by Mark Tullius
CHAPTER ONE
I’m not a coward. I’m just really indecisive. I see every possible outcome and it’s paralyzing. Like right now, Mom just wants me to take the keys and drive us home. Everyone’s shivering outside the diner. It’s starting to drizzle, and my little sister throws back her head like a Pez dispenser and groans.
Mom says, “Come on, David. It’ll be good to practice.”
I suck at driving in the rain and really need to work on it, but I can’t take the keys. I’ve only had my license for a month, and while I like being behind the wheel, I try to avoid it when I’m with Dad. He makes me too nervous and I always screw up, like missing our exit or cutting someone off. Even Mom says the minivan has terrible blind spots, but Dad says we’re just not using the mirrors correctly.
“Why don’t I drive?” my sister says, and Mom shoots her a look. My sister’s name is Samantha, but she insists we call her Sam. She’s tougher than any of the jocks at my high school and she’s only in seventh grade. I’ve seen her choke out boys twice her size.
“Come on, Deb,” Dad says. “We’re going to be here all night.”
Mom doesn’t look at him, just jingles the keys at me like I’m some unmotivated dog. “What do you say, David? Do you want to drive now or once we get off the freeway?”
“Don’t give him options,” Dad says. “If there was a flood, the boy’d drown picking out sneakers.”
“He would not!” Mom snaps.
But the truth is, I probably would drown. I only have two pairs of sneakers, but I spend an exhausting amount of time choosing which ones to wear. The inside backs of my blue high-tops are so worn the plastic cuts into my heels. When I peel off my socks, I just re-open the scabs. My green runners are comfy and light, but they make me think too much about my brother, Tim. He gave them to me when I was thinking about joining the track team. He’d broken every record at our high school as a freshman. College recruiters came to every meet. One told Mom that Tim would end up on a box of cereal.
But that was before he started hanging out with Bill Parker. Tim got arrested for stealing a car with Bill. Then he got expelled after breaking a teacher’s nose. My parents took him to a psychologist and even our priest, but Tim couldn’t stay out of trouble. It got so bad Mom sent him to live with my grandparents for the summer. That was two years ago, the last time any of us saw him alive.
“He doesn’t want to drive,” Dad says. “Just give me the keys.”
Mom sighs and hands them over. We all climb in. I keep thinking about Tim. Yesterday was the anniversary of his death. There were search-and-rescue teams and blood-sniffing dogs. The body they found didn’t have a face, like it’d been clawed off. The cops said it was probably a coyote or bear.
Sam said it must have taken a whole pack of bears to bring down Tim. She wanted to go looking for the one Tim must have killed. She said we could mount it in our basement.
“Everyone buckled up?” Mom asks. She tries to fasten hers, but it won’t click. She jams it down a few times to finally lock it in.
My father pulls out of the lot and onto the road. I put my cheek against the freezing window and stare at the city lights. When we moved to Florida, I expected it to be hot and sticky all the time, but nights by the water, even during the summer, are some of the coldest I’ve felt. It’s like someone sliding icicles right into your bones.
Mom turns the heat all the way up. Within minutes the minivan is a sauna. Sam’s letting a couple of pet ants crawl around her hand. She collected a bunch yesterday at the cemetery. Sam and I went alone because Mom and Dad never want to go. Sam stole some flowers from another grave and put them on Tim’s headstone. We stood there and I kept trying to picture Tim’s face, the one he had before whatever it was tore it off, but I couldn’t. I only saw this fuzzy, tanned blob on his shoulders.
I wonder how long it’s going to take for me to forget his voice or the time he let me play hooky and snuck me into an R-rated movie.
Sam opens the sugar packets she stole from the diner and feeds it to the ants in her palm. She whispers something about how the sacrifice will bring in a good harvest.
Tim taught her how to use the magnifying glass to send the little creatures to their flaming death. I just hope Sam doesn’t set the yard on fire like last summer.
Sometimes I feel Tim never really left, just entered Sam’s body. Thinking about it makes me jealous. They’re just so much alike. Tim never had a problem making decisions. A lot of them were wrong, at least according to my parents and the cops, but he never panicked. When he saw something he wanted to do, he did it. Grandpa Joe was supposed to break him of that, that was the plan, but I knew Tim would never let that happen. When he stole the car, the cops chased him for almost an hour. The only reason they caught him was he ran out of gas.
“I’m hot,” Sam says.
“Well, take off your jacket, honey,” Mom says.
Sam is yanking off her puffy black coat when she suddenly starts looking down at the floor. She’s clearly lost an ant, and I know I’m going to wake up tonight with it crawling around my bed. I can already feel it jittering into my ear and giving birth in my brain.
Dad takes the turnpike to the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. It’s all lit up; a hundred cables bathed in yellow-green light. Each one stretches to the top of the two towering pillars, creating alien-looking sails rising above the water.
In the rearview mirror, I see sweat beads rolling around my father’s forehead. “Take the wheel,” he tells Mom.
“What?”
“I need to take my jacket off.”
“I’ll just turn down the heat.”
“No, I’m hot now.”
“Let’s at least get across the bridge.”
Dad forces her hand to the wheel and starts jerking back and forth to get his arm out of the sleeve. Mom’s hand is gripping the wheel so hard it’s like she’s trying to squeeze juice out of the thing. Her arm’s shaking and it’s causing the minivan to wobble.
“Tom, please, you know I hate this.”
Dad keeps grunting and shuffling. His whole body turns to the left and the engine revs. The cables of the bridge start passing by so fast I can’t even see the spaces between them.
“Tom!”
“My…foot’s…stuck.”
And so are his arms, both trapped in his jacket.
Mom tries to gain control, but we end up swerving. A car honks. Dad’s foot must be pressed to the floor because we’re going faster and faster.
I look over at Sam who’s grinning like a devil.
“The brakes. Brakes!” Mom screams.
“What do you think I’m…” Dad trails off and the tires skid. We’re thrown forward, but we’re not stopping. The bridge must be too wet. The sound of rubber scraping against pavement is almost as loud as Mom’s shrieking. The blast of horns follows. More screeching. Headlights shine through the windshield then sweep out as cars swerve to avoid us. I see the railing of the bridge. It’s getting close. Maybe ten feet. Five. Nothing but dark sky beyond the metal bars. The van pops up on the curb. We slam into the railing. It’s creaking and I can’t open my eyes. I know we’re heading over.
Mom just keeps repeating, “Oh my God…Oh my God…”
I clench my fists so tight it feels like I’m going to snap my wrists.
But the creaking starts to fade. I hear my parents’ breathing.
Sam starts laughing. “Way to go, Dad.”
Soon, everyone’s laughing. We’re not dead. It was just a wreck. The minivan’s totaled, but it needed to go anyway. Mom’s been saying that for months. The airbags didn’t even pop out.
Dad unbuckles himself and turns towards us in the backseat.
“Everyone all right?”
“Yeah,” Sam says. “But I think my ants spilled.”
Any other time, Mom would be freaking out, saying something about Sam knowing better than to take them out of their tank. But all Mom’s doing is looking at me in the rearview, her voice even more delicate than usual
when she asks, “How about you? You okay?”
Dad’s laugh is a little shaky. “They’re fine. No blood, no foul.”
Suddenly, the van’s filled with light. It’s so bright I can’t even turn to see where it’s coming from. Dad’s eyes double in size. The blaring horn says it’s a semi. Eighteen wheels sliding, skidding right into our back bumper.
The railing cracks and everything sounds muffled – the screams, the metal bars clanging off the sides of the van as we plummet down, down…
Dad’s arms are locked against the wheel as if he could actually stop this. We’re falling for so long I start to think we’ll never land, that we’ll just fall right through the planet and float out into space.
But we hit the water and my hands fly up to the roof. Sam’s hair is sticking straight up. We must be upside down.
Dad’s body crashes up on the dash and his head bangs the windshield. Blood seeps into the cracks spidering out through the glass. It’s spreading fast.
Everything gets dark and cold and I know we’re completely underwater. The water is leaking around the doors.
Sam must have unbuckled herself because she’s suddenly on the ceiling crawling towards Mom. We’re still upside down. Mom is trying to free herself, but her seatbelt won’t unlock. Sam tries to help her. Their hands keep slapping and pressing, but it won’t unbuckle.
Water sprays in through the windshield. It’s going to burst any second. Mom sees it and frantically jerks at the buckle. But it won’t budge. Finally she gives up, grabs Sam’s face.
“You two have to go, honey.”
Sam’s little fingers keep pressing the button. “No, I can get it.”
“Samantha, stop! Look at me.”
I’ve never heard Sam cry like this before, and I realize I’m crying, too.
“I’m not leaving,” Sam says.
“It’s going to be okay. I’ll get your father. But you both have to swim.”
Sam screams, “David, help!”
I push my button, and for a second, I think I’m trapped just like Mom, but then I hear the click and my whole body thwaps against the ceiling. I crawl over to help, but it’s really stuck.
“David, stop!”
I don’t want to look at her.
“You need to take care of your sister. You swim out after the glass breaks.”
My fingers are still pressing the button. Mom takes my face in her hands.
“Promise me you’ll always protect her.”
I want to tell her to be quiet, that we have to keep trying, but the sound of splintering glass fills the van. Water is going to come like an avalanche. Mom yells at us to get behind the seats, but I don’t want to move. I don’t want any of this.
*****
Continue to try and free Mom. Turn to page 43.
Pull Sam behind the seats. Turn to page 90.
