<fifteen minutes>

The retriever leaned in with every turn Annabel made with the truck, licking his lip as his body tipped and strained.  They’d passed the dog park ten minutes ago and the turn-off for the next one a little after that so he wasn’t whining anymore.  Annabel hissed breath through her teeth and scrubbed her thin hand across Benjy’s warm head, humming tersely for him to be good when he fidgeted on the seat, threatening to stand.  She never thought that constipation would ever warrant an emergency trip to the doctors, but she hadn’t even had a chance to drop the dog off the pain had gotten so bad.

She slammed herself back into the seat, arching her back and baring her teeth when she caught up to the ponderous blood truck they’d been coming up on for the last quarter of a mile.  There was no room to overtake it and blaring the horn didn’t result in much.  “Oh fucking move!” Annabel screamed at it, knuckles white around the plastic steering wheel and Benjy whining at her tone.

On the verge of tears, Annabel looked to the dog as if hoping that if she looked desperate enough he’d help her.  He licked his lips again and jerked out a paw rhythmically.  She touched his head again in apology, then the world stopped with a crunch.  Tires squealed and metal tore as the truck flipped and ground into the asphalt.  Annabel felt the window shatter and Benjy’s jerking weight fall into her, crushing her face into the asphalt that was still grinding past as the truck skidded sideways.

It was so quiet for a few seconds that she thought she’d gone deaf, but then all sound slammed down about her ears.  Benjy was barking and licking her face, biting her ears.  Gasping and crying, she shoved him off and fumbled with the seatbelt.  The effort and will it took to wind down the passenger window got her over the initial shock and into tears, then she clambered out after Benjy and fell down the side of her truck to the road.  It was wet.  Everything was wet, and the pungent stench made her heave dryly.

More tire squeals as another car slipped in the massive communal blood pool and slammed into the central reservation.  Then another, following the first too closely.  Annabel brought her hands to her face, trying to feel when she was sure she’d cut her head open, but the blood covering her hands was filled with grit and dirt that stung.  Benjy scurried in confused circles, pausing periodically to lap up some of the thick red, staining his tongue and his chin when it dribbled around his mouth.  It mixed with drool and hung in long, elastic strands that reached to the road and tried to anchor him to it.

Annabel clutched her stomach, doubling over.  Her guts were still black and hard, full beyond bursting, and the accident hadn’t changed that.  Her eyes opened to slits and it was unreal how the red filled her vision.  Worked up inside her nose.  Saturated her clothes and started to congeal under her nails and in her hair.

She retched, once, twice.  On the third heave something came up, soft and creamy, and she gagged around it before it finally landed in the blood.  The wad of shit steamed up at her from the blood, the best her body could do given the situation.  Benjy came over and ate it greedily.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 8:25 am and is filed under Flash Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.