There's Been an Accident on I-80 East

After 24 years of the exact same commute, Dan had the route carved into his soul. Every weekday at 5pm, Dan would climb into his humble-gray Toyota Corolla and resume his enduring battle with the car’s finicky Bluetooth.

By the time he got his audiobook working, cars congested on I-80 East en masse, impatient commuters bumper-to-bumper like ants.

Dan didn’t mind the traffic.  Time alone was time to enjoy his interests. He loved his family, but his tween daughters weren’t exactly keen to listen to books about the Edmund Fitzgerald with their dorky old dad. 

Last Father’s day they pooled their allowance money and bought him a bumper sticker shaped like the doomed ship with ‘REMEMBER THE FITZ’ emblazoned on it. It was the only sticker on his car- a bright-yellow designation marking his own personal haven.

Dan carefully merged onto the interstate, assessing the vehicles behind him: a dirty white sedan, a red sports car zipping between lanes, an 18-wheeler looming far behind him like a distant mountain. 

The audiobook narrator’s soothing intonations were a gentle bassline over the click-tick-click-tick of his turn signal, the chorus of purring engines, the shushing of rubber tires caressing concrete. 

Dan was halfway through a harrowing account of the USS Indianapolis when a shrill noise rang out. An ambulance, keening wildly.

Accidents were unfortunately common on this stretch of the interstate. Dan winced in sympathy, hoping it wasn’t too serious.

The pungent smell of burning rubber oozed through his central air. Oppressive, soot-black smoke plumed a half-mile ahead, billowing over the exit signs.

His exit, Dan noted with dread. 

He sped up as he took the off-ramp, hoping to avoid getting caught in the inevitable jam. 

It wasn’t long before Dan saw the damage. Dark tire skids veered from his lane to the concrete median like the blood trail of a wounded animal, ending in a smoking heap of twisted gray steel. 

Dan slowed, horror growing as he saw how the rear of the car was nearly flattened- so compacted that the back doors rippled like wrinkled linen.

The road was bizarrely empty. Whoever did this was driving something massive, and they weren’t anywhere in sight. 

Dan needed to help. He braked before he could lose his nerve, turning on his hazards.

 A flash of color caught his eye.

There, on what remained of the bumper, was a smear of bright yellow vinyl melting in the heat. 

On it were three letters: 

“ITZ.”

The nearing sirens crescendoed.

Blood colored the cracks of the passenger-side window like lace, but Dan could see a mangled shape inside.

A body nearly folded in half.

Stubborn Bluetooth stereo recounting the tragedy of the USS Indianapolis.

His own lifeless eyes staring back at him.

The siren, the carnage, the terror, all drowned out the sound of the incoming 18-wheeler screeching into the rear-end of his car.