Shrouded in Silence by Robert Wise Read Free Book Online

smiled.
Their car kept moving steadily up the incline, and little Michelle could see the mountains getting larger and beginning to loom over them. She could still almost smell the sea air as it washed in along the coast of Bari where they'd spent their vacation. The water had been warm, and she loved playing in the sand. Little red crabs always scurried along the shoreline. Michelle loved her father's trips forever.
Ahead, around the curve, a large gasoline truck barreled down the road on the wrong side of the divider. Michelle looked again. The truck appeared to be coming right at them.
"Watch out!" father screamed and pointed.
Far from slowing, the driver didn't even look at them. Michelle saw his eyes when the man finally realized his huge semi was coming straight at their car. The man's face contorted into a grimace of terror, and he jerked the wheel violently to the left just as Michelle's father yanked their vehicle in the opposite direction.
Michelle felt her side of the car rising off the pavement as the vehicle careened into the ditch next to the side of the mountain. The car kept lifting and started to tip over. The truck's cab twisted violently and the trailer behind swung toward their car. Before she had time to grab the door, the backseat, anything. Michelle felt herself turning upside down. She bounced off the top of the car just as the back end of the trailer caught their front fender and spun their car like a top. The backseat cushion broke loose and tumbled on top of her. The car turned upright again only to bounce over once more. Broken glass flew in all directions. She hit the ceiling again before the car smashed against the massive rock jutting out of the side of the mountain. Michelle tumbled onto the crumpled top of their car. Pain pushed through her body like a rampant fever, and she hurt all over. The smell of gasoline rushed through the scattered windows before an explosion sent a ball of fire straight up into the sky. Smoke and searing heat surged through the car.
"Get her out!" Michelle's mother screamed. "Jack! Michelle's in the back seat."
A strong arm locked around her waist and lifted her into the front seat before pushing her through where the front windshield had been. For the first time, Michelle realized she couldn't make her left leg move and that it hung at a strange angle. Only then did she see her father's face covered with blood running down his cheeks. A grotesque gash had been slashed across his forehead. Her mother was sitting on the ground with the side of her blouse ripped open and blood running down her arm.
A second explosion filled the air with such a deafening roar that Michelle's ears went blank and her father fell to the ground. No sounds filled her ears, but chaos roared through her mind. She grabbed her head and curled up in a ball next to her father's bloody shirt. The pain had become more than she could bear.
Slowly the picture faded and the bathroom wall took its place. The ball of fire turned into a streak of paint on the smudged dirty wall, the silence replaced by the sounds of people walking down the hall outside the bathroom door. With a trembling hand, Michelle reached up and felt the side of her face. Tears filled her eyes and sweat had started running down her cheeks. Her face felt clammy and flushed. She tried to catch her breath, but it wasn't easy to do so. Michelle hung her head and braced her body against the wall.
Ten minutes later someone beat on the bathroom door, and a woman's voice said, "Are you all right? You speak English?
"Yes, yes," Michelle mumbled. "I speak English. I'll be out in just a moment?"
"You are sick?"
"No. No. Just a moment."
Michelle forced herself to stand up and staggered to the mirror. The color had washed out of her face and she looked bedraggled. How could it have happened so quickly? Heaving in and out, her breath began to stabilize even though her knees continued to feel wobbly. How could she ever tell Jack about how deeply her