gun and slowly taking the steps down to the door.
The couple’s silhouettes were backlit against the door’s glass window. Backlit by the on-again, off-again blink of the yellow light in the distance. The turn signal he’d turned off not long before.
For a moment he didn’t think he could twist the door knob. He stared at his hand as it sat there like a flesh paperweight. Another knock made it twitch.
C’mon. Don’t be silly. Open the damned door.
He opened it.
The couple looked frantic. The woman grabbed Johanson by the sleeve.
“We can’t find him,” she said.
Johanson pulled away. “Who?”
“Please help us. We can’t find him.”
He took a step back, thought about shutting the door on them.
The man said, “Our son. We can’t find him.”
“You didn’t come in here with anybody else,” Johanson said. “There’s no one else in here.”
The woman’s voice rose. “Please!”
“What have you been doing here for so long, anyway? You’ve been here for over an hour.” He grabbed his radio. “Shatterbaugh? You there?”
Of course not. Worthless fuck.
“Help us find our son,” the man said.
“Settle down. Both of you. What makes you think he’s here?”
“It was the accident,” the man said. Tears formed at the corners of his eyes. “We lost him.”
The turn signal in the distance. Blinking.
On/off.
On/off.
Okay, a couple of nut jobs. Kid died in an accident and they’ve lost their grip on reality. Made sense.
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
Once more with the radio. “Shatterbaugh?”
Nothing.
“Please,” the woman said, tears in her eyes as well.
Johanson looked from one to the other. Okay. They want to look for their dead son? Nothing wrong with that. Why the hell not?
“Let’s take a walk around the lot,” he said. “Will that be enough for you?”
The woman nodded desperately. “Thank you.”
When they headed toward the blue Pontiac Sunbird, it’s turn signal calling to them like a beacon, he was not surprised. He wondered why he hadn’t shot the light out earlier while shooting up the rest of the car.
“We’ve looked everywhere,” the woman said. “At the crash site. At home.”
Why were they doing this to themselves?
“We just want to see him again,” she said.
“Tell him we love him,” the man said. “Tell him it’s okay. It’s okay to be with us.”
Johanson followed them to the Sunbird. He reached in and turned off the signal one more time.
The couple stood and stared at the wreck.
“Maybe I should leave you alone,” Johanson said.
They didn’t answer, their eyes moist and shiny, trained on the child seat in the back of the car.
Johanson said softly, “He’s not here. Come on folks. I’m sorry. But he’s not here.”
His radio squawked, making him jump. He quickly backed away from the couple.
“Johanson, you there?” It was Shatterbaugh.
“Yes. What?”
“You tried calling me a bit ago?”
“Yeah, where were you?”
“Taking a shit. What’s it to you?”
“Again?”
“Did you want something or not?”
He almost told him no, forget it, but then he turned away from the couple and said quietly into the radio, “Tell me about this blue Sunbird that’s our here.” He gave him the license plate number.
Shatterbaugh sighed audibly before clicking off. A moment later he was back.
“Ninety-three blue Pontiac Sunbird? Hit by a semi two days ago. Family of three. The mother and father killed instantly. Smashed like water balloons. I talked to the tow truck operator when he brought it in. But the kid was all right.”
“What?”
“I said the kid was all right. Can you believe that?”
Johanson clipped his radio to his belt. He walked slowly to the car, to the couple who stood there.
The turn signal flashed at him like a bad facial tic.
Blink. Blink.
A strobe of bright glowing yellow.
“You still there?” Shatterbaugh’s words were like the distant barking of a dog. “You listen to a fucking word I said?”
“Excuse me,” Johanson said to the couple. “You have to go now.” The light from the turn signal engulfed him. He closed his eyes against the blinding flash. “He’s not here.” He felt for the car’s exterior, found the hood. “You have to go. Please. You have to leave him alone.” His hand traveled over the car’s body up to the driver’s side. He found the signal lever. It broke off in his hand.
The signal continued to flash.
He let his eyes adjust. The couple was no longer there. He looked inside the car. Looked at the empty child’s safety seat pocked with his bullets. Looked at the front seats, the dash only inches from them, dark stains covering them like a second skin.
The kid survived.
The left turn signal…
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
Small explosions in his eyes. Funny how the crash hadn’t destroyed it. Funny how things can be touched. Untouched. No rhyme or reason. Just random spatterings of dumb luck.
Blink blink blink…
The couple was there again, pale against the on/off glare of the signal. The looks in their eyes — longing, pleading.
“I can’t help you,” Johanson said. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”
The woman bent down, stuck her head into the car. She crawled inside. Crawled over the bent, twisted seats to the back. Hovered over the child’s seat. The man followed her.
“He’s not there,” Johanson said. What if the couple did find their child? What then?
“Please,” Johanson said. “Please.”
The couple hovered over the safety seat.
Johanson saw images as the turn signal flashed, each flash bringing a new one. A flash of the couple as teenagers when they first bought the car. A flash of them making love in the backseat. A flash of them driving, the turn signal flashing on them like passing road lights on an interstate. A flash of them giving birth — here — in this very car. Flashes of them with a child, their son, singing, playing, as they drove from destination to destination. Then flashes of the wreck, of the looks on their faces as they saw the truck coming, each flash like a single frame advance on a DVD player. He watched them die in slow motion, watched their bodies crushed by the force of
