JOSH

 

You wanna know about the day the great change of my heart began? The day a light swept toward it and made the first chink in the heavy armor that had grown around that decaying heart up till that point in my lonely life?

Well then, I’ll tell you.

I was sick that day in both my body and my mind, sitting in the back of a large black Hummer, being driven toward my destiny. In the driver’s seat sat Holman, my billionaire father’s head of security, and in the back next to me was another of my father’s men, his eyes fixed on my shivering, sorry ass.

I was being escorted under guard to Withered Peaks Rehab Center, and I was wracked with anxiety.

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t the thought of rehab that twisted my entrails and clouded my mind. I’d already been to Withered Peaks six times up until then and it held little fear for me. In fact I looked forward to the solitude that the place offered. No, it was not the thought of rehab that filled me with angst but the recriminations of my recent actions, and my eyes had mostly remained closed for the journey as I battled away with myself.

It was only when I began to notice that we were slowing down that I actually opened them and took a look out the windscreen. I immediately saw the plume of smoke rising high in the air up ahead, a wide river of jammed vehicles separating us from the huge fire that roared in the distance.

Holman brought us to a stop at the back of the procession, and as he did, my eyes remained fixed on the fumes rising upward into the sky. Outside, people stood about the road, having gotten out of their vehicles. Like me, most of them were gazing up at the smoke, the source of which was a terrible multiple-car pile up some hundred yards ahead.

“I’m gonna check it out,” Holman said, opening his door. “Stay here.”

Holman went off toward a group of people and began talking to them, obviously asking what was up. I don’t know why, but I sensed something stirring inside of me—like a golden light waking up in my soul—and felt the need to get out of the car. The guy with me in the backseat cried for me to stay in, diving across to grab me as I opened the door. But I easily escaped his clutches and got out anyway. Only then, as I stood in the road, could I see the true extent of the flames rising up ahead, mixing with the fumes in little orange licks.

By the time the guy was out of the other side of the Hummer and after me, I was already briskly jogging toward the crash site through a corridor of cars, no longer aware of my anxiety or the sickly pain in my head and gut. I came across people, whole families, walking quickly toward me, an exodus of them, filing in between the cars, panic on their faces.

“There’s a tanker up ahead,” one of them shouted to me as I came past going the other way. “It’s gonna blow. You gotta get yourself back.”

But I ignored him and continued toward the crash, something pulling me to it, a strange fascination growing inside of me. A little further on another man tried to warn me, even going so far as to grab my arm, but I nonchalantly shrugged him off.

Once I’d made it to the first of the crashed cars, I was confronted with a pile of smashed metal wedded together so that all the vehicles were now one mass of broken shells, cars folded into trucks, trucks folded into cars, whole vehicles resembling crushed cans. While the smoke and heat stung my eyes, I wondered if anyone could have survived such a catastrophe, and it was as I held this thought in my head that I heard a woman’s scream ring out from within it all.

Without a second’s thought I ran into the crash, the screams of help getting louder the further I meandered into the twisted metal flesh of it all. I flashed my glance around to find the source, but the smoke was wafting thick and heavy, making it almost impossible to see. For a second or two the scream didn’t sound and in that tiny moment of silence I felt angst ridden at its absence. But as my anxiety climbed to fever pitch, the scream suddenly broke out again and it was like a siren’s call. I got a fix on the direction it appeared to be coming from and, head down, I stormed through the smoke and came upon a car that was half-crushed under the trailer of a truck.

I found four people inside, a woman and two small boys in the back, all unconscious, and another conscious woman in the driver’s seat. Giving the one in the front a quick look over I saw that she was pinned to her seat by the dashboard.

“Get the others,” she said the moment she saw me.

I instantly recognized her voice and an odd thing occurred in that second. There followed a brief pause between us as our gazes fused for a single second that appeared to last an eternity. The instant my eyes became locked with hers, I recalled them from somewhere, and it slowly dawned on me that it was the same girl from the night before. Gazing into her green eyes, I felt the same feeling I did then: shame.

There was something benevolent and compassionate in them, something that made me feel uneasy in their presence. It was like she could see every dirty sin I’d ever committed, every lie I’d ever told, and she knew it all without so much as a word between us.

Although I could never have known it then, I somehow sensed that in those eyes lay my entire destiny. Somehow, I knew that this girl meant everything and more.

“It’s you,” she let out in alarm.

“It appears so,” I replied blankly.

“Get the others out of the back,” she hurriedly repeated.

I did as I was told and made my way to the rear of the car. Luckily the door wasn’t too damaged, so I pulled it open with a couple of tugs and was able to scoop the boys out first, one on each shoulder. As quick as that, I was running back through the corridor of empty cars toward the edge. Although hungover and coming down from a large quantity of drugs, I was still an athletic guy who regularly used the gym and the track at my college, so I easily made good pace with those delicate weights on my shoulders.

Toward the edge I came across Holman, who wore an angered expression. I ignored it, though, as well as his chastisement, and simply continued toward the clearing some three hundred meters further on from the crash. When I reached it, I laid the boys down and someone came running over and began checking them over. By the way the guy went to work, I guessed he was a doctor. The two boys caused quite a stir and more people came over as the guy informed us all that though they were both unconscious they should be safe. But I had no time to feel relief at this information and instead turned to Holman, the old man still reproaching me, and said in a mechanical way, “There’s more people in there and I can’t see the emergency services. We gotta help them.”

“No, you fucking don’t,” Holman put back.

But I didn't listen, turning around and heading back to the crash. The big man came after me and grabbed ahold of my arm, but I don’t think his heart was in it, because when I shrugged him off he easily let go and merely began following me into the hail of flames and fumes.

“You’re a damn fool, kid,” he shouted as we ran toward the crushed car. “A damn fool.”

“Then why are you following?” I put back to him.

“Because I gotta watch after you and if you get killed playing the hero, then it’s better if I go up in flames with you, rather than have to face your father.”

Despite his words, I knew that Holman was a better man than his job and would help me get these people out. We soon reached them and the girl in the front seat immediately turned to me with her sleepy eyes, blood dripping down her face. She wore a surprised look, as if she hadn’t expected me to return.

“You came back,” she exclaimed weakly. “Get Holly from the back.”

“We need to get this door open and it’ll take two of us,” I replied. “Once we get you out, we’ll get the other woman.”

“But there’s not enough time for both of us. Get Holly and yourselves out of here.”

Without answering her, me and Holman went to work on the driver’s door. The top of it was crushed, making it extremely difficult to open. But with great effort we achieved the task, and once it was prized open, we saw that the girl was held tightly in place by the crushed dashboard. Not thinking, I tried to force the dash upward, but the girl screamed and I instantly stopped. Looking into the crushed footwell I saw that her legs were broken, the pinky-whites of her bones sticking up through the flesh of her thighs.

Behind me, Holman was nervously looking around at the thick smoke closing in around us. Glancing over my shoulder at him, I said, “Her legs are broken, but we gotta get this dash off.” I then turned to the girl and added in a soft tone, “This is gonna hurt a lot.”

Having said this, I budged over so that Holman could take a grip of the dash alongside me and we heaved. Almost immediately—and don’t ask me how—we managed to bend it up, and Holman held it there while I slid the girl out. The pain in her legs was so bad that by the time I had her over my shoulder she’d fainted.

While Holman retrieved the other woman, I began making my way toward the clearance. Reaching the place where I’d left the boys, we found that everyone had cleared even further back, so we continued until we made it about another hundred meters further on. I was thankful when we saw the flashing lights of the newly arrived emergency services greeting us as we made it out.

We carried the injured women to the ambulances and I carefully placed the girl on a stretcher, before being pushed to the side by a paramedic. Examining my surroundings, I couldn’t spot Holman, so I ran off again into the fire and smoke, alone this time, something driving me on, running through me and compelling me to dive into danger for the sake of others.