Pile Up
by Dominic Bell
WINNER £100
Dominic Bell has recently retired from the North Sea and is presently writing dividing his time between writing and updating his programming skills. His main writing project is endlessly editing a series of First World War novels, the number of which increase by one annually due to NaNoWriMo, but this has temporarily been put aside to work on an oil rig based novel. He tries to enter almost all the WM short story competitions to diversify his writing and have the satisfaction of finishing something. He has been runner up six times, and this is his fifth win.
Istay in the middle lane because the lorries are nose to tail in the inner lane. In the outer lane grey and black wedges slash past far over the speed limit, racing home into the setting sun. My old engine is pushing its limit at just over seventy. Someone behind flashes me to go faster. I ignore them. A minute later they swerve out into the fast lane and accelerate away. I fall back a bit from the truck in front of me. Instantly another car leapfrogs past into the space. A minute later it is gone again, cutting out in front of an Audi which hoots angrily, then chases off after it. Only another few minutes to the junction and I will be out of this.
I don’t see what happens, but suddenly the long curve of the road ahead is full of flaring brake lights. Time slows. The lorry ahead swerves out suddenly into the fast lane and a black BMW slams into its back, bounces off the barrier and is lost from view in a cacophony of screaming brakes and horns. I am trapped in the middle, not daring to brake too hard because in the mirror looms the rapidly approaching lorry behind. A car spins ahead, its full beam headlights blinding me for a second. To my left an articulated lorry squeals and jackknifes slowly sliding out in front of me, to flick the spinning car out of its way. I steer left to avoid it and the side of another lorry looms metres away.