Titan Fall - Book 18 of the Damned of the 2/19th

What They Did

I got out of the truck, letting it idle, walking out into the middle of the road and staring at the tarmac in front of me. I could see where the asphalt had been grooved, see the paint smears from my father's car, and I noted the shards of metal and squares of broken safety glass. I walked down the street, looking at the shoulder, looking at the grooves, and building a picture in my mind.

I walked all the way down to where I could see the tire tracks from where my father had gone off the road, partially into the ditch, then hit the hump that covered a drainage pipe.

I turned back around, looking at the truck. Heather sat inside, the baby in her lap. She was staring at me with a worried expression on her face.

I knelt down, putting my hand on the scraped asphalt, looking toward the corner that I'd parked the truck in front of.

According to the police, he'd blown his right front tire. The rim had cut through the tire, hitting the pavement. That had pulled his car into the ditch, where he had tried to regain control. The front end of the car had hit the hump over the drainage pipe, and the car had flipped. It had then landed on the top of the car, crushing the top, and ejecting my father from the wreckage as it had slid to a stop next to where his crumpled body had ended up.

I let the lizard look over the site to see if he found anything I had missed. A few things, which I added to the scene I was building in my brain.

Standing up and brushing my hands off, I kept walking around. A piece of chrome embedded in the ground. The chrome rim of the front right headlight embedded in the dirt. The grooved lines in the asphalt where first the rim, then the frame of the car had torn into it. I could visualize the sparks flying. I lit a cigarette, walking down the asphalt toward the truck.

The blood on the tarmac was obvious to me. I'd seen blood on asphalt plenty of times.

But never my father's.

I knelt down, touching the dried blood, which had mostly been washed away by the rain, and stared at the site. The gouges moved up next to the location of all the blood.

...he died of massive cerebral contusions...

The Sheriff had told us that he'd been thrown from the wreckage.

At first I thought it was the lizard growling.

When I realized it was me, I stood up, taking a drag off the cigarette and walking toward the truck, paying attention to the ditch. There were a few wrappers for gauze and other medical supplies caught in the still wet dried grass. Debris from where the medics on the volunteer fire department had fought to save my father's life.

And failed.

I dropped the cherry of the cigarette on the damp ground, toed it out from habit, and put the rest in my pocket, walking toward the truck. Heather put the baby in the car seat as I walked up and opened the door. I slammed the door getting in.

"What do you think, Tony?" She asked me, reaching out and taking my hand. The baby made baby noises and flailed her little hands against her mother's arm, slapping at Heather.

"Inconclusive," I told her.

She just nodded. "I love you, you know?"

"I know," I told her, firing up the truck. The straight six made an eerie noise as I threw it in gear. "I love you too."

"I've never doubted it," She said as I shifted into second.

The drive to the wrecking yard was quiet. She knew I was thinking, and when I looked at her, I could see her thinking behind her sunglasses. The baby had burped loudly and gone to sleep before I hit my blinker and turned into the wrecking yard.