The Accident

                                                      watercolor by drice

“Relax, no one will find out, “ Catherine assured her youngest daughter. 

“Even if they did, it was an accident on a blind curve. No one will blame 

you for what happened.”

“But Mom, I was at the wheel. I should have been more careful,” 

Maggie cried burying her face in her hands.

“Accidents happen,” Catherine said.

“Can you help me out here Mother?” Maggie countered. 

“I have to go back.”

“What can you do? Look there is no damage to the car. The blood 

on the grill and wheels can be washed off.” Catherine took her 

daughter by her shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes, 

“I don’t recommend returning to the scene.”

“I need to make sure it’s dead and not lying there injured,” Maggie said. 

She pushed her mother aside and reached for her car keys. 

“Are you coming?”

“We better take some tools to clean up if we have to,” 

Catherine said and then went into the garage to get gloves, 

old towels, a shovel, flashlights and some bottles filled with water.  

“Do you want me to drive?” she asked.

“No, I know where it happened. It will be easier if I’m at the wheel,” 

Maggie said. She easily maneuvered the Trail Blazer out of the 

driveway and on to the road.

They drove in silence until they came to the edge of town. Maggie 

took a quick turn off the main road onto a small side street and then 

she shifted into four-wheel drive and drove through the creek and 

over the uneven terrain until they came to an abandoned fire road.

“What were you doing way out here?” Catherine asked.

“I like to park here and sit on top of my car looking at the stars. 

It gives me a quiet place to think,” Maggie said. “There it is,” she said 

pointing to a heap in the middle of the road.

“It doesn’t look like an animal,” Catherine said feeling the hairs on 

her neck stand straight up and a shiver run down her spine.

It doesn’t look human either,” Maggie said.

They both got out of the car. Catherine tossed one flashlight to her 

daughter and kept the other one. She also grabbed the shovel. She 

thought it could serve as protection if necessary. The ground was

 loose underfoot so she used the shovel as a cane to stabilize herself

as she followed her daughter.

Maggie shone the light on the dark shape. It didn’t move. They 

walked up to it slowly and then Maggie bent down to get a closer 

look. The arms were like tentacles but rigid with misshapen fingers 

reaching out to the darkness. She kicked it and started to laugh. 

“It looks like a tree.”

Catherine came up alongside her daughter and pushed it with the shovel. 

It rolled to one side. “Do you see any blood?”

Maggie scanned the area pointing the flashlight in all directions. 

“I don’t see anything else out here.” She knelt down to closely
examine the tree. It had a main trunk and two extending arms. 

“I hit it when I came around the curve.
I seem to remember it was moving. 

Like it was crossing my path,

“but trees don’t walk.”

The trouble with my writing is I can get started then stop.