I saw the whole thing.
The driver’s panicked expression, the smile on the man’s face as the truck crashed right into him. I saw his body fly like a rag doll, watched him fall sickeningly to the road. I saw the front of the truck cave in at the impact. It was as if everything were in slow motion.
I knew at once no one could have survived that. No one could have survived being hit by a truck, and flung twenty feet away.
“Sh-,” Raphael was already running to the accident scene. I followed close behind, my heart filled with dread. I could actually feel the gloomy atmosphere around, telling me that the man on the road was already dead, that there was no more hope.
The rain lashed down on us as we approached the body. The truck driver was crouching beside it, a long laceration at the side of his face. He was still bleeding as he looked at me with the saddest expression on his plump face. “I couldn’t stop. I…” he sputtered. Raphael placed a consoling hand on his shoulder.
“I saw the whole thing,” Raphael said comfortingly. “He wanted to die. It wasn’t your fault.”
The road was empty. It was just the three of us, alive, with a dead body at our feet. “Why would this guy want to die? He has the looks I would die for,” Raphael studied the dead man’s face. He looked about thirty, with dark hair, a chiseled jaw and a muscular body. He had an appealing appearance-probably attracted many women back when he was alive.
Only that now he was a battered mess of bone and blood, lying lifeless before me.
“Did he have a pulse?” I asked Raphael.
“I checked, and no. He was already dead the moment he hit the ground. Who is he, anyway?”
“I’ve never seen him around before,” the rotund truck driver said. “A handsome young man, he is. I can’t believe I just killed someone. I… I have to call the police.”
“It’s not entirely your fault,” Raphael said, but the driver was already dialing for the police and the ambulance. “We’ll stay here with you until they arrive.”
I was crouching beside the body, studying the damage done. The man’s head was tilted at an impossible angle, and his hips were twisted the wrong way. I could see a hint of bone sticking out from his left knee. And the blood… he was practically covered in blood. The rain was washing most of it away, but his shirt was so blood-soaked, it looked as if it were originally red. I didn't even know where the origins of his injuries were.
I didn’t like the sight of the mutilated body, but there was something that enthralled me, something that caught my attention. I could hear his heartbeat. It was a faint sound, but his heart was thumping weakly- a sign that he was alive. He somehow had a pulse again. Was he really alive? Could he be saved?
“Raph,” I beckoned him with a hand. “I think he’s still alive.”
“I checked, there was no pulse, I swear,” Raphael crouched beside me.
“Well, seems like there is now,” I pressed two fingers against the man’s bloody neck. “He’s alive, for God’s sake.”
And right then, the familiar siren of the ambulance wailed in the distance, heading in our direction. Good, they were just in time.
I hoped.
###
“What do you mean he got out?” Seth growled. “It’s impossible to be opened from the inside. Plus, I drugged him.”
“Someone got him out,” Jacque ran a hand along the side of the coffin.
YOU ARE READING
HUNT, OR BE HUNTED
Mystery / ThrillerHe was always blacking out, always confused, losing control of his actions. And when he did, he would have no memory of it. What he didn't know was that there was a monster inside him, a monster that he couldn't control. Once it took over, not a sin...
