The world was a blur. Noises drifted to him. People yelling, sirens wailing. His mind tried to work, but it was slow, woolen. Something was sticking into the small of his back. At first it was annoying, but as minutes passed and the sounds increased, it became painful. Muttering, he reached under his back and pulled something away. That was better.

"We got people trapped over here!" someone called. Something was happening. Something bad. He opened his eyes, and winced at the bright summer sunshine streaming through the window; pain danced across his skull, and he suddenly felt sick to his stomach. He tried to sit up, but pain shot up his left leg. Why was he lying down? He blinked, and saw the ceiling of the van above him, only it looked strange, lumpy, like someone had pounded the metal inward with a hammer.

"Get those goddamn jaws!"

Jaws? Wasn't that a shark? He turned his head, and saw the back of the seat. He tried to move his leg, but the pain was excruciating, and he hissed over clenched teeth.

Suddenly the world was filled with a coughing roar. Metal screeched. What was happening?

Panting, he wracked his brain. They were driving, then...what?

Somewhere close by, someone moaned. Lincoln turned his head, and his heart dropped. Lana was lying face-down on the floor. She stirred, and lifted her head: Blood covered her face, and one of her eyes was swollen almost shut. In that instant, Lincoln remembered everything: Luna screaming, Lori yelling, the van rolling (how many times? Five? Seven?).

"Lana!" he said, trying to pull free; pain snaked up his leg. He was trapped. "Are you okay?"

She moaned, and flopped her head down.

Lincoln struggled into a half sitting position, clamping his teeth against the exquisite pain. Two men in fireman hats were sawing the door open, sparks showering. The saw fell silent, and Lincoln yelled, "Help!"

One of the firemen saw him through the smashed window. "We're comin', buddy, just hang tight."

The saw kicked on again.

Where were the others?

His heart skipped a beat. He threw his head left and right, but couldn't see anything. He laid back down and glanced under the seat: He saw the back of Lucy's head.

"Lucy!"

She didn't move.

"Lucy!"

He looked under the other seat, but saw nothing. "Lola! Lisa!"

Neither one called out to him. He pushed himself back into a sitting position with his elbows just as the saw cut out again. One of the firefighters threaded a metal cable through the broken window. Attached to it was a hook. He stabbed it into the door, stepped back, and made a signal with his hand. The cable pulled tight, and the door was ripped from its frame with a metal death cry.

"My sister," Lincoln said, nodding to Lana. "She's hurt."

"I got her," the fireman said. He leaned over Lincoln and scooped her up. The other took Luan into his arms. The top of her head was caked in blood, and she looked very small, almost like a baby.

Next, they took Lucy; she moaned as the firefighter picked her up. "It's alright, sweetie," he said softly, "it's gonna be okay."

A minute later, the other one climbed into the van, ducking his head. "Can you move?" he asked.

Lincoln shook his head. "My leg's stuck."

The firefighter got down on one knee and pushed the seat forward. "Now?"

Lincoln tried to move his leg, but the pain was too great.

Another firefighter appeared.

"Dave," the first said, "pull back on this while I slide him out."

Nodding, Dave grabbed the seat and pulled it in his direction. The other scooted past Lincoln and pulled him; he screamed.

"Grab an SB."

Dave nodded and rushed away, returning less than a minute later with an orange plastic board. They laid it flat, and, together, dragged Lincoln onto it; the movement made his leg hurt so badly that he nearly blacked out.

"Hey, buddy, stay with me. We're gonna get you out of here. Okay?"

They fitted straps across his legs, chest, and head, and carried him out: The day was hot, and the sun stung his eyes. He turned his head, and saw a fleet of ambulances, fire engines, and police cars blocking the highway. A man in a white shirt sat against a smashed pick-up, holding a bloody towel to his head. A woman in a blouse stood dazed near a cruiser while a cop wrote something down on a notepad. Closer, near the van, a body lie under a white sheet: His breath caught in his throat.

"Who's under there?"

No one answered him. Panic welled within him. "Who's under there?"

"Don't worry about it," Dave said.

In the back of the ambulance, a paramedic took his vitals. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine," Lincoln muttered, "except for my leg."

Another paramedic cut his pantleg away. Lincoln tried to lift his head to see, but he was strapped too tightly.

"Compound fracture?" the medic with the scissors asked.

"Looks like it," the other replied, pressing the business end of a stethoscope to Lincoln's chest. He then applied a blood pressure cuff to his arm and pumped it up. As they worked, Lincoln's mind returned to the form under the sheet; one end was saturated with blood. A horrible dread rose in his stomach. It was one of his family members. He just knew it.

His eyes flooded with hot tears, his lips quivered.

"Everything's going to be okay," the medic taking his blood pressure said, doing his best to sound reassuring. "Aside from your leg you're looking good."

"W-What about my family?"

"I don't know," the medic said, "but I'm sure they're okay."

Lincoln blinked his tears away and tried to convince himself that the medic was right; it was someone else under there, not his father, not one of his sisters. It wasn't possible. But deep down, he knew it was someone he loved.

He closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep, to fall deep into the void and away from the horrors surrounding him.

It didn't work.

He was cursed with consciousness.

Sounds and images assailed her. Wailing. Sirens. People shouting. Her eyes fluttered open, and she was being strapped to a stretcher and lifted into the back of an ambulance, several men in white shirts standing worriedly over her. She tried to speak, but couldn't. Her head ached and her stomach clenched. One of the men slipped an oxygen mask over her mouth and nodded. "You're going to be okay," he said, his voice echoy and faraway. Doors slammed, and suddenly she was moving, her heart leaping into her throat. She grabbed handfuls of the sheet, but she was weak.

For a time, she drifted in and out of consciousness. A blood pressure cuff went over her arm; someone called out her vital signs, a jumble of numbers that were alien to her; she was being rushed through a set of double doors, the sun bright in her eyes. A rush of wind, and she was cold, so cold. She opened her eyes and winced as blind florescent lights flashed by on the ceiling. People in puke green scrubs rushed alongside her, a Hispanic woman with a white lab coat barking orders. She heard bells, beeping, someone speaking over a public address system.

"...female, roughly sixteen years of age...car crash.."

"...her vitals...?"

More numbers.

"Any internal injuries?"

"I don't think so."

She blanked out again, and came to as she was being parked near a bunch of gleaming medical equipment. Someone asked her if she could hear them, and she tried to nod, but the pain in her head was so bad that she hissed.

For a time, she was gone. She saw the tractor trailer jackknifing, saw the world spinning, saw Lori lying brokenly out the window, her good arm hanging inches over the pavement. Her other arm...oh Jesus, her other arm was lying on the shoulder of the highway, the wrist bent at an impossible angle. She came awake with a gasp, her heart pounding in her chest. A team of medical staff worked over her.

"Honey, can you tell us your name?" the woman in the lab coat asked; she could barely hear her over the ringing in her ears.

"L-Luna," she croaked after a minute. Her mind felt fuzzy, sluggish.

Someone shone a light in her eyes, and she winced. "Where does it hurt?"

"M-My head."

"Dizziness? Nausea? Ringing ears?"

"Yes."

"Alright, her vitals are good, no breaks or internal injuries. I want a CT scan stat."

Luna's eyelids felt heavy, and she closed them.

"Honey, stay with us," the doctor said.

"I'm here," Luna muttered. "I'm just tired."

She sat with her back against the retaining wall dividing the north and south bound lanes, pinching her nose with her thumb and forefinger. The bleeding had slowed but not stopped. She didn't notice. Instead, she stared sightlessly ahead, her hands trembling. There was a severed arm lying on the gravel shoulder. Near it, a man poked through the windshield of a Pontiac: He was covered in blood and limp. Firefighters worked to remove him, but weren't having much luck. She felt strangely detached, as though she were watching an uninteresting movie on television. She turned left and right. No. It was more like a dream.

"Let me see."

She jerked. A woman in a white shirt and black pants was kneeling beside her. She smiled. "Your nose, honey."

"Oh," Lisa said, and took her hand away. "It isn't broken."

As the woman examined her, Lisa tried to remember how she had gotten here. She remembered Lola and Lana arguing, remembered telling them that if they didn't stop, their father would wreck the van...and that was it. Everything else was blank. Did they wreck? It looked like they wrecked. She laughed.

"I told them," Lisa said, "I told them we were going to wreck."

She shivered and crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm cold. Is it cold?" She rubbed her arms. Her teeth chattered.

The paramedic's expression turned worried. She glanced over her shoulder and called a firefighter over. "I need a blanket," she said, "I think she's in shock."

The firefighter nodded and returned a few moments later with a gray wool blanket. "Here, honey," the paramedic said, draping the blanket over Lisa's shoulders.

"Thank you," Lisa chattered.

"Can you come with me?"

"Sure."

The paramedic helped Lisa up and led her through the chaos. People ran back and forth. A woman sat against the tire of a minivan as a paramedic checked her head. Mass casualty incident. That's what they called it. She read that in a medical text. MCI. They were obviously doing triage on the scene.

"Over here, honey," the medic said. Lisa looked up and froze. Ahead, the double doors of an ambulance stood open. The inside was dark, cavernous, like a yawning mouth. The medic sensed her distress and looked down at her. "Are you okay?"

Lisa was shaking, her heart jackrabbiting in her chest. She shook her head. "I-I-I'm not going in there."

"Honey, it's okay, it's..."

Lisa pulled away from her. "I'm not going in there!" She broke down and cried then. "Please don't make me go in there..."

"Damn it," Jeff Parker hissed. He looked away from the dead child lying limply on the floorboard and took a deep breath. Parker had been a firefighter with the Royal Woods Fire Department for six years, and in that time he had seen more dead children than he cared to remember, and it never got any easier. Hell, he had two little girls himself, and whenever he had to deal with a dead child, he imagined one of them lying there, and it made him sick. He'd almost quit a dozen times over it.

"Her neck broke," Bill Shires said dully. Bill, a hefty man with white hair, had been with the department since 1981. He'd seen more dead kids than Parker, and you know what? It never did get easier, even after almost forty years.

The little girl was maybe six or seven with blonde hair. She was wearing a pink dress and a tiara. Her neck was twisted and crushed. Her eyes were open, staring sightlessly into the heavens. Parker already knew those eyes would haunt his sleep tonight, and probably every night after.

"I can't," he said, and left.

Shires took a deep breath and called it in.