Page 4 of New Beginning

“Teddy!” Geo yelled.

His heart lurched as his friends called out warnings. Teddy flashed his lights but when the car kept coming, Teddy twisted the wheel sharply to the left, only for the idiot coming towards them to turn the same way.

Time seemed to slow down, stretching into agonising seconds of inevitability.

As Teddy yelled, “Hold on!” the vehicles collided.

The impact was deafening. Screeching metal folded like damp cardboard. Glass shattered, showering tiny shimmering pieces into the car. The airbag deployed sending Teddy’s head snapping back. Then the car seemed to be consumed by the other vehicle, swallowing Teddy and his friends with it.

And the world blinked out.

Teddy came round to find himself sitting on the ground. For several seconds, he struggled to understand what had happened. Then he heard the metallic tick… tick… tick of cooling engines, smelled petrol and burnt rubber, and memory slammed into him.

They’d crashed! He staggered to his feet. What have I done? Oh God. What have I done!

Fog still blanketed the road, but through it he could make out the mangled mess that had once been two cars.

“Jon!” he yelled. “Gio! Piotr!”

There was no answer. The driver’s door of his car was closed, the metal folded in on itself. How the hell had he got out? Pulling at the handle did nothing. I need to call an ambulance. The police. Except his phone was in the car, sitting in the console, maybe still giving directions.

“Gio! Piotr! Jon!” He shouted out the names of his friends again as he moved round the wreckage, peering through narrow, shattered spaces that had once been windows. There was no phone because there was no console. For a second his brain simply refused to understand what he was seeing. Bad enough that blood streaked the deployed airbags, splattered the dashboard, and had soaked into the seats, but there was no one inside the car. His breathing turned ragged.

“Guys! Where the hell are you?” Teddy yelled.

There was no answer.

“Jon!” His voice cracked. “Stop messing about! It’s not funny.”

Had they been thrown clear? The thought came out of desperation, rather than logic. They’d all been wearing seat belts. He looked back inside. The seat belts were unfastened, including his. Crimson shards of glass glittered on the upholstery. How could anyone have escaped from that mangled wreckage? Including himself.

He began searching the verge, stumbling through the fog. “Geo! Piotr!”

There was no movement, no voices, not even a groan.

So not thrown clear but they’d all been pulled out and been taken to hospital. It was the only explanation that made any sense. Except why aren’t I with them?

Teddy turned towards the other vehicle. The front had crumpled over his car. One entire side had been ripped open. Twisted seats were exposed like broken ribs. Children’s toys littered the road. A stuffed rabbit missing an ear, blood on its body. Teddy whimpered. A tiny trainer lay by itself in the middle of the tarmac. There were child seats in the destroyed vehicle. But no people.

His stomach roiled. “No. No!” He backed away. A family. Children. Teddy’s knees gave way and he collapsed onto the road. Oh God, oh God. What the fuck have I done?

It was a while before he stood up again. He felt awful, sick to his stomach. But he wasn’t injured. Nothing hurt. He looked down. His clothes weren’t torn or dirty. There was no blood on him. No cuts on his arms. He touched his face, felt all over his head. Nothing. Though his fingers found his pulse, hammering beneath his skin. He was definitely alive. Yet when he looked again at the wreckage, he knew there wasn’t enough space left for him to have survived. He’d have been crushed. So would his friends.

I don’t understand. It wasn’t that an ambulance had come and taken everyone to hospital and somehow missed him. He wished that was the case. No one had survived that accident, including him. Maybe he was dead, not alive, even though his heart was beating. He had no explanation for why he was still there apart from it all being his fault.

Everything was always his fault. His father leaving home, his mother being ill, Teddy being a constant disappointment. Somehow his entire life had led to this point. He’d never been good enough and now three of his best friends had been killed when he was driving. And a family too. If I’d twisted the wheel the other way…

The fog thickened. Teddy watched it roll over the wreckage in slow, silent waves until what had once been cars blurred into shapeless hulks, then faded to shadows. The ticking stopped. The smell of petrol disappeared. Then the shadows vanished. The denser mist drifted on, the fog returned to what it had been before, and the road around him lay empty. No twisted metal. No shattered glass. No blood. No scattered toys. Nothing. Then no longer tarmac under his feet but hard ground.

“Oh God.”

It was as though none of it had ever happened. Except I’m still here. Teddy dropped down again, his legs refusing to support him. A sob ripped free before he could stop it. I killed them. He buried his face in his hands. I killed Jon. Geo. Piotr. I killed those children. And probably their parents. That’s why I’m still here. And I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.

He should never have kept driving when the visibility had dropped to almost nothing. He should have pulled over. Waited. Done anything except carry on.

This is a punishment.

The thought settled over him like freezing water closing above his head. For a moment, he imagined himself under the ice. He couldn’t find the surface. Couldn’t breathe. He was engulfed by panic. His heart, which shouldn’t even be beating, was racing out of control. A sharp pain sprang up in his chest. The world was spinning as if he were drunk, but he wasn’t. And when everything went black, and his entire body seemed to give up, he was glad.