Immobility

Chapter Five

It feels as though time has been slowed down, and the only thing I am aware of other than that is five-alarm panic. The red needle on the speedometer immediately begins to climb past fifty miles per hour, then sixty, and up to seventy. Although I have quite an enormous amount of speed within my grasp, it may not be enough to avoid becoming the point of impact of the collapsing roadside tree. As we reach seventy-five miles per hour, the Volkswagen Comfort Coupé seems to become a white bullet, streaking recklessly across the pavement spiderwebbed with shallow, slender fissures.

All of a sudden, the crashing sound of the tree smashing into the cracked pavement of the road less than a foot behind the Volkswagen resounds, proceeding to cleanse my system of the panic. I ease my foot off the gas pedal and slowly apply some pressure to the brake pedal. The needle on the speedometer falls below sixty, fifty, then forty. I slow us down to twenty-five miles per hour.

"Jesus . . . " Heather exhales breathlessly.

Rolling up the windows, I turn on the small air-conditioning unit and lower the collar of my T-shirt and hoodie as my paranoia slips away—if any deleterious chemicals or gases of any kind linger in the air, I doubt there are such concentrated amounts that damage will imminently be inflicted to my respiratory system if I am to inhale them. I tell Heather that we should be safe, and she exposes her mouth and nose to the cool air wafting from the small vents built into the dashboard.

Then, out of the blue, I begin to feel minimal vibrations, and I press my foot against the brake pedal, slightly too hard, and I lurch forward a little as the car abruptly comes to a stop. I look at Heather and immediately know that she is aware of the vibrations as well. The painful, dreadful realization comes to me as I begin to hear sickening cracking and crumbling sounds radiating from the pavement. Another deep chasm is about to yawn wide open, and if we don't speed away from there within the next few seconds, we will be swallowed up and sentenced to an imminent demise that will involve excruciating anguish and overwhelmingly powerful panic. I barely recognize this as an aftershock. They will keep happening for hours or even days, and the town might be ambushed by another fierce earthquake.

Absolutely thunderstruck, I have practically been rendered immobile, incapable of even trying to move. Just as the road commences to split open as the jaws of the chasm open wide like those of a megalodon, my rejuvenating panic snaps me to my senses, and almost instantaneously, I slam my foot against the gas pedal, pressing it against the floor as hard as I can; I am pressed back into the decorative leather of the seat as the car hurtles forward like a white torpedo. Immediately, the red needle on the speedometer begins to climb at an increasingly alarming rate. It exceeds fifty miles per hour, then sixty, and then seventy. I can hear the crumbling of chunks of pavement just scant feet behind me, and I know that the crevasse is forming with incredible speed, on the verge of swallowing us up. I put my full weight against the gas pedal as we accelerate past ninety-five miles per hour, then one hundred.

Interstices surrounding the widening ravine begin to form in the pavement directly underneath the spinning tires; I can feel them cracking open the road. I glance back up at the speedometer. The position of the needle indicates that the car is traveling at nearly one hundred twenty miles per hour—a speed at which I should otherwise neglect to drive, for if I crash into something, it will be as though I have slammed into a wall of reinforced metal.

Some few hundred yards ahead lies the area where the road divides itself into two sections, one of them leading west, the other east. During those few seconds of orientation and preparation for making the sharp turn, I notice that gargantuan piles of emaciated debris stands in the way, creating an enormous barrier that I am quite obviously incapable of maneuvering around at such an unprecedented speed. I cannot hit the brakes, for if I do, the growing chasm will swallow up the vehicle, sentencing us to the vulnerability of devastating injuries, if not death. I decide to risk sustaining numerous bone fractures, bruises, and scrapes by driving straight off the road. I grip the steering wheel so tightly, the circulation of blood in my knuckles is discontinued, ergo whitening them, and constant rivulets of perspiration begin to trickle from every last pore on my body.