchase, slipping against glass and debris. Cal cries out again as the Ford tilts upward and begins to fall off the bridge. The edge of the windowsill clips my left ankle, causing searing pain to shoot through my leg, and then the truck is gone and I’m partially on top of Abe, both of us gasping for air. Only a few seconds later, there’s a crash, a splash of water, and even though it’s distant and muffled by the wind, it still grates against my ears.

  Then I’m lifted up off the ground and cradled against a broad chest. Cal has fallen to his knees near the edge of the bridge, pulling me tightly against him. He brushes a big, calloused hand against my face, wiping away the dirt and blood and tears. “Are you okay?” he asks me roughly. I can feel him shaking against me. “Oh, please tell me you’re okay. Please, Benji.”