Chapter 1. The lane.
Terry woke up from a sound sleep. He didn't remember any dreams except a kind of peace and a quiet sense of love, like from a mother floating him around like a cloud. Terry slid out of bed a bit embarrassed by his womb like dream and yet... he did not remember his own family so ... The thought didn't bear completing.
Terry got into the shower and took a purposely cold and rushed version of his morning ablutions. He cleaned himself properly scrubbing his 6 foot frame and carefully washing the musk away from his pits. As was his custom he also sprayed a bit of tooth paste onto his toothbrush and brushed his teeth in the shower to keep from staining his clothes or spilling the electric blue/green solution everywhere and ruining his bathroom floor or staining the sink.
He was not always so fastidious, but as he parted his freshly scrubbed black hair and combed it nearly in the mirror of the medicine cabinet wrapped in a fresh clean towel he involuntarily shuddered to think of how he used to conduct himself cleaning haphazard in the sink in gas stations when he could and hoping today he would ride in a car more than on his tired feet in his busted out sneakers. Terry had been homeless for a few years after he left the group home. His parents died when he was just 10 years old and his sister moved away with his grandparents. He wanted to come too but his grandfather on his Dad's side had guilted him into staying and he had grown up until he was 13 with them in their humble Brown two story home in rural Ohio, while his sister lived in his mother's parent's home.
A ranch style that just kept getting added onto which their grandfather, Dennis had built, largely, by himself over a period of years.
He missed them terribly. At 13 years old his time with his grandfather and grandmother on his Dad's side would end as his grandmother, Denise would pass away from kidney related complications to diabetes. His grandfather, Harold was a sometimes pastor who also has a factory job and has spent many years on his Father farm and going door to door inviting folks to service. So he wasn't a warm and gentle man. When Denise left him he simply packed off the young man down to social services and claimed hardship. They tried to convince him to middle through or contact Terry's other family and sister but there has been a rift in the family after the death of his parents. He wouldn't hear it. Said the boy would have to make his own way in foster care. He was an old man who needed to retire and grieve his wife and lead his church.
Terry didn't really mind this, though he would love to see his sister and his grandma and grandpa in North Carolina, assuming they were still there, but no one listens to kids and at least he could leave the silence and belt whippings and German tasteless cooking and empty sermons and distant pity he felt for his grandmother and a kind of contempt (which he did not understand) he bore Harold. He was sorry she passed but he would not miss Harold. The man was like the big fella in the biker clothes from the film he had seen. An unfeeling machine.
Snapped out of his revere in front of the mirror he realized he had been standing, naked with his towel around his ankles staring into the mirror of the medicine cabinet in his small apartment near 1000 miles away from Ohio. He lived in Happy Valley, Oregon now. He hadn't spoken to his sister since Christmas. She was married and had two kids. She was 21 and he would be 20 in 3 months. His apartment was overtop of his friend Lewis's. His parents were old hippies and Lewis was a big pothead who grew grass in the garage below. The weather permitting of course. His apartment used to belong to Lewis but his older sister had moved off to college when he started work 2 years ago. He and Lewis bonded over a joint and some pilfered beers on their third closing shift. They stank of chicken and sweat. But they talked about videogames and boobs and where they would go to college once they had enough dough. Lewis had a bum foot (birth defect) and a crooked spine though he looked normal enough. He actually got laid regular despite his thick corrective lenses. His awkward seeming beard and long shaggy hair the boss got on him about every day. But Terry,clean cut 6 foot 185 lbs and handsome with Grey Eyes and straight teeth and a terrible scar across his back and around his stomach from the fire that claimed his parents lives.? The one that drove his family apart? for....? Terry didn't date much. He was ashamed of his scars.
Shit! He was going to be late for work. He scrambled into his clean and neat jeans and he took his uniform off the hangar and looked in the mirror by the door once more to make sure his fly wasn't undone or that he didn't have toilet paper stuck to his shoe or spinach in his teeth. He has a few hang ups. Satisfied that he was presentable, if in need of a shave tomorrow he hurried out to the steps above his friend's garage and got in his moped. He started his humble cute little impression of a motorcycle (with a decal of a wolf baying at the moon on the gas tank, as he would often insist, he was funny) and put putted down the highway looking for adventure or more likely his burger job where he eeked out a living. Still. It was early enough that he would actually be only 5 minutes late and only just approaching dawn. It was spring time and the ever present Oregon mist covered the mountain lane he took to the Shoney's where he would be opening the grill today.
The car sped out ahead of him on his left and he thought rude things although he couldn't exactly speed and perhaps they were late too. He was in the middle of accepting his unmanly ride once more when he heard screeching tires and a loud and terrible noise followed by an altogether eerie glow and the fast click and yellow flash of caution lights. They must have hit something! He did his best to be patient and let the urgency focus his mind rather than speed his way there.
As he approached he found the station wagon that had passed him half in a ditch and blood on the ground. Tread was almost smoking on the asphalt from the difference in temperature in the chill of the adly morning air and the blood looked almost like oil... except for the mangled corpse. His stomach was knotted up like an old hose left outside too long as he gazed at the awful mangled lump his mind playing tricks and forming the face of his sister or his parents staring in their death throws. But the shape resolved itself to be not a person at all but a pretty mangled deer. The car was totaled of course. But what about the driver? The passenger? He had seen two feminine figures in his brief glimpse along the lane. He strode carefully through the tall grass and weeds the dew soaking his jeans and headed toward the driver's side door. The windshield was cracked but there wasn't any blood on it. The engine wasn't on but there wasn't any smoke. The door seemed okay to open.
"Hello? Are you ok in there?" He called out.
At first there was no answer and his guts began to wind back up but a light overhead came in and he saw two woman, a mother and daughter passed out in their seat belts. They weren't conscious but they didn't have obvious injuries. The airbag had deployed. He got out his pocket knife and carefully punctured the bag keeping the blade well away from the possibly injured woman in the driver's seat. As he got closer the alcohol became more prevalent in the other wise clean morning air. It has become a bit lighter and easier to see as he inspected the accident. The woman seemed scraped up and dishevelled but unharmed. He began to think about how to pop the other bag in the passenger seat so he could help the young woman out of that side which was now pressed into the dirty water of the ditch they had half slid into.
That was when he heard the sound of a big rig coming toward the accident.
Chapter 2. The ditch
The sound of the incoming big rig sent shivers down his spine. They were far enough off the road, but he had better get these ladies moving! The passenger airbag was too far to hit with his little folding knife or his keys. He would need to lean in. That would scare the ladies pretty damn good. He better try and wake them.
"Hello! Ladies? My name is Terry. You had an accident. Can you hear me?" No answer.
His pulse began to speed up as agonizing seconds of no response seemed to be punctuated by the steady pulse like mocking tick and flash of the caution lights in the last vestiges of predawn.
"Hello?" Cough. Cough. Who's Terry? Said the young woman in the passenger seat.
(Under his breath: thank you dear God)
"Hello little lady. I'm Terry. I am 19 and I work in the restaurant up there. I don't have my cell phone charged so I couldn't call 911. Can you move?"
She shifted uncomfortably a bit in the tight space left between the airbag, the door and the seat.
"I'm stuck,,I'm wet? Why? Where are we? Oh God! Mom! Are you ok mom? Is she....?"
Tears streamed down her horror stricken panicked face as she began to unravel.
He needed to intervene.
"Listen! What is your name?" She didn't reply "C'mon sweety tell me your name. I am going to help you and your momma ok?"
