Five Total Strangers

by Natalie D. Richards

  “Get a new ACL?” he asks, looking up from his book. He chuckles. “Not much anyone can do. Unless you’re an expert on lay healing in addition to Pennsylvania highway conditions.”

  My cheeks feel like they’ve caught fire. I look down, and Josh laughs softly.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m tense. I should have just shut up.”

  “You know, you’re allowed to admit when you’re wrong.”

  “They’re recommending no nonessential travel on I-78 through that entire county,” Harper says, her face bathed in the blue light of her phone.

  “Hm, sounds like we’re maybe right to head to a different route,” Brecken says. He winks at me in the rearview mirror.

  I don’t know if I’m more angry or embarrassed, but every surly thing in me wants to shoot the middle finger at this whole car.

  “Are you always this uncomfortable when you make a mistake?” Josh asks.

  I jerk my gaze to him, but there’s nothing mocking about his expression. There’s nothing sympathetic, either, really. He looks at me like I’m a tricky math problem.

  I am really losing it here. He’s not looking at me like that, and I have zero reason to be angry with anyone. I’m upset that Mom’s alone tonight. I’m upset that I didn’t take an earlier flight. Hell, right now I’m upset that I moved across the country, even though Phoebe begged me to stay in this school and Mom agreed with her.

  But no one told me that if I went back to San Diego, Mom would end up divorced and alone on the one-year anniversary of her twin’s death.

  No, not twin—Phoebe. Twin is an impersonal word. Four letters, one syllable, no smell of incense or ginger snaps or oil paints. No long dark hair coiled in a haphazard knot at the back of her neck. Twin could be anyone. But no one else could be Phoebe. I press my hand to my chest, where a fresh ache is blooming.

  God, if I’m this upset, what is Mom going through?

  The tires spin as Brecken takes off from another light, pulling me back to the present.

  “We’re going to wreck before we even get to I-80,” Harper says when the tires grip.

  “It’s going to be fine,” Brecken says.

  “It’s not fine. None of this is fine.” There’s a hysterical, desperate edge creeping into her voice. I think it’s of all those messages on her phone. All those hints that something isn’t right.

  “Hey,” Brecken says. His voice is low and soft. Pitched for Harper alone. I see his shoulder move, like maybe he’s touching her arm. “We’re going to be fine. We are.”

  “This isn’t the plan,” she says, her voice soft and panicky. “I can’t get in a wreck. You know I have to get home.”

  “I hear you,” Brecken says at the next stop. Then he does touch her, fingers slipping down the white fabric covering her shoulder. “We’re not going to wreck, okay?”

  There’s a long, loaded pause between them that makes me feel intrusive. I glance at Josh, who’s watching them, too. He looks away, checking my response, I guess. I bite back a grin, but he just looks at his book. He definitely needs to stop taking himself so seriously.

  “You better?” Brecken asks Harper softly.

  I’m not looking, but I can hear the soft hiss of his fingers on the fabric of her shirt. The thunk-shhhh of the wipers. The soft sighs of Kayla’s snores. Again? Why is she asleep so much? Is it some kind of medical condition?

  “Okay,” Harper whispers.

  For lack of anything better to do, I check my own phone. The battery is getting low, and I burned my backup battery in San Diego when my flight was delayed. I have a charging cord in the back, but there’s no point in calling my mom right now. I’m not talking to her in front of these people because I will end up asking about Daniel, or she will end up embarrassing the crap out of me with her panic. It’s going to have to wait.

  I shut my phone down and try to adjust my seat belt so it isn’t cutting as painfully across my stomach. When the signs for 33 North come into view, my shoulders relax. My cramping stomach has ratcheted into real queasiness on the local roads, so I’m more than ready for a larger highway again.

  Even if I know where that highway is headed.

  On the entrance ramp, the plow has carved a clearer path than any road I’ve seen thus far. Once we’re on, things look even better, wide scraped sections of pavement trailing out before us like gray ribbons under the confetti of snow.

  It’s definitely clearer here. The snow is falling, but the road crews are keeping up.

  Brecken sighs loudly, slouching back a little. “See? It’s already clearing up.”

  I settle back, trying to shake that itchy feeling that’s been plaguing me all day. Maybe I just need to take a breath. Things are turning around. I’ll be home before I know it, and this whole bizarre trip will be a thing of the past.

  I try not to notice Josh’s thumb tracking across the pages, over and over. Or Harper’s endless scratching in her notebook. Or the way Kayla twitches and shakes next to me, her forehead still shiny, shadows like bruises under her eyes. And Brecken, always looking. Always dragging his eyes from the road to one of us.

  This is ridiculous. There’s nothing sinister about any of this. None of this is abnormal and I shouldn’t be unnerved.

  But I am.

  Fortunately, the uneventful miles eventually calm my stomach and my nerves. The mountains loom ahead, stark, gray shadows behind the mist of snow, but they’re too far away to feel like a threat.

  The highway, clear at first, grows a little snowier as the miles pass, but it’s fine. Brecken slows down. The other cars stay in their lanes. This isn’t the documentary-worthy nightmare of spinning cars on I-78. I wait fifteen minutes and then twenty, but nothing changes. Everything is fine.

  Until it’s not.

  * * *

  I don’t know I’ve fallen asleep until I wake up to us sliding. My eyes drift open in time to feel the tires catch. I sit up, looking around to see the mountains, once distant shadows, are all around us now, steep and shrouded in a fog of snow.

  I must have slept longer than I thought.

  “Where are we?” I ask, voice scratchy.

  “We’re on I-80,” Harper says. I notice that her notebook and phone are nowhere in sight, her gaze fixed on the road. Tension thickens the air, making it hard to breathe.

  “A little past Old Furnace,” Josh says, voice tight. He’s staring ahead, too.

  The car slips again, and I take a sharp breath, looking around. Kayla sniffs, her eyes watery like she’s been crying.

  “Are you okay?” I ask her.

  She looks at me, sniffing again and clearly annoyed.

  “I’m fine.” She’s not crying—not in a something’s-wrong way, at least. Maybe she has a cold. Did she have a cold before and I didn’t notice?

  “Are you sure?” I press.

  “I said I’m fine,” she says, tossing a tangle of her pale hair behind her shoulder.

  I try not to watch, but her hands are visibly shaking. Like medical-condition or high-fever shaking.

  “There’s one on the other side,” Harper says. She looks afraid. Everyone does.

  “I see it,” Brecken says, his knuckles white where they grip the steering wheel.

  What do they see? What the hell happened while I was sleeping?

  I check the other lane, but the snow is blowing hard against the window, making it difficult to see anything at all. We found the storm. We definitely found the storm.

  “They’re losing control,” Josh says softly.

  Finally, I spot a pair of headlights the others are tracking in the lanes moving the opposite direction. They swing wildly left to right. Then they spin until I can only see one light. Then no lights. Then the taillights as the body of the car comes to a stop facing the wrong direction. My stomach churns.

  “I thought this wa
s supposed to be better,” I say, and I instantly regret it.

  “This isn’t really a good time for an I-Told-You-So,” Josh says very quietly.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, because he’s right.

  I can’t imagine being Brecken right now. What little I can see of the road is nothing more than two narrow tire tracks in a sea of white. The incline changes, the SUV shifting to a different gear as we begin to climb.

  “I don’t like this,” Brecken says.

  “Who does?” Kayla says with that weird manic laugh.

  “Somebody look at the downhill on this mountain,” Brecken says. “Check the traffic.”

  Harper taps on her phone. “I’m trying. It’s slow.”

  “Try harder.”

  Harper whirls to him. “Stop barking orders at me! I’m not your secretary.”

  Josh makes an annoyed noise, his jaw clenching.

  “I can try,” I say, trying to power on my phone.

  The SUV shifts again, the incline even steeper. My stomach clenches, an ache blooming in the center of my forehead. Looking at my phone is making me sick again.

  “Can you do it?” I ask Josh.

  There’s a furrow between his brows. “What’s wrong?”

  “My stomach,” I say. “I’m a little carsick. Maybe I shouldn’t look at the phone.”

  He nods and takes it, tapping in a few things.

  “Don’t bother,” Harper says. “I think we’re over it.”

  She’s right. We’re coming over the top of the hill, the road leveling out. The engine shifts again, tires slipping. My stomach rolls and I take a slow breath. It’s just my nerves. I just need to breathe.

  “How long do I have until we’re heading down again?” Brecken asks.

  “Maybe a mile,” Josh says, eyes lit by my phone screen. “There’s an accident alert.”

  “I see it, too,” Harper says, looking up from her own phone. She turns in her seat. “Brecken, it’s bad. Lots of cars.”

  “Where?” I ask. Josh hands back my phone and points at the map on the screen. I’m too sick and too panicked to focus. I shove my phone into my pocket.

  “It’s supposed to be right up ahead,” Harper says. “Mile marker 204.”

  “I haven’t been able to read a mile marker in miles,” Brecken says, clearly agitated. “I can’t see shit!”

  The road dips down unexpectedly and a flashing yellow sign at the bottom tells me there is a curve. Another sign announces something else, but it’s covered in snow. There’s nothing—nothing beyond the fifteen feet in front of our car on the road. It’s just the tracks we’re following.

  And then I see it.

  Lights. Red and white and pointing in what seems like dozens of strange, awkward angles.

  “There!” I say, pointing. “Do you see it?”

  “I already said I can’t see—” Brecken sucks in a breath and the hill gets steeper.

  “It’s the bridge,” Harper says, her voice a high, frightened whine. “There’s a bridge at the bottom of this hill.”

  “I see it.” Brecken’s voice is low. Serious.

  “Slow down,” Josh says. “Just ease back so you can see.”

  The engine slows, but the tires slip. And they keep slipping.

  “Slow down.” This time Josh’s voice makes it sound like a command.

  “I can’t,” Brecken says. “We’re sliding.”

  He steers right into the slide, and then left. He’s good, but the tires have broken loose, and no amount of fancy driving seems to be saving us. The car is fishtailing wildly in both directions, my stomach sloshing with each iteration. I realize we are sliding down the hill, toward the wreck. And it is no minor wreck. It’s the kind of pileup they show on national news.

  Dozens dead.

  Holiday tragedy.

  There is screaming all around me, but I stay quiet. My stomach curls in on itself as we slide faster down the hill, the tires kicking out hard to the right so that we’re moving sideways down the mountain. The bridge is a hellscape, cars spinning and wrecked in so many directions I can’t count them. I can’t even make sense of what’s happening.

  But we’re going to be part of it. That much is crystal clear.

  Thump!

  My head snaps forward at the impact, not from the bridge ahead, but from behind us. Harper screams and Brecken starts a litany of Shitshitshitshitshit as our car spins in a wild circle. I see headlights and taillights and snow and a menacing concrete guardrail. It plays out in an endless loop, a merry-go-round of horror.

  I hold on tight, but the impact slams me forward like a rag doll, the seat belt hard across my neck and my ears shredded by a concrete metal scraping that feels like it will never end.

  February 4

  Mira,

  I knew you were a wonder and I was right. When I moved to California, I believed our moment in the coffee line might be all we ever shared. Do you know how that tortured me? The idea of never seeing your face or hearing your voice again. We don’t need to worry about that now, do we?

  I don’t care for art usually. So many artists get it wrong, and when I stepped inside the show that day, it wasn’t because I wanted to see what was being exhibited, it’s because I saw you. Through the window with your eyes gleaming and your smile so bright. You were talking to someone else, but I recognized that glow.

  It’s the same glow you had when you thanked me for the coffee, the glow I’m drawn to like a compass to North. The moment I saw you, saw your face, I knew I had to come inside to talk to you. So, I did.

  But why did you pretend not to remember me? Why bother with shyness? Two thousand miles and we still found each other, Mira. That means something. You can’t deny it.

  I came back after you were whisked away from our brief conversation. I wanted to see you again, but you were only there for the show. It doesn’t matter, though, because the woman there gave me this address for you. Fate is still bringing us together.

  So, take your time. If you’re afraid to speak the words, write them. I can wait. Because I know as well as you do—this is destiny.

  I’ll be waiting,

  Yours

  Chapter Seven

  The impact is not exactly a crash, more like a hardcore graze. The right front fender wedges against the wall and continues forward with a terrible metal-against-concrete scrape that seems to shred the air and my eardrums both. I squeeze my eyes shut as we shudder along the barrier, the vibration rippling through my spine. It’s the kind of noise and feeling that sets your teeth on edge—the car-crash equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard.

  The car rolls to a stop, engine still running.

  “Are you okay?” Brecken says, looking at Harper.

  She’s breathing hard and fast. We all are. But she nods, and we check ourselves over. Looking for broken windows, or maybe injuries we didn’t notice. It doesn’t seem that bad. I think we got lucky. I open my mouth to say as much and—crash!

  The impact is in the lane to our left. I whirl in time to see the car rebound from the impact, bits of glass and metal tinkling to the icy pavement. I look around, realizing that our crash wasn’t just lucky. It was downright miraculous. There are cars flipped onto their sides and lines of cars crunched tightly together. We are the only car I can see that isn’t crumpled beyond driving.

  “We have to get out of here,” Harper says, and by her expression I can tell she’s putting together what I have. We’re in serious danger.

  “We’re going to get hit,” Josh says.

  “Shit,” Kayla says. She’s not looking at the wrecks ahead of us. She’s twisted to look out the back window.

  I don’t want to look, but I do and there they are—a volley of cars spinning and sliding their way down the mountainside. This only ends one way. And if we don’t move, we’re going to
be part of it.

  Brecken swears and throws the SUV into reverse, pulling back from the concrete barrier with a grinding noise that jolts through my teeth like a shock.

  Harper starts to cry. I don’t blame her. I’d be crying, too, if I had any breath left in my lungs, but I feel like all the air has been kicked out of me. The first car hits—far to the left—the sound of glass and plastic breaking shatters the quiet. Some of them slip right off the road, landing in the ditch before the bridge.

  They’re the lucky ones.

  The unlucky ones are coming right at us. Fast.

  “Go,” Harper cries. “Just go!”

  I don’t want to watch, but I can’t look away. My eyes are glued to a Volvo whirling around end after end, close enough to our side of the road to make me wonder if I’ll live. To make me wish I’d sent one more text to my parents. Maybe to Zari.

  It’s just about to hit when I squeeze my eyes shut. Our car lurches forward and I hear a terrible smack. The Volvo hit the concrete, just behind us.

  “There’s another one coming,” Josh says, still calm.

  “Go!” Kayla says. “Keep going!”

  “I’m trying! There’s no room!”

  “Hit the wall if you have to,” Harper says. “Push your way through.”

  There’s a horrible hissing shriek behind us, a terrible noise that I know from rest areas and truck stops. It’s a semi. Brecken’s eyes widen in the rearview mirror and he punches the gas. We are scraping the barrier again, but he doesn’t stop.

  He’s swearing softly, pushing his way between a large truck with no one inside and the concrete wall. I don’t want to look behind us. I don’t want to know why he’s swearing over and over under his breath.

  But I do.

  My stomach shoves itself into my throat, perches there so tightly that I can’t breathe. There’s a tractor trailer at the top of the hill, and it’s coming down sideways. My lizard brain shoots adrenaline into my limbs—pushing me to get out of the car. To run.

  Because this truck will hit everything on this bridge. It’ll destroy us.

  “Go!” I scream, even though he’s already going. I can hear the strain of the engine, the awful push/scrape of concrete on one side and metal on the other. Everyone is shouting. I don’t know who is saying what. I don’t recognize my own voice in the mix, but I know I’m screaming, too.