The ELI Event B007R5LTNS

a trash bag, or an animal, or a passed-out bum. Whatever it was, Kelly knew she mustn’t hit it.
    Wheeler saw it too. “Look out!” he cried, as Kelly hit the brakes and swerved to the right to miss the object. She skidded off the ramp onto the shoulder, then jerked the wheel back to the left. Too far. Before she could straighten it out, the car fishtailed wildly. Kelly stood on the brakes, to no avail; as they barreled toward the end of the ramp, the vehicle suddenly turned sideways and teetered momentarily. Then it rolled once completely over, then half over again, finally coming to rest on its roof just at the bottom of the ramp, nearly—but not quite—in the intersection.
    Stunned, Kelly unbuckled her seat belt and thudded down onto the roof. She looked at Wheeler. Clearly unconscious, blood was running from a cut on his forehead. She righted herself and crawled onto the sun-roof to look between the seats into the back. “Is everybody—” she began, but saw that Robin, apparently unharmed, had already scrambled out over the shattered back glass. Arty was shaken, but conscious, moving his arms, shaking his head.
    Quickly she checked Wheeler for broken bones. Finding none, she released his seat belt and let him thump down as well. Climbing out of the hole where the windshield used to be, she crouched in the space between the hood and the pavement. Immediately she turned around, grabbed Wheeler’s arms, and began pulling him from the wreck.
    Then she smelled it.
    “Gas!” she shouted. “Arty! Gasoline! Get out!” She struggled under Wheeler’s weight but slid him effectively across the graveled shoulder ten, perhaps fifteen yards from the car. She stopped when she felt the street light pole behind her, and gratefully leaned against it, breathing hard. Wheeler moaned.
    She opened her mouth to shout again to Arty, but was drowned out by the engine’s explosion. Flames leapt up from the underside of the car, tall, yellow sheets occasionally punctuated by smaller bangs and pops as the car’s components gave way to the heat, melted, and burst or caught fire. She saw Robin not far from the car’s back end, sitting in the gravel just off the ramp, but could not see Arty, could not see into the car at all for the flames.
    Wheeler rolled over, groaning. She put his head in her lap and wiped at the blood with dirty hands. She couldn’t just leave him there. “Robin!” she cried over the din. “Robin, Arty’s still in the car!” But she was sure he could not hear her above the noise of the burning, crackling vehicle.
    In fact, Robin could not have heard her had she been standing next to him. He sat stock still, legs straight, arms stiff, staring at the fire before him. He began to quiver, as always; his field of vision narrowed to the leaping, licking flames; his whole world became red-orange-yellow; he tuned out everything except the all-consuming wall of heat and despair and death.
    Then he heard a voice, dim, distant at first, then burrowing its way into his consciousness, clamoring to be heard and recognized. Arty’s voice!
    Robin fought to stay conscious, and saw that Arty was struggling unsuccessfully to crawl out of the car where the back glass had been. He would pull himself forward, then look back at his feet as though he could not budge them, then reach out to the edge of the trunk and pull again, helplessly going nowhere. Behind Arty, at the front of the car, the entire front section was burning, but the flames hadn’t yet reached the back where he struggled to free himself.
    Robin stared at the car, at Arty, at the flames. He tried to move, to propel himself forward, to help, but was effectively as trapped as Arty himself. He managed only to raise his quivering arms, reaching toward the burning vehicle. He felt the intense heat on his hands, and could not make himself get any closer. The flames were spreading to the back seat of the car. Arty was still struggling in vain to pull himself out.
    Suddenly Arty saw him, not ten feet away. He looked at Robin as he reached out, clearly making an effort to move toward him, then looked back at the flames, growing ever closer. He winced in pain as the searing heat reached his feet and legs. Robin tried, tried so desperately to move, but his limbs would not respond. Robin’s body shook uncontrollably as he struggled mightily yet futilely against his fear. Arty watched and understood, and he knew that right now his younger self was far more important