Mountain Madness Read Free

little.
    There was more light now. With his eyes fully open, he became aware of it almost immediately. The car’s taillight still burned—the red tint to everything around him proved that—but something brighter and far more powerful had joined it. Davy could see . 
    At this point, he had no idea which direction was which, but he thought this new light might be coming from the road. He tried looking for the source, but before he could find it, he saw the slumped form sitting against the base of a nearby tree.
    His father.
    The moose’s antenna hadn’t completely destroyed his head. The bottom part of his face, his lips and teeth and one mostly detached ear, remained. Above these things was a jagged bowl half filled with a rising pool of rain.
    He’d watched the accident from less than a foot away, but this somehow seemed worse. To see his father’s body tossed to the side, collecting rain like a backyard birdbath, made him want to scream.
    He heard wet smacking sounds behind him and turned. The pair of stained leather boots was backing away from the overturned station wagon.
    The man above the boots hunched over, tugging at something inside the car, but even so, Davy could tell he was tall and husky. He wore his checked flannel shirt tucked into the waist of a tight pair of jeans. Davy couldn’t make out his face; a mane of dark, shaggy hair covered the back of the man’s head. The rain running out of this hairy jungle was brown and thick, as if the guy hadn’t washed the dirt out of his hair in months.
    Before Davy could think to do anything at all, he saw what was happening. One of the side windows had shattered. What first appeared to be a long, white branch growing out through the frame turned out to be a pale, limp arm. The man, holding tight to the wrist, yanked the way Davy’s Daddy yanked the lawnmower’s start cord. Davy continued to stare; the booted man jerked on the arm again, and Davy’s mother came sliding through the window.
    The man backed away from the station wagon, never letting go of the arm. Moving carefully but deliberately backward, he dragged Davy’s mother through the mud toward Davy and finally let her drop to the ground. The mud splatter from her falling body hit Davy across both eyes, but not before he’d seen the blank, lifeless expression on his mother’s tumbling face.
    Dead. Like his father. Gone.
    He wanted to deny it, to tell himself she was okay, that she’d look over at him any second and smile, but he knew better. He wouldn’t let his mind play tricks on him.
    Mr. Boots turned back to the car without saying a word. He came close enough to the station wagon to touch it, dropped to his knees, and poked his head in through the windowless frame.
    Davy turned to his mother. She had landed with her face pointed mostly away from him, but Davy could still see the caked blood on her cheek and a single vacant eye. He flipped onto his elbows and crawled to her. Her hair floated in the mud around her head. Davy reached out and tilted her face so her glazed eyes faced the sky. The rain had already washed away most of the blood, but Davy knew it couldn’t wash away the deep gash running from her cheek to her jaw to her neck. He dropped his forehead to hers and cried.
    It wasn’t fair. His daddy and his mommy both in one night. How could something like this happen?
    He heard more noises from the car. Mr. Boots emerged from the shattered window with a furry, writhing body curled into the crook of one arm.
    Manny.
    Davy said the dog’s name, and the sound coming out of his mouth sounded so wrong, so high-pitched and alien, that he immediately wished he could take it back.
    “Not gonna make it,” Mr. Boots said, his voice deep, booming. Mr. Boots dropped the beagle to the ground the same way he had dropped Davy’s mother. Manny bounced once, like a half-deflated basketball, and then lay still. He moaned. Davy didn’t think he’d ever be able to forget that sound. Manny didn’t