Page 22 of Story of My Life
I jerked forward then back as my seat belt locked up when the car came to an abrupt and unscheduled halt.
For a second, there was silence as a dust cloud billowed up around us.
“How did you hita fucking fish?” Zoey screeched.
There was something wet and red in my eye. I tried to brush it away but only managed to smear it into my hair.
“Am I bleeding?” I demanded.
“There’s a fish in my lap! Get it off me!” Zoey howled.
I tried to look down, but between the red stuff, my tangled hair, and the dust, it was impossible to see anything.
An eerie, high-pitched whistle cut through the screaming and the dust cloud. “What the hell is that?” I coughed out, peering behind me through the dust cloud at the unholy apparition.
6
YOU HIT A BALD EAGLE
CAMPBELL
I debated drivingon by the roadside disaster.
I had places to be, shit to fix.
But Story Lake wasn’t exactly a bustling metropolis, and there was a good chance no one else would stop either. Besides, the way Goose was perched on the trunk, he was likely to give someone a heart attack.
On an aggrieved sigh, I swung my pickup onto the shoulder behind the mangled convertible.
Of course they were New York plates.
My boots had no sooner hit the ground than twin screams cut through the dust and the quiet.
“Everybody okay?” I demanded gruffly as I approached.
Both driver and passenger were too busy screaming and wrestling with their seat belts while staring over their shoulders to notice me.
Goose spread one impressive wing, keeping the other tucked into his side.
“He’s gonna eat our faces,” the redhead shrieked from the passenger seat.
“Just give him his fish back,” the dust-covered driver hollered.
Swearing under my breath, I opened the driver’s-side door. “Anyone hurt?”
They screamed again, this time looking at me. The driver, a brunette with sunglasses that sat crookedly on her nose, was bleeding profusely from a cut on her forehead.
Biting back a few colorful f-bombs so word wouldn’t get back to my mom that I’d been swearing a blue streak in a couple of tourists’ faces, I leaned in and released the driver’s seat belt.
“Get out,” I commanded. When she didn’t move fast enough, I picked her up and deposited her next to the car. “You’re bleeding.”
“No shit. I thought it was strawberry jelly,” she said, slapping a hand to her forehead. “Zoey, are you okay?”
“You’re the only one bleeding,” I pointed out.
“Sir, I don’t know who you are or if you’re a good person or like a serial killer, but I will be your alibi for any murder you commit if you getthis fish out of my lap,” the passenger shrieked.
I glanced down, and the redhead held both hands in the air like she was under arrest. A fat rainbow trout stared up lifelessly from her lap.
