Black Ice

The vehicle crept through the frozen night, hovering at 50 mph in the right lane of an unlit, four-lane highway. Black ice masked the asphalt, making every inch of the road a death trap. As the car eased over a small, shadowed creek bridge, a semi-truck roared out of the dark, blasting past at 80 mph. The violent vacuum of its passing sucked the vehicle diagonally into the left lane and onto the center media. Desperate steering pitched the car into a spin, sending it hurtling toward the unforgiving grassy median where it went end-over-end, flipping violently from right-front to left-rear. In the agonizing middle of the roll, the ragtop tore open, flinging a 7-year-old girl into the freezing dark. The vehicle finally slammed down, settling upright, while the male driver dangled like a broken pinball, held only by his seatbelt. The semi-truck vanished into the blizzard, never looking back.