CHAPTER 5
Cory
At first the door won’t open. It takes the bus driver, Big Jim, and me with the skinny end of a metal baseball bat I grab from the back bedroom and use as leverage to finally get the door to break free. I step out and my feet land in a ditch and there’s water…water. Water everywhere leftover from a storm. Panic fists my throat and rattles it around and my heartrate doubles, triples in speed until I remember.
I remember.
This isn’t then.
This isn’t the same thing.
Two separate incidences, set apart by a decade.
It takes a minute for the fist to unfurl, but it does.
Thank God it does.
By the time we’re standing on the gravel road, my breathing has settled and blue lights flicker from a half mile away. The sound of sirens reaches our ears as the flashing lights grow closer…closer. Two…three…four. Four police cars and one ambulance pull to a stop a few dozen yards away from us. I count them as I blink at the barren landscape, at the people in front of me, at my hands, at the bus that has only one dent near the front bumper and a scratch that runs the length of my logo. The name Cory Minor is now underscored in a way that some might consider cool. A lightning bolt. A slash. I quickly count heads as band members exit the bus, then breathe in relief when everyone seems to be intact. Maybe the ambulance is unnecessary. Maybe I can send it away.
I spot the car.
In that solitary moment, my relief dissipates in a cloud of what-might-have-been and lands on the road next to the shattered windshield.
Numbness takes over as paramedics descend on the scene, bringing stretchers and equipment with them. I see the Jaws of Life and freeze. Those things only appear for one reason, and I’m paralyzed with fear. Prayer chases away fear, right? I say one then two then ten as I watch them get to work. I’ve never prayed this much in my life.
The driver’s side door is folded accordion style and won’t open at first—they tug and tug but nothing happens. Then a pop and snap and screech and the door falls away. There’s no driver that I can see, and I say another prayer of thanks. No driver is a good sign, right? My stomach drops.
The door opens to reveal a steering wheel that rests on what used to be the back passenger seat. It’s bent at a right angle and tilted upward—no human could drive that way before, during, or after. My breathing becomes shallow. No driver is a bad sign.
The sunroof is caved in and dangles between the two front seats, a high-pitched creak of a swinging noise pierces the quiet evening. If a head was once anywhere in the vicinity, it’s certainly been hit from the impact. My pulse trips. Definitely a bad sign.
All windows are missing except the back one, and even it hangs ajar, only attached on the left side. I’m staring at it when something catches my eyes. A flash of red in a sea of black and blue.
A hand. Just one hand. Red fingernails rest unmoving next to the rearview mirror. I might be able to picture them simply enjoying the breeze or waiting for a song to begin so that it can tap along to the music…if they weren’t so eerily still.
I stumble backward. My vision swims and turns black, and I lower myself to the pavement. Head in my hands, elbows between my knees. I’m going to pass out.
“Cory, you okay man?” Big Jim says above me. His voice is inside a canyon, a vacuum. A strong hand lands on my shoulder. “Hey, get a doctor over here to check on him!” I don’t know who he’s shouting to, nor do I care.
I wave him away, push his hand off my arm. This isn’t about me. Yet in the worst possible ways, it is. “I’m fine. Someone please check on the passengers. Help the passengers. Do something for the passengers!” My voice rises into the night, but I can’t help it. I keep picturing those fingers…
The scent of burning tires infiltrates the night air and makes it hard to breathe. Leaning forward, I grab a deep pull of air anyway. I just left a concert. Only a short time ago, a concert. One of the best performances of my career, despite the location of the venue. How is it that now I’m here on a back road, sitting on the ground with a throbbing headache, looking at what appears to be no valid signs of life? How did something like this happen…again? I glance up.
Those fingers look young.
And the shouting. There are so many noises at once, too many to differentiate in my mind. But I hear them despite the chaos—words like, breathing, found a pulse, someone move this seat, check for identification, no sign of anyone else.
It’s the found a pulse that keeps rolling through my mind, though I can’t identify the feeling that comes with it. Not relief, not worry, not an absence of blame. It’s more like resignation—like a thanking God the girl is breathing, while at the same time wondering what kind of life she will have from this point on. Though I suppose a limited life is better than no life at all. At least that’s what I tell my still frozen self. Until someone else speaks.
“Over here!”
All at once people go running. Paramedics. Cops. Two men with a stretcher. Big Jim. Terry the bus driver. Even myself, feet moving through grass and mud as though they are weighted with lead and I’m a prisoner trying to move while bound and shackled.
Everything comes to a rushing halt when a body is jostled upward and onto the stretcher.
My feet.
My mind.
My heart.
My composure.
It’s the hair.
The very red hair I remember seeing only two hours ago from the front row of the arena…again only a few minutes ago at the meet-and-greet.
It’s the shirt.
The yellow shirt.
Why is yellow always involved?
I stare in disbelief as her body is laid out in front of me…as her face falls to the side and settles directly in my vision.
I recognize that shirt.
I recognize that hair.
I recognize that face.
Except she’s no longer smiling.
She’s no longer dancing.
She’s no longer moving at all.