Page 41 of 59 Minutes
FRANKIE
Frankie’s whole head whoomp-whoomps like a siren. Everything is on backwards and in the wrong place. She is rag-dolled.
The engine in the crashed truck has cut out, the radio is off, and cold air screams in through the hole in the windscreen.
The metal nose of the truck, so solid and threatening, is now concertinaed, folded up as if pinched by a giant hand.
The tree is right there, its rough bark a fingertip away from the front of the cab, like it’s trying to get inside.
A halo around the truck flashes orange, on and off, on and off, illuminating the road and hedgerow.
Hazard lights, she thinks. Her mind allowing only bare essential realisations to form. One at a time, pearls on a string.
Frankie is sitting bolt upright, held in place by a seat belt. She feels idiotic in this pose, grotesque, while all around her bodies slump and contort. Her chest and abdomen hurt like she’s winded.
Oh god, the baby, the poppy seed. And Otis. And the fucking missile.
The girl is also sitting upright now, her breath fast, her eyes screwed shut and her hand still gripping one of Frankie’s fingers. ‘Keep your eyes closed, alright? I’ll help you out,’ Frankie says, looking at the mess of a man next to her. ‘Just … just keep your eyes properly closed.’
The girl whimpers but does as instructed.
Sandy is slumped next to Frankie in a shape that a human body should not be capable of forming.
She knows where Jimmy went – the hole in the windscreen tells that story.
The driver, Ashley, is still in situ, a fat airbag between him and the steering wheel, stinking of burned rubber.
Deep dark blood gushes down the side of his head where his brother must have hit him on his journey out through the windscreen.
Now Ashley lolls slowly to the side, his body settling against the door in a drunken slump.
Frankie fumbles for the seat belt buckle and disentangles herself and then reaches over Sandy for the door handle.
His back is bent over, his face hidden. She reaches down to his drooping neck like she’s only seen people do on screen.
His skin is warm but there’s no pulse. She looks at his bent back, no breaths in or out. He is undeniably dead.
‘Oh fuck, oh fuck!’
‘What?’ says the girl.
‘Just keep ’em closed, I’ll come and get you out.’
She grips the door handle and shoves. It doesn’t swing open properly, wedged against something outside, but she has enough space to push Sandy through.
He slithers to the tarmac, leaving a trail of blood and fluids on the seat and carpet that she can’t bear to think about.
The air is thick with the smell of iron and piss.
As he lands, a ‘hmph’ sound bubbles from his mouth and she gasps.
‘Are you …’ she starts to say. But he is not alive, this is trapped air.
She can tell because a significant chunk of the front of his head is missing.
She climbs up onto her knees, losing her other boot in the process, and scrambles along the seat towards the open door, climbing down next to Sandy’s motionless body. She cannot catch her breath and her neck hurts but she is out in the cool air, no longer trapped.
Exhausted and in pain, she feels her way around the back of the truck to the other side and pulls open the door. Reaching inside, she unbuckles the girl – her eyes still screwed tightly shut – and helps her climb down.
‘Face this way,’ Frankie says, but the girl doesn’t seem to be listening, sagging on the spot like a marionette so Frankie manually turns her from the truck. ‘Now open your eyes.’
They both look at the road behind them. The mist is continuing to lift and a few metres away, half-eaten by the hedge is the blue Delphinium smear of Otis’s car.