The Grim

3. The Rush

I began to panic on the trip to the hospital. Oliver kept drifting in and out of consciousness, muttering random words. It's terrible that, in my mind, I was hoping I had hit him hard enough—maybe he would be concussed and not remember things correctly. How the hell would I explain this to the hospital? What would Oliver think if he comes to? Maybe I could try to play it off as an accident and deny what had happened. Yes, that's exactly what I will do.

It was practically pitch black now. I veered through the forest, driving as fast as I could to get to the ER. Unfortunately, having only one hospital in a tiny town made it a not-so-quick trip, depending on how far away you are.

I formulated a plan in my mind. I could play off the blood in the back seat as Oliver's and say he tripped, smashing his head against my car while we were on our way to Tommy's for dinner. It would correlate with the blood already on and around my car and the bloody blankets. I had never seen that young girl before, so maybe she was traveling—maybe no one would know who she was.

As I finally reached and pulled up to the emergency doors, I saw our town's sheriff, Manuel Ricardo, standing and talking to the paramedics right in front of the bright blue doors. Manuel and Tommy are very good friends. I started panicking and shaking profusely in my car; maybe this would actually help my situation. I quickly got out of the car and screamed for help. A few paramedics and Manuel came over.

"Help me! He's smashed his head and isn't conscious; someone fucking help him!" They took Oli away on a stretcher as I stayed outside and was confronted by Manuel.

"What the hell happened? Did you tell Tommy about this?" I froze staring at the ground and could barely come up with a thought but blurted out, "He tripped and fell into my car." The sheriff looked confused at me. "Son, he tripped and fell into your car, and it caused that kind of damage?" I quickly rebutted with, "Yeah, are you trying to call me a liar?" Manuel sighed and accepted what I was saying as true from what I could tell as we stood there for a moment while he took notes.

"Well, if you haven't told Tommy, you should, and you need to get home and get some rest. You look absolutely terrible. I'm sure Oliver will call you as soon as possible. Have a good night.".

I called Tommy and explained everything that had happened, apologizing a hundred times for the guilt I felt. During the drive home, I kept reflecting on why I wanted to harm the girl and why it felt so insatiable to do so. There was no conclusion, but in my mind, it felt right.

When I arrived home, Eve was standing on our tiny front porch and rushed up to my car door. "Sam, where were you? Tommy called me and told me what happened. Is everything okay? How bad is Oliver?" she asked.

"I'm sure he will be fine, but it honestly looked pretty bad. We were getting ready to head over to Tommy's, and he slipped, smashing his head into my car door. His face is almost unrecognizable currently." She looked at me with tears in her eyes and reached in for a hug. I felt so damn guilty for what I had done."

"It's dark and getting late; let's go inside and make something to eat," I suggested. Eve nodded in agreement. There was basically nothing around our house, including street lights, and animals were prominent, so I wanted to get out of the cold and inside the house to get my mind off things.

"Oh, by the way, our stove seems like it's a goner. Do you want me to just order us pizza?" Eve said, smiling while wiping her tears away. I agreed, and once the food arrived, we watched some TV and sat in silence.

"Well, I guess I should get to bed. Assuming Oli is going to be out of commission at work for a while, I'll have to pick up the slack. You get some rest soon too. Goodnight."

As I headed upstairs to bed, I kept wondering if maybe I was going to have another dream tonight to give me clarity into what is going on with me. Once I laid my head down and heard the faint noise of the animals in the forest outside, I fell asleep almost instantly. Today was a long one.