Led Zeplin's classic rock and roll blasted from the shitty stereo of the 1998 ford mustang, the CD skipping each time a small bump was hit. The four girls in the car just ignore the skipping and sang as loud as they could to the lyrics of their favorite band. The driver tossed her head back and forth, still eyeing the road, but not against joining her friends in dance and song on the long road tip to San Diego, California.<br/><br/>Nami, the girl in the passenger seat, hung her head out the window, her long red hair flowing freely in the wind. She had one leg kicked up on the dash and the seat leaning back far enough that she was almost laying on the backseat.<br/><br/><span style="color: #00BFFF">"Nami! share the space...this backseat suck!"</span>Kris yelled above the loud music. She was a pretty girl, with hair as black as coal and bright blue eyes that boarded white. Kris was small enough to comfortably fit in the back seat with Marie but with Nami taking up quite a bit of space, the two girls were cramp up.<br/><br/><span style="color: #00BFFF">"Yeah, Kris may be small but her tailbone is killing my leg, so slide over!!" </span>Marie joined, playful pushing Kris with her palm. Marie was taller than the other girls, with creamy tan skin and highlighted dreadlocks hanging around a perfectly shaped face,<span style="color: #4080FF"> "Next time we decide to take a road trip we're taking someone else's car...this mustang was not built for tall people!" </span><br/><br/>Colby, the driver and owner of the shitty little mustang briefly turned around and stuck her tongue out before returning her vivid green eyes back on the road,<span style="color: #00BFFF">"You guys should get an award for complaining...My mustang is an amazing ride...isn't that right sally."</span>She said with a huge grin, her left hand patting the dash of the car,<span style="color: #00BFFF"> " This car gas brought us from the east coast to the west...I think shes doing a damn good job." </span><br/><br/><span style="color: #4080FF">"Hm...that sign back there said twenty miles to ocean side, but shouldn't there be more traffic around this time?" </span>Nami wondered aloud, turning around in her seat to look at Kris,<span style="color: #4080FF">"This is California right? shouldn't there be more traffic?" <br/></span><br/><br/>Kris looked over the dash and threw the windshield, noticing for the first time how dead the roads were. She was from Cali and knew the roads should be slammed with traffic at all hours of the day. The main road stretch threw the south to the north of California, so no matter the time of day it was always busy on the roads, now their wasn't a car to be seen anywhere,"<span style="color: #4080FF"> That's strange....maybe there was an earthquake or something....turn the radio on..." </span><br/><br/>Colby nodded and flipped the CD player over to the regular radio station. After flipping threw the stations and getting only static, she turned the stereo off and glanced in the rearview mirror at her friends in the backseat. Kris wore a strange look, like she was thinking of a reason why the stations would be out, but couldn't quite come up with something,<span style="color: #00BFFF"> " Maybe there was a quake that knocked the stations out or something...we should be at your aunts house very sh-" </span>Colby stopped mid-sentence at the screaming sound of rubber forcefully sliding across pavement. Two second later the semi came into view heading straight for them at out of control speeds. She whipped the wheel to avoid a direct hit, and was rewarded with the back half of the car being smashed into by the cab of the truck. She heard screaming, the car spinning out so fast her vision began to blur, then blackness reached up and pushed her down.<br/><br/>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br/><br/>Something was burning. The smell broke threw her deep sleep and helped her surface threw the thick foggy cloud of unconsciousness. Colby tried to left her heavy head and open her eyes, but everything was  dark for a second and the air felt hot, way to hot,<span style="color: #00BFFF">" Kris....Marie....Nami?"</span>She sleepily called her friends names to be greeted with nothing but silence. Her head rolled over, eyes peering into the passenger seat and what she found there made her wish her fate had been different.  Kris stared back at her with a blank, lifeless expression. Blood soaked the front of her sundress and where her leg had once been, it was now gone, ripped off by the sear force of the two metal machines colliding at high speeds.<br/><br/>She swallowed vomit and tears, turning her head away from her friends remains and daring not to look in the backseat. Her entire body ached and where it had once been sunny and beautiful outside, the sky had changed to night and the only light came from the front of the car, where the engine seem to be on fire.<br/><br/>Awareness came back to her with just enough time for her to realize that the engine was on fire and the strange smell was oil soon to be joined by gas. Colby fumbled with the door, but found it stuck because of the accident, so she pulled herself threw the shattered glass window and peer threw the window of the backseat.<br/><br/>Marie had been on the side that took the most impact, there was nothing Colby could do for her friend.Where was the rescue team? Where were the police? Who was coming to help them and...where was Kris? Marie broken figure laid in the backseat alone, staring blankly at where Kris had once sat.<br/><br/>Colby stumbled away from the car and finally saw the semi trucked flipped on its side.  Instead of running up on the accident, she stumbled around the side of her broken car and went to the passenger door where Nami half hung out the window. Holding her breath and nerves in check, she reached into the car and opened the glove box. Papers spilled out on the floor, leaving the colt .45 in plane sight. Her father had given her the small handgun before she'd left for California and just the heavy weight in her hand helped to calm her nerves and the massive headache she had.<br/><br/>She tucked the colt .45 into the lining of her jeans and started toward the flipped semi. The closer she got the less the gleam of the engine fire brightened her view of the scene. Her heart was pounding in her chest, broken and in fear of what was to come. The closer she got, she noticed there was a shadowy figure hunched in the middle of the road right next to the flipped truck. In the shadows it looked as though it was moving, grabbing at something on the ground in front that she couldn't make out, " Kris?" She called softly, carefully inching closer to the shadowy figure.<br/><br/>The smell of decay was apon her suddenly, the stench thick in the air and so overpowering she almost lost her lunch. The figure hunched over sluggishly rose from the ground and swayed toward her. What she saw made her wish again that she was with her friends back in the car. The figure stumbling towards her was rotten and decayed, pieces of flesh hung from its body, and maggots crawled in and out of open wounds. Its face looked like it had been held down and rubbed across concrete over and over until there was barely anything left but teeth. At the things feet was the remainder of Kris's body, torn into by hungry hands and teeth. A look of pain and horror was left on her friends face.<br/><br/>Colby screamed her anger, lifting the gun and firing off one shot straight into the things chest. The rage was consuming and she didn't even consider what she had done. The shot hit the mark, tearing a bullet sized hole in the things chest, but the shot didn't seem to hurt it or slow it down, it kept coming at her, reaching out with hungry hands. Colby backed away, leveling the gun with the things skull and firing on three shots. Only one hit the mark and stopped the thing in its tracks.