text: The night still rang fresh in his mind. Three years and the smell of burning rubber still came to him. He could see it too playing out for him. He took another swig from the vodka bottle to his left. He twiddled the small ring around on his finger. He could still smell her lavender perfume. The keyring jingled in his hands as he fumbled through it looking for the one that fit the door of his car. Genavieve had looked so beautiful in her sparkling dress. Her makeup was a little smudged and it made him think of what she would look like after she'd been fucked. He had seen it many times before but tonight was special. The way they danced, the way she teased him, rubbing her hands in places she knew she shouldn't. He finally thrust the right key into the car door, swinging it open, and getting into the driver's seat. He debated it for a while, start the car and drive. He had remembered at this moment all he had learned. The videos in drivers Ed of the bloody faces and broken limbs, the words "this could be you" stuck bitterly onto his tongue. He continued despite it and shoved the key into the ignition. He sat up now and checked his surroundings, looked at the empty bottle of vodka in his hands. He wanted to blame it. Pin some sort of responsibility onto the bottle for what had happened. Voices in his head screamed otherwise. The voice of her mother when she told him it was his fault. The sight of her leaning into the casket (the same one he was too guilty to look into) tears streaming down her face. As her mother stared into the casket of her daughter. He stood from his spot on the couch and headed for the kitchen. He needed to see it. He had to go back. He grabbed the keys off the key hook. The car's engine roared to life as the key turned, the sound of it made him jump. Before he left the spot he looked at Genavieve, her soft features still visible even in the low light of the car. Everything hit him at once their wedding night, their first time, even the first time he had laid eyes upon her in chemistry. He loved her. The car's headlights turned on and he rolled out of his parking spot, he was headed to that place again. He needed to see it again. The Oregon roads were slick with ice and the roads seemed dead. If it weren't for the lit houses he would've thought the whole town up and left. the bottle of vodka still swam through his veins causing his head to dizzy and his vision to blur. he needed to go back, to prove to the cops, her mother, and most importantly himself that he wasn't wrong that it wasn't his fault. The car glided down the summer roads, Genevieve rolled down her window and waved her ginger hair in the wind, letting the cool air run past her. He started at her in bliss, this was the woman he was in love with, this was the woman he loved, this was the woman- He pulled the car to the side of the road, he knew this spot. He opened the car door and took a deep breathe the smell of pine filled his lungs, the cold air nipped at his face, causing his nipples to stand erect under his sweater. He stood there and waited, he closed his eyes. Slowly it began to come back to him. The smell of burning tires, the feeling of the warm summer air as it rushed in through the broken windshield. He could hear it too. He remembered it all. He and Genavieve had left her cousin's wedding in northern Oregon, they both left drunk and he drove as he had touched less but still, it was a lot. He had said this all before once in front of the first responders, then to a judge, then to her family. As they were driving they hit something. He opened his eyes and slowly let his vision focus, the car was busted and the smell of burning metal and charred tires was what he first noticed. Then he saw it, through the shattered windshield sat a tall dark figure its mouth wrapped around the midsection of vision, it raked out her organs with its large yellowed teeth. It was eating her. He tried to move but his legs were broken. He couldn't scream, all he could do was watch as it devoured her. It ate what it could then left. He began to cry, he thought about how he could've saved her. He sat there and watched it swallow her guts. He could've at least screamed. Tried to scare it away. He fell to his knees and began to cry harder. "I know you're out there you son of a bitch!" He screamed into the forest. The forest answered with a cold shoulder. He lay there in the road a slobbering mess. Slowly he picked himself off the ground and got back into his car. From the glove compartment, he pulled a 9mm pistol the same one he had bought with her years ago. He Placed it into his mouth the cold metal almost comforted him. It reminded him of the lollipops he would get on the corner as a kid. The windshield splattered with crimson. His car sat slowly being covered in snow. Later the patrolmen would find his car under the snow the windshield broken and his body found placed in a tree all his organs removed. The town searched for weeks for a killer, the policeman on duty said he found the body after following bloody deer tracks which led into the forest and ended under the tree where he found the body. Finally, it was ruled a suicide and left to gather dust...