Jessica

by Christine Sutton

When Sal stopped at the coffee shop and ordered his white chocolate vanilla bean cappuccino with double espresso and cinnamon sprinkles, he thought that his day was going to be boring. He would soon find out that he was very, very, wrong.

He walked out into the crisp September morning and smiled. He liked boring. He liked his boring job as a medical account auditor. He liked his boring champagne colored Nissan. He even liked his mundane marriage.

Well, maybe mundane was a bad word. Simple, pleasant, comfortable. He loved his wife very much. They had been married two years, and they were still as happy as newlyweds. They were even trying to get pregnant. Miranda was ovulating tonight, so he knew he would be getting some. That was alright by him.

He hopped into his car and put his coffee in the cup holder. He was whistling a RUSH song as he turned the key.

He pulled out and started down the road towards work. He stopped whistling and turned on the radio. RUSH poured out of the speakers.

"Holy crap, that is weird! I was just whistling that same song." He said to no one.

Sal laughed and whistled along with Geddy Lee. That was when he first saw her.

The little girl was standing in the middle of the busy intersection. She was dressed in a plain white nightgown. Her brown hair was pulled into tight little pigtails on either side of her head. She was holding a well-worn teddy bear, and she was crying.

Sal was astonished that no one was stopping to help this poor little girl. She couldn't have been more than four years old, he thought.

"What is the matter with you people?"

He made his way to the shoulder of the road. He was going to help her, at least.

He pulled over, looked both ways, and got out.

"Call 911!" He yelled, as he ran to her aid.

Car horns were blaring as he crossed the busy street. He put up his palms to ward off the oncoming traffic. He could hear her weeping, and it broke his heart.

"Stop! STOP!" He was yelling at the crossing traffic.

A screech of tires came from behind him.

"What the hell are you doing, asshole?!?" A blond teenaged girl yelled at him from her VW bug.

"Get out of the road, douchebag!"

"I'm trying to help her, you bitch!" He pointed to the intersection. When he turned back, the little girl was gone.

"Where did she go?" He looked frantically around, but she was nowhere.

He was running through the middle of the intersection, searching for the lost girl.

He called out for help, but the only thing he got was shouts, honks and vulgarity.

After dodging traffic for a minute, and getting called things he had never even heard before, he got back to his car as fast as he could.

He buckled up and just sat there trying to figure out what was going on. He knew he had seen her, but she couldn't have just disappeared. He was flabbergasted.

He finally calmed down enough to start the car and head on his way. He just couldn't shake the weird feeling.

After a mile or two, he had had some coffee, and was feeling a little better.

He heard the sirens behind him and he checked his rearview mirror to make sure it was coming his way. He saw the lights coming up, so he made his way to the shoulder so it could pass.

As the ambulance sped past him, he pulled out and settled in behind it. As the distance between them increased, he saw her in the back window of the ambulance.

The same little girl was there, hands pressed against the glass. She was shaking her head, causing her little pigtails to hit her cheeks.

He sped to catch up with the ambulance. The little girl was crying and hitting the glass. He was trying to make out what she was saying. It was no use. He squinted his eyes to try and read her tiny little lips, but the ambulance was going too fast.

He slowed down and fell back into traffic. He switched off the radio. He suddenly didn't feel like listening to how Tom Petty felt about Mary Jane.

Sal slumped in his seat, and he felt like his head might implode. He rubbed his eyes to try and clear out the crazy in his vision. As he took his hand away, he heard a sound from the front seat. He whipped his head to the right, and there she was. She was sitting right there in his front seat!

The little girl with the worn out teddy looked at him and smiled. Sal hit the brakes with both feet. His tires squealed and smoke bellowed out from behind his boring Nissan.

Sal sat frozen in fear as she lifted her teddy towards him.

"I Jessica. Dis Teddy." She cooed at him, smiling. She brought the teddy back to her lap and hugged it tight.

She reached over and slipped her tiny little hand inside of Sal's like he was going to help her cross the street. He felt scared, but also happy to be holding her hand.

He closed his eyes again to try and will her away. When he opened them, what he saw nearly drove him insane right there.

Jessica was still in the front seat, but she was no longer the adorable little girl. She was now a bloody mess. The hand that held his was completely slack and cold. She was slumped in the seat, the teddy dangling off her lap. She had a cut on the side of her perfect pink little face.

Sal instinctively reached over and sat her up to see if she was ok. From the middle of her tiny little chest, half of a license plate protruded. "veSal" was all he could see of the plate, but he knew.

That was the vanity plate that Melinda had put on her car. "IlveSal"

"What is going on?" He screamed.

Jessica raised her mangled little head and looked at him. She raised a bloody little hand and pointed out the windshield. Sal followed her finger with his eyes.

He saw Melinda's car travelling down the crossroad in front of him. She was singing along to her radio, bouncing up and down in her seat to the music.

Sal looked out the passenger window at Jessica's urging. He saw a small Toyota with a woman behind the wheel. She was crying, and driving too fast towards the intersection. Then Sal saw Teddy dancing in the back window of the Toyota, held by a tiny little hand.

He knew what was coming, but could not wrap his head around it.

The crying woman continued past him, towards the red light. She never slowed down. He watched in horror as Melinda tried to break but couldn't. She slammed into the side of the car carrying Jessica.

Melinda's car bounced off the Toyota and went into a spin. He could see her head slamming back and forth between the side window and the steering wheel. Suddenly, her side window was covered with a sheet of crimson. Her airbag deployed and threw her head back against the seat, spraying even more blood.

Melinda's car bounded back from the guardrail and the tail end slammed back into the now mangled Toyota. He saw her personalized license plate shoot into what was left of the backseat of the Toyota.

Then suddenly, everything was still.

He turned to Jessica and screamed, "Is she alright? Please tell me she's alright!" He was crying now.

He wanted to shake her little body to get her to say what he wanted.

She just looked at him. Her face started to appear transparent. She opened her twisted mouth to speak, but all that came out was a loud "HONK!"

Sal snapped awake as the trucker behind him laid on the horn.

"HONK, HONK!"

He hit the gas and headed to the shoulder when he spotted a little Toyota to his right, with a crying woman behind the wheel.

Sal panicked. He whipped his head around to find Melinda making her way to the intersection.

He had no time to think. He smashed the gas pedal into the floor and his Nissan bolted forward. He cut over and bumped his head on the roof as his car jumped over the shoulder. He rolled his window down and screamed at the top of his lungs, "MELINDA!", while he laid on the horn. He crossed over an empty lot, barreling towards her car.

Melinda got a puzzled look on her face and she looked around. He couldn't imagine what he looked like to her. Probably like a lunatic waving his arm out the window and screaming her name.

She slowed down when she seemed to realize that it was him coming right at her. She pulled her car over to the shoulder of the road as a little Toyota, carrying a sweet little angel named Jessica and her teddy zipped through a red light.

Sal heard the police sirens as they pulled the Toyota over at the corner for running the red light. He saw the little teddy bear dancing in the back window.

As another police car drove towards him, he jumped out and grabbed Melinda up in his arms. He kissed her while she asked what the hell was wrong with him.

"Nothing now, Baby. I might have the biggest traffic ticket ever, but it was worth it." He continued kissing her

She looked confused, but she smiled at him anyway.

"Sir, could you come over here, please?" The officer said from behind him.

"Hey, what say we make a baby tonight?" He asked Melinda.

"Boy or girl?" She asked, chuckling.

"A girl. Jessica, maybe."

She smiled in agreement.

Sal walked over to the officer and said, "So much for a boring day."

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