The Dark Hours
It’s ten in the evening, and well dark outside. It’s been cold, and the sun sets early, and I’ve been off school for Christmas break. I’m barely 16. My mother has a police scanner that she likes to constantly keep on, to track what happens in our small town. Mostly its to listen to my father, a volunteer firefighter, when he’s out on calls. The rest of the time it just scans endlessly in the background, becoming white noise as dispatch clears mundane traffic stops. Tonight is different. Tonight is one of the Big Ones. They page out all local departments, every kind of first responder in the area. We turn off the television and turn up the scanner. It’s a terrible car accident just two roads over, on a curve I drive every morning to go to school. An accident. A bad one. A Big One. It was a boy I went to school with, speeding. He wrapped his car around a tree. He survived, but he was ever the same after that. He would be one of the only ones. *** I’m 18 now, and scurrying in th...