Chris woke up from the crash, ears ringing and head pounding harder than any key-chain could do to him. It took a moment for his vision to stop blurring, but once it had he immediately started checking himself for any serious wounds; His arm was cut but it wasn't deep, at least not deep enough for him to be concerned about it. Once making sure he was fine, his mind shifted to his sister. Clumsily, he unbuckled his seat belt and leaned over the passenger side. Liah appeared to be fine albeit still unconscious; He gently shook her awake just to be sure though.

  “What happened?” Liah said, still drowsy from the crash. She was unharmed, Evelyn on the other hand was slumped over on the steering wheel, a steady stream of blood poured down the side of her head. The sight of it sent Liah went into a panic. “Mom, wake up!” She  shouted, shaking her thoughtlessly and violently, not even trying to compose herself.

  Chris grabbed Liah and attempted to comfort her, or at the very least to stop her from shaking their mom so much. No luck, but still he tried by taking deep breaths and trying to get her to follow along; he didn’t know if it would work, it was just something he saw on TV once. Unfortunately it didn't help.

  Chris placed his fingers on Evelyn’s pulse. Good news, she was still breathing, with the bad news being everything else. They were stuck in the middle of nowhere, the car was totaled; which was saying a lot because it was barely running to begin with. Not to mention it was now stuck in a ditch. Worried about how he was going to get them to safety, he reached into his duffel bag, pulled out his phone, but couldn’t get it to turn on. A battery icon flashed on screen; he never turned off the music he was playing during his fight with Liah, he tossed the phone back into the bag.

  Liah climbed over into the back seat and was searching under them for something. After a few moments she had found what she was looking for, a first aid kit. Chris had forgotten they always kept one under the seat. He knew she had watched a ton of ER shows, but that by no means made her an expert. How much could she actually learn from a show? Apparently, enough to at-least able to clean the wound, and apply a bandage to it.

  Evelyn started to regain consciousness but before she could reorient herself, Liah gave her a huge hug.
“Uhhhh... Why are we in a ditch?” she muttered, then caught the sight of her own blood in the rear-view mirror, sending her into a panic over her kids safety. Chris assured her that they were fine, though he wasn’t very sure of that himself.

  The rain was pouring harder now than ever. Not only was the sound of rainfall so intense it partially drowned out their voices, but it also made seeing anything outside almost impossible. However, through the thick blanket of rain Chris saw a figure. They were off in the distance, hair falling over their face, making distinguishing any facial features impossible. Only thing he could conclude was that it was a woman. The strange woman stood there for a while, staring at the direction of the car, arms hanging loosely by their sides, head slightly tilted. Was she watching us? Both Liah and Evelyn were to preoccupied to notice her. Should I say something? He didn't want to worry them more than they already were, nor could he find the words to tell them anyway. The tattered woman barely moved, not in the slightest; she was almost statuesque in that regard. Then, suddenly, the woman collapsed and was no longer in his view.

  Evelyn was in no shape to go anywhere, and Liah tethered on the edge of being fine and having a panic attack. If any of them were going to check it out, it had to be him. Without thinking he exited the vehicle.

  “Where are you going?” Liah asked.

  “To see if I can hail any passing by drivers for help”. Chris lied.

  “Shouldn’t we call someone and wait here?”

  “Can’t, phone is dead.”

  “You gotta be kidding me” blurted Liah “What about Moms phone?” She turned to Evelyn and grabbed her purse, the phone which was thankfully still on, however try as she may, she couldn’t get a proper signal; she kept trying, dialing 911 a million times out of desperation.

  A moan of pain came from the road, sending shivers down Chris’s back, Liah and Evelyn even heard it. “What was that?” asked Liah, Chris didn’t know but he couldn’t wait by the car anymore, he rushed off before either of them could get another word.

  Getting back to the road was more of a hassle than Chris had anticipated on account of the steep incline of the ditch and his hockey gear. Rain made the ground slippery, and his shoes were completely covered in mud by now. It took a few tried to get up, he slide back down at least twice, knees scraping across rocks; something that would have hurt had he not still been wearing his hockey gear.

  Upon reaching the road, he saw nothing besides fields surrounding him. Chris could still see the station wagon in the ditch but couldn’t see inside the car because of the rain. Where was the women? He looked right and saw nothing but road. Then he looked left, and there laid the women, motionless; she was far enough from him that he still couldn’t make out any greater details, so he very slowly moved towards her.

  At about 5 feet away, he finally started to get a good look at the women. She was laying on her side, facing away from him. He called out to her, not sure why, it’s not like he thought they would respond. Upon greater observation, the dress was stained with a dark substance that he initially thought was mud but was too dark and thin to be that. The liquid was pitch black and smelled rancid. It was slimy, and when he touched it a burning sensation overcame his fingers and quickly escalated into boiling hot, his fingers felt like they were melting. He wiped it off on the ground, not sure if it would burn through his cloths. The burning stopped shortly after, his fingers were miraculously fine now.

  The body wasn’t moving, and Chris couldn’t decide if he should run back to the car or see if his curiosity got him killed. Then, the shoulder twitched, only slightly, but it was enough to catch his attention, followed by shallow and raspy breathing. He wrapped his hand inside of the jersey sleeves to avoid contact with the black substance. What he saw when he flipped her over made his stomach curdle.

  Bloodshot eye, bruises that covered her from head to toe, but worse was the black liquid pouring out from their mouth, eyes and ears almost infinitely. Lastly was their heart, or lack thereof, a hollow hole in it's place with more black ooze that poured from it; looking into it felt like staring into the abyss.

  Chris wanted to run. But to where? In all directions there was nothing other than endless roads and fields. He thought of running to a nearby farm; he knew of one close by, Herrera Farms. Whatever he did, he knew he had to do it quickly, so he got up, intending to head back to the car, but before he could really move, a bright light formed behind him, blinding him as he turned to face it. His heart was beating out his chest. Like the clouds from earlier, he was stuck in a trance of sorts; though this trance froze him in fear, instead of deep thought. A mechanical rumbling came from the light, a silhouette stood behind it.

  In a split second, the lights were gone. He could see a car in front of him, a police car to be exact; a standard cruiser with slightly cracked siren lights, mud and rust on the bottom edges of the front bumper. Beside the car stood a female cop wearing a dark blue nylon poncho with the hood up. She was brunette and her hair was tied up into a bun at the back, a messy one at that.

  Another familiar face, Officer Freeland. They were well known around town; some townsfolk even considered her exceptional at her job. What made her exceptional? He hadn’t the slightest clue as to why, nor did he care. at most assumed they were simply good at their job, but to Chris, being a good at being a cop, was the equivalent of being good at watching T.v all day and eating junk food. The only thing he found exceptional about them was the frequency in which he’d run into her throughout the past couple of years. If he wasn’t directly running into her, she would be off in the distance somewhere. It seemed like she was always around the corner, especially when his mom was around.

  Immediately Officer Freeland rushed over, hands over her gun holster, fingers twitching. “What’s going on here?” she asked.

  Chris began to explain the events up to now, about the drive home, the crash and the body. Officer Freeland was taken back by the sight. Had she ever dealt with anything like this before? She knelt to touch the black substance, but he informed her of the burning sensation, causing her to pause before pulling out a pair of leather gloves, and put them on; they seemed awfully tight. She rubbed the black liquid between her fingers, then she sniffed it, then gagged.

  Grasping the radio clipped to her shoulder, Officer Freeland called for help but just as she was finishing, she and Chris heard rustling in the bushes on the side of the road. Without hesitation, she pulled the 9mm pistol from her holster and aimed it in the direction of the sound. “If anyone’s there, show yourselves now.”

  The voice of a timid scared Liah responded back, pleading with the officer not to shoot, as she appeared out of the bush with her hands raised up as high as they could go. Officer Freeland lowered her weapon. “Future notice, don’t sneak up on cops. It's a good way to get yourself shot” She holstered her gun.

  “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to…. It’s just… Chris ran off, then I saw a light and... And…” Liah continued to try and explain herself but kept fumbling her words, luckily, she hadn’t yet noticed the body.

  “Damn it, why are you out here?!” Chris was not to happy Liah left their mom’s side.

  “Cause mom is getting worried about you; thinks you’re going to get mauled by a bear or something. Wait…. There’s no bears out here, right?” Liah's eye started shifting side to side.

  A loud whistling cut off their back and forth. It was Officer Freeland. “Knock it off, both of you.” Once she was sure she had both their attention, she continued “Your brothers right, you should go back to the car”

  “You can’t be serious right now?” Liah moaned.

  “Dead serious. It's not safe out here.”

  “What, why not?” asked Liah. That was when she finally noticed the body "What the fuck is that!?”.

  “A person.” Chris responded.

  “I can see that but who? Where’d they come from? What happened to them?”

  “I don’t know, ask them.” Chris said, pointing to the body. The suggestion didn’t seem to amuse Liah, Officer Freeland for sure wasn't.

  Liah’s breathing became shallow and she began to hyperventilate. Officer Freeland instructed Liah and Chris to go and wait in her car, afterwards, she made her way into the ditch. She didn’t really expect us to sit in her car, right? Then again, what else were they to do?

  Chris and Liah walked towards the police cruiser, but it was locked. Officer Freeland forgot to unlock it before heading into the ditch. "Great move Officer fuckup." Chris exclaimed. They looked at each other, neither of them knew what to do, so they went back to the ditch.

  When they got back to the top of the ditch, they saw the car’s front bumper and the hood were dented inwards, steady black thick stream of smoke seeped out of the hood. Yup, definitely totaled. What Chris didn’t see was the cop. Where’d they go? He slid back down the ditch, scraping his butt on rocks. Liah followed, getting covered in mud on the way down. Their mom was still sitting in the front seat, eyes closed, head leaning back against the seat, no sight of the officer though.

  As Chris approached the car, he saw something poking out from underneath it. It looked like a rat tail, but it was also too veiny and red to be that; it almost like it lacked a layer of skin altogether. Within a second it retreated under the car, out of sight. He reluctantly knelt to see if he could get a better look as to what it was, it was completely gone now and it was to dark under the car for him to see anything else. When he got back up, the Officer was standing right beside him, as if appearing out of nowhere.

  “Didn’t I tell you two to wait in my car?” Officer Freeland asked.

  “It was locked.” Chris bluntly snapped, confidently. Bet that made her feel stupid.

  “I don’t know what your two’s problem is” interjected Liah “I just don’t want to look at the body anymore.” She then ran back into the station wagon with haste.

  Chris and Officer Freeland stayed outside, staring at each other, both waiting for the other to speak first; like out of some lame western where cowboys used words instead of guns.

  “Well, are you getting in or are we having a staring contest.” Asked Officer Freeland.

  “Oh, don’t mind me, go about your business.” replied Chris, in a smug voice.

  “No really kid, you should go wait in the car.”

  “Why? So you can run off again?”

  “I was securing the perimeter. Now can you please just get in the car.”

  “Not until I know what's going on.”

  “I’m trying to figure that out, you are waiting for backup, in the car.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, shouldn’t we try to get my mom out of this ditch?”

  “How’d you suppose we do that exactly? Her leg is injured, and that hill is too muddy. Even if we could, then what?”

  “Drive her to the hospital.”

  “Paramedics will be here in no time, it will only take us longer to drive her there ourselves.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just do! Now for the last time, get in the car!” Shouted Officer Freeland, in a authoritative voice.

  Chris stood there for a few seconds. Despite the circumstance, he felt like testing his luck. Officer Freeland placed her hand around her belt, just within reach of her handcuffs but not touching them. Chris held his ground.

  Suddenly the window of the station wagon rolled down again. “Chris, can you please get back in the car? For my sake” asked Evelyn. After a few seconds, Chris got in the back seat, glaring at Officer Freeland the whole time, but she had stopped looking back at him. Once in the car, he waited in silence, Liah fidgeted in her chair, the Officer walked around the perimeter.

  Everything that followed happened so fast. A few paramedics came into the ditch to help Evelyn, one of them started checking her wound, and another complimented Liah’s job cleaning and bandaging it; which seemed to calm her down a bit. After making sure Evelyn could move, they pulled her out of the ditch, it was difficult, but they managed to do so.

  The road was swarmed with police who were already placing barriers around the crime scene. Officer Freeland reported to her commanding officer, and started recounting what she saw. Chris and Liah were taken to the ambulance truck and inspected for injuries; both were mostly fine but one of the paramedics gave Chris heck for not bandaging the cut on his arm.

  A male officer approached them, questioned them. Then a paramedic explained to them that Evelyn had a concussion, and to make sure she got plenty of rest, both physically and mentally, but not too much as some stimuli was needed. They were also told to keep watch over her for the next 48 hours, and to give her Tylenol and Advil.

  At this point Officer Freeland had returned, Much to Chris’s dismay. “How about I give you all a lift home?” she asked.

  “No thanks.” Chris replied, once again being standoffish. 

  “Ooh can I drive?” Asked Liah, jovially

  “Nah sorry kid, one car crash is enough for tonight.” Freeland replied, also jovially.

  “We would love a ride home, thank you Freeland” Evelyn spoke up. Why’d she have to take her help? Regardless, the night was already long enough, and Chris just wanted to get home at this point. Liah jumped in the back with Evelyn this time, leaving the front seat for him; the one time he didn’t want it. Of course. They had to wait five minutes for the other officers to clear a way, but once they were able to, they drove.

  On the way home, Liah was checking up on Evelyn, who seemed to shift between various states of awareness. Chris was looking out the window, trying to avoid all eye contact. Officer Freeland tried to engage in small talk, but the only thing she could bring herself to ask about was school; a lame subject to be honest, she might as well have asked about the weather.

  It was enough though to get Liah’s attention, so who was Chris to speak? She opened up like a book, talking about her upcoming math and history test; both of which she wasn’t all that excited for. Something that did excite her was art class, she went on and on about an art collage she was working on, it was on this cartoon called Inuyasha that she liked. Lastly, she talked about her upcoming excitement for the local county fair happening in a week, and about her and her friends' plan to find and win the biggest prize they could; on top of eating funnel cakes until their stomachs exploded. She rambled on for three more minutes, talking about video games, music and other tv shows, she watched allot of TV, mostly Anime. When she ran out of things to talk about, everything went back to silence.

  Chris was still staring out the window, not paying attention to anything else. He was looking up at the sky, again, the rain was starting to slow down a little, but the clouds were still covering the sky.

  “You know, my dad was a police officer, like me.” Said Officer Freeland, looking at Chris “One night he responded to a disturbance call, initially thinking it was just some domestic situation. There were quite a few in our hometown but this one had gotten particularly violent. The man in question brutally attacked his wife with a knife. It was the kids who called the authorities. They managed to stay alive until police showed up but by then, the man had locked himself in the house and taken them hostage. Police surrounded the house and for a while it was a standoff. They tried to talk him down, but it wasn’t working; later an autopsy showed he was hopped up on meth. No one quite knows what eventually set him off, whether it was a sudden movement, not that it matters. He opened fire and hit my dad, three times in the chest, one close to his heart.”

  “Oh my god, that’s horrible” exclaimed Liah “What happened next?”

  “He was rushed to the hospital, of course." Officer Freeland continued "Placed in critical condition and had to be put in a coma; a month and one week to be exact. It was probably the scariest thing I faced in my life, scarier than anything I faced on the job thus far.”

  “Scarier than tonight?” asked Evelyn.

  “Yes. I was certain I was going to lose him but, thankfully, he pulled through. When he finally woke up, he played the whole thing off as a joke, like it didn’t really happen. The old coot was like that. Always had a way of laughing off life's worst tragedies. Did the same thing when my mom left. Honestly, it pissed me off. Like he had just been shot and I had been crying for weeks and the first thing he said to me when he got up was ‘What a nap, eh?’ I swear I wanted to punch him, even told him so and he laughed that off too. But again, that’s just who he was, his motto was ‘life’s too short to not be happy’ not sure if I agree, even now, but that’s beside the point.”

  “Soo” interjected Chris, turning to look at Officer Freeland “What is the point?”

  “The point is…." The officer paused for a second. " The point is that if my dad could survive 3 gunshots to the chest, then Eve can make it through this.”

  “Eve?” Asked Chris, perplexed.

  “I meant your mom.” Officer Freeland replied.

  Why’d she call her that? Chris had never heard anyone refer to his mom as Eve other than his late father.

  The story clearly put Liah and Evelyn at ease but there was still one thing Chris was wondering about “What happened to the family?”. He asked out loud, not evening intending to.

  “They…… you know that part of the story isn’t important.” Said Officer Freeland. Go figures, they probably died in a shootout. Things suddenly got quiet again, as any positive feelings that story gave ended with that statement.

  They had finally reached the house and the rain had let up considerably. Both Officer Freeland and Chris got out of the car to help Evelyn back into the house; He had beaten her there and Evelyn was able to walk enough so her help wasn’t needed; still she followed them back to the front door.

  Liah rushed straight to the house to avoid getting wet, despite how little it was raining at this point. Once at the door, Officer Freeland opened it and gestured to Chris to enter; this motion irritated him. Pulling out a notebook, she wrote something down, then handed it to Chris. “Here, my personal number, if you need anything, let me know” she said.

  Evelyn, took the piece of paper, then thanked Officer Freeland with a friendly and warm expression. Chris scowled at the officer before shutting the door on her. She stood there for a couple seconds, before she headed back to her car and drove off; Chris watched her the whole time, until he could no longer see her.