Modern Mythicals

After the Crash

 "What the hell Brett, that was a stop sign!" Dierdre was white-knucking the armrest of her seat as the night flew past them, head still fuzzy with tequila.

"Shut up, let me focus," replied her boyfriend, slurring his words. The night was rainy, making the streetlights in the road seem to drip like watercolor paint.

Nadia was out walking her dog Fenwick, wondering why she'd waited this long to do so, when she was tossed into the air on the slick silver hood of a car. She hit the ground with a crunch as the car coasted to a stop on the road's shoulder.

"Shit!" came a male voice off to the side.

"Oh my God, what did you do?" came another, a girl's this time. This voice shook and shivered like a sapling in the wind, and rose up high and shrill out of fear.

"Shut up Dierdre, it wasn't my fault," said Brett, face very white.

Nadia stirred on the asphalt, silhouetted by the blinding white headlights.

"Oh my God, Brett she's alive! Gimme your phone!" the girl, Dierdre, knelt down next to Nadia. "I"m so so so sorry, everything's going to be okay, I promise."

Just out of reach, Brett stood stock still.

"The phone, Brett!" called Dierdre over her shoulder in a cracking voice.

"We'll go to jail for this."

"What?"

"This is going to ruin everything we've planned," said Brett, bloodless face shining in the rainy darkness.

"It doesn't matter!" Nadia's movements were getting weaker as Dierdre held her.

"I'm sorry," said Brett, fumbling for his keys as though in a trance. "I just— can't—"

"Wait!"

But before Dierdre's cry could reach him, the car had already screamed around the corner, leaving the two girls in the darkness on the side of the road. Fenwick began to whine, trotting over to push his nose into Nadia's slack face.

Dierdre didn't know what to do. "I'm— sorry I— my boyfriend was the only one of us who brought a phone—"

Nadia was beginning to shudder as sheets of rain pounded her skin. The water on the road around her began to darken slightly.

"I don't think there's anything I can do," said Dierdre. The words rang out with a chilling finality.

"Stay." This shuddering word was the only thing that escaped Nadia's lips. Fenwick whined louder.

"Of course," said Dierdre, whose shoulders had begun to shake. The rain in her mouth tasted like salt.

Nadia's heart stopped before the storm did. Dierdre held her for a few more minutes before gently letting her go. She begun to walk along the road, Fenwick trotting at her heels. She didn't know where to go, just that she had to leave behind the girl on the road.

The police didn't find the body until five am the next day.

Dierdre hadn't spoken to Brett all week. He'd been right, she supposed. Maybe it was better that no one knew it was their fault. She wasn't quite sure what to do about Fenwick though. She supposed, if anyone asked, she would just say she found him wandering on the night Nadia had died and taken him in, unaware he had any connection to the dead girl.

After hours of searching the internet for the slightly less bloody version of the face that had been burned into her memory that night, she had learned Nadia's name and become her twelfth online follower. Nadia had been a year and two months younger than Dierdre, according to her profile. There was a picture there of her in front of the Disneyland castle with a couple friends when she was eleven, caught in the middle of a laugh. This was the picture Dierdre had seen projected on her ceiling as she tried to fall asleep every night since she had found it.