by Amanda Dick
Callum was staring at her, waiting. Suddenly she felt guilty. He didn’t need this. She sat up straight, taking a deep breath and conjuring up a fleeting smile that she hoped would be convincing.
“It doesn’t matter now, does it? It’s all water under the bridge. What’s done is done.”
Internally, she cringed at the forced indifference in her voice. He wouldn’t be fooled. She would have to make more of an effort. She opted for a diversionary tactic, giving herself time to get herself together.
“I need coffee. You want one?” she asked.
She didn’t wait for a response, turning abruptly to head for the kitchen.
Four Years Earlier
The impact was mind-blowing, sending a shuddering jolt throughout his entire body that turned his limbs to jelly. Time stopped as they skidded across the road, the buzzing in his ears blocking everything else out. Then they were upside down. He squinted out through the windshield, his brain struggling to process what was happening. He felt as if he was moving simultaneously in slow-motion and fast-forward and it crossed his mind that this might be how he died. A strange calmness washed over him. His fate was completely out of his hands.
The car suddenly bounced as it left the road, ripping through a fence, the trees ahead rapidly filling the windshield as he mentally braced himself for the impact. The crazy rollercoaster ride ended as abruptly as it had begun, jolting him again, throwing a spear of pain through his shoulder and neck that momentarily left him breathless.
And then there was silence. Buzzing, humming, vibrating silence.
He hung by his seatbelt, upside down, for several moments as his mind and body tried to comprehend and compensate.
“Callum?”
He didn’t even sound like himself, his voice cracked and strained. He tried to ignore the fact as he reached behind him for Ally. His sense of direction was wonky and he watched his hand waver in mid-air, mesmerised for a moment, before terror took over.
“Callum? Ally!”
The silence buzzed in his ears as he reached for Callum, the seat belt restricting his movements. Gravity toyed with him. He took a moment to draw a deep breath and assess the situation, forcing the panic down into his gut. His hand groped blindly at his waist, finding the seat belt release and popping it open. He collapsed heavily onto the inside roof of the car, a low groan escaping as a stabbing pain shot through his shoulder. He tried to breathe through the heavy air, something sharp digging into his knee.
“Callum?”
He was unconscious, hanging limply in his seat. Reaching over with trembling fingers to feel the pulse in Callum’s neck, he almost cried with relief.
“Thank God.” His heart raced wildly. “Come on, wake up… ”
Turning his attention to the back seat now, he saw Ally. She was also suspended by her seat belt, long dark hair covering her face. Her arms and legs dangled, giving the illusion of a rag doll. He twisted around, pain shooting through his arm and shoulder as he jammed himself between the seats, reaching through her hair to feel for the pulse in her neck, praying under his breath the whole time. Finding it at last, he fought back tears of relief.
He had never felt so alone and so helpless in his life. A constant hum filled his head until he could barely think straight. None of this seemed real. They were coming home from the concert. They were safe. They were together. So what had just happened? He had to get them out of there, had to get them to safety and call for help.
“Callum, wake up. Come on man, please – I need your help!” The panic in his voice scared him as he shook Callum’s arm. “Callum!”
Callum stirred and the breath he didn’t realise he had been holding escaped in a rush.
He shook Callum’s arm again. “Hey! Come on, wake up!”
Callum groaned, feebly pushing Jack’s hand away.
“The car flipped,” Jack breathed. He shook Callum’s arm again and Callum offered resistance this time, pulling his arm away.
“What happened?” he mumbled hazily. “Oh man, my head… ”
“Another car hit us. We’re upside down. I’m gonna try and release your seatbelt, but you’re gonna have to help me here. Brace yourself – hey, can you hear me?”
“What? Yeah. I’m here. I’m okay,” he mumbled, sounding a plane ride and a taxi journey away from okay.
“You’re gonna have to brace yourself – stay with me. Do you think you can stop yourself from hitting the deck?”
Jack twisted around to get into a better position. He leveraged himself, reaching around Callum to fumble blindly for the release button.
“You okay? Are you hurt?” he asked, wanting to keep him talking in the meantime. His shoulder cried out with every move he made but he gritted his teeth against the pain.
“No, I think I’m okay,” Callum mumbled, both arms reaching down to brace for the landing. “The car flipped?”
Jack grimaced, reaching over as far as he could, ignoring the pain in his shoulder.
“Yeah, looks like it,” he grunted, finally getting his fingers to work. “Okay, I got it. You ready for this?”
“Yeah.”
“On three, okay? One, two… three.”
Jack pushed on the release and Callum landed on the roof of the car with a strangled groan. Jack tried his best to help him right himself as he mumbled a string of curses under his breath.
“Sure you’re not hurt?” Jack demanded, casting a worried glance behind him at Ally.
“No, no I’m good. Just my head… I think. You okay?”
“Yeah. Shoulder hurts like hell but I’ll live.”
“Jesus – Ally?”
“She’s out cold. I can’t wake her.”
The silence seemed to scream at them.
“We’ve gotta get her out of here.”
Jack turned his back on Callum, twisting and crawling to gain access to the back seat. He fought his way through to kneel beside her, breathless with the effort. Reaching up to brush her hair away from her face, his heart wrenched. She was pale but he checked her over and couldn’t see any blood. He felt again for her pulse, relieved to find it once more, although weak.
“You’re gonna have to help me here,” he said to Callum, his eyes tracking the seat belt to the release button at her waist. “I’m gonna let her down as easy as I can but you need to hold her so she doesn’t hit her head.”
“Hang on, we don’t know if she’s okay.” The urgency in Callum’s voice stopped him dead. “We shouldn’t move her, just in case. What if she has internal injuries or something?”
“We can’t just leave her here like this!”
“Just hang on for a few more minutes. I’ll see if I can find some help, maybe that other car, maybe they can help.”
Callum reached for his door, trying to force it open but it was stuck fast. He grimaced but gave up, twisting himself around and crawling towards the driver’s door instead. He shoved at it but it wouldn’t budge, so he rolled over onto his back and kicked at it – one, two, three times before it finally gave.
“Just wait, okay? Don’t do anything yet,” he breathed, clambering out of the car.
“Okay.”
Callum took a moment to get himself together outside before he stood up. Then he promptly collapsed onto the damp grass.
“Hey!” Jack crawled between the seats and out through the driver’s door, the twisted metal further giving way with a sickening screech. He scrambled across the grass to Callum, who was already coming around.
“Are you okay?” he demanded, turning Callum over.
“Oh shit.” Callum rolled away and vomited, his body bucking with the effort. Jack grimaced, giving him a moment to catch his breath. Callum ran a trembling hand across his mouth and squinted up at him. “Man, my head. Feels like it’s been run over by a semi.”
“I bet.”
Jack glanced around them, the moonlight turning everything ghostly. It was cold and it was dark and they were in a field beside River Road. There were no stree
tlights along this stretch of road and there was no one around, not another soul. His heart sank.
Turning his attention back to his car, he caught his breath. He traced the trajectory of the car backwards to the road via the telltale gouges in the soft ground, visible even in the moonlight. The car had apparently slid across the road, through a fence and over a culvert, coming to rest against the side of a tree. Jack remembered the almighty jolt and a chill crawled up his spine. The car was a mess of mangled metal and broken glass, Callum and Ally’s side taking the brunt of the impact.
“Holy shit,” Callum breathed, following Jack’s gaze.
“Where’s the other car?”
Jack laboriously got to his feet, scoping out the tree line. He couldn’t see it anywhere. He took a couple of steps towards the road and suddenly spied it on the opposite side of the road, on its side, half-buried in the trees. Callum was by his side, leaning forward, bracing himself on his knees.
“I’ll go,” Callum panted. “You stay with Ally.”
“But you – “
“I’m okay, just stay with her.”
Before Jack could say anything more, Callum stumbled across the grass towards the road. Jack watched for a few moments to make sure he wasn’t going to collapse again, then turned back to the car. He crawled in the open door, the mere movement sending a stabbing pain through his shoulder that stopped him in his tracks. He breathed through it and pushed on, crawling through the car until he had positioned himself next to Ally. She looked so helpless. He brushed trembling fingers across her cheek and took her hands in his, sniffing back tears.
A jolt of fear stabbed at his heart. He sniffed again, a sickly-sweet smell catching in his throat. Horrified, he sniffed a third time, wishing it away.
No. No!
Gas.
His heart raced.
The possibilities played out in his mind as he fought hard to breathe. Searching the car desperately, he spied Callum’s jacket, now strewn haphazardly behind the steering wheel. He reached over for it, ignoring the pain it caused him. He rolled it up as best he could and reached up, tying it carefully around Ally’s neck in a makeshift neck brace, just in case. He had seen that on TV once – a towel used as a neck brace for a swimmer who had dived head-first into shallow water. Callum was right, they needed to be careful, there was no knowing what damage had occurred internally, or where.
“You’re gonna be fine,” he mumbled, more to himself than to Ally. His voice boomed in the silence as he reached up to find the seatbelt release button at Ally’s waist.
“I’m sorry babe,” he whispered. “I gotta get you out of here. Just hang in there, okay? I love you. We can do this. It’s gonna be alright, I promise.”
The smell of gas was getting stronger, making him sick with fear. He turned and tried the door behind the driver’s door, looking for the fastest and easiest way out. Pushing against it with all his strength, it gave way a little. He put his back into it, pushing it all the way open with a screech of metal. He crawled back to Ally, stretching his legs straight out beneath her. He reached up to release her seat belt and she landed on top of him, the weight of her temporarily forcing the air out of his lungs. Recovering quickly, he crossed her arms over her chest and started backing out of the car, her upper body sprawled on top of him, her legs trailing behind.
“See? That wasn’t so bad was it?” he grunted, moving them backwards. He glanced behind him, easing her out through the door, desperately pushing it open further to allow them passage. The smell of gas soaked the air. “Hang in there, okay? Nearly there.”
He dragged them both free of the car and across the grass, his shoulder screaming in pain, his teeth clamped tight. His head swam and at one point he thought he might pass out, but he didn’t stop. Ally’s head lay cushioned on his thighs, her neck still wrapped in Callum’s jacket. He glanced up fearfully at the car, half-expecting it to explode into flames at any moment.
“Just a little further.”
The ground was wet and uneven beneath them, but he only had one thought in his head: keep her safe.
Finally he collapsed back onto the wet grass, certain they were out of harm’s way. Breathing heavily from the exertion, his shoulder burning, he threw his good arm over his face and wished they were home. A few moments and several deep breaths later, he sat up, favouring his good side. He gently re-crossed Ally’s arms over her abdomen and checked her pulse. It was there and she was breathing. Beyond that, he didn’t know.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his cell phone. The screen was cracked but it still worked. With trembling fingers, he dialed 911. He gave their location and details to the emergency operator. There were three of them, plus the other car. No, he had no idea how many were in the other car or how badly they were hurt. He had checked Ally’s pulse but no, she hadn’t regained consciousness. The operator told him to keep her warm and immobile, and check her airway to make sure it was clear. She kept asking questions, trying to keep him talking while the emergency services arrived, but all it did was aggravate his already-fragile state of mind. He yelled at her to hurry the hell up and snapped the phone shut.
It wasn’t her fault, and he was sorry he yelled at her, but the desperation was overwhelming. He couldn’t do this by himself.
No cars had come along the road since the crash and the night was clear and crisp. He shivered slightly as the adrenaline wore off and shock began to set in. He stared down at Ally, silent and still. The weight of responsibility began to get uncomfortably heavy.
He peeled his jacket off, trying to keep his screaming shoulder immobile as much as possible, and gently tucked it around her, as Callum half-stumbled, half-jogged towards him.
“You shouldn’t have moved her,” he panted, collapsing down on the grass beside them, looking paler than before.
“I didn’t have any choice, the car’s leaking gas, I had to get her out of there.”
“Jesus.”
“What about the other car? Could you get to it?” he asked, his stomach knotted in fear.
Callum shook his head, lying down on his back. Jack glanced over at him, noticing for the first time that there was a trickle of blood stemming from a gash in his head. More blood, dark in the moonlight, matted his hair. “Callum?”
Callum rested his forearm over his face and shook his head. “I could only see the driver, I don’t think there were any passengers. I couldn’t reach him.” He shifted his hand away, peering up at Jack. “He’s a real mess… I think he’s dead.”
“Shit.”
He looked down at Ally, stroking her cheek gently. He checked her pulse and breathing again to reassure himself and prayed silently for the ambulance to appear. He checked Callum again. His eyes were closed and he reached over to shake him gently. “Hey – wake up. You have to stay awake okay?”
Callum’s eyes shot open and he blinked rapidly several times. “Sorry. Just so tired. My head’s killing me.”
Jack shook him again. “Come on, sit up. You hit your head, you gotta stay awake man, come on.”
Callum sat up slowly, leaning forward to hang his head between his knees.
“You good?”
“Yeah.”
“Where the hell are the damn paramedics?” Jack muttered under his breath, smoothing hair away from Ally’s face as she lay, unmoving, in his lap.
The wait seemed tortuously long and he checked her breathing and her pulse again, tucking his jacket carefully around her, saying a prayer under his breath.
“You’re gonna be okay,” he whispered. “I promise.”
The sun unceremoniously woke Callum early the next morning. The moment he sat up, he instantly regretted it. He ran a hand over his throbbing head and squinted into the morning sun streaming in through the living room window. Looking around him, he deduced that he had spent the night on Maggie’s couch. He peered towards the kitchen, where Maggie sat at the table.
She raised her mug with a sympathetic smile. “Coffee?”
&n
bsp; He tried to nod but it felt as if the action would cause his head to separate from his shoulders. “Please.”
How did I end up here?
Slowly the details came back to him. He remembered calling Maggie after he left Ally’s, meeting her at Barney’s some time later. He told her about finding Ally’s car outside Jack’s house the night before, about confronting Jack after she had left, and about his conversation with Ally about it earlier. He was bordering on frantic by the time the third round of beers had been ordered. He remembered the conversation detouring onto the funeral, Tom and a kaleidoscope of other subjects that escaped him right now. The rest of the night was a blur.
He didn’t remember coming back here after Barney’s, and he sure as hell didn’t remember swallowing the small furry animal that appeared to have crawled into his mouth overnight and died there. Ditto the battalion of tiny miners who were trying to hack their way out of his skull from the inside. He rubbed his forehead again and reached up to take the mug of coffee that appeared in front of him, indicating the window with a wave of annoyance.
“Can you do something about that?”
He heard her tilting the blinds and risked opening his eyes again, enormously relieved when the morning sunlight no longer hit him squarely in the face.
“You might want these, too.”
She handed him a glass of water and a couple of pills. He put the coffee mug down on the table in front of him, anxiously placing the Aspirin on his furry tongue while suppressing his gag reflex.
“I guess it’s a waste of time asking how you feel.”
He gave her a withering look and rolled his shoulders, wincing as his body recalled the fight with Jack outside the church two days ago.
“Sexy, huh?” he quipped, squinting up at her.
“Right now? Not so much.”
She sank down into the chair opposite him, and he peered at her. “How come you don’t look how I feel?”
“Maybe because you drank enough for the both of us last night?” she smiled sweetly. “Besides, someone had to drive us home.”
He stood up, stretching carefully. His stomach churned but he had a feeling it wasn’t only due to the bar he had drained the night before.