Chapter 15

"God, what a mess," I heard a voice saying off in the distance.

I had the sensation that someone was touching me but I was not sure who it was. I did not move or even open my eyes, as it was less painful if I laid still. I heard another voice, a girl's voice, in the distance, saying, "Dad, I can't get anyone on my phone, I think we are too far away from a cell tower."

"Get your ass up, you have been lying there long enough," a voice said. It was familiar, but I could not place where I knew the voice from.

All I wanted to do was lie there, it made the pain hurt less.

"Come on, your the only one that can do that Jedi mind shit, or mind meld or whatever it is your calling it," the voice came again.

The voice was closer this time, I knew the voice. There was only one person who talked about 'My Jedi mind tricks, ' I just could not place a name. The name was Paul or something starting with the letter 'P'.

The next voice I heard was the girl's voice declaring, "God, that's gross," as a light started to shine in my eyes.

Then another voice sounded, this one I had never heard before, saying, "There is nothing I can do for this guy." There was a pause then the voice continued saying, "Okay I guess we have no choice, let's get back to the car and we will go find a phone and call in the accident."

Then as suddenly as the light had been there it was gone and I could hear someone walking away, the sound of their footsteps fading quickly. Then I could hear the sound of an engine starting but that soon faded away too.

That was good that they were going for help, I could lay here and wait.

"NO YOU CAN NOT," that voice I knew but could not name thundered at me through my haze. "If you do not get up both of us are going to DIE."

I did not want to die but I hurt all over, I was cold and I could feel something wet but very cold on my face. Doing an inventory of myself, I added the pain in my chest to the list of things that did not feel right.

"Come on you think that you are so much better than everyone else, prove it to me now. Show me that impressive healing thing you can do!" the voice came back the last part was rather sarcastic.

Trying to roll to my back my right arm, leg, and ankle were added to my list of places that hurt.

"So fix them, come on there are other people hurt, you need to get to them," the voice saying.

I thought my hearing was okay as I thought I could hear crying off in the distance as well as that voice. I was still having trouble putting a name to the voice but I knew it was only a matter of time before I figured that puzzle out. Opening my eyes I could see that I was looking up into the sky and that snow flakes were still coming down and landing on me.

"COME ON AND HEAL YOURSELF," the voice demanded.

I was not sure why but I did what the voice wanted if for nothing else to get it to shut the hell up. Looking to the side I could see that I was in a white field with the disturbed snow leading off in the direction of what I guessed was our bus. There were other tracks in the snow but they led to the highway where they disappeared into some tracks that looked like they had been made by either a truck or a large car.

Lying still trying to get my healing to get myself together, the crying I heard earlier got louder as more voices joined the chorus.

Thinking about what had happened was a bit hazy at first but I did remember the bridge support in the window before a loud crash threw me through the windshield. As I lay there in the cold, I had other flashes of memories, which confused me as there was a light and someone 'saying that there was nothing that they could do for me'. The light went away at that point and I wondered what it meant because I knew that I was not dead.

"Your not dead because I do not want to die here with you," came the voice again.

Through the fog in my head I got the name, Peter.

"Where have you been Peter?" I asked. "You have been gone a long time."

"Well until tonight you have not needed me and I have not found a way to escape from your head so I have decided that you need help and I was the only one that could help right now."

"Well, what do I need to do now?" I asked.

There was a pause then he came back, saying, "You are doing everything you can right now, heal yourself so that you can help everyone else that needs help. Do that and I will be around to talk some times. By the way, before I leave you again, I have enjoyed watching you perform with all those girls. At least I get to see what I will never have again."

"When will I hear from you again?"

I waited for a reply, but he was gone. Turning my attention to myself, I started working on healing the various pains that I had.

By the time I could move without pain, I had lost all sense of time, not that I had a good idea as to what had happened other than that there was an accident. I could still hear crying and some moaning in the distance and it was getting louder as if more voices were being added to the chorus. I knew I needed to get up, because my back had gone numb from lying in the snow. My chest was not much better, having gone through the windshield resulted in several bloody holes in my chest. Even with the cold biting my back, it was not easy for me to get to my feet and in the end, I did it in stages with the first being getting into a sitting position. Resting there for a minute I then turned over onto my hands and knees, the pain that I had felt was rapidly going away. Spotting one of the posts used as a road marker, I crawled over to it and was soon on my feet with the pain in my back now down to a dull throbbing pain.

Even without my enhanced vision, I could see a layer of snow already covering everything that had been thrown from the bus in the accident. With my vision, I got a better idea as to what had happened and it was as terrible as I could image with the side of the bus exposed having been sheered away by the bridge abutment having impacted right behind the passenger side front wheel. Now the entire side of the bus had been opened to the elements and instead of two seats on the right side, there was only one remaining and those were the ones closest to the isle, the seats closest to the windows were now part of the bridge support having been sheared off by the force of the collision.

My first thought was that all the coaches had been sleeping on the right side of the bus and if I remembered correctly, they had used the side of the bus for a pillow. Looking to where they had been when I had closed my eyes there was now empty space. The coaches were gone.

Trying the door I found it jammed closed. Circling the bus, I realized that the only way in for me was through the hole I had made going through the window the first time when I exited the bus. With the window now reduced to shards of glass, I climbed not into the team's victory bus, but my own personal hell.

The driver was the first casualty I found. Checking to see if he was alive, I realized that he was dead, having been impaled by one of the spires from of the trophy the team had placed behind him. The rest of the trophy was nowhere to be seen and as I moved past the bus driver, I did not care to look for it.

Moving deeper into the bus, the next two rows were empty. The third row I found my first survivor crumpled to the floor. With my sight, I had a good idea as to the extent of her injuries as her left leg and arm as well as her face had hit the back of the seat in front of her breaking her arm and leg while shattering her face. Those were just the injuries that I could see without using my focus, and in the absolute darkness of the bus, I had no way to locate any other injuries. I needed more information. Looking around I could see that no one was paying attention to me so I did the only thing I could putting my hands on her delved in using my ability.

Her injuries were severe because in addition to the broken bones I found already I also discovered two broken ribs and a broken clavicle. Thankfully there was nothing else broken or punctured and I moved farther into the bus doing the same thing each time and found the same on most of the girls; broken and shattered bones with the occasional compound fracture. As those injuries were still bleeding, I stopped to treat those using the bats that I had to get outside to use for splints. Using those I soon had the bleeding stopped as well as the area immobilized. Thankfully, for me, none of the seriously injured on the left side of the bus were conscious, so my moving them around to treat them did not cause any additional pain. One other malady everyone I looked at had was a concussion from their faces slamming into the back of the seat in front of them.

The injured on the right side fared far worse with the first survivor I found being eight rows back. What I found in front of the eighth row suggested none of them had survived. Rosemarie, the only Hispanic girl on the team and one of the ones I did not get to know at the hotel was the girl in the eighth row. Instead of using the window as a pillow, she had put her legs to the outside and the pancaking of the side of the bus now had her feet pinned amongst the crushed metal that was wedged up against the bridge support.

Looking around I picked up a jacket that had been stuffed in one of the overheads but was now on the floor as the contents of the bins suffered as much as their owners had. Trying to get the jacket close enough to stop the bleeding proved futile and again I had to go and do the only thing I could and heal her. That proved easy once I linked with her and I soon had the blood stopped where the arteries and veins in her feet had been crushed. I didn't so much as sealed off everything that was bleeding but instead tricked the cells around her injuries into believing that she was suffering from frostbite causing them to constrict. How long that would last I had no idea but at least it bought me some time for either the paramedics to arrive or if help was not available then I might be able to cut her feet free, but for now it was good enough. I did add the tourniquets to both her legs but I left them somewhat loose as more for show just in case someone showed up.

The girl behind her was even worse because in addition to having her leg trapped the same way Rosemarie's were trapped she had flown out of her seat and smashed her face hard enough that I did not even recognize her. Her arm was not much better being the first compound fracture of an arm I found. The problem for her was that I was out of belts since I had used mine along with another one I found on the floor to treat Rosemarie. Now all I had available was a shirt that I tore the bottom hem lose using that for her tourniquet.

Putting a jacket over her to keep her warm, I headed towards the back of the bus again hoping that rescue workers were on the way. By the time I made it to the back of the bus, my count had me missing three coaches along with three players. Thinking that maybe someone had been thrown clear like I had I started moving through the bus comforting the few that were more awake that I would be back in a few minutes as I was needing my medical kit.

The problem was once I was outside, I found no one. Other than the couple of trails in the snow that led to where I had been thrown then to what I guessed was a car parked on the highway, there were no tracks to be found.

Circling the bus, I did find one of my athletic training boxes, which I pulled out. My first aid kit was missing, but now that I thought about it, I remembered that I had put it in the last hold. I knew the right side was gone but heading to the other side, I found the door open and with a bit of luck and my enhanced sight, I found the handle and pulled it out.

During that process, I had been making a fair amount of noise that only stopped once the second kit was free. In that silence, I heard someone intermittently tapping. At first I thought it might have been one of the survivors but from where I was hearing it the sound was farther back. Wondering what it was, I realized that I had never checked the bathroom.

Leaving everything where it was I hurried back in to check the bathroom. What I found was a door jammed from the inside and pushing on it only got me a cry of pain from inside. Working it a bit I managed to get my head in far enough to see the team's captain Brianna there crumpled on the floor unable to move to let me get in to help her. At least I thought the girl inside was Brianna because her face had been crushed like that of the other girl. Her face was unrecognizable because in addition to being smashed and swollen there were pieces of plastic sticking out that looked like they had come from a soap dispenser and gave her what I thought of as the look of the Borg from Star Trek.

What gave me a clue to who I was looking at, was the cell phone or I should say the case to the cell phone as Brianna was the only girl on the team that had a silver casing for her phone and now that casing was sticking out of her chest. How the phone got there, I could only guess, but knowing her, I would have bet that she sitting in the bathroom texting when the accident happened and the phone had been driven into her chest along with the shirt she was wearing. Having nothing with me at that moment, I told her that I would be right back, as I needed to get both my first aid boxes. she blinked her eyes to let me know she heard me.

This was bad. Brianna was by far the most seriously injured of all the players I had to treat, but I also needed to get to a few more that were now beginning to wake up as I could hear them whimpering in pain. I needed my first aid kit. In an act of desperation simply reached out to the boxes and brought them to me through the side of the bus hoping that no one could see on the dark bus what I did. Then I did the same thing with the door, reaching out and wrapping my mental hands around it ripped it from the hinges in the frame. I was still looking away into my kit when I removed the restroom door. Turning around with the things I needed from my kit for Brianna, I found her staring at me, I had no idea if she saw anything but now she just sat there looking forward. Kneeling besides Brianna I went to work using what I had to immobilize not only the phone where it was stuck in her chest but also the various pieces of pieces of plastic that were imbedded in her face. I did not want to remove them thinking that I might cause more damage or worse more bleeding.

After I finished doing what I could for Brianna, I told her I would be back as I needed to check on the other injured girls. All I got was a slight nod that she heard me. Backing up, I finally had a signal that help was arriving as I heard what sounded like the brakes on a fire truck. Working as fast I could to reassure my patients, I did not think about the fact that I had not heard any sirens and I could not see any flashing lights.

The realization that help had not arrived, was when I heard a voice, call out, "Any one in there?"

"Yea, in here, I need some help here!" I shouted back. I could not leave now at the moment as I was on my belly trying to get to Rosemarie's crushed ankles. Working where I was I could feel the bus shake as someone climbed in, the problem was they retreated even faster as I heard whoever it was, exclaim, "OH GOD!" with the sound of someone being sick soon after.

All I could think was, "Great, on my own again."

I went on to check on the rest of the injured and talk to my squeamish helper. In the end, he provided a lot of help, since he had a CB radio that he managed to get a message out that help was needed. What he reported to me was even more encouraging as he told me that someone else had already reported the accident. The problem was the emergency services were already busy on what he said were multiple accidents all along the interstate. As he told me this he added that he had passed three other accidents and more slide offs than he could count.

With the news that I would not be getting any help I decided that I needed to upgrade what I had done for everyone as I was expecting emergency services to be on their way already. Stepping out of the bus at that point, I picked up a number of bats that were scattered around figuring that I could at least improve the splints I had done in a hurry before. I thanked him for reporting the accident for us, which he waived off saying that this was the least he could do for someone in trouble and apologized for not being able to do more but he could not handle the sight of blood. Heading back inside with an arm load of bats I asked him to relay our situation telling the authorities. When he returned, he informed me that there was no ETA for help as there were no emergency crews available, as they were responding to other accidents with injured.