Young Writers Society

On the side of a highway. The year is 1955. The time is midnight. Jerry MacLean is the only survivor of a car accedent involving a tractor trailer which has killed his entire family, including his three month old baby sister, Kaye.

The lights of broken circuts flashed and danced around him. His hand was bleeding, he could see the blood seeping through his skin, a scarlet black pool in the neon shadows. The highway was empty now. Above him, the sky was littered with tiny, silver stars which flikered in his far away vision. It had been an hour since he had pried the door open, almost two since the collision. The highway was a silent mile of deserted pavement. He was alone. Jerry felt another jolt of discontented pain in his back, his hands were shaking from the craked veins. Somewhere inside the mass of twisted metal, the bodies of his family lay still. They had left him. Alone in the dark.

All reason had left Jerry. He stumbled off into the darkness away from the reck and freeway.

Jerry sat on the side of the highway, forcing himself not to let his concience drift back to the oncoming headlights, the crunch of metal...the screams.
From his stomach down was covered in blood. He knew some it was his; a large splinter of glass had penetrated his abdomen, apparently just missing his vital organs, for he was still living after two hours. But he also knew that some of his blood was from Mom and Dad and...Kaye.
A slight breeze that blew weeds and sand around him in the Texas night consituted as the only movement Jerry had seen in hours. The flames still trickling from the wreckage roared as they were, for a short time, fed by the rush of incoming air. In this breeze, Jerry caught a whiff of the rancid odor of burning flesh and diesel fuel.
Jerry nursed his wounds and ignored the scents wafting from the wreckage and the memories thay conjured. He wrapped his blistered fingers around the fragment of windsheild imbeded in his abdomen. Merely touching it sent a white-hot shiver of pain through his body. Jerry decided not to remove it...yet. Help would arrive; he just didn't know when. Surley a rancher or somebody had seen the wreck. Maybe a plane had sighted him and was radioing for help this very instant. Another breeze kicked up, causing goose bunps to raise on Jerry's skin.
It would be a long night...

Suddenly, a bright beam of light flasked over him, blinding him.

he yelled and rolled off to one side, causing further pain in his abdomen, and, for some reason his heart. He knew it couldn't be physical pain, as he was still alive, but he could still wonder...

Moments later Jerry opened his eyes. As he looked up, he saw a dim light in the distance, and it was moving towards him.

The light came closer and closer until it was not far from him. Whatever it was it stopped. His first thoughts were to yell for help, but he knew he was not going to be able to because of the pain. He tried letting out a faint cry for help. He heard what sounded like a door opening and he thought finally help has arrived. To Jerry's dismay the car door closed and the lights began to move away from him. He tried to yell out one more time but was not able to. It was no use anyway the car was already on its way down the road.