Sitting behind the wheel of the Ford with a beer in the cup holder and mud on the windshield, David was feeling fairly content. He watched his very drunk little cousin plow his over-sized toy of a truck into the shallowest part of the creek.
Tires spun and mud and rocks flew as Ian drunkenly hit the bank at exactly the wrong angle. The big truck bounced harmlessly back down into the water. Ian re-angled the truck and slammed the accelerator down onto the floorboards. The Dodge shuddered and flew up the bank with a belch of smoke from the exhaust.
David could see Addison laughing from the driver's seat of the Jeep. Cal had gotten out of the truck and was standing on the edge of the creek bank, commenting on something Ian had hit on his way up.
David waited until the water had settled back down and everyone was out of the way before he edged his own truck down into the water. He chose to creep through the water slowly and carefully rather than blasting through. Sometimes it was nice to show the others that the guy with the nicest toy didn't always win.
“Show off,” Addison jeered from his window. “You always make it look easy.”
“It is easy,” David replied cheerfully.
He moved to drive the Ford to the front of their little caravan, but Ian gunned the engine on the Dodge. He plowed straight ahead of David and onto the trail, nearly clipping a tree in the process. David shook his head as he waved for Addison to go in front of him. He hated being in the middle. He either wanted the very front of the line or the very back. Being boxed in by trees and trucks annoyed him. He liked having room to maneuver on the trail.
Addison's Jeep made a sudden and unexpected jerk to the right, splashing through a small mud puddle and spraying dirty water in every direction. David checked up with his brakes and laughed. He waited until Addison was clear of the hole before he gunned his own engine and plowed through, not caring when dirty water came through the windows and splashed him in the face. It felt good to be out in the woods, just blowing off some steam with the guys. David's truck bounced and clanged down the dirt trail, the accelerator steadily climbing against all better judgment.
He focused solely on maintaining control of his vehicle as the three trucks blew through curves and hills, wrapping through the wooded trails that he'd been wandering through since he'd been old enough to climb out the window of his father's crappy trailer.
As the speedometer began to creep towards 50 miles an hour, David noticed that Addison was dropping back away from the rear bumper of Ian's truck. David unconsciously eased his own foot off of the gas. The distance between his truck and Addison's increased from a couple of yards to a couple of car lengths. The distance between Ian's truck and Addison's Jeep increased trifold.
David could see that Ian was bouncing roughly from one side of the trail to the other. He couldn't tell if it was intentional or not. Ian wasn't a bad driver, but he wasn't exactly amazing behind the wheel either. David didn't blame Addison for wanting to allow some distance between the vehicles.
Ian didn't check up as he plowed through another mid-sized mud pit in the trail. The Dodge kicked sideways hard as it hit the slick surface. The rear end spun wide to the right, putting the truck nearly sideways on the narrow trail.
Ian spun the wheel hard, trying to correct the truck and bring it back straight. The front end of the truck began to pull back into the right position. In the split second before disaster struck, David would always remember thinking that he'd thought Ian had it under control.
Ian's brake lights flashed as he locked up his tires, sending the Dodge into a vicious skid on the trail. The bed of the shiny new truck clipped the trunk of a massive old oak tree on the side of the trail and went reeling out of control.
David realized that Ian's truck was going to flip a split second before its tires actually left the ground. He was powerless to do anything but watch as his little cousin's truck went over onto its side, rolled over on its roof and then came down heavily on the driver's side with a sickening crunch.
Looking back, David would never remember stopping the Ford or getting out of it. He didn't remember watching Addy smash the the passenger's window out of Ian's truck with his bare knuckles or the way Cal would later tell him that he had grabbed Ian by the shoulders and yanked him, mostly unharmed, out of the ruined vehicle.
What David would always remember was the screaming. Ian was screaming incoherently as they'd pulled him out of the truck. David tried to use his own shirt to stop the blood that was flowing from a shallow gash on Ian's chin and Ian shoved him away. “The-the-the-the-the- g-g-g-g-girl! W-h-h-hat happened to her-r-r? Where is she?”
“Girl?” Cal was the first to make sense of Ian's wails. “Ian, calm down.”
“The girl,” Ian repeated.
Cal grabbed Ian by the shoulders and pushed him roughly towards the passenger's seat of Addison's Jeep. “You're going to be fine.”
“The girl, Cal! Where is the girl?” Ian's eyes frantically searched the trail, spinning in all directions.
“There is no girl man.” Addison took a deep breath and stepped calmly up to Ian. “You must have hit your head. You were alone in the truck. Your girlfriend isn't here.”
“I-I-I'm not-t-t talking about Katie. The girl. There was a girl.” Ian blubbered the words so badly that David could barely understand him.
“I don't see a girl,” Addison said, still calm. “Dude, you lost control of your truck. You're going to be okay.”
“You're not listening. You don't understand. I hit my brakes. I had to hit my brakes-.”
“We saw that,” Addison said drolly. He moved Ian's arm up and down for him, checking to see if anything was broken. It didn't appear to be, because Ian ignored the gesture entirely.
“Addy, listen to me. David, please.” Ian focused his hazel eyes onto David's own dark green ones. “David there was a girl. I saw a girl. She was short. Maybe 13-14. Chunky. Dark hair. Dark skin. Hispanic, maybe? She had on a pink t-shirt and khakis. I saw her. I swear to God, I saw her.”
David hesitated, unsure what to say. He took a deep breath. “Ian, you're going to be okay.”
“I'm not...you're not...I saw a girl.”
“There was no girl,” David told him.
“I saw her. Right before I flipped, I saw the girl.”
“Maybe it was some kind of angel?” Addison suggested with a strained look of tension on his handsome face. “I've heard that sometimes people see strange things when they have bad experiences.”
“It wasn't an angel,” Ian said. He wiped bloody spit off of his chin with the back of his hand. “Y'all aren't listening to me. I know, I saw-.”
“Hey Breedlove, we have a problem.” All the inflection had gone out of Cal's voice.
David turned his attention away from Ian and saw that Cal had gone over to the wrecked truck. He was standing next to the edge of the cab and staring down with an expression of mute horror on his round face. His skin, always pale, had gone ghostly white.
David crossed the twenty feet between himself and Cal in the blink of an eye. “What's wrong?”
Cal opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. He swallowed visibly and closed his eyes. “Look down,” he said. “Under the edge of the cab.”
Like any obedient best friend, David unquestioningly did as he was told and looked down.
A small, almost disembodied brown hand was laying in the dirt beside the totaled truck.