Accident - A Novel Part 2

"I'm going to pull over after the bridge, if you don't. Put them on, please." But there was no sound of buckling-up from the backseat. In fact, there was a noticeable silence, and Allyson didn't want to turn around to look at them. So with an embarra.s.sed smile, she glanced at Phillip.

"What are you doing tomorrow night, Allyson?" he asked her.

"I ... I don't know ...I'm not allowed to go out on Sunday nights." It was time to be honest with him. She was no senior. She was fifteen years old, and she had to live by rules, whether or not she liked him. She had enjoyed tonight, but it was too nervous-making sneaking out and doing something she shouldn't. She liked the idea of his meeting her family, but she didn't want to sneak out to meet him again, no matter what Chloe decided to do about Jamie.

But Phillip didn't seem upset by what she'd said. He knew how old she was, but she was mature for her age, and she was a knockout. He had enjoyed her company, and he was willing to play by the rules in order to further their friendship. "I've got practice tomorrow afternoon, I thought maybe I could come by afterwards, if that's okay, and just hang out for a while ...meet your parents ...how does that sound?"

"Terrific." She beamed. "You really wouldn't mind doing that?" He shook his head, and glanced over at her with a look that made her heart melt. "I thought maybe ... I don't know ... I thought you'd think it was a pain in the neck to deal with all that."

"I knew what to expect when I asked you out tonight. I was surprised I didn't have to meet your parents. And then I figured you probably hadn't told them the truth. We can't go on doing that forever."

"No." She shook her head, relieved by his att.i.tude. "We can't ... or I guess I couldn't ...and if my parents found out, they'd kill me...."

"So will my mother when she finds out I took her car, if she does find out...."He grinned, looking like a kid himself. They both laughed. They'd been outrageous tonight, and they knew it, but they were all good kids. They didn't mean any harm, it was all in good fun, and high spirits.

They were more than halfway across the bridge by then, and Jamie and Chloe were whispering softly in the backseat, their murmurings dotted by an occasional silence. Phillip had pulled Allyson closer to him, as close as he could within the confines of her seat belt. She had loosened it, and started to take it off, but he wouldn't let her. He took his eyes from the road then, for just a single instant, looked at her long and hard, and then as he glanced back at the road, he saw it. But too late. It was only a flash of light, a bolt of lightning hurtling toward them, almost in their faces by then. Allyson was looking at him when it hit, and in the backseat they never saw it. It was an arc of light, a crash of thunder, a mountain of steel, an explosion of gla.s.s everywhere as it hit them. It was the end of the world in a single moment, as the two cars met and crashed and twirled furiously around each other like two enraged bulls, as everywhere around them cars swerved not to hit them, horns, shrieks, the sound of an explosion, and then suddenly silence.

There was gla.s.s everywhere, iron wrapped around steel, there was a long scream in the night, horns honking in the distance, and at last the long slow wail of a siren. And then, slowly at first, and suddenly faster, people ran from their cars, and rushed toward the two cars, locked together, seemingly in death, frozen together in a rictus of horror, one tangled ball of steel ...one ma.s.s ... as people ran to help them, and the sirens wailed closer. It was impossible to believe that anyone had survived it.

CHAPTER 3.

Two men were the first to approach what was left of the old gray Mercedes. It was apparent by then that a black Lincoln had hit them head-on. The engine was crushed, and the two cars seemed to have merged into one. Except for the color, it was almost impossible to distinguish between them. A woman was wandering nearby, murmuring to herself and whimpering, but she appeared unharmed, and two other motorists went to her, as the two men peered into the gray Mercedes. One man had brought a flashlight with him and was wearing rough clothes, the other one was a young man in jeans, and had already said he was a doctor.

"Do you see anything?" the man with the flashlight asked, feeling his whole body shake as he looked inside the Mercedes. He had seen a lot of things, but never anything like this. He had almost hit another car as he swerved to avoid them. There was traffic stopped everywhere, in all lanes, and no one was moving across the bridge now.

It was dark in the car at first, in spite of the lights overhead, everything was so crushed and so condensed that it was hard to see who was in it. And then, they saw him. His face was covered with blood, his whole body compressed into an impossible s.p.a.ce, the back of his head crushed against the door, his neck at an awful angle. It was obvious instantly that he was dead, although the doctor searched for a pulse, and couldn't find one.

"The driver's dead," the doctor said quietly to the other man, who shone his flashlight into the backseat, and found himself staring into a young man's eyes. He was conscious and seemed alert, but he said not a word as he stared at the man with the flashlight.

"Are you all right?" he asked as Jamie Apple-gate nodded. There was a cut over one eye, and he had hit his forehead on something, possibly Phillip. He looked dazed, but he seemed otherwise unhurt, which was nothing less than amazing.

The man with the flashlight tried to open the door for him, but everything was so jammed that he couldn't.

"The highway patrol will be here in a minute, son." He spoke calmly, and Jamie nodded again. He seemed unable to speak, and it was obvious that he was in shock. He just went on staring at the two men, and the man with the flashlight felt sure that at the very least, the boy had a concussion.

The doctor moved back to look at Jamie through the open window, and offer what encouragement he could, when they heard a deep groan from the backseat, next to him, and then a sharp cry that became a scream. It was Chloe. Jamie turned to stare at her as though unable to understand how she had gotten there beside him.

The doctor ran around the car as quickly as he could, and the man with the flashlight tried to shine the light on her from where he stood on Jamie's side, and then all at once they saw her. She had been crushed between the front and back seats, the entire front seat had been shoved back by the force and ma.s.s of the Lincoln, and she seemed to have the seat jammed into her lap. They couldn't see her legs, and she began sobbing hysterically, telling them she couldn't move, and screaming that it ithurt, as they tried to calm her. Jamie continued to stare at her, looking confused, and then he said something vague to Phillip.

"Hang in there," the man with the flashlight said to both of them. "Help's on the way." They could all hear the wail of the sirens approaching, but her screams seemed even more piercing.

"I can't move ... I can't ... I can't breathe ..." She was panting and out of breath, hyperventilating in her panic, as the young doctor quietly took charge of her, and talked to her very calmly.

"You're all right ...you're fine ...we're going to get you out of here in a minute ...now, try to breathe slowly ... here ...hold my hand ..."He reached in and took her hand in his own, and he saw that there was blood on her hands where she had touched her legs, but in spite of the flashlight he couldn't see what had happened. The best news was that she was conscious and talking to him. No matter how damaged her legs were, she was alive, and there was every reason to hope she would make it.

The man with the flashlight left them for an instant then. He had just seen that there was an unconscious girl in the front seat. At first she had been almost invisible, she was lying so far down on the seat, and there was so much metal pressed against her. But they had suddenly noticed her face and her hair, as they tried to examine Chloe. The doctor kept busy talking to Chloe as she sobbed, while the man with the flashlight tried to pull open the front pa.s.senger door to free the girl lying under the dashboard. But to no avail. The door was bent beyond hope of opening it, and the young girl on the front seat never moved as he reached in through the broken gla.s.s of the window and tried to touch her. He said something in an undervoice to the doctor who, glancing at her, said he suspected that she was dead like the driver. But a moment later, he checked, leaving the other man to continue talking to Chloe. He was surprised to find a pulse when he touched her neck, it was thin and thready, and he could detect almost no breath at all. Her entire head and face were covered with blood, her hair matted with it, the sweater she had worn was a deep red, she had cuts everywhere and had clearly sustained a major head injury in the collision. She was barely alive, hanging on by the merest thread, and he thought it unlikely she would live long enough for them to save her. There was nothing he could do for her, and even if her breathing stopped or her pulse, he couldn't have administered CPR. She was positioned too awkwardly, and was obviously much too badly damaged. All he could do was stand there and keep an eye on her, feeling helpless. From what he could see, both of the young people in the front seat were a loss. Only the two in the back had been extremely lucky.

"Christ, they're taking forever, aren't they?" the man with the flashlight said under his breath, looking at the carnage in the car. With the flashlight, they could see more clearly how much blood had been lost. Both of the girls seemed to be bleeding profusely.

"It just feels that way," the doctor said softly. He had ridden an ambulance as part of his residency in New York ten years before, and he had seen a lot of ugly things, on the highways, in the streets, and in the ghettos. He had delivered his share of babies in back hallways too, but he had seen more scenes like this one, and frequently with no survivors. "They'll be here in a minute."

The other man was sweating profusely and Chloe's screams were getting to him. And he was afraid to look at Allyson's face, she was in such bad shape. He wasn't even sure she had a face left.

And then, finally, they came. Two fire engines, an ambulance, and three police cars. Several people had called from their car phones and reported how bad the accident was, others had approached the two cars cautiously, and learned that there were four pa.s.sengers in the smaller car, two of them badly injured. The driver of the other car had been miraculously untouched except for a few scratches and bruises, and she was sobbing hysterically by the side of the road, in the arms of a stranger.

Three of the firemen and two cops approached the car simultaneously, along with both paramedics. The other policemen tried to take charge of the traffic, directing it slowly around the two cars, and getting it moving in one direction. Their own vehicles had added to the confusion and the roadblock, and the single file of cars heading north barely crawled past the two cars and the emergency vehicles, as people stared at the carnage.

"What have we got?" The highway patrolman glanced in first, and shook his head when he looked at Phillip.

"He's gone," the doctor was quick to explain, and the first of the paramedics confirmed it. Over. One life. Finished in a single moment. No matter how young he had been, or how bright, or how kind, or how much his parents loved him. He was dead, with no reason, no plan, no purpose. Phillip Chapman was dead at seventeen, on a balmy Sat.u.r.day night in April.

"We can't get any of the doors open," the doctor explained, "the girl in the backseat is trapped, I think she's got some pretty severe injuries to her lower extremities. He's okay." He motioned to Jamie still staring at them in confusion. "He's in shock, and we need to get him to the hospital right away to check him out. But I think he's probably going to be all right. Maybe a concussion."

The paramedics had reached in to touch A1lyson by then, as the firemen ran to call for the Jaws of Life and a five-man team to free them. "What about the girl in the front seat, Doc?"

"She doesn't look like she's going to make it." He had continued to check her pulse, she was still alive, but she was losing ground rapidly, and until the heavy equipment came, there was nothing they could do to free her. The paramedics were moving quickly to start an IV on her anyway, and one of them gently strapped a small sandbag under her head to keep her from damaging it further. "She's got an obvious head injury," the doctor exclaimed, "and G.o.d knows what else in there." She was totally engulfed by the ma.s.s of steel, most of her body was inaccessible to them, and all of it looked as though it might be broken. More than ever, it seemed unlikely that she would make it.

Chloe began screaming more alarmingly just then, and it was difficult to know if she had listened to what they said about her friends, or was simply in more pain. It was impossible to reason with her. Most of the time, she seemed completely oblivious to where she was, she just kept screaming about her legs, and she said her back hurt. As awful as it was, the medical team thought it was encouraging that she still had feeling. Too many of the accidents they saw involved people who seemed to experience almost no pain, mostly because their spinal cords had been severed.

"Okay, sweetheart, we're gonna get you out of here in a minute. You just hang on. We're gonna get you home in just a little minute." The fireman almost crooned to her, as the highway patrol managed to pry Phillip's door open with a crowbar, while carefully opening the broken window with a blanket. They pulled his body gently from the car, and one of the firemen a.s.sisted in putting his body on a gurney. They covered him immediately with a drape, and rolled his body slowly toward the ambulance. Shocked motorists looked on, and some people cried as they realized he had been killed in the car crash. Shocked tears of grief for a total stranger.

The open door allowed the doctor to slip in next to Allyson, and get a better fix on her condition, but it wasn't good. She was breathing even more irregularly by then, and the paramedics quickly put an airway through her mouth, and then attached a bag to it with an oxygen tube extending from it. The doctor knew they were "bagging," as it was called, to help her breathe, and he knew, as they did, that the IV and the oxygen could only help her. Her arms were too lacerated to even allow them to get a blood pressure cuff on her, but the doctor didn't need it. He could see what was happening to her. She was dying in their hands, and if they didn't free her soon, she would be gone just like Phillip. She might not make it anyway, but even covered with blood, it was easy to see how young she was, and he wanted her to make it.

"Come on, little girl ...come on ...don't you quit on me now ..." It almost sounded like praying, as he turned and snapped at the paramedic. "Come on, more oxygen." They all watched tensely as the paramedics gave it to her and a moment later they added something to her IV. But they were clutching at straws, and they all knew it. If they didn't get her to the hospital soon, she just wasn't going to make it.

And then, finally, the Jaws of Life rumbled up, and the five-man crew leapt out and came running. They a.s.sessed the situation within milliseconds, had a brief consultation with the people on the scene, and then moved swiftly into action.

Chloe was starting to lose consciousness by then, and one of the firemen was giving her oxygen through the open window. It was Allyson who had to be freed first, Allyson who was almost dead, who had no hope at all unless they could pry her from the car in minutes, maybe seconds. No matter how great Chloe's distress, she had to wait. She was not in as great danger. And they couldn't move her anyway until the front seat was removed, and Allyson with it.

While one man stabilized the vehicle with wedges and chocks so that nothing more would move, a second man on the team deflated the tires, and two others moved with lightning speed to remove the remaining gla.s.s from all the windows. The fifth conferred with the patrolmen and paramedics on the scene, and then rapidly joined his partner, to help remove the rear window. The young people within had all gently been covered by tarps, so that no random piece of falling gla.s.s would hurt them. The windshield took two of them to remove, with one man using a flathead ax around the edges. Eventually, the windshield came away, and they actually folded it almost like a blanket. They slid it swiftly under the car with practiced hands, moving like a highly practiced ballet team. Two others removed the rear window. Only slightly more than a minute had pa.s.sed since they'd arrived on the scene, and the doctor watched them, thinking that if Allyson survived at all it would be thanks to them and their speedy, almost surgical reactions.

With a tarp still covering Allyson, one of the rescuers moved inside, removed the keys and cut the seat belts. And then, as one group, they began flapping the roof, using a hydraulic cutter, and hand hacksaws. The noise was terrifying, and Jamie whimpered piteously, as Chloe began to scream again. But Allyson never stirred, and the paramedics continued pumping oxygen into her through the air tube.

Within moments, they pulled the roof off the car, drilled a hole in the door, and inserted the Jaws of Life in the door to force it open. The machine itself weighed close to a hundred pounds and took two men to hold, and made a sound as loud as a jackhammer. Jamie was crying openly by now, and the noise of the spreader was so intense that it even drowned out Chloe's screaming. Only Allyson was oblivious to all they were going through, and one of the paramedics was lying next to her on the driver's side, keeping track of the IV and her air tube, and making sure she was still breathing. She was, but barely.

They removed the door entirely, and then moved swiftly to work pulling away the dashboard and the steering. They used nine-foot chains and a giant hook to pull it away, and before it was even fully freed, the paramedics had slipped a backboard under Allyson to immobilize her further. But as they did, the entire car was open to the night air, the front end gone, the roof open, the doors off, and Allyson could finally be moved now. And they could see, as the paramedics bent over her, how acute her wounds were. She looked as though she'd received blows at the front of her head, and the side as well. Her head must have bounced around like a marble when the car hit her. And her seat belt had been so loose, it was almost as though she hadn't worn one.

But all their manpower was concentrated now on moving her, ever so gently, to the gurney. Speed was of the essence, and yet every movement had to be infinitely delicate and carefully planned, or they might do her further cervical or spinal damage. She was barely clinging to life as the head of the paramedic team shouted "Go!" and they ran as smoothly as they could to the waiting ambulance with the gurney. Two more ambulances had arrived on the scene by then, and the newly arrived paramedics turned their attention to Chloe and Jamie. It was exactly midnight as the ambulance sped off the bridge with Phillip's body, Allyson, and the young doctor. One of the highway patrolmen had said he'd bring his car to Marin General to him. The doctor didn't feel comfortable letting her go to the hospital with only the paramedics, although he felt that what he could do for her was minimal. She needed a neurosurgeon immediately, but he wanted to be there in the meantime. He still didn't think she'd live. But she might. And if there was any chance at all, he wanted to help her.

More patrol cars had arrived by then, a fourth ambulance and two more fire trucks. The traffic was still moving single file into Marin, and the bridge was still closed from Marin County into San Francisco, and the traffic looked as though it was backed up to forever.

"How is she?" one of the firemen asked, referring to Chloe, as the paramedics waited for the rescue team to free her. She was bleeding profusely from both legs and hysterical. They had an IV going on her by then and she had fainted several times when they tried to move her.

"She's in and out of consciousness," one of the paramedics explained. "We'll have her out in a minute." They had to rip away the seat in order to get her, and it was blocked in from every angle. The machines they used literally tore it to shreds, and disposed of it on the pavement, and ten minutes later, Chloe's legs were exposed, crushed, broken, she had compound fractures of both legs, with the bones protruding. And as they lifted her from the car as carefully as they could, on a backboard, she finally lost consciousness completely.

The second ambulance sped off with its sirens screaming in the night, just as the firemen helped Jamie from the car. He was free now, and as they pulled him out of it, he sobbed and clung to the firemen like a small child in total panic.

"It's all right, son ...it's all right ..." He had seen a lot, and he was still confused and dazed. He still couldn't understand what had happened. They put him gently in the last ambulance, and he was taken to Marin General like the others, just as the news truck arrived. They were late getting to the scene this time, but the bridge had been blocked solid.

"Christ, I hate nights like this," one fireman said to another. "Makes you never want to let your kids out of the house again, doesn't it?" They both shook their heads, as the extraction team continued to attempt to untangle the ma.s.s of steel sufficiently so that both cars could be towed off the bridge, as the TV cameraman filmed it.

They were all amazed that the Mercedes had been so completely destroyed. But it was old and it must have collided with the Lincoln at an odd angle. If it hadn't been a Mercedes, of whatever age, they would probably all have been dead, and not just Phillip.

The other driver was still sitting dazed by the roadside by then, leaning on a stranger. She was wearing a black dress and white coat. And she looked disheveled, but there were no bloodstains on her. Even the white coat was still clean, which seemed incredible, given the condition of the young people in the Mercedes.

"Isn't she going to the hospital?" one of the firemen asked a highway patrolman.

"She says she's okay. There are no apparent injuries. She was d.a.m.n lucky. But she's pretty shook up. She feels terrible about the boy. We're going to run her home in a minute."

The fireman nodded, glancing at her. She was an attractive, expensively dressed woman in her early forties. Two women were still standing next to her, and someone had brought her some bottled water. She was crying softly into a handkerchief and shaking her head, unable to believe what had happened.

"Any idea what did happen?" a reporter asked a fireman, but he only shrugged in answer. He had no fondness for the media, or their ghoulish interest in other people's disasters. It was clear enough what had happened here. A life had been lost, maybe two by then, if Allyson hadn't made it. What did they want to know? Why? How? What did it really matter? The results were unalterable, no matter whose fault the accident had been.

"We're still not sure," the fireman said non-committally, and then a few minutes later to one of his colleagues, "It looks like they both may have drifted over the center line just enough to create a disaster." One of the highway patrolmen had just explained it to him. "You look away for a minute ...She was further over the line than they were in the end, but she says she wasn't. And there's no reason to disbelieve her. She's Laura Hutchinson," he said, sounding impressed, as the second fireman raised his eyebrows.

"As in Senator John Hutchinson?"

"You got it."

"s.h.i.t. Imagine if she'd been killed." But it was no better that one or two kids were. "You think the kids were drunk or on drugs?"

"Who knows? They'll check it out at the hospital. Could be. Or it could just be one of those flukes where you never figure out who did what to who. It's not real clear-cut from the position of the cars, and there isn't a h.e.l.l of a lot left." What there was, was being hacked into pieces so it could be removed. And they were starting to hose down the oil and debris, and the blood that had spattered on the pavement.

It would be another hour or two before bridge traffic could resume, and even then there would be only one lane open in each direction until the early morning, when the last of the wreckage was towed away to be examined.

The camera crews were getting ready to leave by then. There was nothing left to see, and the Senator's wife had refused to comment on the other driver's death. The highway patrol had protected her from them very discreetly.

It was twelve-thirty when they finally took her home to her house on Clay Street in San Francisco. Her husband was in Washington, D.C., and she had gone to a party in Belvedere. Her children were asleep in bed, and the housekeeper opened the door to them and began to cry when she saw Mrs. Hutchinson's disheveled state and heard the story.

Laura Hutchinson thanked them profusely, insisted that she didn't need to go to the hospital, and would see her own doctor the next morning, if there was any need for it. And she made them promise that they would call her to tell her of the other young people's condition.

She already knew that the young driver was dead, but they hadn't yet told her that Allyson would probably not survive until morning. The highway patrolmen felt sorry for her, she was so distraught, so frightened, so desperately upset by what had happened. She had cried terribly when she saw Phillip's body covered with the drape and removed. She had three children of her own, and the thought of these young people dying in an accident was almost more than she could bear to think of.

The patrolman who brought her home suggested that she take a tranquilizer that night, to calm her nerves, if she had any in the house, or at least have a strong drink. She looked as though she needed it, and he was sure that the Senator wouldn't mind his suggestion.

"I haven't had a drink all night," she said nervously. "I never drink when I go out without my husband," she explained.

"I think it would do you good, ma'am. Would you like me to get you one now?"

She hesitated, but he could sense that she would, and he went to the bar and poured her a drink himself. A good strong drink of brandy. She made a terrible face as she drank it down, but she smiled at him once she did, and thanked him. They had been wonderful to her all night, and she a.s.sured them that the Senator would be very grateful to know how kind they had been to her.

"Not at all." He thanked her and left, and went to rejoin his partner outside, who inquired if he had thought to take her in to the hospital for an alcohol check, so they could rule that out in their investigation.

"For chrissake, Tom. The woman is a senator's wife, she's a nervous wreck over the accident, she saw a kid die, and she told me herself she hadn't had a drink all night. That's good enough for me." The other highway patrolman shrugged, his partner was probably right. She was a senator's wife, she wasn't going to hit the highway at eleven o'clock at night half crocked and hit a bunch of kids. No one could be that dumb, and she looked like a nice woman.

"I just poured her a brandy anyway, so it's too late now, if you wanted me to go back in and ask for it. The poor thing needed a stiff drink. I think it did her good."

"Might do me good too." The patrolman grinned. "Did you bring me one?"

"Shut up. Christ ...run an alcohol check ..." He laughed. "What else did you want me to do? Fingerprint her?"

"Sure. Why not. The Senator would have probably set us up for a commendation." The two men laughed and drove off into the night. It had already been a long night for them, and it was only one-thirty in the morning.

CHAPTER 4.

At eleven-fifty, Page was watching an old movie on TV, and she sat up in bed a little straighter. Allyson was twenty minutes late, and her mother was not amused. At midnight, she was even less so.

Andy was sleeping peacefully at her side, and Lizzie was asleep on the floor near the bed. Everything was quiet and tranquil in the house, except Page, who was getting madder by the minute. Allyson had promised to be home no later than eleven-thirty, which was half an hour later than Page wanted her home in the first place. And there was absolutely no excuse for her violating her curfew.

Page thought of calling the Th.o.r.ensen home, but she knew there was no point. If they were still at the movies, or out having ice cream somewhere, there would be no answer anyway. She figured they had probably gone out to eat somewhere after the movie, and Allyson obviously hadn't told Chloe's father that she had to be home by eleven-thirty.

By twelve-thirty, Page was enraged, and by one o'clock she was very worried. She was just deciding to abandon her reticence and call the Th.o.r.ensen home, when the phone rang at five after one. She a.s.sumed that it was Allyson asking if she could spend the night at Chloe's. Page was beyond livid by then, and would have liked to shake her daughter.

"No, you may not not was the way she answered. was the way she answered.

"h.e.l.lo?" The voice at the other end sounded confused, and Page sounded even more so. It wasn't Allyson at all, but a stranger. She couldn't even imagine who would call her at this hour, unless it was a mistake, or an obscene phone call.

"Is this the Clarke residence?"

"Yes? Who is this?" A sudden electric tingle of fear ran down her spine, and she ignored it.

"This is the highway patrol, Mrs. Clarke. This is Mrs. Clarke?"

"Yes." The word was a whisper, as sudden fear clutched her throat and held it.

"I'm sorry to tell you that your daughter has been in an accident."

"Oh my G.o.d." Her whole body came alive, and her mind was filled with terror. "Is she alive?"

"Yes, but she was unconscious on the way to Marin General. She was very seriously hurt." Oh G.o.d ... oh G.o.d ...what does "very seriously" mean? How bad is that? Is she okay? Will she live? How hurt is she?

"What happened?" It was a pathetic croak from deep in Page's throat.

"A head-on collision on the Golden Gate Bridge. They were hit by an oncoming southbound vehicle on their way into Marin County."

"Into Marin? From where? That can't be." She was willing to quibble about where Allyson had been, maybe if she won the argument, it would mean that she had never been there and nothing had happened to her after all.