twilightmuffin1: I Don't Believe You There is a picture of a girl on my wall. Her hair is the color of caramel which reminds me of my favorite candy. The girl looks my mother's friends' daughter Alice. But it couldn't be Alice for two reasons; the first is that the painting was made in 1902 and the second is that Alice died a few years back. She was in a car crash, riding with seven other kids. They were all three years older than I am now and the one driving had been drinking at a frat party. They were riding back to her home and the boy fell asleep at the wheel. He crashed the car into a tree and they all died except for one. Her name was Lola and she has been in a wheel chair ever since. I visit her sometimes and she tells me about that night. I have heard that story almost three hundred times but I am drawn to it, so I listen. It sounds, in the beginning, like a regular crash story filled with sadness and regret. But actually there is more to it. I'll tell it to you, but how she told me it the first time. I'll try to be exact. ......... I come straight from school to visit Lola the first day. She is sitting in her wheel chair, drinking orange juice straight from the carton. When she sees me she puts the carton down and wipes orange juice from her mouth. I see a stand of her long blonde hair that is dripping a little bit with it. " Hi. I'm Lola." She sticks out her hand. I shake it. " I'm Alana," I say. Lola and I look at each other for a while. I feel like Lola is sizing me up, searching with her huge blue eyes on me like car headlights. I try and do the same but it doesn?t work. I can tell Lola has been through a lot, what from her fingernails that look ragged and from the lines on her forehead from frowning. She is still beautiful, but now that she is nineteen, she looks old and tired. But I don't understand why. " So," she says finally, " I suppose you're here to find out about That Night." It sounds like a proper noun, like the Eiffel Tower or Abraham Lincoln. " Yeah. Kind of. I'm also here just to talk. My mom says you're lonely," I say. Lola nods and her whole body moves. " Yeah I am. It's hard for me, you know? I sort of ruined my chances of college. No where will take me." I frown at this. " Why not? You?re only in a wheelchair. It's not like you're an escaped mental patient." Lola whistles through her teeth. " I guess you really need to hear the story." She says, more to herself than to me. She waves at a seat and I sit. Her eyes cloud over as she begins to tell the story. " We were heading to a frat party in Fremont. Derek Chealsea was the designated driver and Sarah Andrews sat shotgun with him. I didn't even want to go, I had a test the next day in Bio. But Alice made me. She said that we would ruin our reputations if we didn't go. And besides, she said, we'd pass the cemetery. She told me that one of the boys was planning to kiss one of us behind the big church and everyone knew it was me. I finally gave in, thinking it was safe. Of course, it wasn't. " It wasn't until the way back that things started getting a little odd. Derek had filled up on a lot of beer and everyone else was even more drunk than him-apart from me, who still can't hold drink-but I couldn't drive. I didn't know how. We were driving past a long row of houses when the car began to lose its gas. Derek got out to ask one of the houses if they had any spare gas so he got out and walked up the road to a big house with a lot of trees. I sat in the car while the other kids laughed and hooted and acted like animals around me. I felt tired and wanted to go home so that I could study but when I tried to get out, a boy named Sam Dewey held me back and said he had a surprise when we got to the church. I was struck with horror. He was the most drunk and the biggest boy so he could hold me down with all his might if I tried to get away. It was awful, the suspense and when Derek came back I was almost glad to see him. He told us that no one had spare gas so we would just have to walk. Then, Alice said that we should just steal the gas out of the car in a driveway near us. Derek liked that idea so he went with an empty bottle and filled it with stolen gas. He came back and filled up the car and we headed off. " The cemetery was just up ahead, when Derek feel asleep. The car spun around and whirled into a tree. Sarah's head cracked onto the dashboard and blood trickled down. Derek went flying over the car into the tree and snapped his neck. The rest of us were thrown from the car to the road. I fell onto a pile of grass and twigs, but was paralyzed in my legs. The others flew into the road and cracked their heads on the asphalt. I wasn't in pain, but I was petrified. I could tell from the mess of blood and bodies that everyone around me was dead. I used my arms to prop myself up and call 911 but there was no signal in the area. I dragged myself across the road to the cemetery and lay down on the grass near a grave. Suddenly, a figure started to walk across the road. I yelled for it to stop but it traveled across and stopped near the pile of bodies in the road. It picked each of them up one by one and carried them across the road to a nearby gravestone. I heard a sucking noise and saw that it was sucking the blood from the bodies. I thought I was dreaming or delirious with shock and terror. But the figure saw me and glided across. I yelled and screamed at it when it grew closer and it stopped. It touched my legs with a hand and then glided quickly away. " Suddenly, a pain so intense that I screeched came across my legs. I cried and yelled so loud that people came out of their houses and saw me. It wasn't until I was in the ambulance that I looked at my legs. They were burned to a crisp and shriveled up, black with dried blood and burned flesh. No one believed me when I told them what happened so I was transferred to an insane asylum to recover. I decided to keep quiet about it and was let out. But you?re the only one I?ve told, Alana. No one else will believe me." I looked at her with awe. " I don?t believe you." I whispered. Lola smiled and lifted the blanket off her legs. Underneath was a mass of burnt leg and the faint smell of a fire. Her legs were black and shriveled. I believe her now. Do you? |
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