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middle of the flippin’ street. This is really strange.
    Finally, she spotted two people a few cars ahead, huddled down with their backs towards her. She was so excited that she burst out, “So what’s going on? Did anyone call 911 yet?” The two people ignored her and appeared to be administering CPR to a person sprawled out on the street. Scarlett ran to them as fast as she could, “Anyone call 911?” she panted.
    It had taken several seconds before the man acknowledged her. He jerked his head around and glared at her. His neck was hunched over in an awkward position as if he were trying to cradle one of those old-fashioned landline telephone receivers (like Miss Purlie’s) between his neck and shoulder. Scarlett hurried over to him and noticed that the front of his striped blue and green shirt was soaked with blood.
    “Dear God!” He must have been in the accident. What should I do? Frantically, she hurried to him, stepping over the discarded items in the street. The man seemed to want her help desperately as he somewhat drunkard-ly stumbled towards her. Then he stopped for a moment and raised his hands in the air as if he might be letting out a huge yawn, but instead of the expected stretching-yawning sound one usually makes, he let out a hellish, low-gurgling sound—the kind of sound that ran chills down her spine.
    And she froze: not because of that bloodcurdling sound, and not because of the bloody mess that stained his clothes, and not because she realized that he only had one arm (his other arm appeared to have been ripped off at the elbow by something sharp and jagged). She froze, because as he hobbled closer, she saw that the left side of his face was—gone. Flaps of flesh hung loosely and waggled as he stumbled towards her. She could actually see the skeletal bones of his jaw and teeth behind the torn gaps of his flesh.
    The grotesque man continued to stagger closer, tripping over the opened suitcase that stood between them. Scarlett knew she needed to call the paramedics, yet all she wanted to do was scream. When the disfigured man reached out his trembling hand for help, Scarlett automatically responded by reaching her hand out to him. Abruptly, out of the blue, he plunged at her, headfirst. Pure primordial instinct kicked in, and Scarlett managed to jump sideways, avoiding the impact.
    “Glrrrrrr . . .” The injured man growled. She carefully avoided eye contact with the hideously disfigured man while she frantically sought out protection and was relieved to see an SUV a few feet away: door open. In a flash, she jumped into the SUV and slammed the door. Uh, so now what?
    Scarlett struggled with her conscience. Apparently, the man was in desperate need of help. Why am I so petrified? She stared in disbelief as the grotesque man continued to stumble his way towards her. A jolt of fear went down her spine when he began pounding on the partially opened passenger’s side window with his bloody stump of an arm, leaving smears of reddish-brown streaks across the glass.
    “Are you flippin’ kidding me?” The man began a rhythmic pounding on the window, all the while groaning the same eerie growling sound she had heard the other night when checking the mail. Scarlett looked for the key to the SUV, but then realized it was pointless because the SUV was sandwiched between other vehicles. The pounding increased in frequency, and she glanced at the man in bewilderment only to see another person beating on the window in the same slow, rhythmic motion. Now there was a woman, who didn’t look to be in much better shape than the man, pounding at the window too.
    Instinctively, Scarlett tapped her chest in an attempt to calm her racing heart. She scooted over to the driver’s side and realized to her horror that the window was down, completely. Strangely, the two injured people didn’t seem to notice that the other window was down; they seemed too obsessed with bashing in the window.
    She searched again for