Real Encounters

*His Brother's House*

I am from a small town in Appalachia with a population of less than 7,000. There were about 80 people in my high school class, and people are generally very trusting. This story took place early last September, so it would have been a little less than a year ago. I was a 20 year old male at the time and had just entered my junior year of college about three hours from my hometown. In high school, I had a close cohort of friends. There were about eight of us that were very close. As things go, things changed when we went to our respective colleges. I fell out of touch with many of them, but I did retain contact with a couple of them. The ones featuring in this story are Mac and Devon.

Last September, I got a call from my mother telling me the news. Devon's father had been killed in an accident on his way to work. It was a sudden, but brutal, collision involving a semi. Devon's family was not from the area; they had moved to my town during high school because her father had gotten a job there. Having no family and a dispersed set of friends, she didn't have many people to lean on during this time. Mac contacted me and wanted to know whether I planned on attending the funeral, which had been planned for Friday morning.

I had an important class Friday afternoon, but I told him that I would come up that evening and we could occupy Devon. Mac made the six hour drive from his college to attend the funeral, and I made it into town later that evening. We decided the three of us would spend a few hours at Mac's house. We were just going to hang out, and Mac and I were determined to preoccupy Devon. I got there around 6:00, and we jumped right into it. We talked about college, we watched Netflix, and we played board games. Despite the circumstances, it was a pretty good night. I got up to leave about half an hour after midnight. After some tearful goodbyes, I got in my car.

Now for a little geography. Mac's house is a little more than a mile from my parents' house. There are no red lights and one stop sign. At that time of night, I could make the trip in less than two minutes. Being in a rural part of Appalachia, though, the roads were far from straight. In fact, Mac's house was just off of a winding two-lane road. There were several "blind" curves that stop you from seeing what's coming up ahead, and there are no guardrails or streetlights to speak of.

So, I start off on what I thought would be a brief, uneventful journey home. I pull out of his driveway and start on my way. I start into the first blind curve and am greeted by something entirely unexpected. I see the car first. It is a white, older model sedan. It is half in my lane and half in a culvert. I have to quickly swerve to avoid hitting it, and I notice a figure waving his arms as a slam on the brakes. I end up stopped on the side of the road. There is no shoulder, so my car is sitting in the road and in the grass about 100 feet past his car. At this point, I should have kept going and called the police for help when I got home, but this is not what I did. I avoided that feeling in my gut, put my car in park, and opened my door.

I stepped outside and immediately noticed the damage to the vehicle. The front end had serious damage. There were no other cars around, so I conclude the driver must have collided with the cliffside on the other side of the road. It is really dark, though, so I have a hard time figuring out what happened. By the red light emitted from my taillights, I see the figure approaching me.

"Hey, buddy. I need some help."

"What happened? Is there someone you'd like me to call?"

"No. I tried to call my brother, but he didn't answer. He lives just up the road."

"Oh. Do you want me to call the police?"

"No! You can't call the police. I just need my car pulled out of there." He points into the culvert. "I need someone with a truck. My brother has one."

He's walking closer to me, and I am beginning to make out some of his features. He is a little bit shorter than me, but he easily has 75 pounds on me. At this point, the little light left me unable to discern much else, except that he was wearing a baseball cap.