Truck Stop

Pit Stop

Prologue

I tweaked the knobs tightening the nuts back into the bolts. Changing a tire can be a nuisance but try doing it on a Mack truck carrying a thirty tonne load of dirt. Of all the loads I shipped from point A to B, I hated carting dirt the most. I wasn't sure why exactly but I felt as if it got everywhere. Seeping into corners and somehow getting into the seating of my truck. It itches up places it had no business being.

I wiped the sweat off my brow and leaned back on my haunches looking up at the sun peaking up in the skies. It was hot. But then it was always hot in Queensland. The land of sun and rain. Our very own piece of paradise on the very last continent on Earth. With the sunniest beaches in the world, it was no mean feat to be completely tanned all year round.

I stood up and straightened my back in a stretch.

I wondered if I had time enough for a quick run before I clambered back into the cab of my truck. It was a good long haul heading into nowhere and I looked at clocking in another twelve hours before getting to my destination. I could do with a run before strapping myself back in to the seat and taking off, hauling dirt along these mostly barren roads.

Twisting my long black hair high into a tight bun, I moved up to my door and slid it open before I shrugged out of my skins and tossed the overalls through them, watching it land in a tangled mess on my seat. I moved away then and broke into more stretches going through my usual warm up routine, eyeing the small sloping hill by the side of the road as I completed my stretches.

Then, sufficiently warmed up, I reached into the cab of my truck to pull out the weights I always wore. Strapping them onto my wrist and ankles I was finally ready for my run.

I took off at a loping pace. Picking up speed as I went till I was jogging at a brisk pace in the climb up the steep slope. I loved doing slopes. It gave me twice the work out of a run and at half the time too.

And everyone knew time was money, especially in a trucking business.

I was halfway up the slope when it happened. The screeching tires below was a dead giveaway. The hard metallic smack and the crunching sound of crushed metal sealed the fate of those involved behind the wheel.

I sighed and reluctantly turned back to go take a look. I hoped whoever it was hadn't hit my truck.

Honestly, the thing was so god damned big it was virtually impossible not to miss. Unless the fucking driver was drunk or high on drugs or worse still, a mixture of both.

In all my years of trucking I have seen it all.

Oh my god!

The scene around my truck resembled a road rage carnage unlike any I had seen before. And that was saying something.

I sprung instantly into action. Leaping up to my truck I wrung open the door and used my radio to call in the accident. I spoke fluently with the ease of practice relaying the location, the number of vehicles involved and an estimate number of people hurt. I even volunteered my prognosis over the extent they were likely hurt. The possibility of mortality was high given the extent of the impact.

I rang off, as soon as I relayed the essentials, then leaped back down and instantly moved to the nearest smashed up vehicle. I eyed its condition then neared the vehicle to run an expert eye over its unconscious occupants. A lady and a boy.

I tugged at the door but it was hemmed in shut. So I ran back to my truck and hauled out a wrench. Smashing the window I moved to unlock the door. The door remained jammed shut. So I moved around the vehicle, trying each door and finally smashed in the windscreen. It crumpled into harmless shards. I used my booted feet to brace against the damaged hood then leaned my body in to check the boys pulse first. He was alive.

I leaned in carefully and unstrapped him from his seat. I ran a hand down his collar bone and searched for internal injuries that could make my moving him harmful. Finding none I eased him forward to slump half out the window.

Then repositioning myself on the hood of the car I wrapped my arms around him and braced my feet against the frame then using all of my upper body strength I hauled him out.

Pulling him a good distance away from the vehicle was easy after that. I left the lady in the car gauging her size as an obstacle I couldn't overcome and I went on to the next car.

A black luxury four wheel drive. Bashed in badly with leaking oil. I performed the routine try for an open door check then went back for my wrench. I swung at the driver's seat window. Reaching in I pressed two fingers to the drivers pulse. He was alive. Battered badly but alive. His bulk looked manageable to me. So I reached in to tap the button that would unlock the door and wrung it open. This time the door swung open like a well-greased machine. I ran a trained hand to check for broken bones or hidden mortal wounds then finding none noticeable I reached in to unbuckle the man before stabbing the airbag to deflate it. I carefully eased him back then out of the vehicle.

I was clumsier in managing him and by the time I had hauled him away I was drenched in sweat and frantic to get at the rest. I was taking too long. There was still that last vehicle to check. That vehicle had suffered the worst from the impact.

I jogged tiredly towards it.

The unexpected explosion rocked me off my feet flinging me back into the bushes in an unconscious heap.

I roused to the sounds of the descending chopper. The whipping blades of its rotators slowing down in its decent. The sounds muted by the ringing in my ears still hurting from the explosion.

I squinted against the glaring sun and gingerly lifted my hands to hold my head together. I felt almost ripped apart from the splitting headache that was hammering pins and needles into my scull.

I rolled over groaning in pain and felt the abrasions from the blast catch fire. Raw pain racked through me.

But nothing hurt more than the memory of my failure. My failure to save the occupants of that last car. The one I could not get to in time. The car that appeared to hold an entire family.

The car from which there were no longer any hope for survivors.

I cried out in agony then. An agony of having failed them.

If I had been stronger, faster. Better.

They would have made it.

Shouts rang out as the rescuer filed out of the chopper. I waived them away from me pointing out the two sole survivors of the crash.

I didn't even glance at the lady I had left behind in the car. I instinctively already knew she was dead as well.

That blast would have ripped right through her.

I did however spare a glance at my truck, my home and my sole bread earner. She gleamed bright and shiny and blue.