A group effort to save us all from getting tickets and getting stuck in bumper-to-bumper congestion.
Ive always sucked with directions.
Its safe to say my observational skills suck.
Look Catalog
I swung my head toward the cup holder where my phone sat.
Tried to get a better look at the screen.
I must have heard wrong.
The voice must have saidsomebody is up ahead.
It would save lives.
Felt the car rise and fall.
Look Catalog
Felt the tires tremble and glide.
I had hit something.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck.
I swerved to the side of the road lined with trees and a smattering of street lights.
If anyone drove past, those lights would illuminate my dented Civic and its bumper smeared with blood.
Did I run over the body the GPS warned me about?
Was it dead before I hit it?
Was it deadnowthat I hit it?
My pulse raced as I slunk past the damage on my hood and toward the tree line.
I could see a man on the ground.
Blood on his cheeks, down his neck, across his shirtsleeves.
And then his leg…
Thats where my tires must have hit.
His thigh looked puffy and then his knee sloped down to the ground like his leg ended there.
The rest of his meat was flattened, ground into the dirt.
I bolted over to check the pulse in his wrist and it beat fast, but steady.
He was definitely okay well, definitely alive.
But his eyes stayed closed.
Maybe he passed out from blood loss?
Could that happen so quickly?
I tried to push my questions away as I patted him down, feeling for additional injuries.
Aside from his leg, I didnt notice any broken bones or fractures.
I stumbled back toward my car to grab my phone, breathing heavy.
But I hesitated to help a man I thought was dying, and I had no excuse for it.
My phone wasnt dead.
My charger wasnt missing.
My service didnt suck.
I waited out of fear.
What if the cops took me away in handcuffs?
What if I ended up in jail for the night, in court for the next three months?
And what the hell was up with the GPS?
Did it actually warn me about a dead body seconds before the hit?
It couldnt have predicted the future.
It couldnt have known what was about to happen.
Besides, the man wasnt even dead.
Not yet, at least.
I didnt know how long I zoned out for.
How long I sat there, stuck in my disturbed head.
Long enough for him to die?
When I got out of my car to check, he looked lifeless.
His head sunk into a pile of mud.
His hands flopped to either side.
I scrambled over on my hands and knees, focused on the mans chest.
Watching to see if it rose and fell.
If it would give me any signs of life.
My criminal future flashed through my mind.
The handcuffs that would be locked around my wrists, chafing the skin dry.
The endless line of cops questioning me about why I didnt tell them about the accident earlier.
The parents Id never get to see again, the kids Id never get to have…
It took me longer than Id like to admit to notice the mans legs.
And the bullet hole.
Straight through the center of his head.
Old, dark blood trailed out of it and pooled around him in an inky outline.
This wasnt the body I hit with my car.
This was another body.
I replayed the last few moments in my head and realized Id had another brain-dead, not-paying-attention-to-my-surroundings moment.
The body I hit with my car had been toward myleft,closer to the bumper.
After sitting in my car daydreaming, I walked toward myright.
Toward this other body.
The body my GPS tried to warn me about.
The same gun Id felt in his pockets earlier.
The same gun he had used to murder whoever was sprawled on the ground beside me.
And now, it was aimed directly toward my chest.
