Heeeeey, can we talk? and then, when he hadn’t answered. Are you freaked out? and then, when he hadn’t answered, Mike, can we pleeeeeeeeeeeease talk?
Only the truck driver stayed with the girl. He kept talking to her because he’d heard a car crash victim shouldn’t lose consciousness. “Don’t fall asleep, hun. Hey,” he gave her face a slap, “look at me.” Her mascara-heavy eyes focused on him with sleepy attention. “You want me to tell you what happened? Do you remember? You were looking at your phone and drifted right into my fucking lane.”
DEAD ZONE BY CAROLINE DE LACVIVIER 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 17
Rush hour on a Friday evening and the traffic was at a standstill. Thousands of people looked out their cars at the grim strip mall that went for miles—a fast-food playground, a shack bathroom, a windowless restaurant that served breakfast all day. Those in back of the traffic called their families to complain about the overpopulation of the planet.
At the front of the jam, kiddy songs sapping through the windows of their mini-van, the family stared at a steaming car wreck. An 18-wheeler lay on its side, blocking two lanes, and a little Honda, part crumpled against the guardrail, blocked the third lane.
The mother had slammed on the brakes. They’d been bumped by the car behind, but barely. The worst hurt was a neat bruise down their chests, the stripe where their seat belts had been.
The mother got her phone out of her purse and rolled down the window, as if fresh air might boost the reception. Her husband tried the same tactic on his side. “Unbelievable,” he said. “They crashed in the world’s last dead zone.” Had they switched to news radio, they’d have known that last night’s rainstorm had knocked out that region’s cell tower.
“Jake, stay in the car!” The little boy, who’d slipped out the back, scrambled back inside. He imagined a grisly scene in the wrecked cars, all punctured skin, spilled organs, and slowing hearts. There was urgency in every second that passed. The pollution-red sunset gave the scene an apocalyptic flair that made Jake tense.
“Will they die?”
The parents told him that someone would call, everything was fine, no-one would die, just stay in the car and don’t look. The mother signaled to the car in the lane beside them. A shaken old woman cranked down the window. “No reception,” the mother called. The woman shook her head and shouted at the car behind her. A stunned boy with his learner’s permit shook his head and asked the car next to him. The question volleyed from car to car, from lane to lane, further and further down like a massive game of telephone. “Do you have reception?” A pause. A shrug. “No, maybe further down.”
A stick-shift car that had been zipping along I-93 took the Route One exit and stopped behind miles of traffic. “Shit,” said the man inside. He took his phone out to call his room-mate. No reception. “Shit.” He needed him to record his show. It was the second part of a two-part episode. Last week, Agent Wallace had gotten trapped in the subway, unarmed, with the man who may or may not have murdered his wife. If Mike missed it, he’d kill himself.
He returned to the text he’d been working on all day. Maybe we should forget it happened? Have a nice weekend :) He should have responded hours ago. He’d been on a call. He was about to nail it, too. The woman had asked him to send a brochure when Dana flashed on his phone. Heeeeey, can we talk? and then, when he hadn’t answered. Are you freaked out? and then, when he hadn’t answered, Mike, can we pleeeeeeeeeeeease talk?
Dana was slumped in the Honda, pressed between the seat and the airbag. Something was wrong with her body. There was an internal stab whenever she inhaled. The radio was still on—Drink, drink drink, kill the lights, crank the stereo. She was woozy in the wreckage and she couldn’t make sense of its sounds and smells. She stared out the windshield at a shattered patch of sky. In her hand, there was the faithful weight of her phone.