I hit the brakes, but it was hopeless, of course. Everything seemed to happen at once. There was a horrible squealing noise, and I remember getting a brief glimpse of the kid’s terrified face just before the two cars made impact. Then came the shock of the crash.
The Jag hit the Edsel broadside, smashing into the driver’s compartment at seventy. Then it spun away into the guard rail, and came to a stop. The Edsel, hit straight on, flipped over on its back in the center of the road. I don’t recall unfastening my seat belt or scrambling out of my car, but I must have done so, because the next thing I remember I was crawling on the roadway, dazed but unhurt.
I should have tried to do something right away, to answer the cries for help that were coming from the Edsel. But I didn’t. I was still shaken, in shock. I don’t know how long I lay there before the Edsel exploded and began to burn. The cries suddenly became screams. And then there were no cries.
By the time I climbed to my feet, the fire had burned itself out, and it was too late to do anything. But I still wasn’t thinking very clearly. I could see lights in the distance, down the road that led from the exit ramp. I began to walk towards them.
That walk seemed to take forever. I couldn’t seem to get my bearings, and I kept stumbling. The road was very poorly lighted, and I could hardly see where I was going. My hands were scraped badly once when I fell down. It was the only injury I suffered in the entire accident.
The lights were from a small café, a dingy place that had marked off a section of the abandoned highway as its airlot. There were only three customers inside when I stumbled through the door, but one of them was a local cop.
“There’s been an accident,” I said from the doorway. “Somebody’s got to help them.”
The cop drained his coffee cup in a gulp, and rose from his chair. “A copter crash, mister?” he said. “Where is it?”
I shook my head. “N-no. No. Cars. A crash, a highway accident. Out on the old interstate.” I pointed vaguely in the direction I had come.
Halfway across the room, the cop stopped suddenly and frowned. Everybody else laughed. “Hell, no one’s used that road in twenty years, you sot,” a fat man yelled from the corner of the room. “It’s got so many potholes we use it for a golf course,” he added, laughing loudly at his own joke.
The cop looked at me doubtfully. “Go home and sober up, mister,” he said. “I don’t want to have to run you in.” He started back towards his chair.
I took a step into the room. “Dammit, I’m telling the truth,” I said, angry now more than dazed. “And I’m not drunk. There’s been a collision on the interstate, and there’s people trapped up there in….” My voice trailed off as it finally struck me that any help I could bring would be far too late.
The cop still looked dubious. “Maybe you ought to go check it out,” the waitress suggested from behind the counter. “He might be telling the truth. There was a highway accident last year, in Ohio somewhere. I remember seeing a story about it on 3V.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” the cop said at last. “Let’s go, buddy. And you better be telling the truth.”
We walked across the airlot in silence, and climbed into the four-man police copter. As he started up the blades, the cop looked at me and said, “You know, if you’re on the level, you and that other guy should get some kind of medal.”
I stared at him blankly.
“What I mean is, you’re probably the only two cars to use that road in ten years. And you still manage to collide. Now, that had to take some doing, didn’t it?” He shook his head ruefully. “Not everybody could pull off a stunt like that. Like I said, they ought to give you a medal.”
The interstate wasn’t nearly as far from the café as it had seemed when I was walking. Once airborne, we covered the distance in less than five minutes. But there was something wrong. The highway looked somehow different from the air.
And suddenly I realized why. It was darker. Much darker.
Most of the lights were out, and those that weren’t were dim and flickering.
As I sat there stunned, the copter came down with a thud in the middle of a pool of sickly yellow light thrown out by one of the fading lamps. I climbed out in a daze, and tripped as I accidentally stepped into one of the potholes that pockmarked the road. There was a big clump of weeds growing in the bottom of this one, and a lot more rooted in the jagged network of cracks that ran across the highway.
My head was starting to pound. This didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. I didn’t know what the hell was going on.
The cop came around from the other side of the copter, a portable med sensor slung over one shoulder on a leather strap. “Let’s move it,” he said. “Where’s this accident of yours?”
“Down the road, I think,” I mumbled, unsure of myself. There was no sign of my car, and I was beginning to think we might be on the wrong road altogether, although I didn’t see how that could be.
It was the right road, though. We found my car a few minutes later, sitting by the guard rail on a pitch black section of highway where all the lights had burnt out. Yes, we found my car all right.
Only there wasn’t a scratch on it. And there was no Edsel.
I remembered the Jaguar as I had left it. The windshield shattered. The entire front of the car in ruins. The right fender smashed up where it had scraped along the guard rail. And here it was, in mint condition.
The cop, scowling, played the med sensor over me as I stood there staring at my car. “Well, you’re not drunk,” he said at last, looking up. “So I’m not going to run you in, even though I should. Here’s what you’re going to do, mister—you’re going to get in that relic, and turn around, and get out of here as fast as you can. ’Cause if I ever see you around here again, you might have a real accident. Understand?”
I wanted to protest, but I couldn’t find the words. What could I say that would possibly make sense? Instead, I nodded weakly. The cop turned with disgust, muttering something about practical jokes, and stalked back to his copter.
When he was gone, I walked up to the Jaguar and felt the front of it incredulously, feeling like a fool. But it was real. And when I climbed in and turned the key in the ignition, the engine rumbled reassuringly, and the headlights speared out into the darkness. I sat there for a long time before I finally swung the car out into the middle of the road, and made a U-turn.
The drive back to San Breta was long and rough. I was constantly bouncing in and out of potholes. And thanks to the poor lighting and the treacherous road conditions, I had to keep my speed at a minimum.
The road was lousy. There was no doubt about that. Usually I went out of my way to avoid roads that were this bad. There was too much chance of blowing a tire.
I managed to make it to San Breta without incident, taking it slow and easy. It was two A.M. before I pulled into town. The exit ramp, like the rest of the road, was cracked and darkened. And there was no sign to mark it.
I recalled from previous trips through the area that San Breta boasted a large hobbyist garage and gas depot, so I headed there and checked my car with a bored young night attendant. Then I went straight to the nearest motel. A night’s sleep, I thought, would make everything make sense.
But it didn’t. I was every bit as confused when I woke up in the morning. More so, even. Now something in the back of my head kept telling me the whole thing had been a bad dream. I swatted down that tempting thought out of hand, and tried to puzzle it out.
I kept puzzling through a shower and breakfast, and the short walk back to the gas depot. But I wasn’t making any progress. Either my mind had been playing tricks on me, or something mighty funny had been going on last night. I didn’t want to believe the former, so I made up my mind to investigate the latter.
The owner, a spry old man in his eighties, was on duty at the gas depot when I returned. He was wearing an old-fashioned mechanic’s coverall, a quaint touch. He nodded amiably when I checked out the Jaguar.